Crawling Carson's First Haircut

Yes, he started crawling this past week and is having so much fun exploring! Here is our handsome little boy before and after his first haircut. I couldn't resist last night when he was in the bathtub. And Geoff helped finish it off this morning. Now maybe I can get to all that cradle cap that was hiding under his big mop! (Gross!) ps. i especially love the picture showing his cute bottom teeth.

Funny Kolby Conversation

Kolby loves answering the phone in his grown-up 4 year old voice. A few weeks ago, the phone rang and it was our neighbor. She decided to try and relay her message to me through Kolby and this is what it was: "Mom, Michelle is calling because she is taking some tomatoes to work to give to people and she wants to know if you need any potatoes to make broccoli or if you already have enough." Michelle of course was listening to this and when I got on the phone was laughing, as was I, and she clarified that she was calling to see if we needed any more tomatoes to make salsa before she gave them away to people at work. Kolby came close. I love the way that kids hear and interpret things and wish that I could remember and record about 90% of all the conversations we have. I'm so grateful for my kids and that they make me laugh! And I'm grateful for good neighbors who have an awesome garden and have shared so many of their fresh veggies with us this summer. Yummy!

Trips to the Doctor

It seems like I spent a lot of this week at the Dr. office. That must be why I feel like I got NOTHING done this week, except paint my bathroom.

• Carson has had a double ear infection for 6 weeks and they finally gave up on all the oral antibiotics and gave him the antibiotic shot. One huge long needle inserted into his leg once/day for 3 consecutive days. I sure hope it did the trick. He was so brave! He only cried for a split second (or maybe a few) after getting poked.
  
• Eliza also had her 3 year check up this week and she was so brave too. Didn't cry one bit when she got her shots. She just said, "Mom, that really hurted." And then she was off to the potty to pee in a cup. She has been waiting for this since Kolby's checkup when he got to pee in a cup. So exciting! And of course she loved putting on the little gown at the pediatrician's office. I think she would have worn it home if the Dr. would have allowed it.
• And we topped it all off with Eliza's first visit to the dentist. She was so excited for that too because she went with Kolby for his first visit and thought it was so cool. It helps to have an older brother do all the hard stuff first. Unfortunately she does have 2 cavities! So this week's visit probably won't be quite as fun as the exam and cleaning was, but I'm sure she will still be a champ. (and bribing her with some fun toys at the dentist office won't hurt either!)
  

3 Little Monkeys Sleeping in the Same Room

Eliza has decided that she doesn't like having her own room anymore. She wants to sleep in Kolby & Carson's room. So young, yet so opinionated! We were having a hard time getting her to sleep through the night, but once we gave in to letting her sleep in with the boys, she has been sleeping much better. She told us that she isn't scared anymore because now her brothers can protect her. Interesting...since she never voiced the she was scared in her own room and that was the reason she couldn't sleep. Originally, Eliza just put her toddler bed mattress on the floor in Kolby's room, then somehow worked it to sleep in Kolby's bed with him and now she has full reign of Kolby's bed and he sleeps on the floor on her crib mattress. (If you haven't noticed from pictures, Kolby is a big boy and does NOT fit on the crib mattress very well!) I think Kolby is so tired at bedtime that he just doesn't feel like fighting about where to sleep, so he just lets Eliza have his bed. What a sweet big brother. Carson still wakes Eliza up when he cries but she generally just tells me that he woke her up and then she rolls over and goes back to sleep. It has been two weeks now and we are so happy to all be sleeping better. Hopefully I didn't jinx it by writing this post

Lake Fun

We had such a fun weekend. Our friends, the Welches, invited us out on their boat at the nearby lake. We had a great time wakeboarding, tubing and just hanging out on the boat. We didn't tell the kids we were going until Saturday morning when they woke up and they were so excited...they got ready so quickly and couldn't wait to get on the boat. Kolby assumed his usual "flag" duties and Eliza just hung out like a little princess. Carson was a perfect little boy...slept most of the time. We got some wakeboarding in, got to witness the expert Weston, and did some tubing with the kids. Our kids sure talk big, but when it comes right down to it, they get a little scared. We were proud of them for having a fun time in the tube and for them jumping off the boat into the water to cool off a few times. Thank you, Welches, for such a fun time! And for wearing us and our kids out!

Happy 4th of July!

We had a pretty mellow but fun 4th of July this year. The kids were so looking forward to it because they know that 4th of July means fireworks and there were firework stands on just about every corner around town. I think our neighbors bought out one of the stands and so provided us with a fireworks show on Thursday night, Friday night and Saturday night. It was great!

We woke up early on the 4th (5:30 a.m.) and got everyone in the car and drove out to a nearby small town (Exeter) to participate in the 10K Run/2 mile walk. Of course Geoff is the one who did the 10K and me and the kids did the walk with our friend Dima and her two kids. The big boys rode their bikes and thought that was the best ever, especially since they were allowed to ride in the street a lot of the time. Geoff did great, meeting his goal to finish his 10K in under 40 minutes and won a questionable "3rd place" for his age division. Dima had us over for a yummy breakfast and fun play time and then we came home and everyone took naps. Definitely my kind of day. We ended the day with a BBQ at the York's house, where the kids enjoyed playing on the huge Costco slide (of course we didn't get any pictures of that) and as soon as the sun started to go down, they began to chant, "Fireworks! Fireworks! Fireworks!" and so the show began. An "America" CD blasted in the background as everyone enjoyed lots of fun fireworks in the cul-de-sac. Thanks to the Yorks for a fun night. Everyone came home and slept really well! Here are a few pictures from the day...

Yummy Homemade Bread

We were at a friend's house a few months ago and she gave us some of her homemade bread and Kolby fell in LOVE with it. It was quite delicious, but he thought it was out of this world delicious and has been bugging me almost on a daily basis to get the recipe so that we could make it and have some of our own delicious homemade bread. I thought it was interesting that my 4 year old cared so much about bread, but Kolby is a lot like his grandpa and food does mean a lot to him. It truly is the way to his heart. So I finally got the recipe and it turned out "super duper yummy". It sure didn't last long and as you can imagine, the person who ate the most was Kolby. Thanks, Tevya for letting us in on your family secret and introducing us to the scrumptiousness (is that word?) of homemade bread.