Scruffy

When Mike doesn't shave Colin says he is "scruffy." It doesn't matter if it has been just one day or one week since Mike shaved...if he isn't smooth, he is scruffy. Colin will tell his dad that when he gets big like him (Mike) he will be scruffy, too. He says, "when I am a man like you I will be scruffy." Colin said it again today. He was just sitting on the couch and he tells me, "I have scruffies, mom." He wanted me to feel his face and it was just a little bump that was on his cheek. I told him it was just a little bump and he said, "oh, then I am still smooth."

Colin plays the "drums"...Katie laughs

Colin was pounding on the desk last night and Katie just started to laugh out loud. He would pound on the desk...she would laugh. When he stopped pounding, she stopped laughing. Too cute!

My new Blog

I have created a new blog for the most recent recipes I have tried. Right now I am on a summer cooking kick...trying to keep the oven off! You can go see the new blog if you click on the link in our family blog..."Seasonal Bites with Krista" or you can go to this address:
http://seasonalbites.blogspot.com/

enjoy!!

Cousin Kayla

My aunt asked me to post this pic of my cousin Kayla's Jr. Prom. This is for you, Aunt Michelle!

Here's a Katie Post

Katie is getting so big. She is learning all kinds of new things. She can sit up by herself if she leans foward. She is getting pretty stable if I have the Boppy behind her. She likes to bang her little toys against the ground. She loves to look at books and will make lots of noise when you have the hymn book in front of her and you are singing. She loves our dog, Lola, and lets her lick her hands, feet, and face (although I don't let this go on too long). Katie loves to eat rice cereal, strained pears and applesauce. She hates the swing and bouncer seat and loves to be on the move. She prefers the floor so she can roll around and turn herself around, searching for her toys and grabbing them.

If you look at Katie in a shy, coy way and smile at her, she will do the same to you.

Katie loves to chew on everything...and I mean everything!

Katie loves to look at whatever you are eating and will stare at it and then follow it as you put the said food item into your mouth with a gaze of steel! i.e. I made fresh blackberry cake yesterday for dessert and served it with a scoop of ice cream:

So...how was your morning?

It's 1am. Colin snuck into our room and wants to climb into bed with us...and he does. He wakes me up trying to wedge himself between Mike and I. "Colin," I say, "go back to your bed." This wakes up Mike and rolls himself out of bed, picks up Colin and takes him back to his room.

It's 3am. Mike wakes up to start the paper route. I rustle somewhat but I stay half-asleep as he gets dressed and leaves. I do remember him saying that Colin was on the floor next to his side of the bed. So sometime between 1 and 3 am Colin snuck back into our room and fell asleep on the floor. This time he brought his own quilt and pillow with him...smart boy.

It's a little after 5am. Mike gives me a peck on the cheek and says he's going to stay up and work out on the Wii Fit. If Mike doesn't let me know he's home, or he's not back in bed by 5:30am I start to worry. I roll over and see that Colin is back in our bed. Sometime between 3am and 5am he got up off the floor and crawled into my bed. I sleepily ask Mike, "when did Colin climb into bed?"

It's 7am. Mike comes back into the room to get ready for work. I turn over to see if Colin is still in the bed and he is. I move over to him a bit and uggggggghhhhh!!!! I roll right into a wet spot! Colin has peed our bed! A perfect circle right around his bottom. "Mike!," I yell. "Colin peed the bed!" I don't think I have ever jumped out of bed so fast in my life. Mike picks up Colin by his armpits and carries him into the bathroom, strips him down and makes him go potty some more.

I proceed to strip the bed and thanks my lucky stars that we spent the extra money on a waterproof mattress pad. I roll everything up in the mattress pad, including Colin's wet pajamas and underpants, make my way to the laundry room and throw everything in the washer. The sheets needed a good cleaning anyways.

My Bumps, My Bumps, My Lovely Boy Bumps

The weather in Visalia is crazy right now. The temperature last weekend was 100 degrees. This past week it cooled off into the 80's and 70's. This weekend...it's raining and cool! To top if off, it is supposed to be 90 degrees on Tuesday. Make up your mind already!

So besides the weather, something funny happened at dinner tonight. Colin has had this wierd fascination with his mucsles ever since we got our Wii Fit. At dinner tonight he was trying to pump up his biceps. He kept saying, "see, but I don't have any bumps"(meaning his biceps). So Mike pulls his sleeves up and tells Colin, "you want bumps like this?" Colin just shakes his head yes and says, "yeah, but dad, you have big bumps." He curled his arm again and said, "I can't do it." I just thought it was so funny, but Colin was so serious about it. I didn't want him to see me laughing because I thought it might upset him. I just turned away and snickered and got it all out. When I was able to compose myself I told Colin that he had to do lots of push ups and then he would have bigger muscles. He then curls his arm again and says, "no, I just have to pump my arm like this and they will get bigger." Kids say the darndest things!

Will it Grow?

Don't poop on it, Lola!
Our dirt patch

Colin learned about how apples have seeds. He thinks that if we plant a seed from an apple, it will grow. I think I tried this many times as a child but it never worked for me.

So Colin had an apple for lunch today and I remembered to save the seeds (just two from this apple). After lunch we went to the backyard (still a dirt-patch) and found a nice corner on the south east side. Digging into that dirt was impossible. It has been compacted by a year's worth of seasons. But I didn't want to disappoint Colin so I got out the big shovel and started to jab at the soil. He got in there with his little plastic shovel and did more dirt flinging than digging...but he was having fun. I finally got a hole big enough for the seeds and had Colin place them in. We watered the dirt and covered up the seeds. He helped me water the top of the soil. Then he asked, "but mom, how will we find the tree?" So he proceeds to gather up some rocks and he put them in a circle around the spot where we watered. I took it a step further and made a simple sign, stapled it around a disposable chopstick and stuck it in the ground.

I have to admit that I was pretty proud of my little project for the day. The most rewarding part was spending time with Colin and seeing his little, creative mind at work.

Does it look more like a seed marker or a grave marker??

My new best friend!

So we preordered a Wii Fit and I picked it up today. Okay...gotta tell you that I love it! I spent an hour on it today just going through all the activities. My favorite ones are hula hoop, ski jump and yoga. If you have a Wii and you can get your hands on a Wii Fit, I highly suggest that you get one.

He Eats!

Colin has always been a fussy eater. For the past two weeks or so he has been wanting to try new foods. He has eaten scrambled eggs, turkey bacon, spaghetti with meat sauce, plain noodles with butter and Parmesan cheese, blueberry waffles. I am so amazed that he finally likes to eat these foods. Here is the funny thing...Colin already likes to eat Boca Burgers, Morningside Breakfast Sausage Patties (both things vegetarian). He will eat weird things like that, but not "typical" kid food.

So I made pasta tonight and left some plain for Colin to have with butter and Parmesan cheese. I proceeded to cut them up so he could just pick the noodles up with a spoon. I gave him his bowl of pasta and he practically breaks down and says he wanted "long noodles! Not short ones!" I simply told him that that was all there was unless he wanted long noodles with pesto, sun-dried tomatoes, and goat cheese. He just looked at me kinda funny and started to eat his noodles.

I hope he keeps wanting to experiment and try more new foods!

By the way...he loves chocolate cake and will only eat this type of cake! This pic was from his 4th birthday back in January and it looks like he's had his fill of cake.

Yummy Toes!

Katie found her toes yesterday. She has been grabbing her feet for the past week, but she started sucking on her toes yesterday. I caught this picture of her. She seems completely delighted to be sucking her toes!

FOUR YEAR OLDS REALLY DO LISTEN!

We had Family Home Evening tonight. Because we have a 4 year old and a 5 month old, FHE tends to be no longer than 15 minutes. Because he can read the titles, we let Colin pick the song out of the Children's Songbook. Then he usually says the opening prayer.

Our lesson tonight was out the May Friend. It was about mothers that are mentioned in the scriptures. The object was to match their descriptions with their names and the names of their sons. There were drawings of that mother on the other side of the page. The first description talked about her sons returning to Jerusalem to get the brass plates. When I asked Colin who the mother of those sons was, he said, "it was Nephi's mom. They got the plates." Now I really don't remember specifically telling Colin about the story of Nephi and his family. I thought that maybe he learned it in primary. When we asked where he heard about Nephi he said, "the book in my room." I had forgotten that Colin has a children's Book of Mormon board book that gives very brief descriptions about the stories in the Book of Mormon. We have read that book to him several times since he got it.

Goes to show you that your children are listening to every word you tell them!

DMV Fun!

So my birthday was last Thursday. I knew that my driver's license expired this year and I have been anticipating it since the beginning of the year. I always get my renewal notice in the mail. I have only stepped foot inside of a DMV twice in the past 19 years. The first time was when I got my license at 16, and then when I got married and had my last name changed (5 years ago).

So I am running around last Friday with the kids in the car and I get to the bank to take care of some things with DUP (I was just elected the new Captain of the camp here for Daughters of Utah Pioneers). The bank account had to be switched into my name so I could sign the checks. Anyway, the customer service lady asked for my ID and I handed her my license. She looks at it, then looks at me and says, "do you know that your license has expired?" I just completely forgot about renewing it, because the notice always comes in the mail. I guess that since we moved last year the notice was sent to the old address or it was sent to the last address printed on my license which was Castro Valley (where we moved from in the Bay Area).

Needless to say that I couldn't complete my transaction because she wouldn't accept my ID (for what reason I don't know...it is still my picture on the license, and I also have 2 personal accounts with that same bank, she had my debit card with the bank's name on it...why it mattered that my license was current or not I don't understand!).

So I left the bank stepping out into the 100 degree heat with my 2 kids and frantically, but safely and obeying all traffic laws made it back to my house. I was driving on an expired license after all.

So I got ready this morning and even did my hair because I knew they were going to take another picture. I even put on some makeup! That is a rare occurrence when you have little kids at home! Taking a shower longer than 2 minutes is a luxury for me! Mike had to drive me down to the DMV this morning so I could get a current license. I don't know where my head has been! Of all the things that one could forget it should never be forgetting to renew your driver's license. I felt like such a rebel driving on an expired license! So while we were waiting with the kids at the DMV Colin got bored, of course. So Mike handed him the California Driving Handbook. He was reading it! He loved looking at all the signs at the back of the book. We finished our business in the DMV and Colin read the handbook the whole way home. He'll be plenty prepared when it comes time for him to take his driver's test!

I caught him reading the handbook and snapped a shot with my camera phone.

Ecosystem

So Colin learned a new word today..."ecosystem." Don't ask me where he learned it from. I think he may have picked it up from pbskids.org. He just kept saying "what about the bad air?" "what about the good air?" "the trees make good air." When I asked him if he knew what an ecosystem was all he said was, "we have to protect the animals and the plants." I think that is a pretty good answer for a four year old! I can't believe how smart Colin is. He is a reading monster. He reads everything and sounds out the words he doesn't already know. Yesterday he read "Emergency Exit Only. Alarm will sound." This was on the door at the bank. Bedtime stories usually involve either Colin reading the whole story to me, or taking turns reading the pages. He doesn't start school until 2009, so I don't know what I am going to do to keep up with him, or rather keep him going! I guess it is time to start working on some math skills...heaven knows he needs all the head start he can get coming from two parents who struggled with math!

Number One

So I am giving blogging a try. A lot of my friends are doing it so I am giving in to peer pressure! I will try to keep this up and as current as possible. I hope you enjoy reading about our adventures!