It is our immense pleasure to announce the arrival of the newest Kreil!
Dash Gregory Kreil was born on May 3, 2011 and weighed a whopping 4lbs 13oz! He was adopted into his forever family on May 14th!
Maddox and Daddy meet the baby and we finally choose a name! (Dash went nameless for three days until Daddy and brother could come see him. Until then, Mommy was just calling him Peanut and Schnicklefritz.)
The Kreil brothers
Mommy meets her son for the first time! It was love at first sight.Maddox-Man has been taking gymnastics classes for about a month now and he loves it! His coaches do a great job of keeping all the kids moving during the class, so Mommy is pleased with the amount of energy expended!
Below are some videos from a few different classes during the last month. 
Last week, Mad's coach promoted him from Embers Level 1 to Embers Level 2! Maddox was very excited, and we even got to take a trip to McDonald's for a celebratory ice cream cone!Last month, because we are religiously confused (or just because it's a good lesson for our kids on their spiritual heritage) we rounded up the crew and celebrated Passover and Easter.
In previous years, my Passover lamb was palatable at best (and that's being kind). This year for Passover, I turned the lamb responsibilities over to Mark, the master chef, and the results were delicious.
Will and Maddox happened to be wearing vests for church on Easter morning. I've always thought they looked similar, but that day they could have passed as brothers.
Not sure what's up with my kid's pose here. Weirdo.
Checking out this year's haul with Aunt Alicia and Austin!We recently drove up the mountain to Running Springs to visit Erin and Graydon for the day. There was still quite a lot of snow on the ground, and Maddox had a great time hiking in the snow...until we got back to the car and he realized how cold he was. 
We took Clubber and Sophie up there with us. With no leashes and free run of the mountain, they thought they had died and gone to heaven. 
We are so glad these two moved back to California!!! 
All the Kreils (puppies included) warming up at the Dill's mountain house! Last month, while Jeff was on Spring Break, we took a little day trip down to the San Diego Zoo with our friends, Chuck and Lisa. The weather cooperated beautifully, making it the perfect day to enjoy with the animals. (And by "animals" I'm totally referring to Chuck and Lisa.) 
We stopped a very nice family and conned them in to snapping this photo for us. In chatting with them, we found out that they were vacationing in San Diego from Eagle River, Alaska! It's a small world after all. Wait, wrong park.
Just standin' around like some pink flamingos. 
Monkey see, monkey do. 
While we were diligently trying to decipher the map and figure out where to go next, Jeffy was being very helpful by laughing at us and taking pictures. 
Why does my kid look like he's about 8 years old in this picture? Excuse me, I need to go have a good cry. 
We finished out the day with a visit to the Corvette Diner, a 50's themed restaurant complete with costumed servers and an arcade. Jeff had a Peanut Butter Burger, in honor of the King. 
And Maddox and I split a chocolate shake in honor of my taste buds. Dear Maddox, We recently celebrated your 4th birthday, and I thought I should take the time to jot down a little bit about who you are at this moment in time. Maybe someday you will read this little online scrapbook of our family, and my memories of you will flood your heart. To put it simply, you are the summation of personality! You can tell the longest stories known to man (and we love to hear them). For about a year, you wore a cape every moment of every single day, from the time you woke up to the time you finally fell asleep. I never realized how much I would miss that cape when you grew out of that stage. I love how confident you are just to be you. For the moment, your world revolves around Superheroes! You assign Superhero roles to us all the time. Mommy is always Wonder Woman (a dramatic upgrade from reality for which I will be forever grateful), Daddy is always Green Lantern and you are always Hotman or Bokathor. Only you know whether you are Hotman or Bokathor on any given day, but it is imperative that we address you by the correct one! You are kind and compassionate and I just love your heart. Your energy is overwhelming! When you grow up and you get that amazing energy pointed toward one goal, you will be an unstoppable force! My prayer every day is that you will grow to be a man who loves God. I sure am proud of the little man you are today. Love, Wonder Woman
Last week, Greg, Becky, Jaxon and the soon-to-be-born baby moved to San Antonio, Texas. We're more than brokenhearted, but we are excited for the Young's to find some new opportunities in the land of the southern drawl.
Every day, Maddox asks if Jaxon is coming over to play, and I remind him that Jaxon lives in Texas now. So every day, Maddox asks if today is the day we are going on the airplane to Texas. Unfortunately, no.
So, the boys have been talking to each other on the phone recently and this morning, I helped Maddox write a letter to his best buddy...
Since the double whammy of a lost camera and a crashed hard drive, I have no recent photos to share. So, I did what every desperate blogger would do. I stole some.
I pilfered these pictures from Amanda's blog. They were taken at our most recent church playgroup meeting. Notice the prized Christmas gift on Maddox's feet. We're getting a lot of use out of those puppies!
I hate technology. (Yes, I recognize the irony of that statement as it's posted on my Internet scrapbook.)
Technology lulls me into a false sense of security, as if everything that has ever been stored is retrievable. But it's not. Exhibit A: my laptop hard drive. You know, the hard drive I stored all my photos on for the last year. Crashed. Gone. Blank.
One might suggest that I invest in an online backup tool like Carbonite. I do have an online backup service! On my desktop. Oops.
The technology gods must really be angry with me because I also lost my camera. I realize that can't really be blamed on technology in general, but it makes me feel better to heap the culpability on something other than myself.
So, first things first. If you have any relatively recent photos of my family, please send me a copy. Don't worry. Maddox's baby photos are safe and sound. Secondly, Maddox's 4th birthday is coming up! And since I just bought a new camera, I'll have photos to share soon!
