A Little Positive Peer Pressure Can Go a Long Way

A friend of ours recently posted on her blog a picture of her 3.5 year old riding his bike without training wheels. I was impressed and showed it to Ryan. That was all it took for him to decide that HE was ready to ride without training wheels also. If Simeon could do it, so could he. :)


Here's a little video of him learning.








Here is a little later in the day. Now he can do it without help getting started or anything. We have done little else besides watch him ride bikes the past few days.

Spring Cleaning

So this may seem like a lame post to most of you, but it's mostly for my mom. You see, when she was here visiting a few weeks ago, she walked onto my back patio and said, "Jenny, we do humanitarian aid for people like this." It was truly a disaster. The bushes were totally overgrown, there were sand and leaves all over the concrete, the bunny hutch had tons of yucky stuff underneath it, and I had so many outdoor toys that my kids could barely walk out there, much less play with/on any of it.

Look Ma, I've simplified. I about killed myself doing it, but worked for 3 days to get everything cleaned up (Derek wasn't so happy with me for overdoing it while he was at work). Now the kids play out there all the time. Ryan can even ride his scooter around - that's saying something. I'm ready for summer visitors to come and play.

Best Friends

Grandma was our photographer while she was here visiting a few weeks ago. Going through the pictures, these are a few of my favorites. But... they completely go together. I can't just post one, I have to see the whole story board.

Okay, hug each other.

Give a kiss.





Look how they were laughing and thought it was so funny.

Whenever I ask, "Who's your best friend" they usually will name each other. They do have fun together, even though Ryan really enjoys teasing. I hope it lasts...(the friendship, not the teasing.)

A Bit Too Close to Home

Last night after midnight, we heard a ton of noise coming from our rabbit hutch outside. They will often play and chase each other around at night, so I figured that was what they were up to. There was so much crashing around and it was going on for a few minutes so I finally looked out our blinds to see what was going on and saw a coyote pacing right outside their hutch.

Of course I panicked and yelled to Derek that we had a coyote on our patio and he went running out there to scare it away. He was easily frightened off and was gone before Derek even got out there. Still, bunnies are pretty fragile and I knew that they could easily die of a heart attack even if the coyote hadn't touched them. We brought them inside for the night (they are still hopping around in one of our bathrooms) and now we have to figure out what we're going to do about it for the future.

The coyote knows that we have rabbits and will be back - that I am sure of. Plus, even if they aren't out there, their cage smells like rabbit. We will surely have to bring them in every night in order to keep them safe - we just don't want him to return at a time when our kids are outside. Not sure if it's just safest to get rid of the bunnies or if things will be fine if we just bring them in regularly. I really want to keep them, but not at the expense of my children (if you know what I mean). I will say that I am very glad that we made some adjustments to our rabbit hutch ahead of time. We cut the legs off so it is very close to the ground and put a board on the floor of the cage so their feet wouldn't be exposed on the wires. The coyote wasn't able to go underneath - but if he did, he still couldn't get to them because of the board. They were unharmed, but it gave all of us a scare.

What Would You Do?

If your kids dumped a half gallon of white vinegar and about 10 cups of birdseed in a bucket in your garage that you use as a sort of trashcan, how would YOU dispose of it? I'm serious - I can't just pour all of that in my dumpster. I also can't pour it on the lawn and hope the birds go after the birdseed. There's a bunch of dryer lint in there with it. *sigh*

21 Weeks

Against my better judgement - here is a fat picture of me.

*sarcastically* Oh look, you can see my haircut now. It's only about 2 inches longer than when I had it cut initially. Oh well.

Just for good measure, here I was 21 weeks pregnant with Ryan. I only have about 3 pictures of my pregnancy with Katie. I seem to be following that same basic pattern with little sister here.

Family Resemblance

As an answer to prayers, my mother came to visit us this past week. It was such perfect timing since we had been sick for a few weeks and I have spent so much time in rehearsals for our Stake's production of "Savior of the World." We have all been exhausted. She came and gave me such a break and just made my kids entire week. They were so HAPPY. Katie really responded exceptionally well to Grandma Cookies' visit and she was able to take a million and a half fabulous pictures of my kids, which will take me forever to go through and pick my favorites because she did such a great job.

Today, I just wanted to show my sisters the shocking resemblance between Katie and myself as a toddler. Who would've known that if I just curled and fluffed Katie's hair the same way my mom always did mine, she could look SO much like me.

Which Project Today?

It has been very fun to see Ryan's interests changing the past few months. I believe that much if it has to do with our preschool swaps and the activities he is doing on a regular basis. That being said, each day he asks me "What are we going to make for our project today mom?" Most days I don't have a "project" planned and Ryan decided he wasn't having any of that. He is now telling me exactly what project we will be doing.

Some examples: a telescope (out of an empty toilet paper roll), a kazoo (out of an empty toilet paper roll and wax paper), musical instruments (out of two paper plates taped together with beans inside), a paper crown, a sock puppet ("I'll get out the yarn and the buttons Mom"), a newspaper airplane, a model of how the earth has day on one side and night on the other (out of an orange, a glued on leaf, and a flashlight), and MANY spaceships, boats, rockets, airplanes, bulldozers, etc out of Legos.

It is usually his idea of what to make and how to go about making it. I will ask him what materials we need to make a _____ and he'll tell me. Sometimes he needs a bit of redirecting in order to make something work in a practical manner, but I like to see the creativity and problem solving at work.

That all being said, he recently decided that he wanted to make a pair of binoculars. He decided this while using the "facilities" and he and Katie figured that they'd need 2 toilet paper rolls in order to make the binoculars. He didn't realize that I had been saving toilet paper rolls for weeks and already had a few to use. So, they emptied all of that pesky toilet paper off of the roll for me so that we'd be able to make the binoculars.

Yep, it all went into a plastic bag and that bathroom didn't have a roll of toilet paper in it for a good 2 weeks. I had to force everyone to use the non-rolled bunch first. In my attempt to thwart future piles of toilet paper on the bathroom floor, I quickly confiscated the empty roll and didn't allow them to use it for their binoculars. Those binoculars have yet to be made - but I know what we're making tomorrow...

Her Father's Daughter

Sometimes Katie has the hardest time winding down when it's time for a nap. We'll read books together and then Ryan just turns over and falls asleep. Katie needs to spend some time either wandering around or flipping through books quietly before she finally hits the pillow. A few weeks ago I was on the computer as she was winding down and I looked over and noticed what book she had picked.

I had an initial thought, "Uh oh, Derek wouldn't want the kids messing up the pages in his Physics book." And then I realized, "Wait a minute, it would make him pleased as punch to see his two year old daughter interested in Physics." So then I grabbed the camera. She really was methodically flipping through the pages and pointing at pictures etc. Truly, it was a proud moment when I showed the pictures to her daddy.

I have now come to realize that if I spend about 90 seconds rocking Katie in her bed after we read books, she'll stay there and fall asleep within 5 or 10 minutes. It's worth it to me. She used to spend close to an hour looking through books.

BOY!!!!

...was I wrong. :)