Water!

Sylvie and Jens are both excited about playing in the sink these days. Sylvie can stand there for an hour, soaking herself and everything around her in the process, but it sure makes her happy.

Don't you just want to squeeze those little cheeks?

Little Zoo

We had a little zoo outing together this week. Sylvie loved the animals, especially the peacocks, which were showing off in fine fashion, and this little hen and chick.

I have been trying to take her out more--she is so easy going that we would be fine staying home, but Jens got to do a lot of fun things when he was her age and I am trying to give her some of the same fun things.

Crazy Hair!

Father and son had a little fun with the blowdryer post-shower. Jens was thrilled and couldn't stop looking in the mirror.

Jens is in one of those downward trends right now where everything is hard and a lot of tears are shed over things that are ridiculous (Insistence on having the pink plate at lunch today and needing to change his clothes before eating resulted in 30 minutes of screaming and crying). He can be charming and sweet but gah. The times in between are pretty rough. He and Sylvie have become a funny little team, though. She is mostly terrified of him, but seems to love it. She must be a thrill seeker. They play happily for longer blocks of time now, punctuated with brief intervals of Sylvie crying. Saturday Mike and I actually stayed in bed until 10 while they destroyed the house, running through our room occasionally to scream and climb onto the bed.

Jens has done really well with learning to read, though, and will sound out/try to read all sorts of things including hymns and primary songs, The Book of Mormon, street signs, cereal boxes . . . you get the picture.

A post nap snack. The spot on her nose is from falling down and skinning it at the zoo :(

Sylvie has been waking up from naps the sweetest, happiest little person. She gives such nice hugs and wants to chat. She has, unfortunately, been sucking her fingers and thumbs. All progress seems to have vanished on that front, and the thumb guard only covers one appendage. She has a rapidly exploding vocabulary and can say anything she wants. She will even say her own prayers, always remembering to bless that she won't suck her yucky thumb.

March 27th

We are so glad that it is supposedly spring. We are hoping for sunshine every day this week after a very soggy kind of week. There was so much snow over Donner that I-80 was closed. Our backyard was a big puddle and a few trees were blown down with the big winds. We are glad it is over.

Sylvie and I did sieze a not-raining day to go to the little Folsom Zoo and library. Somehow they love the library books more than every other book we own. I have read them all many, many times and I am already ready to go back to the library to return them.

We had some friends to play and did music makers on Wednesday and I also had book club. We read Joy Luck Club and had some good talk over it--I think we talked about the book longer than we have about any recently.

Mike has been doing PT twice a week for his knee--we are hoping that he will be up and going before too long. He has missed his exercising.

We have mainly been laying low and staying dry. I haven't done any projects of interest, although I did make some delicious banana bread today. We have also been following the NCAA tournament, which has been full of upsets and interesting twists. We did a family pool and Jens was the only one to correctly choose ANY of the final 4 teams (UConn). I did a total of 3 brackets this year and only have one left alive--my "upsets bracket" which has UConn winning it all. I am sort of cheering for VCU, though. Somehow I always love the Cinderella.

Zoo!

Checking out the flamingos, which are just crazy. How do they balance on one leg while they are sleeping?

Checking out their wingspans.

Did I mention cotton candy was a hit?

So was the train, which really wasn't that great. But they thought it was, which is what matters.

Look at those sticky, cotton candy faces!

Leprechauns and Batman Girl

Please notice our St. Patrick's Day Decorations as well as the trap and gold.

Ready to fight crime!

Fun at the Park

Okay, maybe I am complaining about the rain too much. Apparently there was another day last week that was sunny enough to go to the park. But it feels like it rains all the time.

Singin' in the Rain!

At least some people are enjoying it!

Fun with Uncle Loren

On the way home from the Farmer's Market we stopped at the Sacramento Temple, which was beautiful as always.

I think my children are exceptionally cute and occasionally think they would make great models. Then I take a picture like this, where I was really trying to get them to look at me and cooperate and realize that would never pan out.

Uncles are so fun to wrestle with.

And snuggle with, too.

We love you, Uncle Warren!

March 20th

So. I took last week off, apparently. It is amazing how quickly a week flashes past and best intentions are never met. Anyway. We have had some fun the past few weeks. We had our regular stuff--music makers, Jens's open house, play dates etc.

And Loren came to visit! We were so glad he did. We didn't tell the kids until Thursday, and when we did, Sylvie just couldn't wait. She kept saying "Go to Saturday! Go in the car. Go to Saturday now." And then she followed him around saying "Uncle Warren . . . "

We didn't do anything super exciting--he got to participate in our real life, I guess. We spent as much time outside on Saturday as we could. It was warm and sunny and beautiful, and it was good that we took advantage of it because it has rained almost every day since then. Sunday he got to witness our Sacrament meeting. Sylvie has a very loud voice that carries very clearly. Some of her gems from last week: "Uncle Warren, yer gorgeous!" and "Hi Audrey! (with big waves) and to me "Can I play with your hair? You're a princess!" Monday we went to Apple Hill in the rain and ate treats and has lunch at In-n-Out. Loren was very fun to have around, but very bad for my health.

Tuesday we took Loren to the airport and had a play date with Jens's friend Nathanael. We made paintings of Shamrocks in honor of St. Patricks Day.

Wednesday we woke up to stolen bank information resulting in my checkcard being frozen (thank goodness) after $250 in fraudulent charges (xbox.com? gamefly? tuneupmedia? suspicious? I'll say!) I am so glad the bank caught it so quickly. I spent the morning calling the companies and closing the accounts. Luckily everyone was really nice and cooperative. It is really unpleasant knowing that one's information has been compromised that way, though.

Thursday we celebrated St. Patricks Day. Jens put his leprechaun trap out with great success. His plan of making a play structure for the leprechauns so the gold would bounce out of his pockets worked well. He ate all the chocolate and was left with shiny gold wrappers, which he is sure is real gold. Fortunately he did not ask to go shopping with it.

Also, in a very non-me moment, I spontaneously decided to race to school and pick Jens up and zip down to the Sacramento Zoo for the afternoon because it was so sunny (the one day in the midst of the rain). We had a great time. The zoo is small but nice. We ate lunch and got cotton candy, which was a real hit. Jens loved the reptile house, I loved the flamingos and the giraffes, and Sylvie liked the little train and the carousel. She also fell twice and scraped her little nose.

Friday and Saturday we had the Little girls over while the parents moved. Lucky them. Sylvie was so excited--she loves having friends come over, something which even makes it into her prayers occasionally. They came and had dinner with us today.

The rain is continuing at a steady pace, and I am trying to remind myself that we need it and there will be 200 sunny days to follow. Our yard is a pond and Folsom Lake is draining water like crazy from the Folsom dam. I know spring is coming . . .

Art class

Nathanael and Jens love art projects. It is something they have in common. Last week we watercolored some canal houses.

Jens does not like art class with me as well as he liked it with Ms. Jennifer. He tends to get grouchy and quit half way through projects. Nathanael loves it, on the other hand, and stays engaged to the end. I am pretty sure that if Jens and I ever tried homeschool it would be an unmitigated disaster.

Sorry I am a little thin on posts this week. Apparently we didn't do much that was picture worthy last week. I'll be back next week with more regular posts, I hope!

March 8th

Well, the kids were sick last week and Mike has been sick this week, so we are as exciting as a wet blanket around here.

School resumed and Jens was glad to be back in his routine. I went in on Wednesday to do art and music with his class. This lesson was on Jackson Pollack, so we did some fun art projects--a huge class splatter painting as well as individual marble paintings (you roll a painty marble on your paper to make an abstract design). It was very messy but very fun. The kids really liked it. We did Scott Joplin music, so there was lots of dancing during that part. It is fun to go in and see Jens in his school environment and get to know who the other kids are in his class. In other Jens news, he is obsessed with paper airplanes (I throw away a fleet almost every night) and How to Train your Dragon, which he watched several times the week he was sick. He goes around quoting lines from the movie pretty regularly. This is the first movie he has really taken to since Cars.

We are finally getting some sunny weather again, so Sylvie and I have been walking and going to the park as often as we can. After our park stop she likes to help push the stroller and walk for a while. Today she was also running, then walking for a little break. She went quite a ways! She looked very cute with her little legs motoring and her hair streaming out behind. She was wearing a skirt and mary jane shoes and carrying a little dog wrapped in a blanket, but that didn't slow her down at all. I thought we had kicked the thumb sucking habit, but I caught her sucking it yesterday at Sams, so we are back to wearing the thumb guard more faithfully. She is talking up a storm, though, and often uses 5 and 6 word sentences.

Thursday I spent the morning visiting teaching and in the evening at the temple with the youth, who were doing baptisms. It was a pleasant way to spend the evening.

Saturday we went out to dinner to La Fiesta, just our family, and had a really good time. The kids were really good, and it was so refreshing to leave the restaurant thinking happy thoughts instead of "Why did we do this?" Sunday was our first marriage and family Sunday school class, which I have been looking forward to. I think it is going to be interesting and Mike and I get to go together, which hasn't happened in a long time, so that will be nice.

Now I need to go think of something to make for dinner.

Sylvie

cut her hair sometime yesterday, a little chunk in the front. It now sticks straight up.

At night when we are singing bedtime songs she likes to choose a topic and then I have to make up a song. Last night she wanted a Star Wars song. When I finished she said "That was a good song, Mom."

This morning: "I color awesome!"

On our walk: "I a smartie."

Mike watched Wall-E with the kids last night. Every time Wall-E went off screen, Sylvie would cry and cry and ask "Where Wall-E go?" Until he came back. When the movie was over we asked if she liked it. "Yes." What was her favorite part? "Eva." No mention of Wall-E.

She has finally conquered her fear of Jens's RC car and will drive it around. It probably helps that it is almost out of juice so it moves very slowly. While she drives it she talks to it: "Come here, car, come here! Good girl, car. You are a good girl."

S: "Dog is mommy."

Me: "I am Mommy!"

S: "You are Alison, Sister Helquist."

I told Sylvie that Uncle Loren would be here on Saturday. Now she is walking around saying "I want to go to Saturday. Can I go to Saturday, Mom? I want to go in the car now." She isn't grasping the days of the week thing.

Can you tell we haven't been going anywhere?

I claim no responsibility for these outfits. They were chosen with no input from me.

Crazy Weather

On top of being sick last week we also had some crazy weather, including 10 minutes of hail one day. It was a lot of hail. Enough that it accumulated impressively. I felt very thankful for a warm house with a pretty new roof.

Fun with Daddy

The Problem with iphones

is that we use them to take pictures sometimes. And those pictures don't necessarily get uploaded as regularly as other pictures. Which means I have a few pictures from a few weeks ago. Here they are:

Jens is a pretty good reader these days.

Up at Apple Hill, sampling the early season strawberries

Playing around in the backyard after church a few Sundays ago when it was 75 degrees (side note: it hasn't been like that lately--more like cold or rainy!)