The Rotten Egg

Every night after we say family prayer Bryan will try his hardest to get both kids in the bathroom at the same time to brush their teeth. Unfortunately this is never easy. He will get Courtney in the bathroom and then yell "The last one in the bathroom is a rotten egg" and then Courtney will immediately run OUT of the bathroom into the hallway because she WANTS to be a rotten egg. So now Bryan has Ethan in the bathroom and Courtney in the hall. The only way she will go into the bathroom is if she knows she will be the rotten egg. We have tried to explain to her that it isn't a good thing to be a rotten egg, but she doesn't get it. ;)

Beware of Scooper-Hero Ice Cream!!!

We took the kids to Blue Bunny (uh, it's now called "Big Scoops")last night for FHE. Every time we have gone there they have been out of one flavor of ice cream or another so we have to substitute. Last night they didn't have birthday cake, which is the favorite of both Ethan and Courtney. Ethan substituted Scooper-Hero ice cream instead and Courtney, wanting to do everything her big brother does, followed suit. Now, Courtney normally doesn't eat the ice cream...she only eats the cone. So I tried to convince her just to let us order her a cone, but she wouldn't have it. We got our ice cream and went outside to eat and the adventure began.

Courtney went from a cute, clean little girl to this:


This is her "boogie-woogie" pose from dance class.

Ethan, who has had more years of eating experience, didn't do too bad. He only spilled a little on himself and didn't look like a Smurf when he finished.


It took quite a bit of scrubbing and A LOT of stain stick to get Courtney clean (even her hair was blue!) but we got her back! Bryan told her that from now on she is only allowed vanilla ice cream until she can learn to eat it without swimming in it! ;)

Cute Sayings

Kids say the funniest things sometimes. Yesterday Bryan and Ethan went bike riding and they found a trail off the regular path and began to explore. They soon found themselves in a fork in the trail and Bryan asked Ethan which way they should go. Ethan said, pointing at the paths, "This way looks like it goes back home. This way looks like it goes to adventure!" He was in the mood for some adventure. ;)

This morning Bryan and I were getting ready for Church and the kids were in the living room by themselves. Usually this means a lot of screaming and fighting, so Bryan told Courtney that if they couldn't play nicely then they should put themselves in time out. Then Courtney said, "And when it's time to get out we'll talk to ourselves about what we did wrong." We laughed and laughed.

You're cold?!?!

Okay, my children are, for the most part, hot weather children. Ethan was not quite 1 year old yet when we moved to Las Vegas and we haven't lived in a cold area since. Courtney was born in St. George so she has always known hot summers. Having said that, my kids do love the snow and it does snow in St. George every year and they get to make snowmen in the front yard and all those fun activities, but they still are hot weather kids.

Today was a BEAUTIFUL day in Dixie! It was overcast and only about 73 degrees at 10 a.m. this morning. I had all the windows open and a nice breeze was going through the house. I was in heaven....until Courtney came to me, shivering, and asking if I could please make her some hot chocolate because the was "freezing so much." Ethan seconded her request and I ended up making hot chocolate.

I then tried to get them to play outside so they could get some vitamins from the sunshine, but they wouldn't do it because they were "too cold" to go outside. So I loaded up a picnic, took them to the park and forced them to be outside. They loved it and we had a great time. They even admitted that it wasn't too cold. Poor kids! ;)

Tubeless

Ethan had his tubes taken out of his ears yesterday and it was a bit traumatic. When they put the tubes in 2 years ago, we went to the hospital and he was put under for the 5 minute procedure. Taking them out is a totally different procedure. We had to put drops in his ears for a week beforehand to soften the tubes and everything inside his ears. I took him to the doctor and the doctor examined everything then had to put an instrument in Ethan's ears that had a little grabber at the end to grab the tube and pull it out. Now, Ethan had to hold very still while he did this but Ethan was really nervous and I really don't blame him. (Everyone in the office knew exactly how Ethan felt about me and the doctor by the end of the visit. He would have done any woman in labor proud!) It ended up taking about 30 minutes to calm him down and get both tubes taken out but he did it!

He was so upset that he just wanted to go to Bryan's office for a hug (I was the bad guy at this point). So we did that and then Bryan took Ethan to Fiesta Fun to use his free coupons and ride on the bumper boats while I took Courtney to swimming lessons. That made him feel a lot better. Now we have to keep his ears dry for a month until our next appointment and the doctor can make sure the holes are healed up.

What a day!

Courtney's Swimming Lessons

Since it's summer we have begun the annual swimming lessons. Courtney started first and this is her first summer of lessons so she was pretty excited. She has them this week and then all of next week, so she thinks she is "super lucky!"

We have taken our kids to the pool every Friday (most every Friday) for the past 3 years so Courtney has been in the water a lot. When she got to lessons she was ready to dive right in. She hasn't had any problem going under or putting her face in the water. And she loves the kids in her class. I'll post more photos on her last day of class when they get to show off, but here are a few.

Sand Dunes

Okay, I've been a little slow at updating lately, but here it is.

Last week, for the Memorial Day holiday, my cousin Kevin and his wife Jeanette (and their two boys) came to visit Don and Kathy. Bryan went to Youth Conference on Tuesday and we all went to the Sand Dunes in Snow Canyon State Park. It's a big area that is just filled with sand that you can hike to and play in. It was a ton of fun. Ethan and Don ran races from the top of one dune to another and then played ball. The other kids buried things and tried to find them and we all had a great time out there. The weather was great because we went first thing in the morning so it wasn't too hot. We stayed for a little over an hour (I think) and then we drove back home.

I tried to take the kids the other day again and it just wasn't the same with Ethan's friend Don to play with. But it's still a fun place to go to and play for a while. It's like the beach without the water. ;)