Back in the Backyard!

We had a warm weather week, and so we were out in the yard quite a bit.  Grayson especially loves to go out in the backyard lately.  The girls like to play over with the neighbors, and they came over to our backyard this past week as well.  They all ended up in the trampoline.  It's probably good they weren't jumping, cause I'm sure the 4 together were more than that trampoline is meant to handle.

Grayson continues to love going on walks, and he really loves pine trees.  I don't know why evergreens specifically, but he always points at them as you walk down the street, and if there's one close enough he loves to poke them!  We've got a little pine tree growing in our back yard right now, and Grayson loves giving it attention.  He always goes and checks on it when we play out there and gives it a few friendly pats and pokes.  I got a picture today when we were playing in the snow, but I'm planning to save it for next week.

Grayson loves to find toys to carry around outside.  He currently loves cups and balls.  I gave him some of these little balls, and I didn't think about it but I gave him three so he could have a color choice.  After watching him try to hold all three at the same time for a little I got him a bucket so he could carry them all around.  This lead to Easter egg hunting practice, so at least we're preparing!

Jelly has started taking an afternoon nap in Brooke's bed most days to Brooke's delight!  Whenever Brooke gets into bed she tries to be very careful so as to not disturb Jelly.  It's to no avail.  No matter how relaxed Jelly looks, once the lights are off and the noise maker is on she knows what time it is and always gets up and leaves during songs.  But Brooke is still very happy to see Jelly in her bed at night.

Brooke has started up cooking again!  She can make scrambled eggs all on her own!  She helped Monica make dinner tonight as well.  And when I say helped I mean with the cooking, not like how I helped by laying on the floor and letting Grayson climb all over me and drop books on me.

This picture is really about Winry dressing herself.  She wore her homemade Halloween shirt, running shorts, and her Frozen Elsa/Anna heels.  All great choices honestly.  She was also showing off her twirls for Monica that day as well.

Grayson enjoyed some time in the swing this past week.  He has really been loving exploring the yard, so swing time mostly means we need him more contained for some reason, like when we were cooking pizza in the backyard.  He still loves it though.  Speaking of exploring, our back patio is an inch or two above the lawn in some places, and Grayson has been learning how to step down from it.  Currently that means taking a huge step up, and then falling off, but having the drop be fortunately small enough that he can catch himself by running forward.

Here's Winry's big return to the trampoline.  She was showing me how high she could jump, as well as her best trick, which is jumping up and landing on her bum (though catching herself with her legs on the way down still).

I have no clue where the sunglasses came from, but Grayson actually loved wearing them.  He had them on all afternoon!  Any other time I've tried putting some on him he always pulls them off right away.  Don't know what it is about the tigers, but they're a hit!

I don't remember if I mentioned this, but SEAKR was bought by Raytheon sometime around the end of last year.  There have been a few "congratulation" type events since then, and there was another this past week.  They gave us all a free shirt and they had gelato popsicles!  They were quite good, and I happened to have to be in that day anyway, so I just had to walk to the building next door to pick it up.

I put Grayson in the trampoline one day.  I really thought it would be a bigger hit than it was.  Monica is pretty sure that Grayson one time, purely accidentally, jumped.  Like, actually got his feet off the ground.  And he spent most of the rest of that day trying to do it again and we watched him do so many squats.  So I figured he'd be all about the trampoline... but he wasn't.  He bounced a little, but mostly just wanted to get out.

Because outside there were cups, and even better, balls!  And Grayson wanted to thrown down a slam dunk!  He took it to the hoop like slam, even Aaron Carter screamed out JAM!

Grayson has been doing much better at meal times.  Tonight he even ate a bunch of green beans and corn chowder, and he was willing to try out a veggie straw for snack time.  But this post isn't about today, it's about the day Monica PLAYED with him instead of feeding him!  Typical mom...

This is a very important picture.  The reason why is because it comes with a story I've really been wanting to tell (and maybe have...).  At Winry's 4 year check up, Monica told the doctor she'd been having headaches (every morning when she woke up she said her head hurt and then would usually also complain about it multiple times throughout the day) and the doctor said the first thing is to try to help her drink more.  So we've been letting her have some lemonade drink mix each day to help her drink more, and we also put in an electrolyte mix to try to help with the hydration as well.  It's been working great, but the important part of this all is that now, every day, Winry asks us for her "electric light" drink!  I LOVE IT! And we're so glad that her headaches are gone!

On Saturday the girls cleaned the bathroom as that's one of their weekly chores.  They have a split where they both do different parts, and Winry cleaned the tub this past week.  After wiping down the tub she sat down and started cleaning all the toys.  I told her she didn't have to, but it's probably not a bad thing that she did!  I even called her down for snack time and she told me to wait cause she wasn't finished!

Shortly after doing Saturday morning chores, the next door neighbor, Aurelia came over.  Her parents had something going on, so she came over so I could watch her (Monica had a relief society thing, and then a haircut, so she was out for the day).  The girls had a great time playing with her all morning and into the afternoon.  Once Grayson went down for his nap I was completely free to get all kinds of things done around the house.  Everyone had a great time until she eventually went back home.

That afternoon when Monica got home I headed out for a run, and Monica took the girls to play with puppies!  It turned out to not be the most magical trip, but from a kids-eye view it was fantastic!  The girls have been telling me how fun it was to see and play with the puppies.  Brooke sat down and the puppies climbed all over her.  Monica said Grayson even pet/patted/poked them, and they didn't mind as much as Jelly.  When everyone got home all their clothes went straight into the washing machine because Monica was having BAD allergies!

I think that's a wrap for this past week.  Have a fabulous week ahead!

SNOWBALL!!

SNOWBALL!  Winry and I played in what was left of the snow yesterday!  It snowed quite a bit ago, but it's been really cold this past week so it's mostly stayed, at least in the shade.  That means most of our backyard is still good.  I guess Winry had really been wanting to go play, but no one ever took her out during the week, so at least we got there before the snow was gone!

Rewinding way back to Monday, Monica went swimming with Grayson and Brooke while Winry and I were traveling back home.  It's been a while since we went swimming, but she figured everyone would do great.  Turns out Grayson was not ready, which was surprising because he LOVES playing in the bath so much.  They slowly worked their way further and further into the water, and in the end Grayson had a great time!

Meanwhile, Winry and I were making our way around the SLC airport.  I knew they were redoing it, but this was my first time flying there since the update, and EVERYTHING has changed.  So it was cool to see the new airport, but it felt like I was flying into a new place.  On our way out, our gate was right by the Lego store, so we looked around a bit.

Grayson was glad to have me back.  We're bedtime buddies!  He loves Llama llama books right now!

On Saturday we spent the day playing around the house.  Grayson found a pen, and looked rather adorable. 

For snack time we gave him some cheese... like... all the cheese...  We cut him a piece and swapped out the block, but he did get a few bites off the block first.

Grayson is quite the inventor.  His water bottle doesn't have handles, so he found a solution.  He just tried to drop it into the snack holder, and then held them together.

Brooke had a birthday party that Monica took her to, and once Grayson went down for a nap it was just me and Winry, so we headed into the backyard.  Winry wanted to do some of everything, so we had to have a snowball fight (as seen in the first picture), I pulled her around on the sled, and we made snow angels.  Don't worry, Brooke didn't feel like she missed out or anything.  Turns out I forgot to put the sled back in the garage when we came in, so Brooke did a little front room sledding herself. 

And that's a wrap for this week.  Today was pretty warm, and we had stake conference.  I ended up listening to it on my phone while I walked around with Grayson cause he was having none of sitting quietly for 2 hours.  We're going to head out to enjoy the warm weather today!  Have a great week!
 

70th Birthday Surprise!

It's my Dad's 70th birthday!!  Winry and I flew out this weekend to surprise my dad!  All my siblings came out, and we did a great job keeping it under wraps because my dad had NO clue that we were all here!  It was a lot of fun, and we've been having a lot of fun this weekend.  I'll fill in more details when we get to the pictures.

Grayson has been loving this hat he found.  I don't remember where it's from anymore, but it's made it's way back out of hiding, and Grayson loves to wear it around.

Monday was, of course, Valentine's day.  I'm realizing that this post probably should have been titled something about that... but this weekend has been much more recent, and Valentine's feels like a last week thing at this point.  Anyway, Brooke had a Valentine's party at school and made a box to take to put them all in.  It turned out really awesome.

The kids all dressed in fun Valentine's clothes.  Here they all are together at the end of the day.  In other Valentine's news, we revealed secret Valentines in the morning and swapped some gifts.  I gave Monica flowers and got some treats for the kids as well.  We didn't end up getting a babysitter this year, so no other outings to report, but Monica made lasagna for dinner and it was DELICIOUS!  We definitely don't eat it enough.

A few days later we had some spaghetti, and Grayson loves to feed it to himself.  He's a bit.... messy, but at least he loves it!

Grayson loves to sit in Brooke's cheetah chair!  And the girls love to spoil him with ice cream!  I had an all day training for work, so I got home during bedtime and the kids were all up getting ready/playing together.

On Saturday morning Winry and I got up early to head to the airport!  Winry was super excited to be on our way.  I looked online before we left, and there was no parking available by the airport, but a shuttle lot was open.  They haven't had those open for a while, so out to the shuttle lot we headed.  When we got on the bus we were told there was "standing room only," but people were pretty willing to make space on the empty seats for Winry to sit.  Here she is riding to the airport!

We got to go through the precheck lane, so that was nice, and then it was on the train.  Winry loved it!  She climbed up on the end to sit and got to ride next to some other kids.  She loved the train, and tonight when I was putting her to bed asked if we could ride it again tomorrow when we head home.

We took the train past our gate and out to C so that we could get bagels from Einstein's.  In the end, Winry ate like... 3 bites of hers, so good thing we both got one instead of sharing.

Anyway, with bagels in hand we headed back to our gate.  On the train we found a shoe!  Poor kid/their parent!  Winry enjoyed watching this train ride out the back where she could see the tunnel.  Oh, it's also worth noting that in Winry's backpack she was carrying her portable booster seat AND her travel potty seat!

After a little wait, we got to board the plane.  While we were getting on, the flight attendants asked if we wanted to see the cock pit, and one of the pilots moved and let Winry "fly" the plane.  When she got in his seat I told her not to touch anything, and the pilot said "Nah, it doesn't matter, she can basically touch anything right now."

They let us take off our masks to get a picture up there as well.

The flight went well, and after it, we headed to Jerusha's house.  My mom found an excuse to leave so that she could come see everyone. After hanging around a bit we headed to Hire's Big H for lunch!  Here we all are sitting at the table.

Winry was having a great time singing songs with Oriah.

Meanwhile, back at home, Brooke decided she should take over doing laundry for the family.  She did all the laundry on Saturday, so she's taking her self appointed assignment to heart.  Looks like I'll get some laundry help when I get back!

This morning Grandma did Winry's hair after she got out of the tub, and then Winry was all ready for church!  After church we went to Niki's house for lunch and general hanging out.  When we got back to my parents house after, Winry needed a little time to do her thing on her own and played in the basement for a while before dinner.  We had a lot of fun out here, and we've still got a little time tomorrow morning before we need to head back home.

Meanwhile in Colorado, Monica took everyone to a park to burn off some energy (I tried to get Winry to a park, but she said no).  Looks like Brooke had a fun time playing with Grayson.   I know Brooke has been missing Winry while she's been on this trip.  The night before we left, Brooke was crying because she was going to miss Winry, and our first day out she even made Winry a present for when she got back.  Today we called and talked with Monica and Brooke and I could tell that Winry was really missing Brooke too.  It'll be nice to be back home, all together.

Oh, I'm glad I took a second to think if that was everything I had.  I was texting Monica pictures of Winry and my airport adventures.  After we got to our seats I sent a picture of us up in the cockpit, and Monica responded that she was cleaning pee of the floor.  She was changing Grayson's diaper, and he got up and ran away in the middle of it and ended up peeing all over the floor!  I responded that that was a hilarious story when you were on a plane about to take off for a few days!  The good news is that Monica said it was funny for her as well.

I think those are the main stories from this past week.  Hope everyone has a great week ahead!

Grayson's Week

Well, I didn't do this in purpose, but as I reviewed the pictures from this last week, they're almost ALL Grayson.  So I guess he gets a spotlight week, and I'll try to be a better picture taker next week!  I think it's funny that some weeks I put in basically one of every picture (i.e. when we get to the granola bars I took about 10 pictures, but put in my favorite), and other weeks I have so many pictures I completely leave things out!  I feel like the last several weeks have been slower on the picture front.  Things have been going well, just not a lot of really exciting things have been happening.  Anyway, our journey starts today, when Grayson didn't want to stay in the church building, so I was roving outside with him.  Here he is in his Valentines get up.

The girls both had make up dance classes this past week since their normal classes got snowed out.  Winry's was after work, so I was able to take her!  I brought Grayson and Brooke with me as well as Monica was at the chiropractor.  Anyway, there was a donation bin for a food drive at dance, and it was filled with granola bars.  After a while, Grayson didn't want to be in my lap any more, and in fact, was very interested in a granola bar!  I fed him all the snacks we had in the diaper bag, but it wasn't enough.  I tried to give him Pikachu, but he threw him in the granola bar box!  We managed to get through dance without eating any of their granola bars, but my oh my this little stinker!

I think I gave Grayson a few new foods this week.  One was at dance when I found a fruit leather in the diaper bag, which he loved.  Another day there was a rice cake out on the counter, he reached for it and I gave it to him.  It took him all day to eat it, but he eventually finished it with his dinner.

Since putting together my stance mat, I've been golfing a lot more at nights.  I'm also still working on my program that reads the Optishot data for use in other programs.  It's coming along very nicely.  I think I'll be at a pretty good spot in functionality this week, so maybe I'll post a video and pictures next week if I remember.  Anyway, Jelly LOVES my golf net.  Like, she immediately jumps into it as soon as I set it up.  This past week, she also started going crazy and trying to chew her way out or something.  Mind you, it's completely open behind her.  Anyway, I always have to close her in my room or the basement.  I did get her to sit in her cat hammock for a little by covering it in catnip, but then we progressed to this point, so I don't know that it was really better than usual.

Friday is "pizza" day and family movie night.  We actually had pizza this past Friday (it had been a while), and in honor of valentines day I heart-ed the dough! This was the second one, and it looked better than the first cause I got the top farther down.

That was a pretty long detour from Grayson, but fear not, we're back!  Yesterday we were all getting ready to head out, and Grayson needed his shoes on.  He walked over and sat on the bottom step of the stairs, and then Brooke put his shoes on him!  Monica told me that Brooke also got him dressed one day this past week. All by herself!! Monica thought Brooke was going to just pick his clothes, but they went into his room, Brooke closed the door, and when they came out Grayson was dressed for the day.  You know Brooke did a good job too, because I didn't put in a picture of Grayson dressed funny!

And finally, here's Grayson having breakfast this morning.  I just thought he looked really cute eating his strawberries.

Well, that was a pretty quick week.  I think that's all I've got though.  We've been doing secret valentines, so everyone has someone they do something special for each day.  It's been common to find a small pile of candy on pillows, or a made bed this past week.  We'll reveal who we've been serving tomorrow, and give them a gift, so you can at least look forward to that in next week's blog!  Have a great week!

Nolan came to play

Howdy y'all.  On Saturday Katie and Nolan came down to visit us.  Nolan has grown so much since the last time he came down and ate the leaves in our backyard.  The kids had a great time playing together, and Nolan LOVED Jelly.  He was very good with her, and mostly just wanted to give her toys to play with.

Grayson has been a super snuggler this past week.  He loves to lay his head down on basically any blanket he can find, and sometimes on my lap too.  He loves to climb into our blanket basket, which can be problematic because he hasn't figured out how to climb back out yet.  While we're on the topic of Grayson I want to share this video from the library!  They have a car there now where kids can play mechanic, and it looks like Grayson was lugging around the antifreeze can, and even filling the tires!

It's been pretty cold here this past week.  Naturally that means that Winry would still want to sleep in a night gown, but when she wakes up she's "freezing."  So one morning she came down with her hat on!  She looked SOO cute!

Winry helped Monica make some chocolate banana muffins this past week.  She got to lick her whisk and really seemed to enjoy it.  And once you've got that muffin batter in you what do you do? You DANCE!  The girls have really liked listening to the songs from Encanto lately, with the one in the video being their favorite.

It would appear we forgot to close the bathroom door sometime this past week, and that detail was not missed by Grayson.  It would seem he still loves to unroll some toilet paper.  I don't think he's done this for quite a while, but it appears to be a favorite.

Here's Jelly, blending in with the dinosaurs.  She was hard for me to spot as well at first.

While Katie and Nolan were here the egg of yarn balls got popped open.  Fortunately Grayson was in the mood to be a helper and put them away.  The balls were hidden in the egg because Grayson loves to bite them and rip them apart.

That's about all I've got for this week.  I hope everyone is doing well!