Weekend Fun

We went to San Fransisco a couple of weekends ago. Our good friends were able to go with us. This is Ethan showing off with his "best pal". What goofs! These are the girls, I couldn't get Bonnie to stand up straight for the life of me! Eliza did not want to sit still in the stroller, she was really mad at me for not letting her get out. Ethan and Preston relaxing with the crowd they feel most comfortable with. No, not metal statues... monkeys! Our family right outside of China town. It was a really fun day, but man did we spend a fortune in transportation!

Outside Time

Ethan has gotten so good at the slip and slide! Well I guess you can't get soooo good on a slip and slide, I mean come on you slip and then you slide, where's the skill? But Ethan can do it standing up! You have to give him props for that. Our friends gave us this bike, and Eliza just loves it! She can almost reach the ground with her tippy toes when she is on it. She gets up there and tries to move it, gets frustrated, tries to get off, gets stuck, screams, and then I help her off. And here she is trying to get back on...Here we go again!

Upgrade

Remember when forts used to be made out of your mom's best blankets and all the chairs from the dinner table? Well, apparently those days are over! Time for an upgrade baby! Our friends Jake and Julie gave the kids this awesome fort building kit! It is made by Cranium, and it is so cool! This was the first thing we made with it. Ethan actually let me take his picture here. A small miracle in itself! Now wait a minute you say, that is not one of your kid's knee sticking out of that helecopter. (I thought I should let you all know what it was supposed to be just in case you couldn't guess.) That is right, even Brett is getting in on the fort building craze! I think he kicked all the kids out so he could have a turn flying the helecopter! Right this very second, the fort kit is in timeout. That's right, timeout. It seems that sometimes my kids don't always see eye to eye on the proper technique of fort building, and I had to break it up before it got physical. I had no idea that my children would be so passionate about creating forts! Actually, we love this thing, and totally recomend it to everyone! Thanks Jake and Julie!

Eliza's New Moves

These pictures are of Eliza showing off. She learned to flap her arms like a bird, which makes her bother and sister proud. She reminds me of the chicken dance, you know..."da da da da da da....da da da da da da....da da da da da da, clap, clap, clap, clap." I know you were singing along! And she learned to fold her arms, which makes her mom and dad proud. She does this on request. I don't know what I did to deserve such cute and wonderful kids, but I will tell you what, Heavenly Father sure blessed me!!!

I have been teaching Eliza a little sign language. You know things like please, thank you, more, eat, and drink. It is very helpful for the most part. Sometimes she will just start saying "please" over and over, and then she will throw in "more", and I have no idea what she is asking for or what she wants more of! That can get a little frustrating, but for the most part, it is just so darn cute! I took this video of her showing off her signs. She is a little distracted by the dishwasher, which she loves to help out with. She is not so helpful as she would like to think however. When I am unloading it is great, she will take out the utensils one by one and hand them to me. But when I am loading dirty dishes into the dishwasher, she will take out several spoons at a time and help me out by licking them and trying to hand them back to me. Yuck! I would also like to point out that this video was taken first thing in the morning, so don't be thinking that I let my child run around in her diaper all day long. At least not on this day!

PS. Please excuse the recycled hairdos.

Blogging Blues

I am so frustrated with this blog!!! I added the picture to the left, and I can't get my labels to show up all the way! It keeps cutting off the words! Aaarrrrrgggg! I am not all that blog savvy, so I have kinda run out of ideas, anybody wanna help? But not today, I am done, done, done for today! Alright thanks for the vent, like I have already mentioned, I am done!

Birthday Bliss

Bonnie had a birthday, and now she is 5! I can't believe it! She can't either, but apparently everything is SO much better when you are 5 than when you were 4. Here she is on her big girl bike! That is right, it only took us til she was 5 to get her something better than a tricycle. Alright, I have to say, I am pretty darn proud of this cake. Whenever I asked Bonnie what kind of cake she wanted for her birthday, she would always say, "I want a rainbow, castle, Dora cake!" I think I did pretty well here! That's Dora in the car on the side, Bonnie wanted her coming out the front door, but come on folks there is only so much I can do! She was so excited about it. She kept telling everyone who would listen, and even anybody who wouldn't, "Guess what kind of cake I am going to have for my birthday? A rainbow...castle...Dora...cake!" She paused for emphasis in between each word. It was hilarious! I just have to mention here that this box was given to Bonnie by her cousin Maddie, who is also 5 for a couple more weeks anyway. I wish we would have taken a picture before Bonnie opened it too, but I am just not that organized. So Maddie's mom went to the store and got Bonnie some things for her birthday. Maddie took it from there and expounded on it. I am told that she spent at least a solid hour on it if not more on it. She found things from her room to add to the box, and she wrapped and decorated the box herself! As you can see here, she glued stuff to the outside of the box. I think Bonnie is holding a penny or something from the box. You can imagine how well this went over. So I wanted to say BRAVO Maddie! Bonnie loved it of course!

Bowling

So, we took our kids bowling the other night. We had a pretty good time. Ethan has a pretty unusual technique that I think might catch on. Bonnie surprised us with how well she did! She started out rolling the ball granny style, but then moved on to a more advanced move of throwing the ball in a downward motion as hard as she could. Then ten minutes later, her ball would hit the pins and 9 of them would fall over. Of course the computer only counted the first 3 because the rest fell so slowly. But we know what really happened out there. Eliza really wanted to play too. She kept throwing her sippy cup down the lane. All in all, we pretty much rocked the house! Look out world, here we come!

Silver Dollar Fair Continued

Ryan was so funny on his pony, every time he would go by me, he would say, "CHEESE! Aunt Duwanie, CHEESE!" It was hilarious!! He loves me! Maddie was a little worried about riding the ponies, but she was a champ! She did awesome. Macky was too cool for words! He's a ham! You gotta love that! Bonnie went on this ride where the car bounces up and down as it goes around and around. She LOVED it. Of course she chose to sit in the back seat even though she was the only one in her car! She is just practicing for her days as a Diva! Macky, Ryan, Ethan and Maddie all rode this roller coaster. Macky and Ryan were sitting together and were livin it up. Ethan and Maddie were in the car right behind Macky. You can kinda see Ethan looking at Maddie, that is because when the coaster started to go around a second time, she realized it wasn't going to stop for a while, and she decided that it wasn't as much fun as she thought it was going to be. Ethan being the good cousin that he is, put his arm around her and was trying to make her feel better. It didn't work. After riding the rides, we went to see the animals. That was a big hit! The kids loved all the animals. There were pigs and cows and sheep and goats. One sheep was waiting to be sheared, and Ethan (of course it was Ethan) noticed that it was a boy sheep with rather large testicles. He asked what those things hanging down were, and I told him. Now you have to understand that Ethan has a hearing problem. Whenever you are trying to be quiet, or keep something hush-hush, say like in Sacrament meeting, or at the fair when you are embarrassed to say the word "testicles" very loud in the middle of a crowd of people, he always says "What, WHAT DID YOU SAY MOM?" I am using all caps so you can imagine how loud he is. Well true to form, he asked what I said, so I repeated myself. He yells "What are TESTICLES?" Nice Ethan. Needless to say, I was a lot embarrassed. At least there were a bunch of people around to hear! Oh well, thankfully he will be anatomically correct when he talks about what he saw at the fair.

Silver Dollar Fair

So we went to the Silver Dollar Fair with our cousins Macky, Maddie, and Ryan. Ryan has the yellow balloon in the very back of Bonnie. We got to the fair about 30 minutes before it started, and had to wait in line. The funny thing is we had no idea we were early until we had been standing in line for about ten minutes and the line wasn't moving! I know we are geniuses! Anyway, we were picked the right line because the clown guy that does the balloon animals came to our line first! Wooo-whoooo!

And because we were standing in the right line, the conductor asked Ethan if he wanted to conduct the band! Macky got to conduct the band too. It was sooooo cute! Ethan started marching in place to the music, and using both hands to conduct! Very professional. I think he might have a future here.

The kids wanted to ride the ponies. And well really who wouldn't? A 5 minute ride on a pony that goes in a small circle again and again. Very exciting! Anyway, Bonnie got to ride on a pony named Bonnie! She thought that was just about the coolest thing ever!

Apparently Ethan had a little fun here, but I'm not sure. He could just be ham'n it up for the camera! Poor Eliza just got to watch from the sidelines. She waved at all the ponies as they went by, and said, "Hi, hi, hi, hi". Well, strictly speaking, that is all she can say. But she says it so well! I have more pictures of the fair, but I will have to put them on another post.

On a totally separate and random note: Today Bonnie is having a party at her school. I have to take a snack to share. So far I am snack less. I don't know what my problem is, but I am drawing a snack blank. OK, well part of my problem is I want to impress all those 3 and 4 year olds with the coolness of my snack. I am just not thinking on the right level! I am sure inspiration will hit, hopefully sooner rather than later!