Cooling Off

Lady

This lady brought me hair ties today and told me "pretty hair" or "pee haah". I don't know how to do a lot of hairdos on little girls, but she seemed to be pretty happy with what I came up with. I browsed some blogs after this and found some pretty cool ideas, we'll have to try something different next time. She's such a girl, who knew she'd be into doing her hair at 2? Okay maybe other people with girls, but Eli shows absolutely no interest in his hair.

Getting a drink from the hose on a hot summer day was one of my favorite things as a kid. Who knew garden hoses contain lead, and you're not supposed to drink from them? We just found this out, and ordered this handy potable hose from Amazon. We use it for the garden too, because it sounds gross to water the veggies with extra lead. Now the kids can drink to their hearts delight, and Lilly is taking full advantage of it!

For Adrianna

I saw this picture on her blog and it reminded me of one I had of Eli from back in April. I was on the fence (pun intended) about putting this on the blog, but Hylton looked so cute I just had to share!
Eli's wearing my boots and talking to the neighbor kids through a hole in the fence.

Idaho

Alex, Rhet, Ben, Angela and Whitney

Gillian and Lillian

Zoo Boise

The Park

Spray Park

We recently went to visit Ben's cousins in Boise, and had a blast! It was so fun to see everyone after so long (8 years), and we had fun touring Boise. We hit: Roaring Springs Waterpark, Zoo Boise, and Powell's Sweet Shoppe, a few parks and even the Library. Eli and Lilly loved meeting all of the "cousins", and going on our first "family vacation"! We got to eat at Johnny Carino's, which was our favorite restaurant in Idaho Falls when we were at BYU Idaho (or Rick's when we were there). Ben even got to sneak in a few bike adventures, including a rope swing into the Boise River. The kids did great in the car, much better than I expected, and we ended the trip with a visit to Grandma and Grandpa's house in The Dalles. Eli keeps asking if we can go back to Idaho, he wants to go to the Water Park again!


Lilly developed a fear of flies on the trip. We had one in the car and she'd scream hysterically every time she saw it, she even had nightmares about it the first night we got there. She freaked out in the butterfly exhibit at the zoo, and continues to scream as if a limb is being amputated whenever one gets in the house. Poor Lady, I hope this is something she out grows and isn't afraid of all flying insects when she grows up.

Eli couldn't remember Rhet's name to save his life. He kept calling him Eric, which we attribute to Emmett's Dad being named Eric and Gillian's Mom being named Erica. Somehow he couldn't get it all straight and we'd have to correct him multiple times a day!

Thanks to Rhet and Erica for being such great host's and letting us invade your house. We won't let another 8 years go by without another visit.

Pioneer Day in Boise

Trains in Idaho

Full Car

Found this funny picture on my phone the other day.

It was on the way to "bring a friend day" at preschool a couple of months ago!

Lilly is 2!

Lilly's bike

Nehalem Bay

We went camping at Nehalem Bay this weekend and had a blast. To our surprise our kids slept great, Lilly did so much better than last year. We love this spot so much, I think it will become an annual tradition. They have great bike trails, a beautiful beach, a shallow bay to play in, and a river close by. Not to mention the cleanest campground bathrooms I've ever seen and hot showers. We rented kayaks to row up stream, but Lilly apparently hates boating. After rowing around for about 40 min. with a screaming baby we gave up on the idea. She does love biking though, so we went on multiple bike rides a day.

Eli's construction site

Some pics of all of us at the bay

Ben had to take the training wheels off of Eli's bike to get it on the back of the car. While he was loading up to come home we suggested to Eli that he try riding his bike without the training wheels. We supposed he'd give it a few tries, but not really get anywhere. To everyone's surprise he just took off. He had a little trouble getting it started, but could ride just fine. He didn't want to leave the campground because he just couldn't get enough of the freedom of the two wheel ride. This was yesterday, and now he's a pro at starting, breaking and turning. I couldn't be more proud, I really didn't expect them to come off until next summer when he would be 5. I have to admit I got a little teary when he took off that first time. Ben had already put his bike on the back of the car, but pulled if off and said "I have to go for a ride with my son!".
Congratulations Eli!

A Purple Bead

We went to a birthday party at the park yesterday and shortly after arriving there, we had to leave. Eli had a bloody nose and said he had a bead stuck up his nose. At first I thought he said "Bee", and was glad to find out it was a piece of plastic and not a bug. I stood up to take a look, and my sandal broke. I decided it wasn't such a big emergency that it couldn't wait a few minutes, I took Ben and Lilly home, got some shoes (you definitely need shoes in the ER) and drove to the hospital.

They were really quick about it, we were only there a few minutes before they got it out. They stuck a very tiny straw with a little balloon on the end up his nose. They pushed the end past the bead, inflated the little balloon, and pulled it out with the bead wedged in front of it.

Eli didn't think this was very fun, but loved the Popsicle they gave him afterwards. I hope this experience will discourage him from sticking anything else up there!

When we asked him why he did it he said "Kylie stuck a bead up her nose and it got stuck, I thought if I did it I could get it out"! We had actually hoped the experience of a friend having the same thing happen would prevent this kind of experience, but alas no such luck. We even had to call Kylie because Eli wanted to know what color her bead was, for the record it was green!

Scooter

All the neighborhood kids have scooters, and Eli's was made for babies. Everyone has been nice enough to share with him, but we decided it was time to get him his own scooter. At first we considered a Razor, but Ben and I both had this type of scooter as a kid and loved how fast it went. It also does great "off road", Eli's already riding it off the curb. I was worried he wouldn't be able to balance it yet, since he still has training wheels on his bike, but he's done great. Maybe this will even be good practice for biking without training wheels!