International Sand Sculpting Festival

Living in Florida is truly fantastic!  We spent the day after Thanksgiving in Fort Myers, hanging out with the sand sculptors at the International Sand Sculpting Championships.  We can't wait to put into use all the techniques we learned.

Stetson loves...

preschool...

his little sister...

...and life in general.

Late Night with Piper

Piper has learned that staying up late means you get all of mom and dad's attention.  We love this chubby, happy face!
(p.s. Pause the music in the sidebar and then hit play on the video to hear her giggle.  I didn't realize how loud Design Star was in the background.  Sorry!)

To New Adventures!

2011 has been a big year for us so far.
Lafe graduated from dental school.

Our little girl, Piper Snow, joined the family.  She's precious and completely adored by her older brother.

 And we moved our bunch to Naples, Florida!  Lafe is a pediatric dental resident for the University of Florida. Go Gators!

We're excited to escape the snow, but we're very sad to leave our friends and home in Ohio.  Living in Cleveland has been such a wonderful experience for our family.  We have especially loved living near Kirtland and learning more about the early members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that lived there. 

But we're looking forward to what we'll learn and experience in Florida.  There's an open invitation to come visit any time.  Come share our adventures with us!  (C'mon...we have live gators living in our backyard.  Really.)

Fall Update

As always, Fall was beautiful here in Ohio.  We took full advantage of the beautiful weather with trips to Columbus, Patterson Fruit Farms, and a parade. 

Stetson loved Halloween -- and thanks to Grandma, dressed up in a different costume for every activity.  We now have a fully stocked costume box in his room that gets used daily.

He patiently waited for 30 minutes for this pony ride.  What a cowboy!

A little worn out after all of the fun.

With girlfriend Gracie at the Columbus Day parade

Which news do you want first?

The bad news? We said goodbye to our wonderful friends, the Folkmans, in May. We loved sharing a house with them! Before they moved, we spent lots of time playing together...

...at Chuck E. Cheese's:

...during a weekend trip to Kalahari:
... for a fun Easter egg hunt:... and just hanging out:

(don't worry -- the pacifier is long gone now.)

The good news? In July, we went to visit the Folkmans in Florida for a week! I cannot believe how beautiful it is there. Here are some pictures from the beach:
We had a wonderful, relaxing vacation. It was so much fun to spend time with the Folkmans again. During our week in Florida, we ate lots of yummy food, hung out at the pool, and even got to go on a double date. I'm sure they were glad to reclaim their home, but we were sad to leave. Stetson cried the whole plane ride home!

But there is more good news -- We are lucky to have the Flemings downstairs now. Without them, I don't think we could have survived the Folkman's move!

My Snow Angel

Blogging entire seasons in one post is a problem -- Winter lasts so darn long here in Cleveland! I've found that playing in the snow really wears Stetson (and me) out, so we've tried to do it as much as possible. Some days it's just way too cold and windy, but we've had a lot of fun doing it. Hey -- if you can't beat the snow, play in it!
We created this huge snowman just outside our neighbor's window. When completely finished, he had button eyes and Reese's peanut butter mini-cups for a mouth. Lafe was the mastermind; I tend to lose focus after a while. Hauling my forty pound child around the yard is awesome exercise! We've got several more inches falling next week -- right during our Spring Break. I'm sure we'll have more pictures of snow play, and I'll try to recap our Christmas fun as well.