Beach Day

We let Kate loose on the sand awhile ago.  We'd been with her to the beach before, but never let her get out of the stroller.  I set out a towel for her to sit on, but she was off it and crawling on the sand in no time.  She also loved eating the sand.  Parker did a great job building sand castles.  I think his favorite part was smashing them at the end.

First Bath Together

Parker was pretty uninterested in Kate until she started crawling around and taking his toys, then he was less than thrilled with her presence.  I don't know what did it, but he's actually learning to play with her and I love it!  It's so fun to hear them giggling together from the other room.  They don't always take baths together, but when they do they have a fun time splashing and being silly.  

Happy Easter

Better late than never?

I hope Parker is/will be someday grateful for Paul and his love of holidays.  If it were up to me, very little would be done to celebrate the commercial side of holidays.  I guess I'm a bit of a Scrooge, so Paul took it upon himself to dye the eggs, buy candy and hide Easter eggs.  I think we had something good for dinner, but I can't remember what.  I do however, remember one of the talks given that day in church.  It was one that I hope stays with me forever.  What a blessing to know that our Savior lives, knows us and cares for us more than we can comprehend.  

New Crib

Up until a month or so ago, Kate had been sleeping exclusively in our closet in a Pack 'n Play.  I'd been toying around with the idea of moving her into Parker's room for nighttime, but I thought it would be easier to keep her in our closet for at least her afternoon nap while Parker naps in his own room.  Rather than having to lug the portable crib up and down the stairs every day, I decided to buy a real crib to put in Parker's room and leave the Pack 'n Play in our room.  I bought one off Craigslist that was a shiny, dark wood color with lots of dents and scuffs.  I sanded out all the dents, painted it teal and made a crib skirt.  I love how it turned out, but Kate's really the one who makes it look good.

Farewell, Old Friend

Well, we sold The Jetta.  She's been with us as long as Paul and I have been married.  I remember the day he bought it while he was living at home the summer before we got married.  It was so exciting to have our first car!  He emailed me some pictures along with a message that the backseat was "plenty big."  Oh, to be engaged.

We've been through a lot with that car.  On my last count, we'd been hit eight times.  A few just in parking lots and a few scary encounters.  We got rear ended on the freeway in LA and once by a semi during a snow storm on the way to Boise for Christmas.  One time I got side-swiped in Hollywood coming home from a haircut and we got $2000 from the insurance settlement (truly a tender mercy for poor students).  Even through all of these incidents, The Jetta was never mortally wounded and didn't seem to mind too much the cosmetic damage.

But, she was getting on in years and Paul was tired of nursing her along, so we parted ways and passed  her on to a dentista from Mexico.  I'm sure she's living up her life sun bathing on the Mexican Riviera, or, more likely, assisting with the trafficking of drugs into the US.

Palm Desert Reunion

We're still here. Our laptop keyboard went kaput (I guess that's what happens when you spill water on it) and the last several post were done toggling between composing the text on the iPad (not easy unless you have micro fingers) and uploading the pictures from our computer. Sure, I want to preserve our special family memories, but I got lazy and waited until I could do it all on the computer.  Someday we'll buy a new one, but for now we bought a cheap-o wireless keyboard and it's resting on top of our laptop keyboard. Ghetto fabulous.

We had an awesome family reunion over the Memorial Day weekend in Palm Springs. It was H-O-T, but we were well equipped to beat the heat. The home we stayed in had a pool and Kate went for her very first dip, ever.

One day we went to a private lake.  There was also a pond, pool and cabin.

(I love that Kate is looking up at me in this picture.  That's because I'm her favorite. :)  And look at how Parker hooked his arm around Chloe's.  He was enamored with his cousins!)

On Sunday Grandpa Norm and Grandma Sue came over for the afternoon.  It was so fun to hear about some of the things they've accomplished in their lives.

As I recall, it was hard to get Parker to stand still- he just wanted to run away and play with friends, Chloe and Mae.  His shirt stayed tucked in for all of 20 seconds.

We brought Parker's Like-A-Bike and Chloe and Mae brought theirs too.  They were so fast and taught Parker how to balance and push off with his legs.  Since we've been home, he's really starting to get the hang of it.

The adults rode on bikes of a different flavor.  Paul has been wanting to rent Segways for years.  Leave it to John to fulfill our every wish!

Having a tea party:

Grandma gave the kiddos a special present- their very own bags (Angela made the girls' bags!) with lots of fun things inside.

Gathering around for a story before bedtime:

The cutest baby ever!  Since this picture, she's gotten THREE more teeth!

Looking through these pictures makes me think it's time for another vacation.  Maybe next time we can bring the party to England?!  

Utah!

Last month Parker, Kate and I made a special trip to Utah for the wedding of my friend's little brother... It sounds weird when I say it like that.  Because she's not just my "friend," she's my friend for life, my BFF.  And her parents are like my parents and her siblings are like my siblings and consequently, Parker and Kate have an extra set of grandparents.  Anyway, so of course we had to go to the wedding.  Unfortunately, Paul wasn't able to get time off of work so it was just me and the kiddos.  Within the first few hours of our trip I had three people tell me how brave I was to fly by myself with two small kids in tow.  We had a pretty easy time though, but it did take some advance planning to make things run smoothly.  For example, we had a late morning flight (Paul was at work), so I chose to park our car in the long term parking lot and take the shuttle to the airport.  I knew that Southwest had an outdoor check-in and baggage drop and so I planned on asking the shuttle driver to drop us off right in front of it.  Also, because we had two suitcases, two car seats, two backpacks and a stroller, I wasn't able to take all of our luggage to the shuttle stop in one trip, and I didn't want to leave the luggage or the kids unattended at the stop while I made a second trip to the car.  So, I parked in a parking spot that was close to where the shuttle exits the parking lot and had the driver stop at our car on the way to the airport to pick up our remaining gear.  The plan was to have Paul either move the car to a residential street near the airport or come with a friend to drive the car home, but wouldn't you know it, he couldn't find his car key. I'll give you one guess as to who hid the key. So, my great idea turned into a rather expensive one, but at least we made it to the airport happy and on time.

We stayed with Aunt Kim for two nights and then with Jenni's in-laws the next two nights (Jenni, Jake, and their darlings were staying there too).  My dad even came down from Idaho to see us!



He watched Parker and Kate during the sealing and was all-around incredibly helpful.  I think the trip would have been stressful if he hadn't been there.  We really had a wonderful time.  The wedding was lovely and it was so nice to be surrounded by loved ones.





It was so cute to see Parker and Scarlett interact with each other.










She was definitely the leader in their twosome.  Parker would follow her around and make sure she knew that he wanted to play with her.  We went to a park one morning and somehow Scarlett slipped away to a different play area without Parker realizing it.  He started wandering around shouting, "I'm looking for my friend Scarlett!"









Lucky for us we got to be there for Jenni's twins' birthday party!  

(Thank goodness there were presents x2 because apparently Parker has not mastered the concept of who gets to open birthday presents.)



They truly are the cutest twins you'll ever meet.  In college Jenni and I used to joke that we were the same person.  Living together sort of morphed us into one big, awesome super-nerd.  And then we got married within months of each other, got pregnant at the same time and had frank breech babies.  I was a little thrown off my axis when she announced that she was having identical twins!  I was secretly scared that the doctor was going to tell me that I too was pregnant with twins when I got pregnant a few months later. Even though they aren't as close in age as Parker and Scarlett, the twins are a little small for their age and Kate is a little big for hers, so all is right in the world. 

A huge thank you to Aunt Jami for the matching pajamas.