It’s been a warm November. Time to play outside!

We like our hot tub. Wes and Carissa love “swimming” in it. Carissa likes to walk on her tippy-toes, but we have to watch her closely because sometimes she gets too brave.

I made muffins, and Carissa was a fan.

Writing is a difficult skill for Wes. But we keep working on it, and he gets a lot of help at school. Lately he has been getting notably better at it. Here he is writing the letter “E.” I’m impressed.

The kids and I made a Grateful Tree to decorate with leaves that list things we’re thankful for. This is Wes and Carissa cutting out leaves. Or, you know, trying to. Their scissor skills are still on the early side.

Wes loves making Lego towers. He’s quite good.

Wes and Carissa discovered they could give each other rides in the kitchen.

My mom and dad sent me a fruit basket from Edible Arrangements. It’s because I’ve been miserably sick since November 1, which culminated in a sinus infection last weekend, and I hurt my lower back and have been in physical therapy for it. My SI joint is locked, and I have problems with my lumbar (L3, L4, and L5). My back hurts every day, and my movement is limited. But stretching helps manage the pain, and I return for more physical therapy next week. However, I can’t exercise and therefore can’t work and teach my fitness classes for a little while.

Chocolate covered pineapple. Brilliant.

Reading in a box.

Painting nails all by herself.

The girls.

Wes and Elizabeth. That purple toy is everyone’s favorite, even Elizabeth’s. We set timers to help people take turns.

Wesley loves puzzles. He is good at them. This is his current favorite, a floor puzzle from the Llama Llama book series that I picked up at the book fair. It was the best investment ever, except that he lost one piece on the first day and we haven’t found it (we did dig one out from under the stove, though). It’s a 2-sided puzzle, and he does it every day.

Silly snuggler. Sometimes when I can’t find Carissa I’ll go up to her room and find her snuggled in her bed with blankets.

Lto

Tonight our neighborhood grocery store was having a holiday open house, with lots of tables with free samples and activities like face painting and banana car racing.

I was going to take Carissa, because she loves riding in the grocery cart that looks like a car. But she fell asleep at 6 pm while watching “Star Wars,” so we plopped her in bed and I went with Wesley instead. He was a perfect companion, and we had so much fun.

He pulled his green trolley cart behind him as we walked. He figured out real quick that if you stopped at a table, they would give him something. So we roamed around the store trying sample after sample after sample. Some Wes would eat right away, and others he collected for later in his green cart. We got cereal bar treats, mango lemonade, chocolate kisses, apples and caramel dip, an orange slice, mini hot dogs, a mini Snickers bar, peppermint ice cream, egg nog, rolls with honey butter, birthday cake, doughnut holes, bread slices, Oreo cookies…and the list could go on. They seemed to have run out of balloons, but a young man in a suit passed by us and asked if Wes would like his balloon, so then Wes had his own. And he clutched it as a prized possession the rest of the evening.

There was a race station where kids could decorate a banana in Mr. Potato Head parts, stick it on wheels, and then send it down a sloped track for a race. Wes won! He earned a bottle of True Moo chocolate milk, delivered by the sweet Miss Utah.

This was a fun night. Wes clearly had a fun time, and since he got to stay up past his bedtime he came home and crashed right away without even brushing his teeth. Could life be any better?

Last week, while it was still reasonably warm, I took my three kids to our local pumpkin patch. I like that it’s so close, and so free. And every year they make it a little better, too.

We got to go on a tractor hayride around the pumpkin patch. The kids really liked that.

School groups come and go. When the kindergarteners were there, it got a lot busier. But once they left it was nice and peaceful again.

One of the new improvements is two big slides. The kids climb hay bales to the top, then slide down the pipe to land in a cushion of corn kernels. Wes jumped right in and had so much fun. Carissa saw him having fun and joined in, but unfortunately I realized too late that the two slides were different; Wes was on the big, tall one (of course) and Carissa should have gone down the smaller, tamer one instead. So she didn’t like her first experience on the slide, and I ended up going down with her on the smaller, tamer one from there on out. They both had a good time.

On the other side of the slides is a big pit of corn kernels for the kids to play in. Wes enjoyed jumping off the bales, the higher the better. Carissa preferred to look at the pumpkins nearby. Elizabeth sat in the corn a little, until I got tired of pulling corn kernels out of her mouth.

We had a fun time, spending a couple of hours there.

At the end of June John and I took the kids on a hike up to a waterfall with some of John’s buddies. The wives and kids stayed at the base of the waterfall while the menfolk hiked up above the waterfall and then repelled down it. John’s gone repelling before but this was his first waterfall.

It started with a short hike up that originated in a residential area.

The kids played at the bottom, tossing rocks and eating snacks. (Wes tossed, Carissa snacked.)

The men didn’t reappear at the top for a long time. It turns out they hiked too far up and had to backtrack.

Then the big show!

(I’m pretty sure this is John saying something like, “Oh my! That is cold water!”)

Wes was waiting at the bottom for a big hug.

The view on the hike back.

On August 15, 2013 our sweet Carissa Rose turned three. She had a wonderful day. I’d been telling her that soon she would turn three, and then she’d be old enough for preschool, and she’s been looking forward to it. The day before she turned three I told her it was the last night she’d be just two years old. And as she went to bed that night she reminded me that it was her last night as a two-year-old. She has a good memory!

The morning of her birthday I didn’t remind her that it was her special day until the morning was about half over. But as soon as I did, she paused and her eyes lit up as this news sunk in. In an animated voice she talked about how she was three years old now. It’s so fun to watch her excitement.

We pulled out a helium tank we have and blew up a few balloons. That was hugely exciting for Wes and Carissa.

But the Big Event of the day was taking Carissa to Build-A-Bear at the mall. I’ve never been into stuffed animals myself, so I never gave it much thought. But a few weeks ago John and I were at the mall for dinner and noticed little girls coming out of the mall with Build-A-Bear bags and their new stuffed treasures inside. They looked so happy that we thought we should walk through the store before we went home. We did, and we observed the prices (which are naturally not cheap), but we came away convinced that out little daughter would absolutely love the experience.

And thus she did. The way it works is you pick a stuffed animal shell, fill it yourself (with an employee’s help) with fluff, give it a heart, and then you can buy accessories and clothes and print a birth certificate. Wes was quick to find a Hello Kitty one, and as soon as Carissa saw it, that was it. We took it to the fluff machine. The very, very nice employee showed Carissa how to use the foot pedal to fill her Hello Kitty with fluff.

You’ve got to watch this video. It is just so cute to watch her experience this. Also, notice that the employee is missing his forearm, but look how good he is at using what he has.

Bath time.

Honestly, cross my heart, I wasn’t planning to buy the stuffed animal any accessories or clothes. But as soon as her kitty was bathed she sidled up to the accessories wall and said that Hello Kitty needed some clothes.

OK. Why not? It’s her birthday. There were dresses and shirt/short combos, but since Carissa herself prefers shorts that’s what Hello Kitty got, too. I was turning to leave when I heard Carissa say, “Now she needs shoes!” and she was already perusing the selection. So. Hello Kitty ended up with some pretty snazzy wooden sandals.

However, I drew the line at the chair and car. But Carissa sure had fun playing with them for a while.

During this time Wes is mostly pulling these wheeled toys around the store (and out into the mall).

Carissa is happy. Off to print the birth certificate!

There’s a candy shop/ice cream store near the mall that we’d never been to before. We stopped in. Wes had an ice cream cone and Carissa had a huge sucker that the nice employee gave her for free since it was her birthday.

After dinner we headed to my parent’s new place and had a birthday celebration.

Oh, Carissa loves birthday parties! She throws birthday parties for her stuffed animals often, and we knew she couldn’t wait to have a real one for herself. As I buckled her into her carseat to go to the party she said, “I want candles on my cake!” Because her stuffed animals always have (pretend) candles on the (pretend) cake that she makes for them in her (pretend) kitchen.

We sang, she blew, and then we ate!

She ate her cake with such relish, enjoying every bite. She picked out the cake herself at the grocery store the night before. She was so sure she wanted the one with balloons on it, I couldn’t say no.

Then it was present time. Grandpa helped her open (along with all her cousins).

Besides the Hello Kitty, I really only gave her a backpack (which is practical since she starts preschool in a couple weeks). It’s a penguin backpack, since she’s really into penguins these days. But her grandma, uncle, aunt and cousins were uber generous and she received some really lovely gifts like a dress-up fairy costume with accessories, Hello Kitty book with little toy figurines, magnetic dress-up dolls, and the list goes on.

Her grandma provided goodie bags for all the kids, which I let Wes and Carissa open at home the next morning. It was like Christmas! Carissa kept asking if she could play with the toys she had just gotten, and which I had piled on the little kids’ table, and I kept telling her, Yes! They’re all yours! Play with them! The light in her eyes is unforgettable.

So she had a very happy birthday, thanks to the wonderful support of family and the beautiful innocence of being three years old. For a few days after she would say, “I’m still three!” (I think she was going for, “I’m three now.”)

And here’s Elizabeth!

Only August 3rd and here’s what we’ve done.

Elizabeth is almost 9 months old. In the past month she’s started, and gotten reeeeeally fast, at army crawling. I don’t recall either Wes or Carissa army crawling, just crawling. I think Carissa started around 10 months, and Wes was slightly older. Elizabeth gets on all fours sometime and rocks back and forth, and I’ve seen her take a few short legitimate crawling movements forward before falling back to her tummy. She can push herself up to sitting. She likes to play peek-a-boo and can even pull the blanket off her face herself to play. She’s super curious. She wants to touch everything, eat everything, and she definitely puts everything into her mouth that she finds. Daily I’m pulling something out of her mouth. She also seems very social, preferring to be around people and crying if she’s left alone. Her demeanor seems calm and sure. Wesley loves her, and both he and Carissa delight in grabbing her by the feet and pulling her backwards on her tummy, away from things (they think) she shouldn’t be getting into. She also recently acquired two bottom teeth.

Some newer advances include pulling herself to standing, such as on this toy.

Today I found her, for the first time, sitting up in her crib when I went in to get her.

And, today we discovered she can climb steps. ALL of them. And the fun continues.

Oh yeah, I had a birthday yesterday.

This morning I visited and guest-taught at a Zumba class, and on the way home I saw a yard sale. I stopped and now we’re the proud owners of two new Easter baskets and a green tent that looks like a turtle. All for $5.50. Elizabeth didn’t have her own basket, and I know Carissa just likes having the baskets out to play with all year round.

Like so:

(With Pingu, of course. That’s Wes in the background playing in the rocks like he does.)

Ritual bathtime is every Saturday night. All three in the tub. Elizabeth only recently joined the other two in the big tub, which she considers tremendous fun and likes splashing in like a crazy person.

Not going to lie, bathtime is not my favorite time. It is a hard job to bathe three non-independent people, some of whom (*cough*Carissa*cough*) put up a big fuss if any water comes in contact with their eyes/face/ears/body. Lately it’s been starting to get a little better as Carissa gains a little pride in being independent and trying to get the ends of her hair wet herself after shampooing. I just have to be really careful to keep the water off her face. Her hair is a big job to clean. Wes is pretty brave and can dump water on his head himself to get most of the shampoo out.

Nonetheless it’s a physical and time-consuming thing, bathtime. Good thing they smell so good and have such shiny hair afterward.

Wes found my camera as I got things ready.

Can you see her bottom teeth?

When Carissa comes out of the tub we have pamper time. I set her on the counter of my vanity, smooth oil and mousse in her hair, brush it all out, and then blow-dry it. She likes this time. Her hair always turns very straight, which for some reason makes John hopeful it will stay straight forever, but within a half-hour the curls come out of nowhere. Those curls are here to stay.