Grandpa visited in early March and repaired a clogged drain. The kids watched.

Grandpa showed them his new shop in their backyard.

And Grandma read a book to them.

Wes is 6 1/2 years old. He likes to do things by himself. This teaches me much patience, as it is always easier and faster to do it myself, but not better for him. Lately he has been practicing making his own bagel in the morning. I help him put it in the toaster, but he can get the plate, knife, and cream cheese out himself and spread the cream cheese (with a little help). I’m proud of him.

Recently Carissa wanted breadsticks for lunch. I told her we’d have to make them, and she said that was OK with her. Thankfully I have a nice 1-hour bread recipe. She liked helping shape the breadsticks and putting them on the pan to bake. She likes to help in the kitchen and sometimes comes in while I’m cooking dinner and says, “Mom, can I help?” She especially likes stirring and tasting (especially when I’m not looking).

We made some no-bake cookies (which usually have peanut butter in them) from Biscoff cookie spread, which is nut-free.

Elizabeth likes to eat but it is messy.

In March we visited a yummy cupcake shop with Aunt Tara.

Elizabeth is 17 months today and what a wonderful handful she is. Bright, robust, and talking with a million words of her creation. She loves to say “bye-bye” to everyone and everything, and she squeals whenever she sees our cats outside. She gets really excited to see buses (because Wes rides a school bus and we look for it five days a week) and calls them “Ba ba.” Also known as “Ba ba” is her favorite crocheted blanket. She can identify the nose and calls it “no.” When she wakes up at night crying John is really diplomatic (and more patient than I am) and gets her to calm down by asking her what she wants, going through “no, no, no” until he gets a “Yes!” and problem is solved.

There’s a garden plot in our backyard that serves as a hole-digging paradise.

Also a place where the kids can explore for wriggling worms.

We found a cheap remote-controlled Angry Birds balloon that the kids enjoy flying in our living room.

One day Carissa started crying hysterically, saying her thumb hurt. She said she pinched it in the DVD case. It took a lot to calm her down and she refused to use her thumb all evening. But by nighttime I saw her using it again. The next day the same thing happened (not sure how she hurt it this time). And then it happened the next day a third time. We didn’t know if there was something wrong, so John took her to instacare (wish we had insurance). They took xrays and wrapped her hand in a pink bandage. Nothing seems to be wrong, although she might have had a strained tendon. John said Carissa was an absolute ANGEL at the doctor’s office and the nurses loved her–until it was time to go home and she still had the pink bandage on. She cried and cried that she wanted it off, but we wouldn’t let her. She pulled it off herself after bedtime. We put it back on the next day, but she pulled it off again. As far as we can tell her hand is fine.

I took the kids swimming a couple weeks ago, which is one of their most favorite things in the world. Especially Wes. Usually transition times (like when it’s time to stop doing something and start doing something else) are REALLY HARD for Wesley. And for me, getting him to transition. It is like dragging a donkey through the snow. But all you have to do is say, “Wes, wanna go swimming?” and he is 100%, perfectly compliant and willingly goes potty and puts on his swim trunks and runs to the garage door saying, “READY!” all by himself without any push from me. And once he is in the water Wes is as happy as in heaven, swimming and jumping and splashing and doing everything that brings him joy. This time he met a boy there about his age and they had so much fun running around the pool together. It’s a great toddler-sized pool that even Elizabeth can stand in and walk around. After about an hour Carissa got up courage to go up the stairs to the slide area (because water rains down on the steps–she was nervous to go through that). But I couldn’t get her down a slide because of the water that periodically dumps from above. I can understand that, but I sure loved going down those slides, and so did Wes. We stayed a couple hours and got ice cream on the way home (which is literally the only way to help Wes transition happily from swim-time to go-home-time). I tried to get a good picture of them before we left for the pool but this was the best I got.

This is a game in the lobby of the rec center where you try to touch lights that move.

Wes on the way home from the pool.

Some artwork:

Carissa recently learned how to make rainbows.

Carissa also recently discovered eyebrows.

Wesley doesn’t love coloring like Carissa does but sometimes he gets into it. He is getting good at writing letters.

Playing at a friend’s house.

Wes got to hang out with the BYU cheer squad. They played red light/green light and Wes had fun. Usually the BYU athletes tower over the people with Down syndrome (because they’re typically short) but these cheerleaders were just the right size.

In Feb-March Wes played in a basketball league for kids with special needs. To say Wes loved it would be an understatement. He lived for that every Saturday for six weeks. He was the only 6-year-old who could make baskets in the tall regulation-height hoops. At the end of the six weeks he got a medal.

Wes is really good at writing his name. This a sign of great progress from the start of his school year. However, he did it with permanent marker on our coffee table and I haven’t been able to get it off yet.

We went bowling with his BYU Athletic Connection group one week. Wes loves bowling.

Wes cheering for himself.

Carissa had more fun in the arcade section. We spent a few dollars playing Ski-ball (I played, she watched and collected tickets) so she could “win” a red slap bracelet. She also won some bouncy balls. Afterward, naturally, we got ice cream from the Creamery and visited the BYU Bookstore. We bought a couple Pinkalicious books, which are some of Wesley’s current favorites.

Elizabeth is 16 months old. When she was a new baby we called her “so sweet.” Now we say, “What a little scoundrel!”

Her personality is emerging more every day, along with her vocabulary and propensity for trouble-making. Some of the words she says:

No! (her first word, I think)
Shoe (her second)
Yeah (“Yes”)
Mom! (obvious)
Da! (“Dad”)
Ni-Ni (“Night-Night,” meaning bedtime)

And today John her her say “Up” when she wanted to be picked up.

Those are her only clearly distinguishable words but she is talking all the time. Gibberish, but obviously it means something to her. If you try to translate it into something like, “Oh, you want to go outside?”, she’ll nod her head and say, “Yeah.” So we communicate.

She likes ice cream cones.

Sometimes we stick her on the potty to practice.

Elizabeth loves a good time and is playful and mischievous. This is where the “little scoundrel” part comes in. One of her favorite pastimes is running up behind Carissa, grabbing fistfuls of her hair and pulling for all she’s worth. Poor, poor Carissa. All I can do is tell Carissa to run away and climb to higher ground to save herself (except now Elizabeth has mastered climbing onto sofas and beds, too).

She has also figured out that if she’s getting into something she knows she shouldn’t, she should find a nice dark corner, or an empty room, in which to do her badness so we’re less likely to find her. If I don’t know where she’s gone it’s usually bad news.

She has learned how to unscrew lids, and she knows where to find everything with a lid that we don’t want her to open. Namely:

– mascara
– concealer
– deodorant
– toothpaste
– Chapstick
– really, absolutely ANYTHING that she can open

She also knows what items I don’t want her to have, but this seems to attract her to them all the more. Like my toothbrush. I can’t tell you how many times a day I find her with my toothbrush in her mouth, happily gnawing away.

If I remove her from something I don’t want her to be into (such as my earbuds, which are usually in my bedroom on the second floor), and I take her all the way downstairs and to the far opposite side of the house, the very moment her feet hit the floor she pivots and like lightning runs straight back to the problem situation.

(P.S. She ate my earbuds, so I had to buy new ones.)

She LOVES to wear her shoes and is always bringing them to me to help her put on. She feels like one shoe is sufficient for going outside. She loves to be outdoors. Her favorite things in the backyard are the sandbox, slide, and water table.

She chases after Wes and Carissa with tremendous joy. She loves being in the action and part of the gang. She enjoys wrestling with Wes (who is not as gentle as I would like).

Her hair is long enough that it usually hangs in her eyes. I tried a million hairclips, but they last only a millisecond before she pulls them out. So I finally found these tiny, rubbery elastic bands that she actually lets stay in.

Her hair is lighter than Carissa’s but straighter (on a sad note, after a recent haircut Carissa’s curls mostly disappeared; apparently they were just baby curls. I’m still crying about it). But Elizabeth’s hair curls right after a bath, so that gives me a little joy.

When she learned to nod her head. We were proud parents.

Elizabeth loves blankets and snuggling in them. I always forget that I can’t try to fold a blanket while she’s in the room because she ambushes it every time. She runs straight into it and rolls around on the floor, a giggling mass of blanket and baby. Her favorite blankets to sleep with are crocheted ones, like the one from Grandma.

She goes to bed around 6:30 pm and wakes up around 7 am. I think she is finally sleeping pretty well through the night (let’s hear a hallelujah for that!).

She recognizes her tummy and bellybutton and head, and gets really excited when she sees our cats. Lately her new things is sitting on top of the couch at the picture window in the living room and watching the world go by. Wes used to do that a lot, too.

Yesterday I dropped some chocolate chips on the floor. No sooner had they touched the floor before Elizabeth scurried over and ate them all up. Today I gave her a chocolate chip granola bar. Guess what was gone first? (Hint: not the granola part). She also likes M&Ms.

When you take a picture she makes a sound like “Cheese!”

She loves to play in the sink and will stand by the step stool and make noise until I drag it out for her.

The other day I was sitting on the couch by Wes with Elizabeth in my lap. He indicated he wanted to hold her. They were so cute together I had to quickly grab my camera for a shot. Naturally Carissa wanted in, too, and–naturally–she only adds to the sweetness of the scene.

Baby Elizabeth needed a bigger car seat since she’s outgrown her infant-size one. Since all three seats have to fit across the back of my car, I researched narrow car seats, but they are so darn expensive I finally just bought a regular-sized convertible car seat from our local Costco for much cheaper that I knew I could easily return if it didn’t fit.

It fit! Barely. After a bunch of hours of frustration trying to install the new rear-facing seat myself (reading and re-reading the owner’s manual, looking up videos and reading reviews online) but still not getting it right, I called the county car seat specialist and scheduled an appointment for a car seat check. The lady spent 45 minutes checking each seat, making sure they were installed properly and adjusted to fit my kids’ height. Good thing we went in; the only way to get the new rear-facing seat to sit at the proper angle involved wrapping cut-up pool noodles in a towel and stuffing them under the seat.

And now we’re good to go until someone else outgrows a seat.

We went grocery shopping. This can be a lot of work. Carissa likes the carts with a mini-car in the front that she can ride in. She sits in that (buckles herself in, so she’s safe), Elizabeth sits in the cart seat up by me, and this time for Wes, I gave him his own mini-cart to push around and load with groceries so he could help. But he ended up riding it like a scooter all over the store and I spent a lot of time chasing him down and pulling him back by me. And he ate a big bite out of a head of broccoli and so we bought it. He does this almost every time I let him near produce in the grocery store.

Carissa likes to wear this special hat. Sometimes it’s a swim hat to keep her safe from sharks. Today it was a cooking hat to keep her safe from…I don’t know, something related to cooking.

I shouldn’t have let Elizabeth build towers out of Yoplait, because several ended up broken on the floor. But oh well.

This is still Wes’s favorite puzzle. He builds and rebuilds it all day long, every day. There is one stubborn piece missing and I don’t know where to find it.

This stinker is into everything and climbing onto everything. Such as climbing chairs to reach my laptop or get onto the table. We try to keep the chairs pushed in as far as possible.

Wes liked peanut butter, just like me. John blames this on me, and also Wes’s propensity for ice cream, but Wes also really likes chocolate and I blame that on John.

We were playing a game called “Ready, Set, Go!” and this is Wes telling Carissa to “Go!”

Our new early morning church schedule is a challenge for the baby, who usually naps during this time. She was really good overall today, but still couldn’t keep herself from hitting the floor near the end.

Our three-year-old is the newest member of the Primary program in the Sunbeam class. Today was her first day. She brought home a crown and a necklace with a picture of the sun, and she did really well.

I like watching Wes and Carissa on the couch together.

Carissa artisting and and Elizabeth watching. Captured two seconds before she got her fingers into the watercolor paint.

I just washed and cleaned this sofa slipcover. Which, of course, is an invitation to crawl all over it.

With the holidays fast approaching we’ve been enjoying the season.

I tried taking photos of the kids for a potential Christmas card but they all basically turned out like this. No Christmas cards for us.

We bought a pile of hot chocolate for a church activity. Wes and Carissa liked using it to build a giant tower.

Wes is really improving at his art and writing skills. As his mom, I am Super Impressed and Proud. And so I share:

He did this picture AND the word all by himself. ALL BY HIMSELF. (I just told him how to spell “spider.”) Did I mention I’m Super Impressed and Proud?

Elizabeth is 13 months going on 13 years.

This afternoon the sun was shining and it was above freezing, so when Carissa asked to play outside in the snow I couldn’t object. For the first time, both kids got to make snow angels. Carissa did one and was happy (“Just like Kipper!” she said, referring to the dog on one of her favorite shows from Netflix), but Wes made about six. He really liked it!

Carissa was my helper decorating our goodies for neighbor gifts. She was in her element and did a good job. She helped decorate, Wes helped eat them.

We had this brilliant idea to go to Salt Lake City the day after Thanksgiving and to stay in a hotel right by the new downtown mall.

Then we remembered it was Black Friday. But we went anyway.

Getting ready took most of the morning, as things do with kids. When we were all finally packed we were on our way to Salt Lake City. We checked in to our hotel downtown, parked the car, and started pulling stuff out. That’s when John said, “Where’s the suitcase?” and our conversation went something like:

“I don’t know, didn’t you pack it in the car?”

“No, I thought you did.”

“No, I thought YOU did.”

And so we checked ourselves out of the hotel and transformed our overnight plans into a short daytrip.

We began at the Leonardo, a science and creative arts and technology museum.

Our first stop was the creative studio. Carissa, Wes, and I each made something out of clay. (Elizabeth played on the beanbag.)

Wes and Dad made a train. I made a turtle. Carissa made…I’m not sure what it is.

Next we went upstairs where the kids played in the pixel station.

Next was the green screen room. The kids could stand in front of the green screen and see themselves on a TV with a weather map behind them. They thought that was neat, but even neater was holding up a green piece of fabric and making themselves disappear on the TV. Cool science!

See how Wes is partially missing?

The kids spent a lot of time in the Motion Capture room, where they could dance to music in their bare feet. A motion sensor could pick up one person’s structure and while you dance, you can see your skeleton move with you on the TV screen. Carissa was too little for the motion sensor to detect her, but it worked for Wes. (P.S. Do you notice how he’s pulling the same dance move in the picture below as in the picture above from the green room?)

The kids loved dancing in this room, especially Elizabeth. Good thing the place wasn’t busy.

Even I got to rock it out with my kids.

John helped the kids make a stop-action film in the room near the dancing room, but I guess I didn’t take any pictures. They also used a paintbrush to touch a computer screen and create art.

By now it was 5 pm and kids (namely me) were getting hungry. We took the Trax train back to the City Creek Mall and walked around to find a place to eat. Turns out that on Black Friday, at a new mall, on the night Temple Square turns on its Christmas lights, restaurants are pretty busy around 5:30 pm. We went to four different places but all had an hour wait. We went to the top floor of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building and got this picture:

I thought that might be the closest we’d get to the lights, but we decided to take a quick stroll through them before heading back towards our car. At least it was above freezing, which was especially nice since I left our kids’ hats and gloves and my scarf in our car back at the hotel parking lot.

It was about 6:30 pm. We thought we would go back to the hotel and end up at a drive-through somewhere. This was a little disappointing since we had been looking forward to a sit-down restaurant (which we haven’t done in a long while). Just as we were headed back through the mall towards our car John pointed out a Brazilian steakhouse. I thought it wouldn’t hurt to ask, so for the fifth time I asked what the wait was, and for the first time I got a “You can come right in” reply. Hallelujah!

It was a Brazilian churrasco-style menu where they serve yummy fresh-grilled meat at your table, and you can get additional sides from the salad bar. We were hungry, and the children were tired. It was pricey but we didn’t care. We weren’t paying for a hotel anymore, so why not?

And it was delicious. The filet Mignon, grilled pineapple, garlic mashed potatoes, cheesy bread, caramelized bananas, fresh Parmesan… Yep, it was a tasty dinner. Carissa made it through the whole dinner happily, but progressively more tiredly.

Elizabeth fell asleep in the stroller not too long after we sat down. Wes ate a little and then crawled into my lap and fell asleep around 7:45 pm. We enjoyed our peaceful dinner.