Lasik, Kissing Turtles, Togglers, Happy Birthday Merrick

Drew went on another weekend getaway this month to Utah to have Hoopes Vision fix his eyes.  He has been reveling in a contactless bedtime routine, being able to see first thing in the morning, and getting to wear these very attractive eye shields while sleeping.  

He took Rafe along with him, just for fun.  While Daddy had suction cups attached to his eyeballs, Rafe got to visit Papi and Aunt Haley at the hospital and visit with some of our most favorite people.  

We spent our weekend in the mountains again.  I took the baby and the girls and some friends from the ward out to the Kissing Turtles.  

It was a brisk, windy day, and by the time we got to the turtles our friends were about frozen (I had miraculously managed to dress everyone warmly enough for the first time ever).  They also seemed a bit intimidated by the scrambling required to get around the rocks, and looked as though they wanted to go home.  I convinced them to come just a bit farther...

 ...because the other side of the hill was MUCH less windy.  Everyone soon warmed up in the sunshine...

  ...and then started to feel brave enough to explore.

Even Annie.

  

This place is the best playground.

 The rocks are grippy, so even the littlest can climb.

  

And the view can't be beat!

 Merrick tried his best to wander around but he's still pretty terrible on uneven ground, so after innumerable falls he eventually just gave up and laid down in the sunshine with a snack.

It made me feel like a kid again to be back here!

 Once the babies were done, we headed back down the mountain, admiring the views of the valley on our way.  

 It's fun to see these sisters together when Rafe's gone.  I think they are beautiful girls.

 And funny.  They are pretending to fall.

 We drove past my old house on our way home.  I had to just sit in front for a few minutes and soak in the nostalgia.

 My old elementary school was unrecognizable.  And much more politically correct.  They've changed their mascot from Chelwood Chiefs to Cheetahs.

It was a good adventure for my morale.  There are definitely lots of good things about living here.  Hot air balloons are high on the list.

 And the gorgeous sunsets that make me wish I could paint.

 We hear coyotes singing at night sometimes, and when we took Vivien to school the other morning we saw one next to the road!  I asked him if he though it would be a hard winter.  He said he didn't know.

 AND we have a roadrunner that must live somewhere nearby, because we've seen him in our yard twice.

 The other day when we were leaving to go pick up Vivs from school, the landscape people were making their way up the street with leaf blowers.  As soon as I opened the garage door a rabbit came dashing in and took refuge under our shelves.  I left him shut in the garage so that when we got back from school with Vivi she could see him too (she tried to feed him cheese and celery).

 He was not interested in eating.  I tried prodding him towards the open door, but he bolted straight to the side wall and desperately jumped up about as high as the top of our water heater, landing hard in a clatter of claws.  He then scuttled along the wall behind all the garage junk until he hit this corner, at which point he froze, 2 feet from freedom.  I finally had to pick him up and set him on the driveway.  I avoided his scratchy feet, but not the copious fur he left all over my clothes.

 One more critter.  I love how camouflage grasshoppers are.

 I made Vivien some bunny slippers, to soothe her hurt feelings at being left out of the trip to Utah.   They turned out really cute...

 ...even if the source yarn kind of looks like intestines.

She puts them on the minute she gets home from school and doesn't take them off, even to sleep.  

 I also knitted a pillow cover for my bed with the last of my hand dyed New Zealand wool. 

 It matches the tip of South Africa on my bedspread.  An hour after I finished it, Annie went in and stuck her little fingers under a bunch of those floats and pulled them out a couple inches.  I had to go back in and painstakingly redistribute the yarn.  More on her naughtiness later.

 Now for some updates by person.

MERRICK

This boy.  There are no words to describe his sweetness.

 Here he is with a big smile at Vivi's school's McTeacher night (a portion of all the sales at a certain McDonald's within a certain time frame were given to her school), even after being bowled over several times by boisterous children.

A funny thing he's been doing lately.

He's been trying really hard to climb on stuff.

But he's so heavy!  I have to hold him with two arms most of the time.

He's being a good sleeper right now.  We gave up on transitioning to one nap--he loves his morning nap too much.  He finally cut a new tooth (one more for him to grind together; such a horrible sound), so now I think he feels happy enough that most of the time I can nurse him to sleep in the afternoons for a second nap.  He's sleeping through the night most nights, and on weekends when we get to "sleep in" I can bring him in for snuggles when he wakes up and catch a few more minutes. Sorry for the breastfeeding picture, but this view of his face and his pudgy little hands is one of my favorite things in the world.

 He walked to the park across the arroyo yesterday in his new birthday jacket.  He would NOT hold my hand on the uneven sand.  It took us a loooooong time.

 He was tuckered out once we got there.  He sat on my lap for about 15 minutes, watching a boy trying to do a trick on a skateboard off one of the picnic tables (he was a very dedicated little boy!  He must've fallen off his skateboard at least 20 times before he finally landed his trick).  Once the skateboarder went away, Merrick was ready to play again.

 We celebrated his birthday this week.  I made him a rainbow cake.

 He liked it very much.

 I am rather pleased with how it turned out, myself.  Rafe asked with narrowed eyes if there was "adocado" in the frosting.  He's very suspicious of me now.  There was no avocado in the frosting.  Just butter.

 It was so fun to eat with all its bright colors!

After cake we helped the boy open presents.  

His favorite thing was the jingle ball from the top of his new Stack and Roll Cups (which are the coolest toy--thanks Grandma Paula!).  

 We tried to take a "1" picture.  It's pretty true to life.

A Daddy snuggle for the birthday boy.

This is a really good Daddy for our little Baby 1. 

Here's a quick look at all our one year olds.

 ANNIE

This is her preferred reading posture right now: semi-reclined with one leg crossed.

And these are some of her favorite books.  When I was reading to her earlier this week, I said, "Green Eggs and Ham, by Dr. Seuss."  She cocked her head, then slowly reached for Hop on Pop and said, "Dr. Seuss!"  I was inordinately proud.

This is Annie's new favorite place to watch TV.  The other day we were cleaning up and when we finished she said, "Now can we watch My Tiny Pony?"  (Just FYI, the theme song for the Spanish dubbing of My Little Pony is horrendously out of tune.  It's like they recorded the vocals in a completely different key)

Annie is very concerned by the sight of her own blood right now.  She can fall really hard and be fine if there is no blood, but the tiniest scrape that bleeds is something to cry about for hours.  One day she was freaking out about some blood on her hand.  "I HAVE BLOOD!  I HAVE BLOOD!"  I finally went over and looked at it so she'd stop crying.  It was spaghetti sauce.  I wiped it off and she was fine.  

 It's a good thing she is adorable.

Because she has been SO NAUGHTY lately.  Bold-faced defiance, with a smile.  In one day this week, she colored on walls twice,

ate books and crayon wrappers, 

 filled up the toilet with an entire brand new roll of toilet paper,

shattered my hand mirror, messed up my pillow, cut my silicone swim caps into ribbons with the kid scissors, covered the floor of my bathroom with an entire package of Q-tips, pushed Merrick over and sat on him, and pulled threads out of her bath towel with her teeth. But for now, her bad moments are still balanced by her good.  She is our favorite "toggler," as she calls herself.  That is, when she's not calling herself "Mommy" and making off with "her stuff" (my phone, wallet, purse, keys, etc.).  

 RAFE

Here's some x-rays Rafe had taken at the hospital when he visited Papi.  I like all his adult teeth waiting to come in.

A selfie.

 Reading lessons are going well enough.  He's doing great, he's just hard to keep focused.  We've started splitting the lessons in two so they don't last forever.  One day he was doing pretty well sitting still, so I asked if he wanted to just finish the whole lesson that day.  His response: "Tomorrow, because my muscles are not strong enough to read a story right now" (this pronouncement was immediately followed by him scrambling over the back of the couch and ninja leaping into the air, so yeah, his muscles were really tired...).  It's nice to have an excuse to sit and talk to him, even if everything he says is completely off topic.  This week, instead of sounding out the word, he spent a long time showing me how "sick" below looks like a train, with little puffs of smoke coming out of the "i" smokestack.

 He is doing a 5 week basketball clinic through the city's recreation program right now.

Drew has been really good to dribble with him every day when he gets home from work.  He is much improved...but still looks like this to me.  

Today Rafe and Vivien were being very quiet somewhere.  I found them snuggled up in my bed together chatting.  

Vivs has been spending a lot of time in bed this weekend.  She got sick again!  Poor kid cannot catch a break.  

 I usually don't give her Tylenol when she's sick because she is so good to just quietly sleep it off, but she's had a lot of aches and pains with this round of fevers.  I think part of that is because her molars are coming in, and one of her 3 front teeth is lose.  Last night it seemed like she woke up every hour, keening, "Ow!  Ow!  Ow!  Owww!  Ow!" until my brain finally pulled it together enough to realize I needed to get her some medicine.  Her Christmas Squooshems has been a good sick day companion.

She does look pretty with some color on her cheeks!  

 She's been spending a lot of time drawing lately.

Since she's a little older now, I decided to give her another try with markers.  In the past they've left them all over the place with their caps off and they get dried out and ruined.  But she has taken really good care of these so far.  I'm enjoying the things that come out of her head.  

 And Rafe's too.  I designated a gallery wall in their room to display their favorites.  Combined with Vivien's foam ornaments for the bunk bed, their room is getting to be quite colorful.  You can see the rain gutter bookshelves we installed for each of the kids in this picture.  Vivi's lives by the window, Rafe's is by the platform.  And under the platform is his secret place, where all his clothes baskets go.  He asked me to close his curtains the other night when I was done tucking them in for bed.  "I'll be like a hidden treasure!"

One more Vivien funny.  She was talking to me the other day about ticklish spots.  "I have 3 ticklish spots on my body.  My neck, my ear, my arms, my legs...I think my whole body is ticklish."  She then proceeded to tell me that it tickles her to make circles on her bum.  I wasn't quite sure what that meant.  She told me that sometimes at night while she's lying there waiting to go to sleep, she'll tickle herself by making circles on her bum cheek with her finger, starting big and then getting smaller.  I had never heard of such a thing.  It made me laugh.   

Here I am in my hiding spot for Sardines that we played for FHE game.  Drew is pretty sure that we could easily hide from our children in our house all day without them finding us. 

Also, here is this.