Carter’s big day started with a walk down to the playground.

But by 10:00 it was too hot to be outside so we headed home to play where it was cool.

A little teddy-bear wrestling anyone?

Next we went to Panera Bread for lunch…hey, who ate all the brownie!?!

We picked up the balloons on our way home and decorated. Carter LOVES balloons! He had to have one in each hand at all times the rest of the day.

After dinner, it was time to open presents.

Then we had cake and ice cream…mmmm!

Carter is in a fork phase right now…

…but it’s still a work in progress…

…so just use what ya’ know.

Then a little more playing before bed.

My notebook of Raine-isms is getting full again so here they are, illustrated with some projects we made from her watercolor paintings. Raine does the painting, I cut them up, she smears them with glue, then I stick them to the paper. This is what we do while Carter takes naps — since Raine has decided that she can’t sleep while it is light outside. We have so much fun!

Thursday, July 7, 2011
Raine, very matter-of-factly, as we are sitting at the table eating dinner: “Daddy, when Carter turns into a girl then he will be a big kid.”
Ummm, apparently we need to have a discussion on the permanency of gender.

Any time I tell Raine that she can’t do something right now, maybe later, she says, “I need to do it Thursday and Friday and RIGHT NOW!” It doesn’t matter what day of the week it.

Thursday, July 1, 2011
Raine: “Who wants to go swimming?”
Mommy: “I do!”
Raine: “Ok. And whobody else?”
‘Whobody’ is a staple word in her vocabulary and it makes me laugh every time.

Sunday, June 26, 2011
Raine: “Mommy we are going to the temple.” (She had just finished singing ‘I Love to See the Temple’)
Mommy: “Oh? Ok.”
Raine: “Yeah, and we will see the alligators and crocodiles, and tigers, and . . . “
Mommy: “At the temple???”
Raine:”Yeah, and they have alligators, and dinosaurs . . .”
Hmm, apparently we need to spend some time talking about the temple, too.

Sunday, June 5, 2011
Raine singing as she jumps wildly on our bed: “Momma called the doctor and the doctor said, ‘no more monkeys jumping on the bed.'”

Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Raine: “Mommy you’re a gorilla. I’m a lion.”
Mommy: “What’s Carter?”
Raine: “Carter’s a duck. And daddy is a big green frog!”
Read into it what you will, I’m not sure what to make of it.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Raine: “What’s on your cheek Mommy?”
Mommy: “I don’t know. What’s on my cheek?”
Raine: “Sprinkles. There are sprinkles on your cheek.” (Freckles)

Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Raine playing hide-and-seek with Daddy: “I’ll go hide in the closet and you count to ten.”
She is obviously missing the point of the game!
Usually when it is Raine’s turn to hide she runs off while you count and then by the time you get done she has run back and yells, “You found me!!”

Raine, pointing to the triceratops on the back of my zoo-run t-shirt: “Is that one an Aunt-Sarah-tops?”

Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Raine, yelling from the bathroom where she is sitting on the potty: “Mommy, turn the light on in here so I can see my poopy.”
There is no shortage of potty talk around here. I always find myself thinking things like, “Am I really having this conversation? Did I seriously just say that out loud? Who knew that wiping your bum could be a conversation topic? Why does she have to give a play-by-play every time I’m using the restroom — especially in public? I really hope no one else is in here.”

Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Raine was in the bathroom washing her hands and could see DJ and Carter in the mirror. Out of the blue she says, “Daddy, I really like that striped shirt on you. It’s so cute!” DJ just laughed and said thank you. It was so random.

Saturday, April 2, 2011
We were getting ready for a bike ride and Raine wanted everyone to try on their helmet. I put mine on and she said, “You look like… an angel!”

I walked into the house after getting my hair cut and Raine ran up to greet me. She stopped in the middle of the entry hall and said, “Mommy, you’ve got crazy hair!” Not really what I was going for.

Painting for Daddy’s Father’s Day card.

Seen outside the shower door
The following two events happened sometime near the beginning of the year. They illustrate how hazardous it is to take a shower when you have little ones running loose.

I was in the shower, washing my hair, when I noticed Raine dragging the garbage can over from beside the toilet. I thought, “that’s weird,” and asked her what she was doing. She didn’t answer. Then about 30 seconds later it hit me: I get out the garbage can when I am cutting hair!!! I started yelling at her to stand where I could see her and sure enough, she had the hair scissors in her hand. That was a serious disaster narrowly averted!

As I was taking a shower, I saw out of the corner of my eye something sitting on the bathmat just outside the shower door. I did a double-take as I realized it was Raine’s diaper. She had taken it off and run off somewhere in the house. I started yelling for her — fearing another “poop on the floor” incident. Eventually she answered me from the bathtub. Phew!

This year we celebrated the fourth at Lake Grapevine with the Kinzler family — PJ, Katya, and almost-two year old Ophelia. We swam in the lake, grilled some hamburgers, ate watermelon, listened to the daddies jam, and watched the fireworks over the lake. It was a good time.

Refueling after our first swim in the lake.

Daddy and Carter with a view of the lake.

While we waited for the fireworks the girls were lounging in the chairs.

The daddies were jamming.

The babies were . . . kissing! (Carter was a willing participant the first time, but he gave sweet little Ophelia the stiff-arm every time she came at him after that.)

And reading.

And snacking.

We had a fun time! The kids loved playing together and watching the fireworks. Carter was so entranced by the show that he fell asleep right in the middle of it! (Okay, so maybe he was just exhausted from all the swimming, sun, and kissing!)

We FINALLY took Daddy to the water park this weekend so he could see first-hand how much fun we have. Raine loves the water and is quite the fish. She has also become quite the dare-devil. She will go down any of the slides that she is tall enough to ride.

We started at the toddler slides.

Carter likes to ride too.

My cute water babies.

Next it was time for the “big kid” area. There are five or six twisty slides that go down the backside of that big structure and Raine and Daddy rode them all. Unfortunately, there is so much water splashing, spraying, and dumping in this area that I couldn’t get any photos of them on the slides without completely soaking the camera.

This next photo shows the whole area, including the HUGE bucket of water that periodically dumps over the structure. On the right side of the photo is an orange slide. It is the kid’s equivalent of a drop-slide.

Raine kept insisting that she wanted to ride the orange slide, despite our best efforts to talk her out of it. So we finally said “okay.” I had seen other kids about her size go down and all of them flipped when they hit the pool so I knew Raine didn’t stand a chance. I stood right next to the slide, at the bottom of the drop, so that I could pull her out. I wish I had a photo of the look on her face as she came out of the tube and dropped — sheer terror! Sure enough, when she hit the pool she flipped. I grabbed her before she could get scared and starting telling her how cool that was. She just stood there with a look of shock on her face. I asked her if she had fun and she nodded her head “yes.” Then I asked her if she wanted to do it again and she shook her head “no.” I think she believes us now that it is a scary slide!

We did a lot of swimming and wore out poor Carter. He snoozed in the stroller while Raine and Daddy floated in the wave pool.

It is officially the dog days of summer and here is how we have been spending it.

Swinging

Climbing

Making sidewalk art with our good buddy Cade.

And when it is just too dog hot to play outside . . . it’s the perfect time to pick up a new hobby. Like, watercolor painting . . .

. . . or home re-organization!!!

Father’s Day had to start a little earlier than anticipated this year, due to Daddy’s new calling (and its laundry list of meetings to attend). In order to keep Daddy going all day long, we started with a custom-made breakfast.

Then I had to wake up the kids so they could give him his present.

A new tie!!!

And of course you wouldn’t really be a parent if you didn’t have somebody to eat your food for you!

We also made photo ties for the Grandpas. Grandpa Anderson sent us this photo of his!

Fathers really are special. Raine and Carter are the luckiest kids in the world to have such an awesome Daddy! He provides every comfort life has to offer; he knows how to have fun; he has a way of teaching the kids how to work and love it; he is always in a good mood; and best of all, he is a FABULOUS cook!!

We love you!

Because we have been spending as much time as possible at NRH2O, riding the water slides and floating around the endless river.

Last Thursday we drove over to the Dallas Museum of Nature and Science with some of our friends, Dawson and Kelsey Aydelott and the Staheli family.

(Daddy’s new calling in the Bishopric has also been a contributing factor . . . but mostly the playing.)

Carter had some photos taken today and here are a few of our favorites:

You can see more HERE.

Yesterday we drove down to Granbury for their traditional Memorial Day celebration in the historic downtown. We were running a little late — ten minutes to be precise — and we missed the entire parade. I’m not sure what kind of parade lasts less than ten minutes, but we were sure surprised that in the amount of time it took us to get two kids loaded into a stroller we missed the whole thing! No matter, we grabbed some kettle corn and headed over to the petting zoo.

Raine took a few minutes to settle in before she would touch any of the animals — she was really excited about the idea of petting animals, but when it came right down to the actual petting, she wasn’t so thrilled. She eventually agreed to pet the little pigs . . .

. . . and a small goat.

Carter was just trying not to melt in the triple-digit heat.

Here is a sneak-peak at some of the kid-sized fun we had on our trip to England and Wales.

We came upon this little playground across the street from the Tower of London.

Raine loved that great big slide.

The swimming pools were a hit with both kids. Carter splashed and splashed then would do a little frog kick as we swam around.

The hotel in Preston had a little water-slide that Raine couldn’t ride enough! (It was pretty steamy in there and after we took this photo they told us that cameras were not allowed so this is all we have to remember it by. You can see the end of the yellow water-slide at the top of the photo.)

We found this fun playground in Ruabon, Wales, one of the towns where Grandma Dewey’s ancestors lived.

It had a little zip-line that Daddy enjoyed more than either of the kids.

Carter’s favorite pass-time was to drive the car. He would put one hand on the shifter, one on the steering wheel, and then laugh and drool.