Zoo and Museum

Top of the afternoon to you!  Things were splendid (for me) this past week, and I think the kids got to have a really great time.  The weather was warmer for most of the week, so we got to spend more time outside.  The kids love being at the park and out doing other things, and I love the kids not making a mess everywhere in the house!  Win-win.  On Saturday we made a park attempt even though it snowed over night on Friday, and everything was still wet, and the kids got quite cold., especially Winry who won't let her hands be covered for anything. So after a rather short trip, we headed back home.  However, we did get some good cave time while there.

When Brooke and Monica go to the grocery store Brooke always wants to get a little cart to push around.  When she has a cart, she'll sometimes pick what items she wants in her cart to push through the store.  While looking through the clearance section Brooke found a "really cool" board game, and put it in her cart.  While they were looking around a worker came up and said some of the items had been there long enough they might be discounted farther, and she dropped the price of the game to $2.62, so Brooke got it!  What a lucky little girl.  She really loves it, and I like it now that it's aired out.  It came with a little plush that was supposed to be "sweet" scented... and now that it's less scented it's possible to sit by the board and play!

On Wednesday, Monica took the kids to the zoo.  The animals seemed to to think the weather was perfect (it was high of about 70) and they were out in abundance.  Even the indoor animals.  Everyone got a good look at the Fishing Cat, which is one we typically don't get to see.  They're usually sleeping in the back caves.  Winry got VERY excited to see a cat, which was a running theme this week.  She super loves animals, and especially loves kitties the most!

Also while at the zoo they of course HAD to stop and see the flamingos, and Brooke brought her flamingo to say hi to her family!

That afternoon at the park, Winry had a blast on the swings!  I would push her on the swings, and then I'd have to go over and check on Brooke and help her on slides every once in a while.  We sent Monica home early to work on dinner and stayed to play some more.  Shortly after Monica left, she called to let us know there was a brush fire pretty close to the park, so we headed home.  They were able to put it out pretty quickly, so that's good.

As we headed home to avoid the fire, a squirrel went running away from the stroller.  Turns out Monica brought some crackers and she and the kids had each had one, leaving one left in the package.  This did not go unnoticed to the squirrel, who swept in, stole our last cracker, climbed a tree, and watched us while he nibbled it up!!  Good thing there wasn't a "do not feed the wildlife" sign there.

Recently, the kids discovered a new song that they love, which naturally means there was a lot of great dancing.  Somehow through all of this, Brooke felt the need to take off her shirt so she could really get in the groove.  Sometimes Winry even tries to sing along!

On Thursday night, Monica got quite sick with the stomach flu and was up most of the night, so come morning I just worked from home.  Winry had been up basically all night, and I had slept for 3 and a half hours...  Hooray!  So I figured there was a good chance Winry was sick too.  It's seeming like she wasn't actually sick though and it was just teething. The kids were both great all morning letting me work, and during Winry's nap Brooke got to watch a movie.  I basically got to just work all day with the kids playing around me.  It was nice that they were so well behaved.  That afternoon I took the kids to Costco to walk around and get samples because can you really name a better activity to do on Friday afternoon before Costco gets busy?  I didn't think so.  Monica came down for a few hours in the afternoon, but for the most part was up in bed all day.  After the kids were in bed I enjoyed sitting on the front porch watching the rain and snow for a while.  It was a good relaxer.

Since the kids were so good for me Friday, I told Brooke I'd take her to the museum on Saturday.  Monica was feeling a lot better Saturday morning, but not good enough to head out for the day, so we packed up a lunch and headed out to let mom keep resting.  We had a wonderful time at the museum, and spent almost the whole day looking through the animal sections.  Those are Brooke's favorite.  We went by the bears and got to compare our hands to see if they were as large as bear paws.

Or some people checked to see if their bums were bigger than bear paws.  It was pretty close, but the bear's still got her beat.

While making our way through the animals, we found some birds.  Brooke wanted me to tell her about them so I read the information provided, and it mentioned dancing, so of course Brooke had to dance for the birds.  She might not know what courtship means yet, but close enough!

We found a quiet corner to eat lunch and I was able to trap Winry in with an ottoman.

Lunch was followed by more animals (there were 2 floors of them) and these cool twisting, top like chairs.  Brooke liked playing with them, but did not want to get spun around while sitting in it.

When we got home, we relaxed and had a lot of fun together.  We played with the waffle blocks for a while and Winry put on some new "bracelets."  She was quite excited about them.

Last night I went to check on Brooke after she was asleep.  She loves to have lots of blankets on her every night.  Last night it appears they got a little too heavy for her legs and when she rolled over, they started pulling her out of her bed!!  What a silly goose!

As for other important topics that we skipped, my bracket is doing average this year, so it doesn't look like I'm going to win any bracket challenges.  Oh well, there could be worse things.  I think that's all of the happenings out here this past week.  Have a wonderful week ahead!!

"Good Week" - Monica

Hello all!  Hope everything is going wonderfully.  We'll start this post where the last one ended, here's a picture of me trying to write the blog last week!  Winry was very interested.  She had a pretty good plan, if she could just sit on my arms I wouldn't be able to move the computer and she could play on my computer!!  She seemed to have forgotten that I could pick her up though, so I was able to finish.

Last week on Monday night, Brooke really wanted to give the FHE lesson.  I missed her first lesson, but I did catch the rest.  The first one was about baptism I believe.  She got those pictures of Jesus from an FHE lesson a while back when we talked about the life of Jesus.  Brooke really likes to look through it for her scripture study, and has provided numerous lessons for the family from it.

On Monday, Eden and Royal came over, and the feature of the afternoon was jumping on the couch.  Brooke and Eden had a wonderful time, the couch, not so much.  We should probably make a rule about jumping on the couch before they all fall apart.  They're doing okay for now, but definitely getting worn down...

Brooke continues to care for her stuffed animals.  Here they all are cuddled together, presumably taking a nap in the chair in her room.  Sometimes I'll go upstairs and her noise maker will be on because some stuffed animal is taking a nap!  You never know when it's quiet time upstairs.

Also, Winry sat on these little chairs.  I think this is her first time, and she sure looked happy about the achievement!.. or she's excited about the food in her hands, there's no telling for sure.

We found Brooke in our room on Wednesday morning.  She comes in every now and then, but it's been a while since she last did.  I'd say the highlight of this night was that she wanted to wear shorts, but needed her long socks on to make sure her legs stayed warm!!!  Some things, only a 3 year old can wear.

On Wednesday we went bowling, which is one of Brooke's favorite activities!  We all had a wonderful time, and Brooke was able to bowl on her own!  I only had to move the ramp thing over for her.

Brooke had a really good game too!  She was only 1 pin behind Monica at the end!!  I had a great game, especially for how often we go bowling!  I think the highest I've ever bowled was 184 or 185, so I was pretty close.

Brooke and I have started moving bed time stories to the floor instead of chair.  We typically lay on the floor next to each other and look at the books, but Wednesday we had story time in dad's lap!  Brooke really loves her stories, as you will see at the end of this post.

On Friday, Monica took the girls to the outlets because Gymboree is closing down, and everything was like 70% off or something.  While they were there, Brooke saw a dog purse that she had really wanted.  She wanted it the last time they'd gone to the store.  Monica told her she could do chores to earn it if she wanted it, and they grabbed it while they had the chance.  Brooke is very excited about it, and loves to carry her chap stick in it.  She's also very excited to help with chores to help earn her dog purse!  It's name is Melvin.

On Friday, Cafe Rio had a buy one get one free coupon, so we headed over for dinner!  We fed all 4 of us for about $10!  Pretty good deal.  The free kids quesadilla wasn't quite enough for Brooke this time, and she ate a bunch of Monica's salad too.  Everyone had a great time, so we might have to do this a little more often.

On Saturday, Katie and David came over.  As I write the blog, I'm noticing that I'm pretty good at taking pictures of my children, but not so good at taking picture of me/my life events.  Fittingly, the only evidence we have of Katie and David coming over, is a video of Brooke.

Anyway, they came over for lunch.  After lunch, Brooke read us all a book, and not a short book.  Brooke read "Dewey, there's a cat in the library" which is currently one of her favorites.  Now I suppose I should put "read" in quotes, because Brooke doesn't actually know how to read, she just has the whole book (and many others) memorized.  She "read" the ENTIRE book, all 32 pages of it!  The video only shows a little part.  Anyway, awesome job Brooke!  She's also started reading Winry bedtime stories at night, and still corrects us if we ever read the wrong word in one of her books.  I'm sure she has many more books memorized than I realize.

After Brooke dazzled us all, we played Brooke's Frozen matching game, a staple at our house.  Brooke is really good at it, and competes evenly with Monica and I, so it was a tight game.  After some games and fun we headed down to Butterfields for some ice cream!  I almost took a picture here, but didn't.  The ice cream was better than remembered, which is always the case, and Katie and David were not disappointed!

I think that's everything for this week!  Have a great week!

Winry's First Steps!!!

What a week!  I think things were kept short last week to help prepare for this week!  Unfortunately, the time saved last week did not actually provide additional time for me to write this post today!  There was a lot going on this past week, even though we spent 2 full days in the house thanks to a bomb cyclone!!  Guess that's a real term for the blizzard we had here mid week, but that was mid week, so who wants to talk about that first?  I guess I did...  Anyway, one day this past week Winry was really sad waiting for food and Monica held her for a little and Brooke offered to help!  So Brooke sat down, Monica set Winry in her lab, and Brooke proceeded to rock her, sing to her, and kiss her on the head!  What an amazing big sister!!

This past week, Monica got a "they grow up so fast" video from google for Winry.  What a cutie!!

Last Sunday after writing the blog we all headed to the park and had a wonderful time.  We captured a lot of good moments, and here's a little summary video of the trip.  While we were there Brooke climbed onto the little rocking animals all by herself for the first time.  And we also played hide and seek going down slides.  We finished off the trip on the swings, which Winry loved!  Great times all around, and I gotta try to type this up quick so we can get over there again!

This past week Winry started walking!  Though as I write this she's currently knee scooting across the floor...  That may still be here favorite form of transit.  She walked a little, but still isn't fully committed to the idea and usually just drops down and crawls when we stand her up.  In fact, the only way she has walked is if it's to her moose pacifiers. (She's walked a few times other than that...)

Brooke has started writing this past week!  She started with her name, but also wanted to learn to write mom, dad, Winry and Jelly.  She drew pictures of all of us and then wrote who they were all to!  What an awesome job!  She also has learned to read a few words, namely those that she learned to write this past week.

On Tuesday we had a picnic dinner in the front yard. This was mostly so we could juxtapose Tuesday night with any time at all on Wednesday.  Tuesday was 64 degrees, Wednesday was bomb cyclone!

Wednesday morning Winry decided she had some important work to do on my computer, and grabbed the mouse and was clicking wildly!  Guess that's what I get for having a light up mouse and a baby.

Anyway, onto that Wednesday weather.  Here it is!

The wind was such that all of our north facing windows had ice frozen all over them.  Work was canceled for a half day as the storm did start in earnest a little later in the day.  I worked from home in the morning because I don't have a window, so I was afraid I'd walk out to, well, exactly what you see in these picture, and not be able to make it home.  So I worked from home until the power started flickering, which was right around noon and thus work closing for the day!  Perfect timing!

The storm ended up taking down one of our neighbors trees, and if you look at the bottom of the picture you'll see the wind was strong enough that you can still see the grass poking through the snow.  It only piled up along the fence, etc.

Meanwhile, inside, Monica and I discussed what we could do if the power went out and our house didn't have heat.  I mentioned using our sleeping bags, which naturally progressed into this...  Nothing like a little indoor camping for 2 days!

With winter taking it's toll, we all had to group together and support one another.  Winry took on the task of helping Monica in the kitchen.  Looks like it went great!

We made it out of the storm pretty uneventfully.  The "craziest" thing that happened was our power flickering a few times, but it never went out for us.  But the craziest part of Thursday was pi day!!  And everyone loved key lime pie for dessert after dinner!

I was thinking this was Winry's first pie, but then I remembered Thanksgiving... so I guess it probably wasn't momentous enough for the video I took...  That said, she sure loved that pie, and Brooke sure sang happy birthday to... pies everywhere.

On Friday I made my return to work.  Brooke came out to help me shovel snow in the morning with the dustpan.

Eventually she upgraded from her little shovel to.... her little broom!  Then she swept that snow away in a flash!

I was meaning to get some new snow boots this year since I didn't have any, and they arrived on Friday.  Brooke just had to try them on as well.  And Monica tried them on to make sure they weren't obviously too small.

So when I got home from work I let Winry try them on so that I could be the last person to wear my new boots.  Good news, they fit me the best!

On Friday night while getting ready for bed, Brooke kept asking her "Alexa" in her kitchen in her room to play music.  It turned out to be a rather great dance party all things considered!

Saturday was a pretty busy day.  We attended the ward primary baptisms in the morning, and then during Winry's nap, I took Brooke to the park by my work.  We were trying to stay out of the house as we had Dennis helping in the basement, and he was cutting vents which is very loud!  The kids super do not like it, so we tried to be away as much as possible.  Brooke and I were at the park for almost two hours!  We tried a bit of everything the park had to offer, which included jumping, digging, spinning and sliding!  Brooke did an awesome job and is definitely getting much more adventurous.  She climbed up a bunch of things on her own, and we even crossed a little stream on some rocks that stick up out of it.

Saturday night we had a dinner group at our house.  It was a lot of fun and we got to know a few families in the ward we've never really met before!

Phew what a week!  Definitely a lot more going on than last week.  Interesting how in the same number of hours you can do completely different amounts of stuff!  I hope everyone had a great week ahead, and make sure you do as much as you can with the time you have!

Early Rising

Hello everyone!  This past week Winry forgot she was a human and thought she was a stuffed animal and tried to put herself away!  She had a lot of fun playing in the stuffed animal baskets, but she also made a huge mess in Brooke's room pulling all of them out.  Was it worth it?  You tell me!

Winry has been my early morning buddy this past week.  Like. the kind that gets up before your alarm goes off (at 5:30 am), and then makes you stay up with them.  Good thing day light savings arrived and will save me, at least temporarily.  Anyway, what's the first thing Winry wants to do in the morning when she gets up?  Sit next to me on the couch with a blanket on us, and she reads her "That's not my Kitten" book, and I read my scriptures.  All in all, it's a pretty good deal.

On Monday night for our FHE activity we played games with Brooke!  I think we played two other games, but we definitely played Feed the Kitty!  Brooke loves this game.  You roll dice and the sides indicate if you should take a mouse from the bowl, put one in, or pass one to a neighbor.  I think Brooke won every game!  Way to earn that FHE treat!

And here we are again early morning with Winry.  This time she is knee deep in studying those kitty's paws to see if it really is hers or not.

This past week we had pretty warm weather and Brooke asked me if we could go play lawn darts.  We had a lot of tossing darts all over the place.  The sled was in the back yard from the last time we sledded, and eventually lawn darts evolved into reindeer games.  Go Brooke go!!  She had a blast pulling the darts around though, and she did that the rest of the time we were out there.

On Friday Monica and Brooke worked on some at home science.  This past week was color volcanoes, and Brooke had a blast making them!  Brooke got a science book for Christmas and Monica has been trying to do an experiment with her each week lately!  It's been awesome!  They've also started growing some beans, but I don't have pictures of that yet.  So far they've just soaked to prepare them.

I think that's about it for this past week.  I hope everyone has a fantastic week ahead!

Primary Prayer-er!

Howdy y'all!  Just working on my Texan as it's almost time for work trips to start up again.  Anyway, today Brooke got to say the opening prayer in primary!  She was excited, and we all came in to watch.  She asked Monica to come help her and she did a wonderful job.  She even spoke into the microphone and I could hear her great from the back of the room!  Good job Brooke!

This past week in the morning Winry started to crawl backwards in circles!  The girls continue to get up in the morning and work out with me.  Brooke loves to do her push ups, and she keeps getting better!  I think she might even do a real one sometime soon!

Brooke wore her Westminster shirt this past week and was really excited about the griffins, so I got her to do some griffin claws and snapped a picture for Niki!  Turns out she has games in Colorado this weekend, but they're over in Grand Junction so we wont be attending.  Good luck Niki and GO GRIFFINS!  (P.S. I've got the game up right now while I'm writing this)

On Thursday night after the kids were in bed Monica and I heard a weird sound from upstairs, so Monica sent me to investigate.  When I got upstairs I started looking around our room for Jelly, and I found her on top of our clothes in the closet!  This is a good 5 feet from the ground, so I'm really not sure how she got up there...  It was really funny though, but it didn't seem like she was sure how to get down, and it was hard to grab her and get her out, but I got her down safe and sound in the end.  I know she's been up there before because I've found cat hair on the collars of my suit coats, but it was nice to get some validation and know I wasn't crazy.

On Friday Monica took the girls to the museum.  They had a great time, and Brooke got to ride a wooden llama!

They found a new children's area they hadn't been to before, and Winry successfully wrangled a platypus.

And on the drive home everyone (except Monica) fell asleep!  What a morning!

Saturday morning we all went to the library together.  We got a bunch of good books, but had to leave a little quickly because Winry needed to get home and have a nap.  When we got home, Jelly was really interested in reading the books that we got!

While at the library, we got the Aristocats, so when we got home we all watched it during Winry's nap.  Everyone loved it so much, and Brooke was highly anticipating "Everybody want's to be a cat" through the entire movie.  We've been listening to a Disney playlist recently and she's apparently grown fond of that song.  Also, she used her mermaid tale blanket while watching the movie and got her feet down into the ends of the fins!

That afternoon I wanted to get out and do something, and Brooke, always ready for a good time, wanted to come with me!  We were watching a friends toddler, so the plan was to stay home, but I guess I went a little stir crazy.  Anyway, where does an adventurous duo go on a Saturday afternoon?  Costco of course!  That's prime sample time!  And we definitely were collecting them faster than Brooke could eat them.  Some of them were also really hot when we got them and needed to cool.  We got enough samples that Brooke didn't even finish all of her's because she got full!

Costco was followed up by a trip to the dollar store.  Brooke really loves to wrap things up in blankets and give them to people in our family as presents.  I told her that sometime I would take her to the dollar store and let her pick a present for everyone, and literally later that day we headed to the dollar store.  Brooke was really excited to get everyone a present, and when we got home we wrapped them all up and handed them out!  What a great gift giver!!

We took one of my new notebooks to church today and Brooke was drawing pictures of everyone around us and giving them to them!  They're pretty awesome pictures, and mine looks just like me!  I'm purple, Monica is yellow, Brooke is pink and Winry is green.

For lunch today we had crepes!  That was a quick turn around.  Talking about getting crepes last week and we've already got our own crepe maker.  The first couple we made were a little rough while we were getting the hang of things, but in the end they turned out great, and everyone loved their lunch!  We also made many extra, so I guess we'll have to eat them during this next week.  Sigh, what a hard life!

Well, that's all for this week.  Brooke's having a crisis right now.  Today's crisis is cutting nails, not to be confused with yesterday's which was bath time... sigh...  I hope everyone has a fantastic week!  I know we will.