a STREEETCH of imagination. and other worthwhile clips

Belle: "Mommy lets play house. I'll be the baby, and you be the Mommy."
Me: "I think I can do that"


later:
Belle: "Lets play Buggie and Bella. I'll be Buggie, Buggie you be Bella, and Mommy, you're the Mom."
Me: "Ok, I think I can do that"
(the problem with this game is that Bugs doesn't quite understand that we are calling him Bella;-)

Belle used to ask me to cut her PB&J into shapes like squares or triangles or even rectangles. Now she only asks for ovals. Smartie pants figured out if she asked for an oval I would cut all the crust off;-)

Belle's friend to me: "Bella and I have a deal"
Me: "oh really, what's that?"
Friend: " I am playing with this horse, and she is playing with that one. That's our deal."


Belle: "Heavenly Father knew I like David and Austin (neighbors). So he found us a house by them"

The Next Phil

I couldn't get this video to upload to the blog, so I put it on YouTube instead. Here's a link.
Blah. my links never work. Here's the address you can paste into your browser.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6au8MLby-l4


This is one attempt to get Buggie to speak in public. He doesn't. It's so cute to hear him say "club", but he refuses when we ask him to!

Giggles

Opinionated? Naw.....

Keith is getting to the point where he has his own ideas of how things should go. that's why he sleeps like this:




What? On the floor with his 'lops' on? Yup. Don't ask why, I have no idea. I can't leave him there all night so I put him in bed after he is asleep.

He has also been learning to say important vocabulary words such as "flashlight" and "flamingo". Oh, and "shovel", of course. That one is very useful in the sandbox. He measured in for his 18 mo. checkup at 27 lbs. (50th percentile) and 34 inches tall (91st percentile). He is turning out to be tall and skinny. Are we surprised?

Little Fish

1st Day of swimming lessons



I debated about doing swimming lessons this year, and had originally decided against them. They are so little still. But then Belle started asking for swimming lessons. So we did it. And she cried for Mommy the entire first day. But after awhile she warmed up and started to feel a lot more comfortable in the water. Keith loved the play time with me and would practically dive in if I didn't stop him, but didn't like doing much of what the teacher had us do. I participated with him in the parent-child class, and wouldn't much recommend it except that I knew he wouldn't be content just watching. So, in spite of the outdoor pool and it being unusually cool a few days (next year we are thing INDOOR pool for lessons!) we enjoyed the class and we are glad we did it.

THE Sandbox

David has built a very impressive and awesome sandbox by the side of our house. It is 8' x 8', and really deep (about 2'). Yesterday the sand started arriving at about 10:30 am, thanks to Uncle Mark who drove his truck out to help David get the sand from a gravel pit in Erda. The kids started playing in it immediately, and except one break for PB&J, we were pulling them out at 7 pm amid much protest. About 1 pm it is in full shade from the house, and stayed really comfortable out there. We had the neighbors in it as well, and one 4 yr old boy went home to report: "Mom, I had the best day...and Uncle Mark kept bringing more sand..." (yep, Mark, you have endeared yourself to the hearts of the neighbor kids;-).

So here are the photos:






It took three loads of sand. A little over 3 cubic yards, I believe. Every time David and Mark made it back with more sand Belle would take charge and get all the kids out of the sandbox and copy David in motioning the truck back. It was cute.










(note about the photos: I am so grateful to have them! I dropped the camera in water yesterday afternoon and have feared for it's life since. Pleased to report a full recovery!!)

A day to just stay home!

SO yesterday was the first day in a very long time that we had no activity or appointment to run off too! Hooray! We have been very busy having a lot of fun. We have had three family reunions (including a trip to Cooke City), and swimming lessons all in the last month since we took our trip to Chicago. Craziness! So, at the risk of this blog becoming our family travel log, I am going to try and update you on our adventures. I just uploaded 250+ pictures off my camera, so watch out.