Last Day of School!! (For Amelia at least)

Yesterday was Amelia's last day of school. She's officically a second grader! She passed all her end-of-the-year tests with flying colors and is ready for the summer. Cooper has another 9 weeks, but we are all completely fine with that. We celebrated with a picnic in the park and lots of playing outside. Both kids already have a nice farmer's tan, and my lips are burned again. Here's some pictures:

Cooper riding down the "edge".


Amelia writing in her new summer journal.


Happy kids!

Nothing Much

I worked all weekend while the kids partied with the grandparents, aunts and uncles. So I have no pictures of this weekend, none that you would want to see at least! However, I do have one for you from last weekend. Last Sunday afternoon Amelia and Cooper were playing nicely and having a pleasant conversation. Upside down.

"I'm Being Tricky!"

Cooper is a mischievous little boy. He likes to play tricks on Amelia and me. In the past they have included: locking us out of the car, locking us out of the house, locking us out of the bathroom (I carry my keys everywhere now), hiding Amelia's favorite toys, "borrowing" toys from preschool, unrolling and re-rolling an entire roll of toilet paper, taking my bookmark out of my book and lastly--today's newest trick.

I was working out in the garage (lots of room, and no thumping for my neighbors below me) for 20 minutes. 20 minutes, people. Cooper usually watches TV or plays while I sweat it out. Today I heard him moving around, some water running and long periods of silence. I didn't want to stop my workout to check on him, and assumed whatever mess he'd made I could clean up easily. After the 20 minutes were up, I dragged myself upstairs to the kitchen. I opened the fridge to retrieve my perfectly chilled water and found this:



Yes, that's my EMPTY liter water bottle with toothpaste in it. I looked down at my sweet little boy who was wearing the most charming smile possible. He said, "I'm so tricky! I put my toothpaste in your water bottle!"

My water now has a slight cool mint flavor.

Bless his tricky little heart.

Sunday Afternoon Walk and New Sous Chef!

We have church at an awkward time. It's too late to have the rest of the day available, but too early to get anything done before we attend. Hence, we usually have time to burn in the afternoon. Normally we go on a Sunday drive, but today was so nice we opted for a walk. I thought it'd be good practice for all the hiking I have planned this summer. However, 3/4 of the way through I realized the kids need to build up some endurance! But we had a lot of fun and I'm confident bedtime will be a snap tonight!

Starting our walk.


Resting at the fountain (a bit tired).


They each brought a friend. Amelia's bunny is named Butterfly, and Cooper's puppy is Pluto.

Now that Amelia is in school so much, I've drafted Cooper to be my new sous chef. He is very talented already! (And yes--he leaves those knives in the background alone.)

Happy Mother's Day!

In honor of Mother's Day, here's a picture of me, Amelia, my mommy, and her mommy--my Grammy. Happy Mother's Day! I truly don't know where I'd be without my mom, and hopefully I'll never have to find out for a long, long, long, LONG time. Got that, Mom?



Here is Amelia in her Easter dress. Cooper didn't have any new Easter clothes, because he didn't "wike" anything in the store. And what Cooper doesn't wike, he doesn't wear! (Remember the overalls last summer?)


The kids posing. It's not a bad picture!






All of us before church.

Trying New Things---Fruit

Amelia came home from school last week and announced that we are supposed to try new things because we never know what we'll like. So, we are starting with food. My children have a very limited palate (as do I), so I bought a bunch of different fruits, made some fruit dip, and we expanded our horizons. Well, the kids did--I love almost all fruit!

Ready to try bananas, strawberries, pineapple, apples, and kiwi.




Cooper explaining he "wuved" the apples and bananas. He didn't "wike" the strawberries and pineapple. He wouldn't even touch the kiwi.


Amelia said she liked the bananas, apples, pineapple and strawberries....a no-go for the kiwi though.


Tomorrow I'm making them smoothies with the leftover fruit. We'll see if they like the fruit all blended together! Next time we'll try some more exotic fruit, like mangoes, coconut and pomegranate and see how those go over.

After that we're on to vegetables. That'll be rough for all of us! Yuck.

Low-key weekend

After so many crazy, jam-packed filled weekends, we decided to chill a bit. Saturday morning we got up, had a leisurely breakfast and took Cooper to the doctor. After picking up some heavy-duty meds, we had a nice lunch at McDonald's with the rest of the Rexburg's youth. After lunch we drove down to Idaho Falls to pick up Cooper's pictures and drop off some clothes. The sun was finally shining, so we parked downtown and walked around the greenbelt a bit. The wind was still cold, but the kids had a great time. Cooper especially like the waterfalls, and Amelia threw everything from rocks to sticks to pinecones into the river. (I managed to stop her before she almost grabbed some goose poopy. Honest mistake.)

We came home, had dinner then popcorn and a movie. The kids went to bed and I watched a movie. I got to bed about 11pm. Cooper began coughing at 11:03pm, and promptly threw up. We spent the rest of the night coughing, vomiting and discussing our opinions about the Royal Wedding being replayed on cable.

Sunday morning came and we decided Cooper couldn't go to church. Amelia still wanted to go, so I called a memeber of the primary to let them know she'd be there alone. She was so excited to be going to church alone. She was quite exasperated when I expressed worry. Here's the little darlin' all dolled up for church:



Turns out I didn't need to worry, she did just fine.

Next week starts Amelia's last month of school, and Cooper's first week of pre-school. EVERYONE is excited!

This was last Thursday. Amelia woke up and wanted to "look pretty" for school. I think there may be a boy involved. As always, Cooper wanted in on the shot.