Raine and Carter had their passport photos taken yesterday — let’s just say that it’s a good thing these passports expire before they will be old enough to care what their photos look like!

This past week, Raine and Carter’s only living great-grandparent was here for a visit.

Great-grandma Anderson came last Thursday and left last night. As with anyone that comes to our house, Raine thought that Nana’s sole purpose in being here was to play with her. So every waking moment Raine was right there by Nana’s side, doing puzzles, singing songs, sticking stickers, reading books . . .

. . . and teasing (“boop”-ing as Raine calls it)!

Wednesday we took Nana to the zoo.

This big guy was very active. He put on quite a show as we sat in front of his enclosure eating lunch — roaring, climbing, jumping, and posing for photo-ops.

The parakeet enclosure was finally open again so Raine was able to feed the birds. This is her favorite part of the zoo!

We loved having Nana here — I just hope we didn’t wear her out too much!

. . . you make bath time so much fun!

This is Raine and Dawson (one of her favorite babysitters) last December at the zoo. Raine LOVES Dawson. She is constantly talking about him and always wants to know where he is. On multiple occasions she has excitedly shouted, “there’s Dawson” right in the middle of Sacrament Meeting as he passes the sacrament or gives a talk.

Last Sunday, Dawson brought Raine a book which she was looking at as the meeting started. Just as they were preparing the sacrament, Raine got to this page:

She kept saying, “baby’s sad” over and over again. I didn’t really look at her until about the fifth time she said it. When I did, I realized that she had big ‘ole crocodile tears running down her face. I pulled her onto my lap and turned to the end of the book to show her that the baby was happy, but she kept turning back to the sad picture and saying, “baby’s sad.” So I closed the book, set it aside, and tried to focus her attention on the sacrament.

She started crying. . . . Not the two-year-old fit kind of crying but the sad, break-your-heart kind. I tried to reason with her about the advantages of being quiet so I didn’t have to take her out in the hall. I thought it worked at first, but then in the saddest voice you’ve ever heard she said, “I need to go out in the hall” and then started sobbing. I had no choice, so I climbed over Elder and Sister Jenson and carried her out of the chapel.

After the meeting I had no fewer than three different people comment about poor Raine having to be taken out of the meeting. Why? Because this is literally the first time that I have ever taken Raine out for a reason other than to feed her when she was a baby.

So from now on, all books will be censored for “intense emotional portrayals” before being given to Raine!

We took the kids to see BYU and super-star Jimmer Fredette play TCU yesterday. Even though the final score was 79-56, with 23 of those points scored by Fredette, it really wasn’t the most impressive showing. Regardless, we had a load of fun watching.

Despite Carter’s distressed appearance in the previous photo, that was only a result of the way I was holding him (and how long DJ took to push the button). The rest of the game he looked like this:

Raine’s favorite part of the game was watching the “crazy guy” (aka the horned frog mascot). She couldn’t wait for the time-outs so he would run onto the court and dance or flip. The whole time they were playing she would ask, “Where’s the crazy guy? Mommy, where’s the crazy guy?”

Carter today in the swing. (He had a pretty good line down his forehead from that rope.)

Raine on January 28. (Look at that playroom in the background and you’ll know why she was so tired.)

The Big Game was in our backyard (+7 miles) this year. The ice really put a damper on the festivities this week so we didn’t get a chance to see anything. But this afternoon it was warm enough to walk up to the top of the hill in our neighborhood where we could see the stadium. We expected to see some blimps or something, but there was nothin’.

So we fed the ducks and played at the playground until the storm front got so close that we were afraid we would get soaked if we waited any longer.

Last week we had temperatures in the 70’s so we did a lot of playing outside. We did some trike riding.

And lots of swinging.

But then Tuesday morning we woke up to the remnants of a sleet storm and temperatures in the teens. This may not look like much, but this little bit of ice shut down the entire metroplex for FOUR days.

School was canceled, DJ’s office was closed, and the roads were impassable so we were all stuck in the house. Tuesday we decided to cook. We made bread and Valentine cookies.

Wednesday we frosted the cookies.

Thursday we busted out all the games that I had stashed in the top of my closet — Hungry Hungry Hippos, Candy Land, and Hi-Ho Cherry-O.

Carter kept busy with the Mega-Blocks

Friday was supposed to be the day that it warmed up, but we woke up to this.

So once again we were all stuck in the house. Raine wanted to “walk in the snow” (not “play in the snow” just walk) so DJ took her out at lunch time. They were out there a lot longer than I thought they would be and they came back in soaked, pink-nosed, and smiling.

Luckily the sun came out Friday afternoon and melted the roads enough that we could go out for our weekly family date-night.

Raine is only two-years old but has now been to the ER twice for serious injuries. I don’t know what to say; it is hard to comprehend how such a mellow child can be so accident prone.

It all started while Raine and I were in the kitchen making Rice Krispie treats. She has a sturdy, stable, two-step stool to use in the kitchen, but for some reason she was standing on one of the little wooden chairs from her play-room. As she reached for something at the back of the counter, her chair tipped over backward. Her feet flew up with the chair and she landed right on her chin on the tile floor.

I picked her up and there was blood everywhere. I FREAKED out. I grabbed a dishtowel to stop the bleeding and as I pulled it away I could see that Raine’s chin was split wide open. It was gruesome. But then I noticed that there was blood coming from inside her mouth as well. I looked inside and the only way to describe what I saw is ‘hamburger.’ That’s when I really freaked out.

I called DJ because I didn’t know what to do — I’ve never had any traumatic injuries. Did I need an ambulance, should I just drive like mad to the ER, what should I do??? Honestly, my first instinct was to call 911 — I don’t do blood and my baby was covered in it, if anything was an emergency THIS was it. Fortunately, I was able to suppress that urge and called DJ first. (If you haven’t guessed yet, I am NOT the person that you want to have around when disaster strikes.)

DJ said he was on his way home and that I should call the pediatrician to see if they thought we should go to the Urgent Care or to their office. I started to call, but knew that I would have to wait for the nurse and I didn’t feel like I could handle that. So instead, I just started throwing everything and everybody in the car and started driving to the nearest Cook Children’s Urgent Care center. I called DJ from the car to tell him to meet us there.

Upon arrival, I slung Carter’s infant carrier onto one arm, the diaper bag over the other, and then pushed Raine in the umbrella stroller. I pulled up to the check-in counter and the receptionist says, “I need to see your insurance and ID then fill out these five forms and bring them back up to the window.” What is wrong with our society? You walk into an “URGENT” care center, covered in blood, and they expect you to drop everything, pull out your cards, and then calmly fill out five pages worth of contact information. Did I mention that I was carrying over 30 pounds and pushing a blood soaked toddler??? But yes, let me take that clipboard in the hand that is only carrying 10 pounds and try to avoid hitting my bleeding child with it as I push her over to the waiting area. I get more sympathy and help when I’m at the grocery store with two kids. But in her defense, after we were seated, the receptionist did bring over a pink band-aid to put on Raine’s chin. Apparently the blood soaked dishtowel and the fact that we were in the URGENT care didn’t suggest that this wound was a little more than a band-aid could handle. Regardless, Raine appreciated it and that was what mattered.

Within minutes we were triaged and called back into an exam room. DJ arrived, Raine told him that she “fell right on the tile” (a phrase that we heard repeated at least a hundred times the rest of the day), and then the doctor came in. She looked at Raine’s chin, played with it for a minute, and then to my relief said it wouldn’t need stitches. They would be able to glue it back together. When she looked into her mouth though, she said that it would have to be stitched. I really didn’t want Raine to have stitches so when the doctor came back a few minutes later and informed us that mouth wounds don’t require stitches, I was very relieved.

However, when the nurses came in to glue Raine’s chin, my fear of stitches was renewed because they couldn’t get it to close. They called in the doctor who was eventually able to get it closed and between the three of them they finally got Humpty Dumpty put back together again.

During all this, Raine laid perfectly still and quiet on the bed. She really is a tough cookie. I, on the other hand, got so queasy watching them try to close her chin that I had to sit down while DJ held her hands and told her that everything would be okay.

We finished our paperwork, checked out, and went home with our patched-up kid. She fell asleep as soon as we got in the car and took a much needed nap. After she woke up, it took awhile to find a sippy-cup that she could drink from, but within a few hours she was eating and drinking like nothing ever happened. She never took any Tylenol and didn’t complain at all about pain. I guess if you are going to be accident prone, it is a blessing to at least have high pain tolerance.

As a side note, Disney’s Alice in Wonderland was playing in the waiting area and exam room while we were there and I would like to know how a caterpillar smoking a bong made it into a children’s movie? I realize that it was the 1950’s, but was that ever not drug related?