Christmas 2011!!!

Looks like we're trying to be extra nice to score some good gifts with the big guy!

Welcome Louisa!!!!!!!!!!!

And it finally happened, the deRijke's are capable of producing a baby girl, and we couldn't be more happy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



And on the next day, on my drive to work I caught this...



Life is great!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Getting ready for a big announcement

We're getting ready for a big announcement (that you've probably all heard already). So we had a few things to take care of first.

Like:

Taking some pics:









And planting a garden:





Oh, and buying a van:

Pudding Face

The kids got to spend some QT with their nana this Monday and Tuesday. Riley is getting ready for the tryouts for the new show America's Next Top Clown...

Picking Pics for a Poster

We're working through some pics to make into a poster of the kids, here are the front runners...

Fun with Nana

B seems to really like Nana, really like his lovey, or really like cooking with peanut butter, or all of the above...

Santa 2010

Been A While (seems like a common theme)

First Corndog!!!

I mean, who doesn't love a corndog (or soydog if you will)...

Children of all ages...

Here are some picks from the circus from sometime around mid February, the kids had the best time ever!!!...



seriously though, they really did have a good time...



got a little $40 snow cone lion...





And all shared some laughs...



who's the ring leader of this group...

Snow Man

So during the "Blizzard of 2010" B and I made quite the snowman out in the yard. The snow was absolutely perfectly packable...



This sprinkler came in quite handy...



And they snowmen decided to stick around much longer than anyone anticipated...



This effort was much better than the earlier snowman from the first "snow storm" of the season...



But it wasn't from a lack of trying...

Urban Camping

Sweet tent from Uncle Jeff (yes for Christmas, a little behind)...

Banana Phone

yeah, banana phone...



Hey, hold on a second...



oh brother...

Buy me some peanuts...

Monday I took Brayden to his first Braves game. Went to the stadium without tickets, and as it turns out, its good to procrastinate. Thanks to some Southern Hospitality (and probably a little Southern Comfort) we ended up scoring free tickets from a guy who was trying to sell them (and I had a pocket full of cash too). Were they great seats, no. Were they good seats, not really. Were they free, yep, so I change my answer to the previous 2 questions to YES. They were 3 rows from the top of the stadium behind home plate, but they were free so who's complaining.



We were in the stadium for Jason Heyward's first career HR, and brayden looks and me and goes "Thats loud". When we arrived at the stadium we went directly to the Tooner Field playground, where we spend the first 2 innings playing around.





After that we bought some drinks and crackerjacks I carried brayden the 900 steps to our seats. We managed to sit and watch about 2 innings, got to see Brian McCann hit a HR. Then B was done so back down we went (this time I was smart enough to search out an elevator (which was just as good as the game to B). Went and bought a souvenir Bat, and back to Tooner Field for a little more fun for the next 2 innings or so. Then we did a quick tour around the back half of the stadium and we were on our way. In total we were at the stadium for 6 innings, spent about $30 total (and zero on tickets), and had an absolutely great time.

Roofer

So last night we were pulling into the driver and we had a roofer at the house giving us a quote for a new roof, Brayden sees him from the back seat and says "Hey Dad, tell that old man to get out of the way so we don't hit him with the car."

Then later he says "Hey old man, you have a ladder just like my daddy's."

Not real sure where that came from. At some point I'll get some more pics up on this thing.

Aquarium

So we finally made it, as a family out to the aquarium today. Brayden was a little disappointed that the beluga whales were "asleep" (or in texas while the new dolphin exhibit is being constructed, either way). You should have seen his eyes "light up" when he got there though, watching the big fish right at the beginning.



Had some camera problems so we weren't able to quite "catch" the moment (I am just too funny).

Here is a better picture of brayden and mommy taking in the fisheys, or what mommy likes to call, dinners...



And here's is the first of several attempts at a pic of B through one of the tanks, stupid dinners...



ok, although blurry, this one worked out pretty well...



he used to captain a little ship called the minow, that was before they took his captain's license away...



(guess we need to adjust our red-eye settings on the camera)

brayden pointing out the rhincodon typus, or whale shark to you and I, to daddy...



then we realized we didn't have any pictures of Riley, so we took this one. You can tell we are at the aquarium by hair on my second chinny chin chin...



and here are mommy and brayden at the "pet the rays exhibit"...



(there was a special promotion going on today, all tattoo'd Amish lumberjacks get in free)

Here mommy shows brayden the proper 2 finger method of petting the rays...



And here, brayden has mistaken this exhibit for the "Feed the Rays" exhibit...



Brayden thought that was hilarious, he ran over and told me "I touched it". Such a fun day at the aquarium, and we managed to make it back home with all 40 fingers and 40 toes, barely.