Catching up on the last few weeks

Ok, so we visited Poppi and Grammy in Jasper a couple of weeks ago and there are literally 78 awesome pictures of our time with them (and I forgot to download a whole day's worth from Grammy's camera) so I'm going to hit the highlights and then do a slide show :-) Then we'll travel back in time to Easter and other recent events.

Kinsey was thrilled to find out that Grammy has Handy Manny on her tv, too! She put on a dress-up outfit of mine from when I was a kid and cuddled up in Grammy's bed. I think there's pictures of the outfit on Grammy's camera. We had a really special treat - Ganny and Bill and Laura came for the day and Laura spent the night! Ganny brought Kinsey an awesome Sesame Street book that she loves. It has a story for each number 1-10 and she's reading it every day during her naptime. The traditional 4 generations picture.Fun outside...Laura brought bubbles!!! And she brought window decorations.Both kids had a great time in the swing down by the waterfall.There was lots of action at the top of the hill and just a few unplanned tumbles.Fun in the creek...Tag had a blast in the outdoors - he discovered so many new textures and plant materials to try to ingest. Here are just a few:

Bark-Pinecone-Pinestraw-Rocks-

But his favorite of all was the sweetgum ball. He wanted to eat one so badly!!! And then he grabbed a huge hunk of dirt and shoved it in his mouth. It's hard to tell from the picture, but you can still see some in the left corner of his mouth.Kids and dogs cuteness...And finally, a quick slide-show of pics that didn't make the individual cut...


Easter weekend was great - we went to Pops and Nana's house for some egg-dyeing. Kinsey got pretty excited about it but didn't make too much of a mess. Easter morning Kinsey was so excited to wear her new dress and do some twirls :)She is so stinking precious! My friend Dionne showed me how to make these cute new hairbows and I found the perfect colors for her Easter dress. Tag looked really cute, too, but I didn't get a picture. Here's a shot of him in his Easter outfit on a different day.Emma came over last week and the girls played in the backyard for a while. I set up Kinsey's cute table and chairs and made them smoothies. They are such big girls now and I loved watching them out there, like ladies with lattes :) Uncle Robert brought Kinsey a big surprise when he came to visit - a beta fish. She was so excited and had a great time putting together the Elmo house for her new pet. We named her Dorothy, because that's Elmo's pet fish's name.Here they are putting it together - thanks Uncle Robert!!! Dorothy is a really pretty fish - she is so pretty that she looks fake in this picture but I promise she's real :)Then we went over to the McBride's house and played Rock Band for Dionne's birthday. Here are Robert, Jacob, and Douglas playing. The girls had a blast together - here are their silly faces. Random cuteness from Kinsey and Tag.
Kinsey loves to help me find ribbons for her hairbows and she got a cute present for her birthday with colorful ribbon and so she asked me to make a bow for her from that ribbon. I figured, why not? Now she wants to wear it all the time. It's hilarious. The oh-so-rare Darin in front of the camera shot...
Ok, catching you up on some Kinsey-isms:
- After a loud noise "When that noise is really loud, it really freaks me up and I start fussing."
- "That was very impressant"
- I think I blogged before about Kinsey's word "clo" - as a refresher, her logical mind says that "clothes" is the plural and "clo" is the singular. I hope she NEVER gives this up. She was looking at a new shirt of mine in a picture and said "Mommy that is a really nice clo, when did you get that new clo?"
- Every morning she says "Can I leave my nightgown on for a little while?" Not "good morning" or "Hi Mommy" - it's all about the nightgown. The next statement after I say yes is "Oh. Ok. I need some dressy shoes." And that's what she puts on, the dressiest shoes she can find to go with her nightgown.
- Kinsey takes a nap every afternoon which she calls a "morning nap" and going to sleep at night is called the "dark nap". Everything is measured in the number of dark naps. So if someone is coming to visit in 3 days, she needs to know how many dark naps that is. If I tell her at breakfast that someone is coming over that afternoon, she says "after this nap?" which means the afternoon nap. The dark nap is a big topic of conversation.
-Today they studied in Sunday School about Jesus telling the disciples that he would be coming back. We talked about Heaven and she said that we should go up in the sky and fly up to Heaven to see Jesus and the disciples. She said, "We could take an airplane! Or a helicopter! Or a (move to a whisper) flying horse!!!"
- After having grandparents for a week while we were in the Bahamas, I gave her a Flintstone vitamin one day and she said, "Umm Mommy, Nana asks me which color I'd like to have"
- While making pancakes with Douglas Saturday morning, we told her we needed an egg and she said "Comin' right up!"
- This is a sample of our normal playtime - usually while I'm doing dishes or laundry - this particular one was last week:
Kinsey: Ok Mommy, I am going to have a baby and we are at the hospital. You are the waiter.
Me: The waiter? The hospital waiter?
Kinsey: Yes. What is your name going to be?
Me: How about Joe?
Kinsey: Ok. Yes. Ok. Your name is Joe. And I have to wear shoes because if I don't have shoes on, then you won't let me have the baby.
Me: Huh. Ok.
Kinsey: Oh, but first I'm going to the doctor so she can check the baby out and also look at my bug bites.

We love our Thursday night Small Group even though it's impossible to get away with anything with that gang. ONE time I forgot that it was our snack night and all I had was a small bag of Ritz Bitz and since then it's been merciless teasing. So this past week I decided to bring a dessert that would erase the Ritz Bitz incident from their minds. I found this awesome recipe in the KraftFoods magazine and decided to make it. They only suggested one chocolate dipped strawberry but give me a break! Anyway, here is the link to the recipe - super easy and really really good. http://www.kraftfoods.com/kf/recipes/layered-strawberry-cheesecake-bowl-112585.aspx