Long Weekend and a Heat Wave

Last time we left off I was setting up the tent to sleep in the backyard with the kids. Here we are thinking we are going to have a relaxing and restful night.

 Kids all tucked into bed

We only lasted until 2 am when we abandoned the tent for warmer sleeping arrangements inside. It was still a fun experience

We really love Lyza and she can be really pleasant and fun to be around. She can also be RIDICULOUSLY unreasonable. This is the fit she threw on a Sunday afternoon when we wanted to go on a walk and she didn't. We told her she could stay home by herself while we went for a walk. We got two houses away and she ran out of the house and threw herself on the grass and started freaking out. It was pretty funny

 She likes housing her dinosaurs in her Barbie house

 On Memorial Day Kim and Lyza painted the pallet shoe rack I made 

 Very happy with the finished product

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I love this picture

 Fun crafting

 Nixon still points to this craft at almost every meal time and tells us that he made it

 He has been doing pretty well on his bike

 She likes her scooter more than riding a bike

 Future musical duo?

 It is beach season!

 And our strawberries are doing very well

 I am glad to see the sandbox getting some use

 Family beach day

 Mmmmm...pizza

 Poor little horsie

 He has been sitting in the baby car seat and calling himself a baby

 Which is fine until he demands that I swing him around

 Bump! This baby should be here soon

 Last week we got several days in the mid 30s so we had to get the pool out

 Popsicle in the pool? Spoiled!

 We have been encouraging Lyza to wash her hands every time after going potty. We told her when she got her sticker chart all full she could go for ice cream. She is pretty excited

 Chocolate is her favorite

 We shared with Nixon too

 Ice cream mustache

 When will this baby come?

 Pre-haircut

 Post-haircut (and really itchy)

 Kim found these dinosaur wall stickers at the dollar store for Lyza

 Kim and Lyza went on a shopping date together yesterday at Costco. Luck girl got ice cream

Maybe the next post will be about our new little boy? Take care

Lyza got a new friend

There is a family in the ward that found a stuffed dinosaur in their house and they don't know where it cam from. They asked around and tried to figure out how it got there, but never figured it out. They know how much Lyza loves dinosaurs so they gave it to her. Her reaction was so cute

 We had a really fun family home evening activity last Monday. Kim taught a lesson about good fruits and the kids helped put apples on either the good tree or the bad tree based upon the descriptions on the apples

 Kim also made cookies, with a small batch that had LOTS of salt in it to help teach that sometimes things look good but really aren't. The funny part is that the kids liked the salty cookies and didn't even notice how bad they were. 

 Kim let the kids dress themselves this day and they looked pretty spiffy

 What a cute little boy

 Too may kids on one swing

 I left my exercise shoes out one morning and Nixon decided he would wear them all around the house

 Here is Lyza crafting with her BFF 

35 weeks! 

I took each of the kids out for bike rides yesterday and had lots of fun. 

 We didn't get any pictures, but Lyza looked pretty big on the back of the bike. It was a real workout going up hills with her.

After that intense workout I decided that I had earned a treat

 Nixon didn't want to take his helmet off

 I did some work on the retaining wall next to our patio while the kids supervised and collected all the bugs I found

 The kids have been enjoying the sandbox

 While I was working outside yesterday Lyza kept asking for someone to swing her. I kept telling her that I would once I finished my project and like a typical 4 year old she would wait 30 seconds and then ask again. Nixon took matters into his own hands and swung her himself. He is pretty impressive.

What a goofy girl

I didn't have any meetings before church this morning so I got to go to church with the family. We even had time to take some pictures before church. We love our handsome little boy

 It's Memorial Day tomorrow and I have the day off of work. This is typically the weekend that most people take their first camping trip. We are not brave enough to take our kids camping (and it wouldn't be very comfortable for Kim) so I set up the tent in the back yard and the kids and I are going to camp in the yard tonight. Hopefully we sleep well.

 Lyza is amazed

That's all for now. Take care.

What we have been up to

By far the most neglected room in our house with respect to design and furniture is our bedroom. We decided to fix that (at least partially) and bought some second-hand nightstands. They weren't much to look at, but had some potential, along with some water damage ;-)

 I had to do lots of sanding and filling to get them ready to paint

LOTS of coats of paint later, and some new hardware and they look a lot better

While we were in Canada we got some matching lamps from Ikea, and this is the final product. It is amazing how much nicer our room looks with matching nightstands AND matching lamps

 This guy is a handful! He is obsessed with dressing himself, and re-dressing himself...

...and changing his clothes, and re-changing his clothes...ad infinitum 

 It has gotten so bad that we finally put a child lock on his own door to keep him out of his room. Even then, he still managed to get to his clothes during nap time from inside his crib...there is no winning

We got to plant some flowers in our front planting beds and pots

 The kids had a fun activity at the library where they learned about planting seeds, planted grass seed in little paper cups, then made worms in dirt with pudding, gummy worms, and crushed cookies 

 For family home evening this week we had a lesson about the creation as we walked down to the river to play. The kids loved all the ducks. They spent lots of time throwing things at the ducks and watching the ducks try everything hoping it was food

The kids had so much fun with the ducks that Kim took them down the next day to actually feed them 

Here are the kids in their matching dinosaur pajamas from grandma and grandpa Keyes 

 Mr. Macho (aka Nixon) helped his mom make bread this week

 He also thinks he fits in this little baby chair 

 Lyza has been spending hours playing with her little dinosaurs in her green slime (flubber). Here she is cleaning them off

 The fabric roof of our play structure has seen better days

So Kim sewed up some replacement fabric and we replaced it this weekend. I also did another structural repair to the beam that the swings are all attached to so that our kids don't get more of a ride than they planned on ;)

 It looks a little better now 

 The kids love to cuddle up in our bed on Sunday mornings, so I am told since I have already left for meetings

 That's all for now, have a great week