Children's Museum Portland Style

In the days between Christmas and New Years, we decided to try out the Portland Children's Museum.

It was a little overwhelming at first, but eventually the girls jumped right in.

Maia is obsessed with phones.

Maybe because the only ones we have are cellular.

It's a really great museum. 

I'd say the Phoenix museum is still the best, but this one is right up there.

Christmas 2012; Salem edition

For Christmas this year we found ourselves in Salem, OR where Aleks' sister lives with her two girls.

You know, Kansas is in the middle of the country, but for some reason it's almost impossible to find direct flights.

Unless you're going to Denver or Chicago.

Luckily we only had one layover in Minneapolis.

Aleks and I always get really stressed out about traveling with littles and then our girls usually do really well.

They are becoming airport/airplane pros.

Now that Ruby is 2, she gets her own seat.

The spot next to us was empty and I was able to stretch out and get Ruby to take a nap.

Once at Nana's house, Maia and Ruby quickly reacquainted themselves with their cousins.

There has been lots of picture taking.

This one is really good at looking at the camera and smiling nicely.

This one, not so much.

Christmas morning came at 4:30 for the Sternfeld-Dunn family.

The teenage cousin was awake too.

While we waited for the rest of the family to wake up, the logical thing to do was make pancakes.

This teenager was a 4 year old flower girl in our wedding.

 Nana and Lola.

My girls love to pet Lola, as long as Lola doesn't move or look at them.

Maia says she's scared of the sound of Lola's toenails on the floor.

Sheesh, 3 year olds.

So many presents.

The Fisher Price Little People princesses were a huge hit with both girls.

And this toy, Symphony in B, is loved by all 4 of us.

The aftermath.

And then trying to get set up for the annual pajama family picture is always a challenge.

But we got one!

It was the merriest of Christmases.

Canta Carol Run 2012

I've been meaning to write this post for a week now.

It's just been a wonderfully busy, happy week of get togethers and parties.

But, I do want to update you on what I did last Saturday.

WSU has a summer program for our opera students called Canta in Italia.

We send students to Italy for a month to study singing, the Italian language, and perform.

As you can imagine, it's a bit pricey.

I'm on the board of directors and we are constantly trying to find ways to raise money for scholarships.

Since I began running a little over a year ago, I've participated in several races and found them to be wonderful events.

My brilliant idea was to host our own 5k.

I'm drawn to big projects. You know, like starting an opera company.

Let me tell you, planning a 5k is right up there with producing an opera.

We hired Clark Ensz, a running legend in Wichita and a 5k race guru, to help us develop the event.

He knows things like what percentage of different size shirts to order and how to make the registration process run as smoothly as possible.

We held the race on the Saturday after finals and called it the Canta Carol Run.

We had about 30 of our students caroling along the course.

Our kids can sing! 

They sounded great!

And Santa was there.

Well, "pretend Santa" according to Maia, "who gave me candy corn!"

I love a good race.

We had a small crowd, about 150 runners.

Which, I suppose is not horrible, but we were hoping for 400.

It also means that we've got 200 shirts leftover. (Let me know if you want one!)

One highlight for me was seeing a mom run with her son in his first 5k.

He must have been 8 or 9 and they were both beaming as they crossed the finish line.

Before the awards ceremony we had a rousing rendition of the "12 Days of Christmas" with some costumed runners from a local theater.

It was a fun event that went very smoothly and people seemed to enjoy themselves.

The plan is to have a second annual Canta Carol Run and hopefully word of mouth will help bump up our numbers.

If you'd like to donate towards scholarships or be a sponsor for next year's run, let me know!

And of course, we'd love to see you as a runner too.

All pictures were taken by the amazing John Ellert.

Rad

How is it that my last blog was published on Dec. 6?

There's been lots going on, but I've been slow to find inspiration to write. 

The end of the semester happened, we're finally healthy, Maia and Ruby are up to new and amusing antics, and Saturday marked the first annual Canta Carol Run, which I helped "produce."

Also, I got a pedi/mani and my nails are now one of Maia's favorite colors, "sparkly."

But today, I think I'll pick up blogging momentum by writing about this guy,

Matthew Christopher Kyhn.

My little brother, by 20 months, who's turning 30 tomorrow!

At some point during the transition from child to adolescent, he wanted to be called Matt, but I've always had a hard time with that.

To me, he'll always be Matthew.

He's the kid who loved everything about BMX biking.

I was the one who said, let's put on a show!

So we set up our bike ramp on the sidewalk and charged our neighbors a dime to watch us do "tricks."

He's also the brother who adored the movie "Rad," which we watched about 5 times when we rented it from Blockbuster.

By the time I was 16 and had my license, we were in high school together and I would drive us to school.

One morning we were both getting our backpacks out of the back of my 1984 hatchback Honda Civic.

I grabbed mine, didn't realize that Matt was still reaching for his and proceeded to slam the trunk on top of his head.

I still feel extreme guilt about that incident.

In spite of his older sister, Matthew has turned out to be pretty awesome.

Happy birthday dear brother.

You are going to rock your 30s.