Stroller and Charlie

I got to watch me nephew Charlie, my sister Cynthia's son, this week. He is so cute, especially when he laughs. He loves to suck on his fingers. He has the biggest brown eyes and we're pretty sure he's going to have red hair so we'll have another red-head in the family.


Here's a picture of the infamous stroller mentioned earlier. For some reason Sierra and Jake didn't want me to take their picture. As you can see they share the same seat, which starts out all right, but it's a good thing the park is close because it's not too long before Sierra starts to complain about how heavy Jake is! I've told them they're going to have to work this problem out if they want to keep going to the park. We'll see what they come up with! Note the bottom of the stroller which I mentioned in a previous post, imagine that the seat is gone and that the kids are standing up in the bottom! Can you picture it? They thought it was pretty cool.

even more Gracie

Gracie and the slide

I trained Gracie to go down the slide one day at the park. It took me a while to do it because at first she was scared just to go up the steps to the play place. I just sat on the steps and waited for several minutes and she finally got the nerve to climb up with me. Then I picked the really small slide and went down it, waiting at the bottom for her. It took her quite a while to follow me but she eventually did and I was so proud of her! I gradually took her to the big slide and would slide half way down and let her come to me. Eventually, as you'll see on this video, she got to the point where she does it on her own, and she loves it! She tries to climb back up for more! Gracie's really cute and has really started to grow on me. She's almost house trained and is at the top of her puppy training class. The trainer even said she's ready for intermediate training, which is unusual for a 15 week old puppy. She's been really good with kids, too. She loves to play with them and let them pet her. Her new love is the dog park. The first time we took her she found a dachsund who wanted to play and they chased each other all over the park, our ungraceful Gracie biffing it when she tried to take a corner too tight! Geoff and I were laughing out loud watching those two dogs. Gracie would then go get a drink get all wet, then plop in the dirt to play again. She was filthy when we took her home and we had to put her directly in the bath. It was worth it to see her having so much fun.

Sierra and Jake

It's been a while since I've posted and now I have 3 or 4 to add, so be prepared! I watch my niece Sierra and nephew Jake every Monday while my sister Elisa attends community college. I really enjoy the time I spend with them. They love playing outside in the dirt, making "soup" out of leaves and sticks and whatever else they can find. They also love going to the park which is close to our house, feeding the ducks and playing in the park. My sister Elisa gave me an older one seated stroller she got for cheap on Craig's list and a few weeks ago I took it apart and washed the fabric. Well, it took me a while to get it put back in, so for one trip to the park the kids stood in the bottom of the stroller. They thought it was great fun! We had a little adventure when one of the straps holding the bottom onto the frame snapped. Of course this happened right as we were about to cross the street, Gracie was pulling on her leash because she's scared of the cars, and Sierra, who now had to walk, didn't have her shoes on. I had to lift her out and we just waited on the side of the road, me trying to calm Gracie and Jake, while Sierra put her shoes on. We all ended up laughing about it. Well, I don't know if Gracie was laughing, but the kids and I considered it an adventure. I have since replaced the seat in the stroller, complete with fuzz balls from the towels I washed it with. (Yeah, it looks a little trashy! Oh well.) The other day Sierra started showing me her kung fu moves. (They recently watched kung fu panda.) I couldn't resist recording her. Notice Jake in the background just turning in circles and then falling down...over and over!

We have a dog!

We have a dog. I can't believe we have a dog. This all happened very suddenly. Geoff was looking at goldendoodles online, a mix between golden retrievers and poodles and we saw one we thought was cute. Geoff called the number and we waited to hear from them. I imagined we'd go meet the puppy, see if we liked her, and possibly consider buying her. Well, it didn't quite happen as I imagined. I got home from work 2 days later and Geoff told me he had good news. He had spoken to the owners and purchased "Gracie!" I wanted to know why I couldn't meet her first and he said he had a very good reason. It was: she was in Indiana. She was scheduled to fly to AZ in 3 days time. I was in shock.
Geoff picked her up last Thursday and I have to admit she is a very sweet dog. Geoff is remembering how challenging it can be to train a puppy, but it helps that she is very good natured and follows commands well. She has had several accidents in the house, but my good husband always cleans it up. And she doesn't shed! We took her on a walk tonight and she just walked right along side us, didn't pull on the leash or try to sniff every tree. It was very relaxing.

She's a beautiful dog, too. As you can see she's growing on me. I never imagined I'd be a dog owner, but Geoff is very good with dogs and has promised to train Gracie well. She's a little bigger than I would have preferred, but Geoff says that's so she can go on walks with me and protect me. (I actually doubt she'll be much of a protector because she's so good natured!) I'll have to keep the blog updated with Gracie news.

Trip to Utah

Our nephew came home from his mission to Italy 2 weeks ago and we went up to welcome him home and spend some time with Geoff's family. We also got to go to the Salt Lake temple, which is beautiful. I'm always amazed at the skill of the craftsmen who built it without the benefit of all the tools we now have. It's pretty cool thinking of the history of the temple, too, that it took 40 years to build, that the prophets walk the halls. Pretty amazing.

Geoff with sweet little niece Jill, the youngest of the nieces and nephews on Geoff's side.

We spent a lot of our time playing the wii. Here is Geoff with brother-in-law Ron. I don't know if you can see or not, but notice which level they are playing. Hee hee! It had been a while since Geoff had played so everyone that played him gracefully played at a higher level to give him a chance. Of course, that didn't stop him from trash talking when he won! (his level 1 beating someone else's level 6!) I of course was creamed by everyone as I had never played before ever. It was still fun, though. I especially enjoyed the hoola hoop competition! I took a video of Geoff and I'm tempted to put it on here! We'll see.












We went to a yoga class with the nieces and I remembered how inflexible I am! When you look at the picture of me, just imagine that my knees are very bent, because that's what's allowing me to reach anywhere near my toes!
Geoff tried to keep up with Hannah (on his right) and complained of soreness the rest of the weekend!

Ode to pears

So our ward took on a project from the humanitarian center several months ago to color books for children. I took one home intending to color it within the next week and return it. Well, it is now several months later and I'm just finishing it. I only have one page left to color! I was held up partly by the fact that I did not have colored pencils and would forget to purchase them when I went shopping. Of course, I don't like shopping, so that further delayed the acquisition of pencils.
I eventually did purchase the pencils and have been dutifully coloring my book: 2 ice cream cones; 4 turtles; 8 kites. I've enjoyed choosing colors for each page, trying to make it interesting for the children.
Then I got to number eleven: 11 pears. Now, how do you make 11 pears interesting? How many colors can I actually use for pears? Couldn't they have chosen something like "11 balloons." That would make it easy to use a variety of colors. No, it had to be 11 pears. So I picked the obvious colors, yellow and green, and recalled seeing reddish pears somewhere, too, and I colored several pears. Then I decided to make it interesting and really see if the kids were paying attention. "One of these things is not like the others...." See if you can pick out the random pear in my picture. Hee hee! Oh, and I'm not done yet. All of these pears have noses. What color is a pear's nose? Should I not color them at all? Should I color them black to show signs of early decay? (that's "Missy 2.0" talking as Geoff would say!) What color is a pear's nose? Please, feel free to send your suggestions.