Week in Provo

This last week, Chad was in Salt Lake for training for his new job. Erin invited me to spend the week with her, which sounded like a better idea than sitting up in Idaho by myself. And Chad's new job was paying for gas, so, why not? We called a neighbor to watch the dog and someone else to keep the lawn watered, and off we went!

Brush fire started by a pickup truck fire. Just north of Blackfoot. Apparently it had just happened because the road was still open and there was this guy with his hose. 

Chad's fancy hotel room at the Crystal Inn & Suites (complete with "social hour" and light dinner in the evenings.) 

It was late when Chad checked in. Charlie thought he was staying.  He climbed up on the bed and made himself comfortable. Aww... 

Sunset Monday night. 

Entertaining himself in the car. Love this boy. 

I spent the week doing fun things with Erin while Chad spent the week learning about his new job. We went to a kid movie on Tuesday morning. It was an Oceans documentary. This was Charlie's first movie experience. If it was Despicable Me, he might've been interested longer than the 30 minutes we made it before the babies were done and we went and played at the mall "playground".

One of the funnest parts of getting together with Erin is watching Charlie and Addie "play". Addie did a lot of following Charlie around trying to take away whatever he was playing with. After which, Charlie would throw himself on the floor and scream. She also frequently tried to tuck him in with a blanket and stuffed animal. When she started heading for him, he'd come screaming and running to hide behind me or get me to pick him up. I snapped this picture because it was one of the few times they were actually getting along. They parked themselves on the floor with their little bowls of cereal. They certainly were busy getting into everything but it was still fun to have two of them for a little while.

Sad this picture is blurry. 

On Thursday, we decided to go to the candy store. We got 500 candy sticks for $5! (It was supposed to be $10, but they had apparently had a sale the weekend before, and (accidentally or not) charged Erin the sale price, so I had her get me some too!)

Watching the lady make eyeballs.

We also went to the park and chased babies around for a while.

By the time I got the camera, Charlie was done being in the swing.

Story time! 

This is pretty typical. Addie would "pat" Charlie when he started crying that she was coming after him. 

Typical morning on the couch playing video games. 

Charlie got anxious about whatever was happening. 

 We also spent one morning at the new Provo Rec Center. We got there relatively early (noonish?) so we could get in and out before it got too busy and before nap-time. The boys were really excited about the slides which snake in and out of the building. We were disappointed to learn that the slides (and the kiddie splash playground) didn't "turn on" until 1:00pm. So that was annoying. Also that Charlie was really excited about the water slides until I was told the slides were made for little kids and I couldn't go on them with him. The start of the slide is up the stairs, and then the exit of the slide is on the opposite side down in the water, so trying to run and catch them really fast is pretty impossible. Charlie got brave and went once without me, and came down on his back, head first. Yeah, he pretty much loved that. NOT. And then he wouldn't go on the slides again. He was wearing a life jacket, but that doesn't really help them keep their faces out of the water when they fall over on their tummies. The one little slide they had that was open (not a tube slide) where you might be able to hold your baby's hand as they came down was "closed because it wobbles." Oh. Cool. And just before 1:00, the daycare kids showed up. So... it was fun... but I guess our expectations were too high.

And on Friday, Will and Sawyer found a garter snake out in the yard, which they were very proud of. They ran inside to find a box to set up a habitat for their new friend. They carried the poor thing around all day. Sawyer discovered it could swim by putting it in the pool. We figured it would get out overnight, but it was still in it's box in the morning.

They're all looking at Chad making crazy faces to get their attention. 

We made a quick trip to Home Depot to get something to fix Erin's birthday swing. This is pretty much how it went - Charlie and Addie "drove" the cart happily for about 10 seconds before Addie started hitting Charlie to get his hands off of the steering wheel. Here Will is playing referee as Addie has obviously already bossed Charlie around. It is slightly amusing because Charlie is much more "solid" than Addie, but she doesn't care, and he doesn't act like it. We were afraid he was turning into a bully, but he wouldn't mess with her.

Eating like a big boy. 

This is what happens when Addie apparently wants to get dressed. She found some little bloomers, and one of the boys' dirty socks, which she put on inside out. 

Cousin picture on Erin's swing.

We stayed with Erin's kids (minus Hazel) on Friday night and Saturday, and then it was time to head back to Idaho. 

On the way back, we stopped at the Burger King in Malad for a treat and a break from the car. We are becoming well-acquainted with this Burger King as 2 hours seems to be about as long as Charlie can stand in the car. 

Took this picture on the way back up. Because (hopefully) we won't always live in Idaho.  It came out pretty good! 

Chad's eating a car! 

Charlie's teeth have been bothering him so this is a pretty common pose these days.

Charlie Lately

When we took Charlie to his 18-month appointment (just before he "turned" 19-months) the doctor commented that his weight had dropped off a little. He was no longer in the 95+ percentile he was in before, and he (supposedly) hadn't grown measurably taller either. He was still in the 85th or 88th percentile but still. He asked if Charlie was a picky eater, which we affirmed. But don't worry - I eat enough calories for the both of us. Wait, it doesn't work that way anymore?!

 We spend every meal times scrounging through the refrigerator and cabinets, offering Charlie anything we can think of to see what he'll eat. Then he'll often eat a couple of bites before he decides he's done with that and you start all over again. Things he used to eat, he doesn't eat anymore. (Bananas, for one.) He won't eat anything with peanut butter on it. He won't eat chocolate. Or Reese's Pieces (his previous "quiet" candy) The only things we can seem to get him to eat these days are buttered/salted noodles, mac & cheese, yogurt and pizza. He did eat some banana bread the other day. He will pretty reliably eat popsicles (Otter Pops), and ice cream. He was pretty fond of chicken nuggets in CT, but when we tried them last week, he would only eat them dipped in ice cream. I think he's got us figured out. The doctor told us to put some powdered drink mix into his milk bottles to beef up his calorie intake. So now he gets chocolate milk bottles. Who knew we would have to start pushing calories into my 9+ lb baby?!

When you put him in his high chair, he does this:

We did this for about an hour a couple of days ago. I finally got him to eat a couple bites of bagel, so I let him down. He wouldn't eat anything after that. Later, we offered him some food, and went to put him in his high chair. He screamed. We put him down. He grabbed a cup (that he had previously dumped out of a box onto the kitchen floor) walked over to a kitchen chair, and pulled himself up onto it. We put the food in his cup, he reached in, pulled it out, and ate it. He is still a picky eater, but he seems to be less picky when he is sitting in a regular chair, with food on a plate and a drink in a cup (we've been working on it - and he's getting pretty good!) instead of a bottle. If it requires silverware, he will scream if you attempt to put it in his mouth, but he'll be fine if you hand it into him to put in his own mouth. Which turns into this:

He ate a whole piece of pizza (the most he's eaten in one sitting in a while) this way. And drank (and spilled) a whole lot of water. 

This is just one of those things that we'll look back on when he's doing stupid teenage things and think "Remember when our biggest problem was trying to get him to eat?"

"Beach" Trip!

With temperatures in the high 90s all week, yesterday we decided to beat the heat by going to Jefferson County Lake (aka Rigby Lake).  We only stayed for a couple of hours but had lots of fun playing in the water.

Goodbye Jermaine!

At the beginning of June, we decided it was time to say goodbye to Jermaine. Last fall, Chad was about to take it to go pickup the trailer we needed to move all of the band equipment to the stadium for our first field show! But, the van wouldn't shift into reverse to back out of the driveway, which prompted a scramble to find a truck to pickup the trailer. Anyway, it hasn't really moved since then. Chad eventually drove it around the house to the back driveway just to get it out of sight(ish). So, after 6 1/2 years with Chad, we cleaned him out, took some pictures and said goodbye. We had a fun time with the van, and it came in extremely handy when I became a band director. We liked it because it was big and boxy with tons of room. We were sad to see it go, but we knew this day was coming. (We bought the Forester last January because we knew our cars (the van and the old Subaru Legacy) wouldn't last very much longer.) 

Mom's Birthday

Right after school got out, mom had a birthday! She was in Utah to help with Hazel, so we decided to surprise her and bring the party to her! We got to Provo around 10 or 11, watched a "parade", had yummy catered barbecue lunch, helped with the kids while mom went shopping, had dinner, and opened presents!

They had a funeral procession for a soldier who was killed in Iraq/Afghanistan. Here are the cousins waiting for the hearse to come by. 

Lookin' good!! 

Obligatory birthday dinner at Chuck-A-Rama/Golden Corral/Stuff-your-face-land. 

Um. No comment. Love you, Will!  

Opening Presents!

Will and mom reading "60 for your Sixtieth" - 10 thank you notes from each of her children. 

Mom with her Nexus. 

Flowers from dad. 

Self-portrait by Sawyer. 

Wanting to go outside. 

And... Charlie would not let go of this ladybug cart the whole time we were there. 

Not quite the mother/daughter picture I was going for but hey! 3 generations!! 

Chad's Birthday

For Chad's 33rd Birthday, we went to dinner at Dickey's barbecue, and then came home to have cake and open presents. The cake was acting up, which I assume was because I tried to bake it the day before, which happened to be Mother's Day. Everyone knows the mom's not supposed to do anything on Mother's Day. The cake wouldn't release from the pan, didn't rise very much, burnt a little bit on the bottom, and the frosting didn't thicken up. Buuuuuutttttt it still tasted really good. Yum! 

Blowing out the candles! 

Cake

Ove' Glove from Chad's parents

CD of music from the Ken Burns' National Parks documentary. (I bought it in Yellowstone the week before)


Chad's big gift was concert tickets to go see the Goo Goo Dolls and Matchbox 20 in concert in New Hampshire on June 25th when we visited Connecticut. Updates about that will be in the CT post(s). 

School is almost over!

Summer is just around the corner. I am preparing finals and wrapping up classes. And this is how I feel: