Easter: Take 2

We began our Easter morning on a search for our Easter baskets. After a beautiful and inspiring Easter church service, we went to Grandma Buddy's house for Easter dinner and other Easter festivities.

Molly and her Grandpa.
Molly loves Easter eggs. They are good for shaking, sucking, and crawling after.

I found one!
It was pouring outside, so we had an indoor egg hunt. Sam was thrilled to find that his eggs had "easter beans" inside. He's never really had candy and didn't really like the jelly beans much, but he kept shoveling them in his mouth sucking on them for a few seconds and then spitting them out. Mmm sticky.

Newsflash: Molly started crawling on Easter. She had been scooching and rolling with a bit of crawling, but now she is crawling up on all fours. It was the plastic Easter eggs that really gave her the motivation to get moving. They roll away and then you can chase them!

Easter: Take 1

The first weekend in April we had an Easter party at Grandma Susan and Grandpa Mike's house. It was a rare beautiful sunny day. We had an egg hunt all around the swing set outside. Sam enjoyed it so much that we rehid his eggs about 3 times. Then he realized there were bunny snacks inside!

It was wonderful to have such a beautiful sunny day to play with our family and celebrate the atonement and resurrection of our Savior Jesus Christ.

Easter Eggs

An Easter Egg dyeing tutorial by Samuel

1. Color egg with a crayon

2. Carefully place egg in the dye

3. Wait

4. Remove egg from dye

5. Repeat steps (although you may just repeat 2 and 4 and forget about 3)

Be sure you put a few eggs in lots of different colors until they becomes a nice earthy brown color. Pink and then green and then pink and then orange and then green works great!

Imagine

Sam has entered the world of imagination. I love watching him pretend these sticks are "big jets" "flying really fast". I get endless entertainment watching him drift off into his own world and catching the little phrases in his land of make believe. He gets much of his inspiration from the books we read together and movies he watches. It is so funny to see him close his eyes and say "speed, speed speed" (from Cars). He loves to build things with our couch cushions. Latest creations include a garage, rocketship, and tall tall tower (which he climbs with sticky shoes to rescue princess Daisy).

This smaller stick is a "rocket ship" and it is "flying really high." He brought this "rocket ship" home from the park with him and wanted to sleep with it that night. He resumed his rocket ship play when he found his stick the next morning.

Sam isn't always off in the land of make believe. He loves his new frog boots and is on the look out for puddles whenever he has them on. I love his exuberance and joy!

6 months!

Molly Jane is 6 months old!


six things about MJ - one for each month she has been part of our family
1. Big smiles. Her adorable smile lights up our life. Molly is such a happy baby and her bright smile warms my heart every day.
2. Loves her toes. MJ loves to play with her toes. If she is wearing colorful socks she will chew and pull until she gets them off and then alternate between eating her toes and eating her freed socks. This morning she was wearing pants with elephants on the toes and she managed to pull her pants all the way off.
3. On the move. rollin' rollin' rollin' scooch scooch. She is not crawling yet, but she is quite mobile. It always surprises me how far she can get when you look away for a minute. Especially if there is the proper motivation (sam's balloon for instance)
4. Loves toys. MJ loves playing with toys. She is particularly fond of anything that makes a crinkling noise, any kind of string or ribbon, and just about anything she can put in her mouth.
5. Loves her brother. She keeps an eye on him at all times. She giggles when she watches him. She especially likes it when he is being tickled. She also has complete control of him. If she gets a diaper change, he wants one too. If she is being rocked, he wants to too. If she has a toy, he wants it too. You get the picture.
6. Sweetie! Molly is such a sweet natured baby. She is a great snuggler and has a way about her that just melts your heart.

I love my Molly Jane!

Giraffe Pirate

We use our family membership at the zoo fairly often. It is definitely one of our favorite family activites even in the chilly winter months. We all get bundled up and see the monkeys, lions and Sam's current fave the giraffe pirate.

About six months ago, Sam was in the Health Sciences bookstore where there is a large skeleton. I pointed to it and asked Sam, "Whats that?" He looked at it and thought about it for a minute and then his eyes lit up and he said "pirate!" He recognized the skull from the skull and crossbones pirate flag. When he saw this giraffe skeleton, it became the giraffe pirate. Now this always has to be our first stop at the zoo. It has become even more exciting than the giraffe slide.

Sam and Dad looking at the monkeys.

MJ in the lions den

Any excuse for a party

After a week of the sick, we were ready for a little diversion. And seeing that it was MJ's 5 month birthday, we decided to have a little birthday party. I know parties are not customary for a celebrating that five months have past since a little one entered the world, but I was reading a book to Sam that morning and there was a cake with candles in one of the pictures and one idea led to another. Party supplies were acquired from the dollar store (balloons, cupcakes, and candles- no need to break the bank for this one). And I promise, a good time was had by all!


If I had only known that the dollar store sold race car balloons earlier... You can witness true happiness right here with the release (and the repeated catch and release) of this balloon.

As is customary at birthday parties, we sang happy birthday and blew out candles. Actually we did this several times, and the birthday girl very obligingly let her big brother do the honors.

However, she did not want to give up her cupcake. She lovingly caressed it and then smashed it and happily licked the icing from her fingers. She already has a sweet tooth!

As a birthday treat, we gave MJ her first real solid food - if you can call rice cereal solid or food. After the taste of icing, I'm not so sure she was impressed. But, she is a very independent little one and is already insisting on feeding herself.

PS Grandma, if you click on the collage pictures you can zoom in for a better look :)