Sunday, March 30, 2008

First Big Ouch!

Parker had his first visible injury today at church.  He's had his bonks before, but this one is actually staying around and we witnessed some blood.  That's a big deal for an 11 month old!  Of course, it happened in sacrament meeting, meaning the whole ward heard about it.  He was standing up to the bench on the floor and just kinda fell over.  On the way down he hit his eye on the corner of the bench. It happened so fast, it's hard to say exactly what happened, but that's the jist.  So, here's our little guy's first big boo boo...

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Ice Skating!

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Samantha has been begging us for a few months now to take her ice skating.  We didn't mind doing it, but just haven't had much time...until yesterday.  We woke up with nothing too important to do, so we finally took Sam skating.  Actually, Jeremy did and I took pictures and watched Parker.  Fun!  She was so excited and acted like she'd done it a million times.  And to our surprise, she did amazingly well.  We rented a "walker" for her to skate with and after a little while she didn't even want to use it.  At first she fell, but after a few tries she was doing little twirls and skating all by herself!  I was worried that after one fall she'd be done, but she was a trooper and kept on going.  We got her on video doing her freeskating, but no pictures.  I want to try to post a video, but I need Jeremy's expertise, so that will have to wait until later.  Now Sam wants to take ice skating lessons, she tells us.  She'll have to do it a lot more than once before we'll pay that kind of money.  She was very impressive though!

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She kinda did look a little old lady at first with that walker.  She kinda walked at first intead of skated.

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This is her first attemt at skating by herself.  She did pretty good, but quickly learned about balance. 

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After skating she walked around in her skates like they were shoes, no problem!

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Snow???

Ok, I don't know about everyone else (except Emily) but I am sooo ready for it to be spring!!!  OR, I'm sooo ready for it to feel like spring, I should say.  Anyway, I had heard it was supposed to snow yesterday and I didn't really think it would happen, being it's Seattle and all.  WELL, it DID!  Not a lot, but enough to make me even more frustrated that it's not warm yet!  For those of you not from around here...it doesn't snow the end of March in Seattle.  Well, apparently it does, but it's not normal.  Jeremy heard it's supposed to snow again this weekend, maybe up to 3 inches.  I know, I know...those of you from Utah and Idaho are probably laughing, but that's a big deal around here.  3 inches calls for school closures!  Crazy, huh?  Well, soon enough I suppose.  I can't wait for the sunshine!!!

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Our front yard.  It's just starting to really snow at this point. 

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Our back deck getting it's accumulation.  I admit, watching it fall is pretty!

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Our Fish!

Sam loves to swim, so we've enrolled her in swimming lessons.  She's done classes a few times before, but I always forgot my camera.  She's lucky to have her friends in the same class, so everybody but one she already knew.  She really likes her teacher, Ms. Kris!  At first, she's a little intimidating, but you grow to love her.  She's great with the kids!  I can really tell a difference in Samantha's water skills since she's started her classes.  She puts her face in the water willingly and jumps off the side of the pool, with the help of her teacher waiting to catch her. She's learning to float and dive under the water.  She's our little fish!

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This is the little "table" that they stand on in the middle of the pool while teacher is one on one with another child.

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Here's all the kids in the class.  It's all girls, just like at church.  Where are all those boys?

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She wouldn't have done this in her last session of classes, so this is an improvement by far.

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To practice hanging on to the side by themselves they pretend to be monkeys and go down the whole side of the pool, hand over hand.

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Sam swimming from teacher to the side of the pool.

Easter Sunday continued...



Here are a few more pictures of Easter Sunday. Enjoy!

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The kids finding as many eggs as possible at Grandpa and Grandma Klein's house.

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Sam checking out what she got in the hunt.

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Tuckered out Parker. It was a long day for him.

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Sam showing off her new skills.  Ana-Lisa tried to show her how to REALLY play, but she wasn't interested.

Easter Sunday

We started the morning early, having to be to church by 8:30.  The kids played in their easter baskets and I took pictures.  We then headed off to church to talk about the true meaning of Easter.  After church we had some down time and attempted to have the kids take naps, but with no success.  We made plans to go to Grandpa and Grandma Klein's house for another Easter egg hunt in the house.  We woke up that morning to a very soggy day, which meant no outdoor fun that day.  It poured and poured.  Miserable.  Samantha was very eager again to get as many eggs as possible. We had fun over there and ate too much candy and junk, but I guess that's what you do on holidays!  Our next stop was Grandma Linda's house where we had a great, traditional ham dinner.  The kids also got fun Easter baskets and a gift from Grandma Linda as well.  We learned that Samantha really likes to play the piano and make up her own songs that day.  She's quite talented, actually.  She took it very seriously.  Parker got so tired and just layed around towards the end, which meant it was time to get home.  Thanks for a wonderful Easter, family!

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Easter Egg Hunt

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The neighborhood that we live in now has an annual Easter egg hunt at the park.  We had never been to it before, but thought we'd try it out.  It turned out to be a great way to start our Easter weekend.  We invited Taylee and Rohne (Sam and Parker's cousins) and some friends of ours that are in our ward.  We live close enough to the park that we were able to walk there and bring the kids in the wagon.  There were a lot of kids, but no so many that it was too overwelming, which was good.  The local firestation, which is right next to the park, drove one of their fire trucks over to the park so the kids could check it out and eventually they hooked up the hose and squirted anyone who was in the mood to get drenched.  Mind you...it was 10:00 in the morning and not very warm.  Some kids were gutsy enough and had a blast.  Samantha got up the nerve and as she was walking toward it, they stopped.  She was a little disappointed, but not very.  Sam got out there and got quite a few eggs.  I thought she'd be a little shy, but I was wrong.  Overall, I think it was a success.  Samantha came home with tons of candy and some great little toys from the prize table (you got tickets in your eggs that you redeemed for fun little toys at the end!).  Very fun!

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Thursday, March 20, 2008

What a mess!

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Every once in a while I just let Parker go at it.  At his food, that is.  It's a mess and I always regret it afterwards, but it's so much easier than sitting there feeding him every single bite of food when I know he can do it himself.  It just means that I HAVE to give him a bath whether I planned on it or not.  And it also means I not only have to clean him up, but also the floor and sometimes walls.  The times I do this are the nights when things are crazy and I'm trying to get dinner going and dinner is something Parker can't or won't eat anyways, so I feed him while I'M going nuts but it makes HIM happy.  I then turn around after a minute to find this...

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Daddy Time

The kids love Dad!  And Dad love them!  Jeremy is an amazing father and spends as much time as he can with them.  He loves to take Samantha with him on Saturday outings.  They go to the hardware store together and he's taken her more than once to the dump (I know... it sounds crazy, but she really likes it!)  Sam absolutely loves to wrestle around with Jer and she always wants him to  thrown her on our bed.  Unfortunately, that's left a few marks (on her), but she always comes back for more.  Parker has been getting into it lately as well.  He gets so excited when he sees Dad wrestling around with Samantha and wants to join in the fun.  He's had his share of throws on the bed and also a little rough housing.  I can't wait to see what happens when he's older and wants to wrestle with Dad. It could get crazy!  Jeremy also reads to Samantha every night.  When you ask Samantha who she wants to read to her, she'll say "Dad".  It's so cute to see them together.  The most recent thing is dancing in our house.  Samantha loves to dance and especially loves to dance with Jeremy.  We have a bunch of old swing music and other old records that we've been listening to and that's become her favorite thing to dance to. Jeremy loves to dance with her as well and they have a blast!  Parker just likes to get in the middle of everything and be a part of as much as possible. Jer does a great job of letting him join the fun and has had many bonding moments with him.  We have a great Dad!

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Jer and Parker setting up our record player stand.  This is when the swing dancing began!

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Here's some of their dancing after church the other day.  Of course Sam had to get a tutu on and some slippers to dance.

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Never mind the sagging tights and hiked up dress...cute picture if you don't look at that!

Go Parker!

Parker sure is growing up...and fast!  He's 23 lbs!  Can you believe it?!  He's such a big boy in more ways than one.  He'll be one whole year next month!  He's doing and learning new things everyday.  He's learned to say "kitty" and "bye bye" and of course "ma ma" and "da da" and we're working on "night night". It's just crazy how time flies. He's mastered the skill of crawling and cruising, but a little hesitant with the walking.  I know it's still early, but Sam was walking at 11 months, so Parker should be too, right???  No.  I'm just kidding.  I've finally gotten him to walk using his push toy, which up until now he has refused to use, except to walk on his knees which he's excellent at. At first the toy got away from him and he'd end up on his face, but finally his legs have caught up with the speed of the wheels and he's on the go.  I think his weight is slowing him down a big and making him tired.  After only a minute or two his legs turn to jello and he's on his bum.  I guess it would be hard work for a big boy like him. I'm sure the time will come that I will be wishing he wasn't walking!  I miss my little baby already!  He's quite the cutie!

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Tuesday, March 11, 2008

A's

Samantha's new favorite thing to write is the letter "A".  She's getting pretty good at it too!  The other day this is what she did for pretty much the whole afternoon...

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First House Project

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Samantha has been driving me crazy lately, insisting that her room be pink. When anyone would ask her if she likes her new bedroom, she would reply by saying, "No, because it's not pink."  What a little stinker!  So, last week I buckled down and bought some pink paint.  I wasn't planning on painting that day, but right when we got in the car, Sam got excited, talking about how we were going to paint her room when we got home.  So, that's what we did.  It was a little crazy, trying to juggle the paint, Sam wanting to help, and a 10 month old!  It only took me 4 hours!  But, we got through it and now we have a happy Samantha!

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Trying to keep Parker out of the paint wasn't easy!  I blocked him out of the main part of the room by putting the bed in front of the entrance.  He wasn't always happy about this. I finished up by the door after he went to bed.

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In mid painting. We went from a dull, off-white color to this!

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The finished product.  I would still like to put some curtains up or a cute valance.  She loves her pink room!

PB&J Time!

By now you would think I should be putting up some pictures of our new house, but of course, it's taking me longer than planned to do all I want to do and I don't think I'm quite ready to reveal it to everyone.  It's liveable, but as far as decorating and looks go, it's not up to par yet.  I love it though!  I feel at home and I love the neighborhood.  Thanks to everyone's husbands that helped with the move!

Anyways, last week after ballet Samantha informed me that she wanted a PB&J sandwich. I told her I would get it in a minute and that I was busy at the time.  I came into the kitchen to find my little three year old with the peanut butter and the jelly and bread and knife all ready to make a sandwich.  I went to help her out and she refused, telling me that she can do it all by herself!  She did a great job!   She folded it over and cut it too.  I guess this is one less thing I have to do!

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