Friday, March 28, 2014

Trouble

See this kid, his shirt is incredibly accurate.
Here's how yesterday played out:

Cooper wakes up, drags puppy and blanket into the kitchen and grabs the three floor rugs.  He looks up at me and laughs as he throws them back down, upside down and crumpled.  He breaks through the ties on the cupboard, pulls out all the mixing bowls and tupperware before selecting the cutting board. He runs that into my room where he leaves it.

Takes Todd's belt and carries it to the couch.

Finds my shoes and throws one down the stairs and the other he shoves under the couch.

Takes the sorted dirty laundry and mixes up the piles while mixing it with the clean in the laundry basket.  Then opens the dryer and takes out a still wet sock and chews on it until he sees me coming, then throws it over the gate and runs.

Opens the dishwasher mid-cycle.  Not enough for mom to notice though until much later.

Drum stick to the piano - yes damage very visible - followed by climbing onto the kitchen bench and getting two pens and a pair of scissors, but only after hitting the piano one more time with Madeline's brush for good measure.

Reaches the knife off the counter.

Pulls the child plugs out of the outlet.

Rips a book in half.

Dumps out the bin of blocks.  Dumps out the bin of cars.  Throws a few at me.

Pours water out of the fridge because someone forgot to lock it.

Falls off the couch.

Opens diaper bag and empties all of it's contents on the floor.  Phone, yep.  Lipstick, yep (lets take the lid off first and chunk up the lipstick).  Papers, yep.  Crumbs and diapers and lists and everything else, you bet!

Cries each time I take stuff from him and pick him up to stop the craziness.  Cries when I put him back down.  So I pick him back up.

We dance to music while I hold him.

He grabs my hands and wraps them tighter around his little body.

We snuggle and laugh and read books.  He looks so cute and innocent.  He strokes my face and hair and we smile at each other.

Then I put him back down...

Repeat 84 times.

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

March's Ten Things

March was awesome, I'm not gonna lie.  TONS of wonderful things happened.  That does not mean we didn't have some blah things too, but I'm not going to post ten things that made me sad!  Overall, I'm pretty happy just thinking about how this month turned out.  Here are Ten Things to Smile About in March:

1.  It's Spring people!  And that means nicer weather and fun swinging and going on bike ride/walks as a family!  Love that!
 2.  I got to visit Whatcom Falls Park
 3.  We got to spend time on the beach
 4.  Our family vacation was really fun
 5.  This little crazy is now in NURSERY!  (although I have to admit it's a tad bitter-sweet too)
 6.  Ethan drew the United States for fun one day.  Then a few days later spent an entire weekend drawing and coloring every flag for every country in the entire world.  That's my Ethan!  His book of flags is pretty impressive, I'll have to take pictures of all the pages.  I'm happy to report that he put tons of flags on each page, otherwise the book would be close to 200 pages!  But look at his free-hand USA, not too shabby eh?
 7.  I love how Cooper's two favorite lovies are the blankie I made for him while I was pregnant and the puppy Todd's mom made Todd when he was little.  Ahhhh.  He couldn't have chosen better!  And as a bonus reason to smile, this picture of him with his favorite things - totally spontaneous and unplanned which is why it's so cute!
 8.  And speaking of cute pictures, this one makes me smile too:
 9.  Watching Cooper's reaction to riding a train for the first time.  He was all smiles and kept saying, "choo choo"!
 10.  Enjoying City Creek and the Church History Museum with my mom and the kiddos.

Fun stuff!
Emmy Mom

Monday, March 24, 2014

Nothing is more fun than...

Feeding yourself yogurt!







Friday, March 21, 2014

The Great Wolf Lodge

The last two days of our vacation were spent at The Great Wolf Lodge.  It turned out to be the perfect way to end the trip.  The indoor water park was pretty impressive for being inside the lodge and just right for our kids.  We had tons of fun swimming for those last two days.
 The lobby of the lodge was pretty fun too
 Upstairs you could find fudge and other treat counters and a pizza place.  We also enjoyed those.

 Cooper mostly just tolerated the swimming, but loved wearing Madeline goggles!  He did have some fun though, playing with Todd in the toddler area and he even smiled a few times in the wave pool as I held him tightly.
 The water park had a least six water slides, a pretty good wave pool, a toddler area, and several other pools with slides, toys, and basketball hoops.

 It also had a GIANT bucket that dumped water:


 The strangest part of The Great Wolf Lodge was the life guards.  They were obviously trained and required to act and move in a very unnaturally attentive way.  They all paced constantly with huge full head movements.  They didn't scan the pools with their eyes, but their heads!  And full body movements when they turned to look one way than the other, scanning the pools CONSTANTLY.  They looked so ridiculous.  It was one of the weirdest things I've seen.  Todd and I decided it would have to be one of the worst jobs ever.  Kinda funny...






Our waterlogged family
Fun times, fun memories.

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Whatcom Falls Park

My very favorite place in Bellingham is Whatcom Falls Park.  I'm not sure what it is, but every time I have been there, I just get so overwhelmed at the beauty of God's creations.  For me, there isn't a more beautiful place in all the world.  My pictures don't come close to doing it justice!  Needless to say, this was the highlight of the vacation for me.  We spent Monday morning walking through the park.  I just loved being there!
 The kids could not believe we were in the middle of town.

 We had fun exploring the trails and I was trying to take it all in.
 Moss growing everywhere, damp and green, ferns and thousands of trees, the smell of rain…I know it doesn't speak to everyone, but it speaks to me.
 No wonder it was in Washington, that I fell in love with taking pictures...





 It was neat for me to share such a favorite place with these three, because although Ethan and Madeline had been there before, of course it was too long ago for them to remember...


 We followed Whatcom Falls Park with an ocean front park, Zuanich Park.  The kids were extremely unimpressed with the playground there (I might has talked it up a bit…it seemed so much more awesome when Ethan was 2! I swear they've taken out half the stuff!) but we had fun watching the boats and looking at the water again.



We ended our morning at our favorite pizza place in town and then stopped at a random donut shop for a treat.

Awwww, a fabulous morning!