The Playhouse

Chase’s birthday was back in May. His parents got him this awesome playhouse and the whole family got together one Saturday to help build it. It was seriously such a fun day. I love following instructions and putting things together. I even love the tedious things like putting washers on all the bolts (and you would not believe how many bolts there were.)
The instructions stated that two “able” people could put the thing together in like 8 or 12 hours or something ridiculous like that. I don’t know what they meant by “able.” Chase’s dad had worked on it for several hours before we all got together and there were 8 adults working on it the whole of Saturday and it still didn’t get done. But it was still a super fun day. And it only took a couple more days I think to finish it. But all the hard work was definitely worth it.
Chase: "I just knew you loved me, Mommy!"
Complete with rock climbing wall, tunnel, swings, sandbox...
...upper level and slide. And he has this dome thing too. What a great back yard, huh? My biggest complaint about our townhome, tiny back yard.

Sharing Skates

Several months ago (I’m still trying to catch up with all the blogging) we went to Ricky’s parents for Sunday dinner and Grace’s cousin, Chase, showed up with his cool new skates! (And every accessory needed to ensure no broken body parts.) He was so sweet to let Grace try them out. (Although he doesn’t look very happy about it in the photo…)

iPod Junkie

Grace loves listening to music. This is her wither her Grampa Richard’s iPod. I don’t know what she was listening to, but whenever she listens to her Aunt Emma’s iPod she likes Yael Naim’s “New Soul.” Have you heard it? If not, here’s the music video on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YUxbDEPFiM&NR=1

Some of Grace’s other favorite songs are: Outcast’s “Hey Ya” (Well, she really just likes watching this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjzkFOA1mhM

Wreckless Eric’s “Whole Wide World,” and anything Enya.

P.S. Again, please ignore Grace's hair. It's something we are trying to forget...

Grace Has a New Best Friend...

...and his name is daddy. So, now that we have two kids, Ricky and I have established a routine that works pretty well. I am up in the night with Jacob, so when Grace wakes up at the crack of dawn, Ricky gets up with her so I can sleep in a bit longer. This really seems to work well for all of us, but I do have one complaint. Grace has discovered that her dad is way cooler than her mom. He will play anything with her. Her favorite is building towers with her blocks. So on a typical morning, when I finally crawl out of bed with Jacob and go into Grace’s room, I find something that looks like this: Yeah, like I said, way cooler than mommy. Who can compete with that?
Wanna know another cute part of this, though? I caught Ricky in Grace’s room the other day building a tower…by himself…no Grace. He loves it as much (if not more) than Grace does. I love it! And I guess that’s what makes a dad so cool. He’s still a kid in all the right ways.

Dressing Up

So, yeah. In case you couldn’t tell, I’m playing catch up with these posts. Every now and then I scan through Richard’s (Ricky’s dad) photos and get copies of all the ones I like. It makes for delayed posts, but whatever.

We had a really great Christmas last year. Here is Grace playing with her new dress up clothes her Gramma Marilyn gave her for Christmas. The kit came complete with several outfits, jewelry, shoes, gloves, crowns, & more all in a super cute little trunk. Not a day goes by that she doesn’t play with something in that trunk. Seriously, unless we are out of town, she dresses up every day. And I’m not sure what is all over her face in these photos, but my best guess would be chocolate ‘cause hey! it was Christmas morning! (Oh, and this was back when I was attempting to grow out some of her bangs. Big sigh…)

Settlement Canyon

Several weeks ago we went camping up in Settlement Canyon. I must be honest and say it wasn’t my favorite camping experience. In fact, I haven’t had a very enjoyable camping experience for quite some time. For more on that, see my last camping post: The Willows Camping Disaster posted in May. I think Ricky’s family is to blame for the lack of camping enjoyment. Ever since I met Ricky, certain terms have begun to take on a whole new meaning. Like “camping,” or “cabin” for example. I’m just not very good at “roughing it” anymore. When I was growing up in Montana I could run barefoot on our gravel road. My tough feet are gone now. And maybe my tough spirit of adventure too. (Picture me dropping my head in shame.)
Well, where was I? Right, camping up in Settlement Canyon. We had a fairly good group. There was Dan, Tasha, Will, & baby Nick; Mike, Molly, & Brooklyn; Ricky, me, & Grace; Matt & Kaylee Leitch, and Hannah. Here are a few highlights: William would run all around calling for Brooklyn. He loves her. It’s adorable. Tasha & Molly were in charge of dinner. We had some super yummy (low carb) tin foil dinners. Hannah’s tent wasn’t zipping up correctly so she didn’t end up using it. Instead, we used it as a “time out” tent. It was really quite handy. And of course, my favorite was seeing William’s naked butt when his dad took him out of the tent to go pee in the morning. (Pictured above.)

And here are a few lowlights: We had some annoying drunken neighbors with annoying drunken music. Ricky walked over, was super polite, and kindly asked them if they could turn it down. I think they just glared at him or something. (This was a whole ago, and I don’t have the best memory.) Anyways, they didn’t turn it down. Most of us just shrugged it off and decided not to let it beg us. Some people (I wont name names, but I will say that my mother raised us well enough to know how to stay out of trouble AND marry people who also know) were a bit more perturbed and wanted to make a big deal about it. Fortunately no one got into a fight.
So here are Grace and William arguing. They are really good at it.
I think Grace must have won this time.

Still My Berry Girl

We went to Gramma Karen’s house yesterday to hang out. Grace helped out in the garden. She and Hannah picked strawberries. When Grace was just starting to eat solids, strawberries were to ONLY thing she would have anything to do with.
Here they are rinsing the berries in the kitchen.
Here is Grace telling Emma that she's sorry but she “can only have six.” Because they need a lot of them.
This is "six."
This is what she needs them for.