Bike time

Nothing says Saturday fun like bike riding with the cousins.


We tried a bike switcharoo, but that didn't work out so well. Carolyn needs pedals to feel comfortable.

After biking, all four children concentrated on making a giant pile of chalk dust.

I love these two

This is going to be all sentimental, but I love these two together. Carolyn and Chandler are only two months apart and they spend a lot of time together. If Carolyn had her way, they would spend practically all their time together. They are best little buddies. It's nice to have Chandler come play Carolyn's games with her. They don't play by the rules, but magically they have the same made-up rules. It just warms my heart to listen to them talking to each other. They tell stories and correct each other's method of playing pretend. Apparently there are only certain ways to pretend you are going to a wedding. I'll be sad when one of our families moves away and it isn't a 3 minute drive to get the two together.

(Please note that Carolyn's hair wasn't always out of control. It's gotten worse with age.)

Easter Party

Jeremy came up with this great idea to let Carolyn have an Easter party. He thought it would be fun to host an egg hunt for her and some of her good friends. And then he asked her if she would like to do that. So, as you can imagine, for two weeks we have heard of nothing but this party. "Is my party today? How many more naps until my party? Is Arys coming to my Easter party?"

Finally, the day came and this was how Carolyn felt about it:

(This is trying to repress giddy laughter.)

We had dinner together...
...and you should hear a table of young kids telling jokes. It's hilarious!
Here are the little hunters getting ready to find some eggs!

Post-hunt enjoyment:


Here are the children trying to blow dry the dyed eggs so they could put their stickers on.

We eventually just got out a real blow dryer so we could hurry and finish. There needed to be time to watch Bolt. The kids watched the movie until the parents could come back and get them. That's right. This was a drop-off party.

Special thanks to Elyn who kept Blake happy all night. She stayed when she realized that Jeremy wasn't going to be able to make it home from work in time to help. She was a great help.


Here's Carolyn's basket at the end of the night.


Of course, this morning her basket is empty. She made quick work of it--just in time to refill it at the neighborhood hunt in a couple of hours.

Cousin Fun

I was upstairs minding my own business instead of Carolyn when Gordon caught Carolyn and Chandler indulging in a little fun. Catch the video on Rachel's blog!

Catching up

It's been so long. Mostly because I've been lazy. Just not feeling like blogging at the end of the day. Or finding the cord for my camera. Although, we are lacking pictures, Carolyn has been up to some antics lately.

One day I was at my brother's house, when Chandler came down and kept telling us "shoe, shoe." We told him he was very smart and to go play until we finished making dinner. Finally, when time to eat, the two older children had come down, but not Carolyn and Chandler. I went up to herd them down, and as I turned the corner, I saw Carolyn with one foot deep in the toilet bowl, the other dangling over the edge. She looked at me like "how do I get off this thing?" And you probably guessed it, her shoe was soaked! I suggest always investigating something if a toddler comes downstairs urgently repeating something.

If Carolyn can't do something, it immediately becomes hard. She'll repeat the word over and over until one of us come to save her. In her language, it sounds like "harsh. "But what happens when we don't help? Well, I'll tell Carolyn she can't have more rolls, and she reaches for them saying "harsh." Or I tell her no throwing toys and she says "harsh." I really wish I had video of this, because it is much cuter than it reads.

We are very much enjoying springtime, and hope to be able to spend a lot more time outdoors very soon. We hope everyone else (even those in Alaska with fresh snow!) get some warm weather and can enjoy some sunshine.

Fun with Chan Chan

For those who don't know, Carolyn has a cousin who is a mere two months older than she is. She loves him. A lot. I could convince her to eat worms if that meant she could go see Chan Chan (better known as Chandler).

Now that Carolyn speaks, she asks for Chandler at least 4 separate times a day. And if I should accidentally say his name whilst doing something else, that is the one word she hears and she repeats it ad nauseum for the next 15 minutes, periodically tearing at my heart by looking out the front window to see if Chan Chan is coming up the walk.

So days like this one about two weeks ago are her absolute favorite. We went to the mall to enjoy a play structure. After lunch, everyone got milkshakes.



And then! We saw Chandler later in the day too. Not only that, but she got to share his swing.

Siamese Swinging

I don't know if this video will embed properly. Hopefully, it will. We had a park trip with the Wildes and the little cousins got in some quality swinging time together. They swung for awhile and as soon as we got the video going, Chandler decided he was finished. You can hear Carolyn saying no as Angelina stops the swing. She wasn't quite ready to be done. WARNING: The video can be a little motion-sickness inducing. But it's still cute!

Shoe Shopping

Carolyn: Do you have anything in my size?

Chandler: You, my dear, are a perfect size 6.

Best Buds

Ride 'em, Cowgirl!

I delayed posting this out of laziness, but I totally justified the whole deal because my sister-in-law went to the carousel as well, and she posted a lovely picture of Carolyn right here. That meant I didn't have to find my camera cord because out there, somewhere, in this large InterWeb, a record existed of Carolyn on her first solo ride. I've been informed I was sorely mistaken.








When is this ride ever going to start?











Hit it, Jack!








uhhh...my horse just moved.









Mama?!









There are no more pictures after this because Carolyn had her arm firmly around my waist from here on. Not the best angle for snapping photos. All in all, she enjoyed it. But like most things, she was much happier when I was within clinging distance.

Slipping and Sliding!

At church I have a new assignment helping with activities for the 8-9 year old girls in the ward. I went to my first activity yesterday where they had all sorts of fun water games. I didn't get my camera out until the very end, but I still got some fun shots.
Carolyn spent the whole time eating watermelon. I had bought some for the girls, but Carolyn desperately wanted some. I ended up cutting a personal-sized melon for the younger kids to share. Carolyn ended up eating half of it. She had seeds down her suit and in her diaper.

Chandler didn't actually ride a bike, but he was getting ready to in case he was allowed!



After the activity we tried to get Carolyn to do her first on-her-belly slip and slide. She couldn't quite figure out what I was trying to do to her. We did manage to get her down once or twice and she giggled the whole way!

Tulip Festival

Isn't this beautiful? This takes me back to wanting tulips in June in Alaska for our wedding. That didn't happen. But this did. The field is so large and has so many different kinds of tulips growing together. There are also sections where they were separated at least by color. I don't know about different petal shapes or anything because we didn't get over there. It was nice when we were there, but it had been raining right before. I went with Rachel and the boys. They all got a little muddy. But it sure was fun. Carolyn trotted around with me in the Baby Bjorn until it was picture time. And we palled around together at the festival. She loved the slide and swings. More giggles out of her for those two things then I had heard in awhile.