So close to crawling

"I'm almost crawling!"

Will's smile is a little off in this pic because he shoved a whole slice of salami in there. (He loves salami now because Elmo makes a salami sandwich in one of the Seasame Street DVDs).

Will's new thing is after we play for a while, he says "tired" and he goes and gets his favorite "yellow blanket" (though as you can see in the picture, it's red) and his "teddy". He lies down on the floor and rests for a minute, then he hops up and says "awake", which means he's ready to play again.

• Rosie has finally accepted the fact that I make her do "tummy time" every day and is rapidly progressing toward crawling. When I put her on her tummy, she goes all over the place, but she doesn't crawl so I don't know how she does it. Will loves to do tummy time with Rosie.


• Our TV finally died. Last night, Clark and I rented some movies and we went to turn on the TV and it came on and then shut off after a few seconds. We tried again, this time it didn't turn on. We tried a new outlet, nothing. So we have come to terms with our 10-year-old TV that it will no longer be with us. Clark is happy because he thinks TV is bad for kids. I agree somewhat, but it's so nice to have Will watch Elmo for a bit while I make supper or feed Rosie. Plus, I think TV can be educational. We'll see how we survive life without TV.


• The funny story of the week: There's a picture of Jesus carrying a little baby in the kid's room. One day Will pointed at it and said, "Jesus". I said, "Very good! Who is he holding?" And Will thought for a minute and said, "Monkey". . . and then proudly and loudly said, "Jesus carry you monkey!"

Week with the Family

For the past 5 days, my parents have been in Bangkok and we have been "babysitting" Bob, Paul, Amy, and Josh (my amazing brothers and sister). I put "babysitting" in quotation marks because they pretty much babysat my kids while I got to play and have fun! I had some good philosophical conversations with Bob. Paul came to the pool with us twice and caught Will as he jumped off the edge of the pool. He also floated down the Laramie River with Clark on an inner tube. Amy was my right arm, helping me cook, clean, and watch the kids . . . WHILE being a super fun girl to hang out with. We watched "The Bucket List" and laughed our heads off (of course not during the sad parts). Josh was Will's idol . . . he had a gecko, ladybug farm, a BB gun, and he never tired of kicking the ball to Will or going outside with Will (actually, he probably DID get tired but he never mentioned it).

This is Paul and Will doing Will's favorite trick.

We took Rosie swimming for the first time and she loved it . . . I think. She had a serious look on her face the whole time (as you can see in this pic) and she started dozing off to sleep while I was holding her.

On Tuesday we went to Vedawoo for a BBQ. Will had a lot of fun chasing a supposed stray chihuahua around. It turns out the dog had an owner, but had left it for a few hours to roam around. This picture is Will with Amy.

Here's another picture at the outdoor pool. Josh and Will got pretty cold after swimming so we bundled them up in their towels.

Sorry for Slacking

Sorry to everyone for not posting much lately. We've been pretty busy with weaning Will off his pacifier ("babo"), potty-training, and the not-so-fun being sick for almost 2 weeks now!!! Will ended up with an ear infection and Rosie and I have just had constant runny noses that seem to get worse with time. Can that be possible? Also, a confession . . . I haven't taken any pictures of the kids the past 2 weeks because I'm so behind on scrapbooking, taking more pics just makes me feel more overwhelmed. However, tomorrow I commit myself to getting back on track and taking pictures.

Today is Clark and my 3rd anniversary. Whoo-hoo! It was so sweet, this morning Clark took a super hot shower so the mirror would get fogged up. When I went in to use the bathroom, he had written, "I love Maria" in the foggy mirror. We don't get to celebrate much tonight because Clark recently got called as the 11-year-old scout leader and he starts training.

Will is now a 2-year-old!

This Thursday Will turned the wonderful age of 2. We asked what he wanted for his birthday and he requested a "tractor cake". I am not much of a cake decorator, but I made the attempt.


We thought it would be messy, with the black frosting and all, but Will stayed relatively clean.
Clark took Will on a bus ride . . . his favorite thing to do with Dad.

Our garden!!

Thanks to Steph, we got hooked up and now have our first family garden. It's in the cemetary, which is a little creepy, especially because Will found a bone and was carrying it around. We have decided to plant potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, onions, cucumbers, beets, garlic, cilantro, and green beans. We are hoping it is a success.



Will found several "little snakes" (worms) that he liked to push around in his dump truck. He got excited everytime Clark found a new one. I, on the other hand, was not quite as thrilled.