A little Snow

So we got a little snow last Saturday; it ended up being about two inches.  Now we know that winter is coming to Cheney.  It had all melted in just twenty-four hours, but Whitney did get a chance to play in the snow a little bit.

I think the video is really cute.  Whitney just loved crunching through the snow.  We bought her some snow boots a couple of days ago, so when a big snow comes she will have some better protection for her feet.  I just know that she is going to enjoy playing outside in the snow this year.

Or we could just put Whitney in my boots and her feet would be kept warm.  Whitney loves trying on our shoes and having us help her walk around in them.

There have been a couple of nice day weather as well.  Whitney and I went outside to play in the leaves.

It took Whitney a little while to want to pick up the leaves and throw them over her head.  I made a little pile of leaves and thought she might want to jump through it or something like what we did as kids, but she must be too young.  Whitney mostly would grab a bunch of leaves and half throw/half drop the leaves over the stairs.  The wind would whip the leaves a little distance before hitting the ground.

And we have a couple of random pictures of what we have been doing lately.

Whitney and Will tried on hats one night.  Whitney even kept hers on for quite awhile.  I think it is because she liked looking at herself in the hallway mirror with different hats on.

Almond bark went on sale at the local grocery store, so we decided to have a chocolate dipping party during one of the Amazing Race episodes that Will and I both enjoy watching.  We had pretzels and bananas and strawberries and cookies for dipping.  I think my favorite was the pretzels. 

Here Whitney is all smiley.  She was jumping on the bed and then she and Will had a bear throwing contest.  It is hard to throw something to Whitney because she keeps her hands pretty close to her chest and doesn't separate her arms at all.  So I declare Whitney the winner because she was able to get Will to catch more of her throws than she was able to catch his.  Whitney is able to throw pretty accurately most of the time.  We will have to sign her up to be a pitcher or something.

Whitney likes sitting in the little cupboard under the TV (look out Harry Potter's cupboard).  I really don't know why because she barely fits and has to take care to not hit her head on the ceiling, but she enjoys it.  Here she is eating an Anderson Yucky Roll and just as content as can be.
So that is how things are going in Cheney.  We are hoping to not get much more snow before Thanksgiving because we want to drive back down to the Tri-Cities for the holiday.  So our fingers are crossed.  Anyway, goodbye.

Halloween (Part 2)

Here are the pictures actually from Halloween day.  Whitney and I went around Eastern campus with lots of other children to go trick-or-treating to the different buildings.  We were in the front of the pack, which was great.  And we worked on getting Whitney to say 'treat' or 'candy please', but she wouldn't actually say it for anyone.  But maybe next year she will be less shy around strangers.  Here are some pictures from the festival that was on campus after the Trick-or-Treat.

Will was able to meet us at the festival once his work was done.  Here he tries to hold up the Minnie ears which tended to try to lie flat against the head.  But hey, the costume was only three dollars, so I can't complain.  There was popcorn and cotton candy and caramel apples for anyone to eat.  Whitney loved the popcorn the best.  She also really liked her black balloon; we tied it to her wrist for a little while, but then we moved it to the stroller so Whitney could play some games.

Whitney liked the bowling (she loves anything having to do with a ball).  I didn't get a good picture of her bowling though because a kid I use to know at the daycare came up to say 'hi' to me.  So here she is chasing the ball after she rolled it at the pins.  Whitney did pretty good too. I will have to let her bowl for me in the future.

Whitney spun the roulette wheel for candy.  I am not sure she knew what it was for because after she spun it she walked away before waiting for it to stop so she could collect a piece of candy.  But the nice person working the booth gave Whitney some candy anyway.  I think the cute outfit helped Whitney's case.

Whitney goes fishing with a little of mom's help holding the pole.  I use to love the fishing booths at fairs growing up, Whitney seemed to think it was only okay.  She got a funny little rubber bone thing that I am not sure quite what it is for.  Oh well, it is already lost amongst our other toys in our apartment.

Whitney wasn't sure about this whole golfing business, but she knew the balls went into the holes, so why putt when you can just drop them in much easier?  I think that was Whitney's philosophy.  So she carried the club in one hand and put the balls into the holes with the other.  I think she had the right idea; a lot of the other kids we saw golfing were having a really hard time.

There was a little hay bale section that I think was meant for children to sit on and get their pictures taken.  Whitney wasn't too taken with the idea of staying sitting on the hay, so this is the best picture I could get.  I was only a little worried that she was going to pull the paper off the wall because she really looked like she wanted to.  But everything was safe.

This is Whitney in Japanese.  There were several Japanese exchange students at the party who were doing things with the children.  The top symbol means 'whi' then the middle symbol is the 't' and the last symbol is the 'ney'.  I think it it pretty cool.  I should have had them make my name as well.

So that was our Halloween.  We had the ward trunk-or-treat, but that only lasted like twenty minutes while the kids went around collecting candy.  This year, Will took Whitney around and I stayed by the car to pass out candy.  After that, Whitney was too tired to go trick-or-treating for real.  So we stayed home and relaxed.  It was a great Halloween.  And now we have lots of candy to satisfy my pregnancy sweet tooth.  Hooray! 

Pre-Halloween

Well, there are just too many pictures to put into one blogpost, or you guys would get tired of looking at all of them.  So I am going to do two blogs.  We have been having a good time in Cheney; I love the holiday season where you get to spend extra time with family and everyone is just a little bit happier.  So I have been excited for Halloween to come ever since I bought Whitney's costume at the Just Between Friends Sale in Spokane.

Whitney was Minnie Mouse.  We had her try on the costume a couple of days before Halloween just to make sure it fit correctly.  We got lucky because Whitney kept her hat on the whole time for trick-or-treating, so her head stayed warm.  I was surprised because usually Whitney refuses to wear hats.
     We carved pumpkins the Monday before Halloween for Family Home Evening.  That was lots of fun.

Whitney doesn't look too keen at putting her hand into the pumpkin, but she did it and was able to pull out a couple of seeds.  I think Whitney was more fascinated with watching us do the carving.  She wanted a turn with the knife, but that idea was nixed quickly.

Here I am carving a spider into my pumpkin.  Whitney liked watching us work.

And the three finished products...

Will made a great Kirby pumpkin that looked awesome all lit up.  The picture looks too dark to be able to tell, but lots of people in our ward commented on it during the trunk-or-treat.  One person even took a picture of it on her cell phone.  So Will gets bonus points for being the most creative. Maybe we will all have to do Nintendo characters next year.
With three pumpkins we got lots of pumpkin seeds, which I love because I really enjoy snacking on them.  So I roasted two different kinds of pumpkin seeds - one sweet and one salty.

The sweet ones look like they really got burnt, but it is actually the cinnamon and brown sugar you put on them and they were addicting.  But I think I still like salty pumpkin seeds the best.

Whitney gives a big smile by her pumpkin.  Will actually carved the face, but this is the pumpkin that Whitney helped pick out at the Harvest Festival a little while ago.

Finally, here are a couple of random picture that really don't have anything to do with Halloween, but we like all pictures of our cute baby girl.

Whitney loves standing on the windowsill and pointing out the different things that she sees.  I think she is really interested in the changing colors on the leaves of the big tree in our yard.  So far Whitney has only learned how to get on the window by climbing up the heating vent, she still has to say 'help' or 'down' when she wants us to take her down.  I am glad that she waits for us to help her and she doesn't try to climb down by herself.  So far there have been no accidents; Whitney hasn't fallen off the little ledge.

Well, I have learned the difference between boys and girls.  I watched a little boy from our ward for about five hours one day and he is a couple of months older than Whitney.  But boy toddlers are much more active and he got Whitney into more trouble since Whitney was like in awe of him and would do whatever he did.  I can usually get housework accomplished when it is just me and Whitney because she will sit at my feet reading while I wash dishes.  I didn't get anything accomplished with two toddlers.  In fact, I ended up with a spice all over my kitchen floor and a broken glass bowl.  Oh well.  I should get use to having boys because I am having one in not very long.
Whitney loves all kinds of books.  She also really loves pulling out bookmarks; there have been many times where I have had to put my bookmark back into place because she can pull it out so fast there isn't time to react.

Whitney reads everything from her Magic School Bus books to Will's social work books.  And she is always trying to find pictures of babies in everything she reads.  So it is very cute watching Whitney get excited about reading.  I hope she continues to like reading as she grows up because I think that is important.

Will started making funny faces while I had the camera out to get pictures of Whitney, so I just had to snap some of him.  Will is always able to make me smile.  Anyway, that is what is going on here in Cheney for pre-Halloween.  I will have to put up some more pictures on the next blog from the Halloween party we went to.

Harvest Festival

This last weekend was fairly nice weather and we decided to go back to Green Bluffs for the Harvest Festival.  Green Bluffs has a bunch of farms and we went to two different ones to enjoy the harvest festival activities.  The first one had lots of animals for people to see.

Whitney liked to shake the fence by the geese.  We tried to get Whitney to 'honk' like geese do, but I guess she thought that was too much like a car  and wouldn't say it.

This is the best picture we could get of Whitney feeding the mountain goats.  There were three goats and Whitney loved feeding them.  There was a big tree in the goat's pen and all the lower leaves had been chewed off by the goats, but Will was able to grab a couple of higher leaves.  We were careful to make sure her fingers weren't too close to the leaves edge so the goat couldn't nibble on her fingers.  The goats were interesting to watch; they like eating and eating.

Whitney loved the little ponies.  The ponies were the perfect size for Whitney, only about four feet tall or something.  I don't know if they get any bigger or what kind of little horses they were but they were very friendly.  Whitney liked petting the ponies; whenever we tried to leave the animal area, she kept trying to go back.  We will have to find a petting zoo or something else in Spokane so Whitney can touch more animals.

This is us in the hay maze for children.  Whitney walked around it for a little while, but then she seemed to get tired and just wanted to get out.  So we just climbed out the edge.  I did not know that hay is poky but I got a couple scratches on my legs just from climbing over the bales.

Three...Two...One...Blast off baby.  Whitney got to be part of the cannon as she stuck her head in the hole.  Will stuck his head in too to show Whitney how to do it, but I wasn't fast enough at getting a picture.  Oh well.  I think Whitney liked looking at the picture below her too much to look at the camera.

There was a big pumpkin patch where people could go in to select their own pumpkins.  I stayed out with the stroller because I didn't want to accidentally squish any pumpkins, but Will and Whitney walked around looking for a good pumpkin for us.  We just wanted a small one because it is actually cheaper to buy them at the store, but Whitney had a fun time finding a pumpkin.

I call it our Charlie Brown pumpkin because it is a bit misshapen and slightly funny looking, but it needed a loving home.  So we will give it that love, until we cut it with a sharp knife and pull out its insides.  Oh well.  Good thing pumpkins have no feelings.  Now we just need a good idea of something to carve.

We went to a huge seven acre corn maze at another farm.  It got really dark while we were in the maze and Whitney didn't like it very much.  I guess she is too young.  So we were in the maze for an hour and decided it was too hard, especially with a slightly grumpy toddler.  Luckily, we found a little side exit and were able to get out.  We will have to wait a couple of years before we try another corn maze.  But it was still fun.  Anyway, it was a great day.  And a fun harvest festival.

Homecoming Fun

Hello everybody!  This past week was homecoming for Eastern and we have never done anything for homecoming (not even when Will actually went to Eastern).  But I thought Whitney was old enough that she might enjoy some of the festivities.  And I think Whitney did have a fun time.

There were a couple of people walking around campus on stilts.  Whitney kept pointing and gawking at them, so she must have been shocked that somebody could be so tall.

There was a clown making balloon animals that wanted to make one for Whitney.  She looks grumpy in the picture, but she actually really liked her doggy balloon.  Of course, it only lasted a couple of days because Whitney bit it and twisted it until it broke and popped.  Oh well.  Whitney thought the clown was pretty cool.

And Whitney got her very first taste of cotton candy.  She LOVED it.  I wasn't sure how she would do with the cotton candy, but she was able to get little pieces off of it and she only got a little sticky. Thankfully, a baby wipe cleaned her up real quick.   It is hard to see Whitney's face, but I promise that it is there. 

This is Swoop.  He is the eagle mascot for Eastern.  And a bunch of cheerleaders who did some dances to pump people up.  Whitney kept pointing to the bird and saying 'tweet tweet'.  We ended up in the front of the crowd and WHitney was able to high five Swoop.  Not everyone can say they have done that.  Unfortunately, we didn't get a picture of her doing that.  Oh well.  The rest of the day she kept saying 'big bird'.  It was fun.

Friday night was the homecoming parade.  I have never been to a parade at night; it was too dark to get any pictures of the cars and floats, so this is a picture right after the parade.  Whitney is trying to show off the pretty necklaces and the blue elephant she got at the parade.  The students at the parade thought she was cute, so she was given extra candy.  So we can use it as Halloween candy.

Whitney wore pigtails for the first time today for church.  She looked so cute.  Unfortunately, Whitney liked pulling at her hair.  So we had to put the ponytails back in a couple of times.  The people at church thought she looked cute.  Maybe we can practice the pigtails and she will get use to not pulling at them.

It is a little hard to tell, but Whitney's face is covered in butter.  With our WIC checks, we have had a lot of fruits and vegetables lately.  So we have been eating corn on the cob, which Whitney loves.  I think she mostly likes the melted butter on the corn, but she ate a couple of real bites as well.

Whitney and Will like playing the gamecube.  And Whitney knows if her controller isn't really working.  So she and Will play supersmash bros. sometimes.  One day, Whitney got really tired while she was playing.  She almost fell asleep sitting up.  Now we have evidence that Whitney likes Nintendo.

  Finally, Whitney is becoming our big girl.  She tries to push her big stroller with her baby and the bear that aunt Erin knitted for her.  Unfortunately, she often gets the stroller stuck in corners and she needs our help getting her unstuck and she gets angry.  But she does like doing the pushing without any help.

So things are going great in Cheney.  We are getting excited for Halloween coming up soon.