carving pumpkins

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Because of our Denver trip we waited until Oct. 29th to carve pumpkins -but still had a great time. Our friend, Eric, joined us for the evening too and helped a lot (as either Brian or I was always holding Aria and keeping her from eating handfulls of pumpkin guts)

Daddy & Aaliyah working on hers



Eric working hard on Mulu's - and Mulu showing his model moves.



Mama & Aria



Aaliyah and her finished products



Mulu and his finished products



Aria and her pumpkins

Trip to Colorado.

This past week, Aaliyah, Aria and I flew out to Colorado to meet the newest member of our family - Cousin Evie! Brian's sister Marie and her husband, Kyle, have a beautiful one month old girl - Evelyn "Evie" Grace. The girls and I had a pretty uneventful flight out there (which is truly the best case scenario traveling by myself with two Johnson Kiddos) and we had a marvelous time in CO. We got a good combination of cousin snuggle time and bonding with the baby - who is absolutely sweet and adorable!

We also were able to visit some friends that we had met while in Ethiopia adopting Aaliyah. We have stayed in touch with them over the years (can you believe it will be four years in June) and had a wonderful time with them too. They have 6 kiddos under the age of 6 - so the energy and noise level that Aaliyah & Aria bring with them just got mixed into the group.

Here is Aaliyah, I and Cousin Evie.


Aaliyah "holding" Evie (which really just means she was sitting in the same proximity as her) - she is a pro at this baby thing now



Sleeping Evie -by the way - I am sooooo in love - she is the essence of sweet and I got in as many snuggles as I could (and that jealous little Aria would allow). She has very delicate features, dark eyes - that may just end up brown - and is starting to make the cutest cooing sounds. She is a super sleeper so far and has as laid back a personality that a four week baby can have. I know these pictures are very cute - but she is even waaaaay cuter that I could catch on camera. We will get to see them at Thanksgiving and at Christmas - but it is going to be hard to wait.



Aaliyah and one of her buddies - he is the little boy thatwas adopted at the same time Aaliyah was at the same care center in Ethiopia. It makes me very happy to see them reconnected on the other side of the world. I know they don't understand it now - but its pretty special.



Aria having a grand old time at the Children's Museum in Denver - she was way too cool to hang out in the baby area for too long and spent the day trying to keep up with the bigger kids (which she did fairly well)



All 8 kids (6 of our friends, and Aaliyah and Aria) eating Chinese take out - too much cuteness to pass up a photo op.

High School Musical 3 STARRING Mulu & Aaliyah!

I just found this at JibJab today - and it couldn't be more perfect as Mulu & Aaliyah are both HUUUUGE HSM fans! They have been eagerly waiting for the 3rd movie to come out in theaters and have been revisiting the songs and dances. Aaliyah, Aria and I will all be in Colorado (meeting our new neice, Evie) when it opens, but Brian got him & Mulu tickets to see it opening weekend.

Enjoy! I think they both look great - but especially Aaliyah when she is smiling in the crowd - she really looks like she "fits"!

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Waterpark weekend!

Last weekend the Johnson family had a wonderful couple days together at an indoor waterpark. We met 6 other families up there for a fabulous time of running, swimming, watersliding, catching up and laughing. It was such a total blast - with all 3 Johnson kiddos having a wonderful time.

Mulu went on every single ride that he was tall enough for - asking to go again even before he was done riding the first. He is a naturally cautious kid when it comes to taking risks - but has found that the being scared feeling can also be fun. There were a couple that he was nervous about (one that was pretty fast and the other that was covered) - but he slowly worked his way up to them and loved them all! He loved the fact that he could scream as loud as he wanted (which is quite a sound if you are ever in ear shot) and although he ran as fast as he could up all the steps over and over and over, he never ran out of energy.

And Aaliyah - who has turned out to be a total fish in the water - loved all the new things in the waterpark to try. She ran around, eyes almost popping out of her head, pointing to all the things she wanted to do. She started out slow - but peer pressure (or sibling pressure) is sometimes a good thing and she couldn't let her big brother show her up the entire time. She was so proud she went on the "big slides" (telling people about it all week), but wanted to spend most of the day in the hot tubs.

and baby Aria - always along for the ride and had a blast like her big brother and sister. She is a mover and a shaker - eagerly crawlig through the water (not even stopping when it was over her head - cue Mama & Daddy) and loved the little slides. She did her best to keep up with the other kids around her and minus the breaks we made her take (to eat or warm up - after too long in the water she would be so cold her lips would be blue - but that didn't stop her!) she climbed and splashed and laughed. We planned ahead and brought a pair of Brian's old wrist bands from drumming to put on her knees so when she crawled her wet knees wouldn't get raw from the cement - and they worked great!