Happy New Year - 2012

Halloween in Durango on the Peanuts Train.

Sarah at her new school's holiday program in Texas. She was a reindeer. Too cute!

Sarah and Santa. He gave her a Princess book for being a good girl.

Yee-haw! Santa left the girls pink cowgirl hats now that they live in Texas.

Emma having a ball at the park on a sunny Houston afternoon.

The girls at the Houston Butterfly Pavilion.

I ran the Houston Aramco Half Marathon in January as a member of the Organization for Autism Team. It was a blast.

Emma with pigtails. She is growing up way too fast!

Picnic lunch in downtown Houston.

Happy New Year! Boy it's been a while since the last posting. Life has been a whirlwind for several months but there seems to be an eye in the storm...so better overhaul the blog.

We are enjoying our time so far in Houston and our new house in Katy. It's a big city and is taking some time to adjust. Here are several photos from the past few months, enjoy!

Summer Lovin....Having a blast

So it's been awhile since I last posted an update with pictures. I took a break and went on an internal debate of to blog or not to blog. But Kirk had a good point. Where else am I documenting our lives. A good mother would have a nice journal filled with important dates, stories, etc. along with a beautiful scrapbook full of pictures. And then there is me. Not so much. I have made a couple of attempts to scrapbook. Ha, who am I fooling? The crafty gene passed me by at birth. So I will continue to blog and then have the blog information transferred via blog2print into a nice journal type book.

This summer has been a busy one and I can't believe August is lurking around the corner. We will have a couple of weeks of the same old and then things will change a bit around here. Sarah will be starting pre-K. She will also start back up with her ballet/tap lessons along with her first season of soccer. I'm hoping it will be her first of many and not her first and last. She loves to run, loves to kick the soccer ball and is excited to wear pink (yes, pink) soccer shoes. Fingers are crossed. She's had a good summer so far with taking swim lessons for the first time, playing with friends and enjoying library trips.

Emma is doing great...changing by the minute. I'm completely amazed that she is my baby no more but now an emerging toddler full of piss and vinegar. She is walking/running now which is great. Her words are few (like two) but we understand what the various grunts mean. She has no fear which can be good and bad. Her number one buddy is Sarah who she wants to emulate at all times. Baby toys are a thing of the past. She would much rather play with Barbies and her Fisher Price tool set.

Kirk is doing well with work. He still gets out on the stream as time allows or up in the air when the Cessna isn't requiring some new widget or gadget. He is slated for an all guys trip on the Snake River in two weeks which he has been very busy preparing for by tying flies.

I'm hanging in there as project manager of casa de Johnson though at times feeling a need for a change. I've been running a bunch and managed to do the BolderBoulder 10K in May and the Durango Steamworks Half Marathon in June. The Steamworks Half was my first ever half marathon and it was fun. Kirk and I are both signed up to run a 10K race in Boulder over Labor Day weekend and I'm rapidly warming up to the idea of another half marathon in Denver in October.

Here is a collection of pictures from the past couple of months. Enjoy!

Ms. Emma, our walker. Put a sheet over her and she could pass for ET. Too cute!

Sarah during her swim lesson. With each lesson she would get more brave.

Happy 4th of July in Durango, Colorado!

Dancing princesses. :-)

Mangiare la Pasta!

Baby girl no more...

Let's roll. Emma wearing Sarah's helmet ready to roll.

Whaz up?

Durango Steamworks Half Marathon - June 2011

BolderBoulder 10K - May 2011

Catching up

It's been awhile since my last post. We've had two birthdays since Sarah's big day. Emma turned the big 1 on April 21st and Kirk turned the big 36 on May 2nd. We had great celebrations for both. I enjoyed a short but sweet mommy trip to Houston to catch up with old friends over Mother's Day weekend. It was great to see everyone and meet all the new kiddos. Sarah had her first ballet/tap dance recital last week and did really well in front of a packed auditorium. We are excited for the next month or so since it's going to be busy around here. I'm signed up to run a couple of races over the next 4 weeks and can't wait! We get to visit family in Denver and Delta as well. We are looking forward to the summer.

Happy 1st Birthday sweet Emma Grace!

Easter 2011 - Easter Egg Hunt in the backyard with our next door neighbor and her daughter.

Coloring time. Emma did well with her first pass at using markers...until she decided to stick it in her mouth and chew. Thank you Crayola for making non-toxic products. Good times. :-)

Where's Emma? It's like playing Where's Waldo on a daily basis. You can usually find her in a toy bin. She is a climber!

Baby Bear

Happy Birthday Daddy! The birthday party theme was Sarah's idea - Toy Story. Kirk was a sport especially when it came to wearing the alien party hats.

Pre-dance recital. The dresses were over the top but every 4 year old's dream. As you can see, Sarah was limited to lip gloss and a hint of blush...unlike her fellow class mates who looked like they were right off the show 'Toddlers and Tiaras'.

Fun in the sun with the water table.

Reunion in Houston Mother's Day weekend. We all started out hanging together in Anchorage many moons ago. It was really great seeing everyone.

Happy 4th Birthday Sarah Ann!

We had a great time celebrating Sarah's 4th birthday last week and weekend. She turned the big 4 on the 30th of March. We had a small celebration the day of her birthday followed by a larger celebration at the Big Bounce last weekend with friends. The theme for both days was "Tangled" since she loves the movie and Rapunzel. She had a great time and particularly enjoyed the princess cupcakes and the princess crown cake pops. Kirk's parents joined us last weekend to celebrate as well. We are now getting ready to celebrate Ms. Emma turning 1 in a couple of weeks. Wow, time is flying by.

Emma is crawling

Emma has been crawling since for a while but is now in full swing. It's never a dull moment around here now!

Enjoy the short clip.

February

I can't believe this is the last week of the month. Time is flying. That means that in one month Sarah will be turning 4 and in two months Emma will be 1. That's crazy!

Emma is doing well these days with rapid changes. She is now getting 4 teeth at once but is being a real trooper. She is also crawling...sort of. She will crawl for about 1-2 feet until she finds that isn't getting her to where she wants quick enough so she'll fall down into GI Joe army crawl to speed up the process. She is waving hi and saying mama/dada more. She is also willing to try new foods and would rather feed herself than take something from the spoon unless she is really hungry.

Sarah is doing well and is counting down until her birthday and summer time. The birthday because we are planning a party at the local big bounce and summer because she can wear the new summer dresses I've been picking up as I feed my online shopping habit.

We enjoyed a nice long weekend in Telluride before Valentines Day. We had a great time visiting with family, eating yummy food, basking in the Colorado sun and taking a few hours to ski...just Kirk and I. We joked as we rode the lift up for the first time that it was like a date. A date that we haven't had in quite some time. It was nice to be out again on the skis and know the girls were in good hands with Kirk's parents back at the townhouse we rented. Plus we had a rare opportunity to see a lynx on one of the runs.

Kirk is preparing now for his big two week adventure with our friend Brant. They will be fulfilling a life long dream of fly fishing the waters in Patagonia, Argentina. I'm excited for them though I'm sure I'll be standing at the door waiting for his truck to pull up when he comes home.

Sarah outside having a tea party with the gang enjoying a nice winter day full of sun.

Sarah doing my hair during the Super Bowl.

Having a party in the princess tent. I think they had emptied an entire bin of little critters and such into the tent and then piled in for fun.

Another tea party this time it was indoors with daddy as an attendee.

Playing dress up - Emma in the Princess Tiana gown.

Life was rough when this was the view during dinner after a day of skiing in Telluride. Palmyra Restaurant was amazing and very good with the kids.

Our date on the slopes. We didn't realize that our faces had this purple hue to them until we returned back to the townhouse. The kid's sunscreen was like Crisco. (California Baby sunscreen) which is what we used and it worked well.

Downtown Telluride shopping.

Riding the Gondola from Mountain Village to downtown Telluride for shopping. Sarah was in heaven!