Emery Annabelle is Ten Years Old - 02.27.2022

Emery Annabelle is ten years old!

Emery is full of spunk, interesting facts, opinions, ideas, stories, and sass. She loves animals, history, art, building, drawing, reading, crafts, and playing in the snow. 

Emery has had a hard time with our move to Arkansas; she misses her friends and her school in Laramie. The gifted program in Fort Smith is once a week - she enjoys this time. In the fall they worked on all that goes into making a movie (script, costumes, editing, etc.), and this spring they are working on simple machines and Rube Goldberg designs. Emery has a mind for engineering, building, and design. Emery likes art too. Emery is in the school musical, My Son Pinocchio Jr.; she is a town parent, Signora Mancini. The play will be in May. 

Emery loves our kitty, Ginny, and they snuggle at night. Ginny loves the company. They're best friends. Ginny turns one in March. In December, Emery got her ears pierced. Tomorrow, Emery gets braces on her teeth!

Emery and I have been reading through the Chronicles of Narnia. We are on The Silver Chair (book 6 of 7). We enjoy the quiet time together almost as much as the story.

To celebrate Emery's 10th birthday, Emery and I are taking a special 10th birthday Mother-Daughter spring break trip to Tampa to go to the beach and Busch Gardens.

This girl is so sharp and full of wit and wisdom. We love her!

Delaney Alina is Two and a Half - 01.31.2022

Delaney Alina is two and a half years old!

A lot has changed in the past half a year - we moved to Arkansas! The move was tricky for all of us. However we have all been more healthy and settled in the past couple of weeks and sleeping much better. Delaney stopped using a pacifier a few weeks ago and that was a hard transition at naps and bedtime. But she has adjusted!

Delaney can read the words Blue, Yellow, Red, Frozen, Zoo, No, and all our names. When she sees a word and you ask her to spell it, she tells you the letters in a random order. She spells Zoo: "O-O-Z." She says Blue is spelled: U-E-L-B. She can spell her name and she often thinks other words are her name: Delivery, Delete, Daisy, Disney. 

Delaney loves kitties and babies. She loves to take towels from the closet or laundry basket and pretend they are dresses or capes or blankets. She can often be found playing with a doll house and is always looking for the two babies that go with it. 

Delaney prefers wearing dresses and will often put on several at a time (possibly because she can't get them off). But she also loves to play in the dirt.

Delaney has no interest in potty learning at this time. She's had some interest in the past, but not currently. We were a little busy with moving and settling in for the past several months. We will revisit this some time this year!

Delaney is a sweet girl. She also stands up for herself with her siblings and doesn't let you ignore her!

Christmas 2021

"I’m with you. There’s no need to fear for I’m your God. I’ll give you strength. I’ll help you. 

I’ll hold you steady, keep a firm grip on you." Isaiah 41:10 MSG

New Job
Our big news for 2021 is that we moved to Arkansas in October! Blake accepted an administrator position as the Assistant Provost of Student Success and Retention at the University of Arkansas – Fort Smith. We are still adjusting to 75° December days and traffic and a new house and new schools and new friends. We miss Laramie a bunch. Tiffanie continues to work part-time, remotely for Northern Virginia Community College.

New Kitten
In July we added a new family member, a kitten named Ginny. She already had this name when we met her, but we decided that it’s short for Virginia, which is a perfect choice! When we met her at the animal shelter in Laramie, she was nervous and when there was a loud noise, she huddled in Emery’s lap. This is the moment we fell in love with this sweet kitty! She was born in March and has grown a bunch since we brought her home. She’s sweet with the kids, loves to cuddle, gets a little feisty on occasion (read: she climbs the Christmas tree!), and we love her so much!



Highlights
We began 2021 celebrating our 14th wedding anniversary with dinner and a movie. We celebrated Emery’s 9th birthday with a painting party with 2 of her friends. Emery is bold and confident, she loves stories, fun facts, kitties, and reading. We made it through a mega snowstorm in March with snowdrifts taller than our kids!



This spring, we decided to put our Virginia condo on the market. In July, Delaney and Tiffanie traveled to Virginia to visit Grandma and Grandpa Klud and check on the condo. During that trip, Blake, Emery, and Everett traveled to Steamboat Springs, Colorado.



Delaney turned 2 at the end of July. Her birthday happens to also be Avocado day, which is her favorite food! Delaney loves babies, kitties, all things Frozen (the movie), and singing loudly for all to hear. She likes to play dress up and put on fancy clothes, but she also likes being outdoors and playing in the dirt. She surprised us in November by reading the word Frozen at an ice cream shop. She can also read Zoo, No, and Yes.



This fall, Emery started 4th grade and Everett started his second year of preschool in Laramie. We miss these schools and friends!



Blake was offered the position at the University of Arkansas at the end of August. September and October were busy months for us. We put our beloved Laramie house on the market and traveled to Fort Smith to buy a house. We chose a beautifully renovated two-story home in a quiet neighborhood within walking distance of an elementary school and middle school. Then we packed everything up and left town mid-October. The weekend prior to our move, Blake drove one of our cars to the Fort Smith airport and flew back to Laramie. The night before Tiffanie, the kids, and the cat planned to fly to Fort Smith (while Blake drove), Laramie gave us a delightfully cold send-off: about 4 inches of snow that closed the highways and eventually canceled our flights. So, in our cram-packed car, taking the only open road out of Laramie, we rode with Blake all the way to Arkansas. Instead of a 9-hour travel day for us, it ended up being 30 hours of travel with 3 kids and a cat in a car not big enough for all of us. It was an adventure!



Everett turned 4 a few days before we moved. This boy loves sports and games, he is tender-hearted, and he loves our kitty. He likes playing baseball and football (Delaney sometimes tackles him!) and jumping through makeshift obstacle courses. Everett can read very well and is starting to learn to spell.



In Arkansas, Emery joined a 4th grade class at the school near our house. She walks to and from school. She joined their Gifted program which meets once a week and will be in their school play in the spring. Everett started 3-day-a-week preschool and he enjoys his class.

We experienced our first warm Halloween. And we were able to visit Blake’s cousins in northern Arkansas for Thanksgiving.



We are grateful for safety and good health this year. We are grateful for new opportunities and adventures. We are grateful for friends and family.

 
Love,
Blake, Tiffanie, Emery (9.5), Everett (4), and Delaney (2)

Everett Matthew is Four Years Old - 10.10.2021

Everett Matthew is 4 years old!

Everett loves all sports and games. Basketball, football, baseball, golf, diving, and gymnastics to name a few. He loves board games too. Everett loves playing our old Nintendo. He loves the sports games and Super Mario Bros. 

Everett goes to preschool for the 2nd of 3 years before Kindergarten. He loves Play-Doh. Everett can read very well and remembers a sorts of new words we help him with. He loves Paw Patrol and we had some Paw Patrol cupcakes at the park last weekend!

Everett loves our new kitty, Ginny. 

We are moving to Arkansas this week so our family has a lot of new adventures ahead!

Delaney Alina is Two Years Old - 07.31.2021

Delaney Alina is two years old!

Delaney loves to sing and twirl. She loves Let it Go, Twinkle Twinkle, the alphabet, the Final Jeopardy song (humming), and lots of made up songs. She loves to dress up and wear a blanket or towel as a cape. She likes to play pretend and is often rocking and caring for a baby doll. 

Delaney loves to pretend to be a kitty. And especially now that we have a sweet little kitten named Ginny. Delaney is brave when the kitty is a little feisty and also very sweet with the kitty. 

Delaney says silly things. We were driving and Everett said so many roads were closed to which Delaney added, "until my birthday!" She also told me she was brushing her teeth with a French fry! She likes to copy her siblings and points to lots of buildings saying they are "Nay-nee's school" (she doesn't go to school but she wants to copy them). 

Delaney's favorite food is avocado and her Grandpa told us today, July 31, is avocado day!

We are trying to teach Delaney to read the word Zoo and she read it on a book we'd never seen... but then when I asked her a different word she also said zoo, so maybe she doesn't quite know it yet. 

Delaney does well with the difference between "you" and "me" which is easy to get mixed up. She also doesn't want us to say "excuse you" because she wants to say "excuse me!"

Delaney knows all her letters and numbers 1-10 and can count 1 to 10 and some combinations of the numbers in the teens. She knows colors, shapes, and animal sounds. Delaney likes to color and "write" but even more she likes to type.

Delaney is a sweet girl. She is independent and often stays away from the busy-ness and does her own thing. We are looking forward to this new year with our sweet girl!

Delaney Alina is Twenty-Three Months Old - 06.30.2021

Delaney Alina is twenty-three months old!

Delaney loves to sing and twirl. Her favorite songs are Let It Go, Jingle Bells, If You're Happy and You Know It, and the Final Jeopardy song (humming the tune). 

Just like Emery did at this age, Delaney likes to identify everyone's eye color and talk about it. Sometimes she says the wrong color on purpose and corrects herself. 

Delaney loves kitties and also pretends to be one. 

Delaney speaks well and relatively clearly. She replaces the C/K sound with T and the G sound with D. 

Just this week (while traveling!) she has decided to use the potty several times a day. Perhaps she doesn't like disposable diapers since she's used to cloth diapers or she's ready to potty train? Who knows!

Delaney will be two at the end of July!