The Big Red Wagon

On Friday, I picked up Will at work and we decided to go to Riverfront Park to play for a little bit.  This is a huge park with lots of fun things to do.  But in Whitney's mind, there is only one part of this park and that is the big red wagon slide.  She doesn't consider the rest of the grounds to be park at all.

Here she is climbing up the ladder to get to the slide.  At first, Will or I would follow behind it to make sure she didn't fall off the steps, but she did really well climbing.  So I need to do less worrying because my little two year old is growing up and doesn't always need a hovering parent.

Here Whitney goes down the slide...

And again...

And again.  We were at the red wagon for a long time before we convinced Whitney to go see the rest of the park, and we ended up back at this slide before we left for home since the rest of the park was not such a hit.  She must have gone down this slide at least 25 or 30 times while we were there.  Here are some other pictures when we convinced Whitney there was more to see.

There are lots of little letter blocks that are the perfect size for Whitney.  She liked sitting on them - for a second or two.

The day was pleasantly warm, so the water fountains were turned on.  We went in and played with the water for a few minutes; Whitney was a little timid and didn't want to get really wet.  So we mostly watched some of the other children splashing around.

One of my favorite things at the park was to watch Whitney chase the seagulls and the ducks.  I know we probably should have stopped her and told her to leave the animals alone, but it was just too cute and funny.  If any of the birds or ducks had the audacity to get onto the pavement, Whitney ran after them and told them to get back into the water.  I don't know why she insisted they all be in the water, but it was really funny watching her.

Anyway, that was our fun day at the park.  Most of it was spent with the big red wagon.  Here is a cute picture of Rachel who was also at the park, but didn't make it down the slide this time.

So happy to be back at home after our park adventure.  Doesn't she just have the cutest smile?  Anyway, smiles for all our friends.  Life is good in Cheney.

Rice Cereal Time

At Rachel's four month doctors appointment, we were told that she can start eating rice cereal.  They usually recommend waiting until six months, but I think the doctor was impressed with how quickly Rachel is growing that he thought she would be ready.  So we have given her rice cereal on three different occasions and Rachel is getting to be a better eater each time.  I hope that means she will be a good eater when we start trying other new foods.

We made the rice cereal pretty watery since we didn't want Rachel to accidentally choke on it or anything like that.  Here Rachel is about to try her first bite.

And it's good.!  Rachel opened her mouth and accepted the spoon placed in.  She didn't immediately start crying or anything like that.

Rachel was pretty fascinated at watching the spoon move toward and away from her mouth.  She probably thought the spoon was more tasty than the rice cereal (and she may be right).

We had to hold down Rachel's hands so she wouldn't put them in her mouth and get rice cereal all over the place. 

Will gets a turn feeding Rachel.  What a great dad.

And just look at how happy Rachel is.  I think she is really liking this eating business.  Today rice cereal - tomorrow going to conquer rolling over.

Discovery Park

We went into Spokane Valley yesterday because Will really needed new black shoes and there is a Foot Locker store at the mall.  We took advantage of the trip by going to Discovery Park as well.  I wish it had been about 20 degrees warmer since it ended up being a little cloudy, but it was still fun.  Will and I took turns playing with Whitney and staying inside the car with Rachel.

Here Whitney is walking into the playground.  There were lots of cool little sayings put into the sidewalk.  I liked this one.

"Take only memories, leave nothing but footprints".  Kind of a cool quote.

Whitney takes a turn becoming a bear.  Roarrr!!! 

This trampoline was one of Whitney's favorite things.  It was underground, so we didn't have to watch her too carefully.  Even Will got on the trampoline for a little bit and got Whitney bouncing really high.

There were lots of swings at the playground.  Whitney liked being pushed for quite awhile.

I took a turn swinging Whitney around for a little while as well.

If you look very closely, you can see Whitney and Will in the pumpkin.  This picture was hard to get because Whitney only wanted to remain in the pumpkin for a minute.

Whitney preferred staying on the frog.  And I cannot blame her because it was a cool frog.

There was a big sand pit that Whitney just loved.  She wanted to dig and dig and dig.  The yellow bucket and the shovel came from Anna's birthday party last year; Whitney hasn't had much chance to use it since we don't do much playing in the dirt.  Whitney really liked filling the bucket and having me help her.  So we will have to find some more dirt places where she can play more.

And there was a "sleeping" bear next to the sand pit.  Whitney decided she needed to feed the bear some sand.  I had to help her find the mouth because it was a bit hidden by the big snout. 

Anyway, that was a fun park.  We will probably try to go again when it gets a little warmer because there is also a water area for playing, but it was way too freezing for that.  And here is a cute picture to send you off.

bubble fun

So Will has wanted to make a bubble contraption thing for quite awhile.  He has told me about the one they had growing up a couple of times.  We have just never gotten around to making one until this last Saturday.  Already, it has been used and enjoyed a couple of times.  Here are a couple of bubbly pictures.

The bubble solution is mostly water and dishsoap and a little corn syrup.  You can use glycerin too, but we don't have any of that lying around.  Will did a good job researching on the Internet exactly what we would need and how much of everything.  Here he dips the sticks into the solution.

If you look close to the strings, you can see bubbles forming.  It took a little practice, but it was fun trying to make huge bubbles.  Many of the bubbles were bigger than our heads.  When they would splash they would make quite the bubbly mess.

Whitney really liked chasing the bubbles around the yard.  I think she was amazed at how big the bubbles were.  She has only ever seen the little kind that come from bubble wands bought at the dollar store.  These were way better.  Some of the bubbles would float way high and hit the house or tall trees, so it was really fun.

Whitney kept wanting to put little pieces of grass and twigs into the bubble solution and wasn't happy when we wouldn't let her, so we got her a bowl and put a little water in it and gave her a wooden spoon.

It didn't take long for the bowl to be filled with grass and little sticks and rocks.  I asked Whitney what she was making and she told me it was pizza.  No offense Whitney, but I think I will stick with the pepperonni kind myself.  But it was fun watching her get really into the "cooking".

And here is a picture just for fun that has nothing to do with bubbles.

Whitney wanted Rachel to try on her sunglasses and I just had to get a picture of her.  I wonder what she was thinking when everything went dark. 

Anyway, we are all doing well in Cheney.  I hope everyone else is doing okay too.

Happy Easter!

We had such a great Easter down in Pasco with my family.  It sure is nice having them close by so we can get together.  Here are lots of pictures from our trip.

Here Conner and my mom get the dye all ready for the egg-dying.  We spread out lots of newspaper because we know how messy a little girl of ours can get when she is excited about what she is doing.

Here is Whitney dipping her first egg.  She was super excited about the prospect and didn't let the egg stay in the dye for very long.
 

Notice the blue hand from doing lots of her own dipping and retrieving of her eggs.

We all got into the project and dyed lots of eggs.  Will got very creative and made some from Homestar Runner characters.  Conner got one to actually look gray by dipping it in everything.  Everyyear we have a contest to see who can get the whitest egg; you take a white crayon and try to color over your whole egg and then dip it.  Kaitlin was the big winner - good job!

And here are some of the masterpieces.  It sure was fun dying them and making cool designs.

It took Whitney a couple of minutes to really wake up and get into finding the eggs Easter morning.  She started off going pretty slowly and grabbing one piece of candy at a time to look at it before placing it in her bucket.  But then she got the hang of it and was grabbing candy left and right.

There was a lot of candy hidden throughout the house.  Whitney did a good job at getting the low ones and she even saw some of the higher candies and asked me or Will to get them for her.

This picture is trying to show just how full Whitney's bucket got.  She found a lot of candy, but she refused to let anyone else hold her bucket.  Maybe she was afraid that we were going to steal her candy or something.  Even when the bucket got really heavy and she was practically dragging it around, she didn't want any help.

So Easter was fun.  We had some time to do other fun things while we were down in Pasco as well.

Whitney really thought she was playing video games when Conner turned on some cartoons for her.  She kept telling me that she was playing.

Whitney just adores my family's trampoline.  She went on there several times while we were there.  I went on with her once, but I threw her balance off too much, so Conner became her jumping partner.  Zoey and my mom acted as supervision.

And we have to get a little exercise in by using this funny stepping machine.

Saturday morning was spent at the park.  Kylee and Kaitlin and Conner all do soccer, so we came along as a little support.  Whitney spent a lot of time on the playground, especially on the swing.  Thanks must go to both my parents who spent lots of time pushing her on the swing; she really didn't want to get off.

Rachel wasn't too sure about this wind.  It has been too cold in Cheney to get out much, so Rachel hasn't felt much breeze in her short life.  So we tried to keep her pretty shielded from most of it.

We also had time for a little dress up fun.  Whitney found a pair of pants in the basement and she wanted them on her head.  Then she got a little swinging from dad.

So thank you guys for letting us come and enjoy Easter with you.  And thanks Conner for giving up your room.  We had a great Easter and we hope everyone else did too.