A LITTLE DOG, A LITTLE CHEESE, AND A LITTLE ZEBRA

Whitney has been having some fun times lately. We try to get her to eat whatever we are eating for dinner and it sometimes works, but mostly doesn’t. Anyway, one night we were having Navajo tacos for dinner and we were giving Whitney pieces of tomato and lettuce and whatnot, but what she really loved was the cheese.




So we put a little bit of extra cheese into a container and just let her have it.

Here Whitney is really enjoying the cheese; she has a small smile on her face and she looks like she is really glad to be having cheese all of her own.

And she was good enough to try to lick the container clean. That, obviously, didn’t work at all. But it was cute to see her try to get every last morsel of that cheese. If you look closely, you can see that Whitney managed to get a lot of cheese all over her face.

It is under her eye and across her cheek and in her hair. And there was a lot of cheese on the floor. So it made for a bit of a mess, but Whitney just loved it.



We decided to have a picnic on Saturday at the nearest park, which is only about 1/3 mile from where we live. There is a playground at the park and plenty of shade for our picnic. And it wasn’t a sweltering hot day, so we were grateful for that. And Whitney was grateful for a little dog.

This little dog was the life of the park. Whitney just loved it. Thankfully, the owner said the dog was very friendly and great with children. So we let Whitney chase after her and pet her.

The dog was mostly too quick for Whitney and was able to get away. Sometimes Whitney would get really close and she would lean down to give the dog a hug and the dog would scamper away, so Whitney ended up on the grass. And Whitney hates the feel of grass on her hands, so she would always start crying, but then she wanted to try to get the dog again. The owner even brought a little ball and the dog would play fletch. Whitney got to “throw” the ball a couple of times for the dog, but in would only go about a foot and the dog wasn’t too interested. So I threw it instead.



Will got out a new toy for Whitney that has been in our storage for awhile. We were given this by some good family friends and Whitney has been too young to really enjoy it.

It is a little rocking and spinning zebra. I don’t know why it is a zebra and not a horse like normal, but I guess it doesn’t really matter. It took a little while for Whitney to warm up to the new toy. She was only on it for a couple of seconds the first time Will put her on, but now she enjoys it more and will get herself on to rock out for a little while. We are hoping to get some batteries for it soon so it can play its music.



Well, Whitney has become the master at hiding things. The other day I was looking for her shoe so we could go outside to play and I looked everywhere. Usually, both shoes are together, but I could only find one. I kept asking Whitney where it was and finally she pulled it out of an old poptarts box that was sitting next to the garbage to be taken out. I don’t know why I didn’t think to look inside that little box. Then, one day when I went to grab a hot pad out of its drawer I discovered…

Apparently, the cookie was waiting for when Whitney wanted it later. It was pretty funny to find a half cookie in my hot pad drawer. So Whitney is always surprising us. And with all that hard work, she gets very tired.

So that is what is happening in Cheney. We are having a grand time watching Whitney grow and explore. Take care.

Cinco de Mayo

Hello sunshine.  We have finally had several warm days in a row and we are very grateful for it.  We have been going on long walks now that we can stand to be outside for more than ten minutes at a time.  And Whitney has been enjoying a little playground that is right next to our apartment.  We have mostly just been hanging out, but we did have a surprise Cinco de Mayo party.  I decided while Will was at work that I would throw our own little party for when he got home.

So I made a Happy Cinco de Mayo sign for our living room and I put up streamers on the ceiling and I even made a little invitation and put it on our outside door so Will could see that a party was happening inside.  He had to RSVP with a kiss.

I also made a bunch of balloons and Whitney liked them at first.  Her shirt says Fun Fun Fun, but her face says otherwise.  Maybe she just didn't want the camera out.

I used my big box of crayons to make the sign and Whitney discovered the box before I could stop her.  So we had a big mess of crayons; and I caught her in the act so she cannot deny that it was her.  Not that I know who else she could possibly blame.  Anyway, the party was fun.  We turned on some music; our only Spanish song for Cinco de Mayo was Feliz Navidad and I don't think that counts.  But we had a good time dancing and eating the snacks I made and playing with Whitney (who didn't think mom and dad should be dancing unless she was involved).

Here are a couple of other things Whitney has been doing lately.

She got a popcorn popper toy for her birthday from my parents and she loves to drag it around.  At first, she wasn't sure what to do with it, but now she knows that she can push it and the little balls inside make a cool popping noise.

When we were in Vancouver, Will's mom gave us this beautiful knitted shirt for Whitney.  It fit her perfectly and is really cute.  Thanks for the shirt.

Lately, Whitney has been taking magnets off our refridgerator and trying to place them other places.  Here she tries to put it on a cookie sheet, but that didn't work.  Whitney has also tried magnets on the cooler, the couch, the window, and other places around our apartment.  It is pretty funny to watch her go around.  Of course, the magnet always falls down because it won't stick on anything not metallic, but Whitney hasn't grasped the concept yet.  She just thinks it is fun.

Here is Whitney going for a ride in the box lid.  We had an extra lid and Whitney has now made it into a play toy.  She puts herself into the lid and she does the sign for 'more', meaning she wants us to give her more rides around the living room.  And she gets quite upset if we take too long before we stop what we are doing so we can play with her.  I guess we will see how long the box lid is an attractive toy for Whitney.
So things are going great here in Cheney.  Hopefully, things are going well for everyone else.  Take care.

Ruth and Dana’s House

This last weekend was a fun one; we went to Vancouver to spend a couple of days with Will’s sister, Ruth, and her husband Dana, and Will’s mom. We were hoping that we could see a new baby and Whitney could meet a cousin, but little “viking’ Jensen has decided to stay comfortable and warm a little bit longer. (Will’s sister, Ruth, has now had her baby). But that’s okay because it means we will need to go back later to meet him. Here is a picture of everyone; it only took several tries to get Whitney to look at the camera.

Whitney had a blast at this new house with lots of new toys to play with. She especially loved this little bunny house that has been in the Keeler family for over twenty years. It is just a simple little play house with a family of five bunnies inside, but Whitney discovered she could shake the house and the bunnies would make a fabulous noise. Here Whitney and Will play with the little house for awhile.

Ruth and Dana have a lot of really neat electronic things and some of them were okay for Whitney to touch. For instance, there was a lego robot that moved with a controller. At first, Will and Dana played with the pair and tried to control their robots into attacking each other. But then Whitney got the remote and was allowed to control it.

It was really funny though Whitney thinks all remotes go for the television, so she ran over to the TV when she got the remote and tried pushing buttons to get the TV to turn on. Will showed her what the control really did and Whitney thought it was cool that she could make the robots move.

But Whitney’s favorite toy, by far, was a little electronic “bug” called a Hex bug. It just uses a battery and vibrates all around on a hard surface. Here is a video of Whitney trying to catch the “bug”

We had a blast just watching her go crazy over such a little thing. Whitney is always surprising us; she has decided lately that she absolutely loves her carseat. She has always been a good traveler, but now Whitney will put herself into her carseat and try to buckle herself. I think it means she wants to go more places and does not want to stay at home. Anyway, now Whitney is branching out and trying other people’s carseats.

This one happens to be Ruth and Dana’s and they plan on using it soon. Maybe Whitney just wanted to test it to make sure it would be good.

One more fun story from our trip. While we were there, Vancouver had their first farmers market of the season; so we all decided to go. I wish we had a farmers market here like they do because it was huge and amazing. There was all kinds of food and jewelry and rugs and paintings and everything you could think of. And it was more fun than Costco because there were all kinds of yummy samples to try. I wanted to go back and get the samples again – garlic and parmesan popcorn, real salsa, fudge, homemade bread, little sausages, and much more. We bought a little lunch of international food while we were there and just sat on a bench outside the park to eat. Whitney was more interested in a little water display that was like a statue of salmon shooting off water. Because it was a nice day, I let Whitney go into the water thinking she wouldn’t like her “cold shower” and want to come out. Boy was I wrong. She loved being in the water and was constantly running back towards it while I was trying to get her to leave. By the time we got away, Whitney was soaking wet. Unfortunately, I hadn’t brought my camera. So we took a picture after arriving back home.

This is Whitney without her pants because they were too wet. We found her some new clothes when we got back to Ruth and Dana’s place. Anyway, that was our fun trip. It has been great to see so much family over the past two weeks. We love you guys.

Easter

Happy Easter to everyone. We have had a busy couple of days with BYU graduation down in Provo and then Easter, but it has been a fun busy. Courtney’s younger sister Erin and Erin’s husband, David, and Michael’s wife, Allison, all graduated from BYU. Will had to stay at work, but Whitney and I went down with my family to be part of the celebration. The graduations were fun; Elder Scott spoke at the big graduation on Thursday about working on our character and the importance of staying strong in the gospel. Then on Friday were the individual graduations where the names were read and everyone got to cross the stage. Erin and David went together in the morning and then Allison’s was a little after that. Congratulations graduates and good luck with future opportunities. Here are a couple of pictures from the graduations.

These are the three graduates all decked out in their caps and gowns. David’s gown was black because he received his Masters degree.

This picture didn’t turn out very well because of the strange light and our camera acted funny. But we wanted to get a picture of Whitney in a cap, so Erin let Whitney borrow hers for a minute. Maybe in like twenty years, Whitney will be wearing her own cap and gown.

Here we wait around between graduations. Those are David’s parents in the background. After the graduation, there was a little meet and greet in the Talmage building where families could meet different professors. We didn’t know anyone, so we just went for the free donuts and muffins and fruit. But we were glad that there was food for everyone because we hadn’t thought to pack anything and there wasn’t time to go back to Michael and Allison’s apartment in between the two graduations.



Allison’s family has really big Easter celebrations that we were all invited to attend on Saturday morning. It was really fun with games and an Easter egg hunt for the kids and a nice lunch. Here are some pictures from that morning.

The huge backyard was separated into three spaces for the Easter egg hunt. So Whitney was with the littlest children and there were tons of eggs for everyone. However, we didn’t bring a basket so we planned on just putting her eggs into our pockets so Whitney could collect more. But Whitney had different plans; she picked up two eggs, one for each hand and she wouldn’t let us take them from her. Here she has put one of the eggs into her mouth. Eventually she learned how to open them and tried to get into the candy inside, but for awhile she was content sucking on the plastic.

Another contest was a relay race for the older kids. Conner wanted to be part of it. You had to put a ball between your legs and move across the yard holding a spoon with an egg on top. It was really funny watching the children attempt this relay because they wouldn’t keep their legs tight enough together or they would take too large of steps and they would lose their balls.

Whitney didn’t mind though. She really enjoyed playing with all of the colorful balls and she kept going back and forth between different balls.

Erin and Conner were both in charge of chalk decorating. Erin drew an Easter bunny and Conner did an Easter egg. They both did a really good job. Whitney just stayed in the background and watched all of the children. She was pretty fascinated by this new place with lots of new people.



We spent Sunday driving back to Pasco. The time went by faster because we left at four in the morning and most of us got to sleep for several more hours in the morning. Whitney did really well on both long car trips, so I was very grateful for that. Having a screaming baby in the car is not fun. In Pasco, we did another Easter egg hunt for just our family.

Here Whitney finds some candy on the kitchen chair and she hands it to Will (who drove to Pasco on Saturday to be part of the hunt) to put in the bucket. This time Whitney did much better and grabbed a lot more candy and eggs.

There even were candy eggs on the staircase for Whitney to grab. She needed a little help from my mother because she has a hard time going down the stairs.

Whitney found a huge stash of candy underneath the kitchen table. This is just a cute little video of her collecting the candy for her bucket.

Finally, her bucket got too heavy and Whitney had to drag it behind her across the floor. So Whitney did a good job of collecting candy. There were only a couple of times where we had to stop her from putting the candy in her mouth, so I thought that was pretty good.

We also took a couple of pictures of Whitney dying some Easter eggs for the first time. We took off all her clothes, which was a good idea because she ended up liking to splash dye on the table and on herself. I wasn’t sure whether Whitney would like dying the eggs, but she did.

Here Whitney has put like four eggs into one cup of dye. Obviously, that didn’t work. But that never stops her from trying.

Here Whitney holds up her blue egg that she just finished dipping into the dye. She kept trying to put it into her mouth, but we wouldn’t let her. We did let her play with some undyed eggs though, so we aren’t completely mean parents.



It was a fun couple of days. I’m glad that we had the chance to go to Utah and to be able to celebrate Easter. It was so good to spend time with family. Now we have another long trip in a couple of days to Portland to spend some time with Will’s family.

Going to the playground

A week ago, it was finally warm enough to take Whitney to the park for the first time.  She has been to the park before, but she was too small last summer to do anything but sit on our laps.  This time, she loved playing on the playground with the other kids.  Will and I both had a great time chasing after her and just watching her have fun.

Here Will helps Whitney go down the slide.  She wasn't too sure about slides at first, but I think she enjoyed them after the first couple of tries.

This time Will and Whitney both went down the slide.  Will had to kind of scoot them along because it is not quite meant for adults. 

Whitney got pretty good at climbing up the steps all by herself, but a couple of them were too high and required our help.  She really liked climbing to the top of the playground, maybe she just likes being the tallest around since she is use to being the shortest at home.

There was a little spot with numbers in all strange positions.  Whitney played with it for half a moment and then wanted to go back to the rest of the playground.

There is a little "store" section where the kids can pretend to be at a store and can "sell" things to people.  Whitney played with it for a little while, but you cannot actually push any buttons and that is just not any fun if you cannot push any buttons.

You can kind of tell if you look really hard at the left of the page that Whitney met a little friend at the playground.  He was just sitting on the playground stairs and looked to be just a little older than Whitney, so the two of them just looked at each other for a little while.

Finally, Whitney sits of this big rock where she can feel like the king of the world, or the queen of the world.  It only required a little bit of mom's help to avoid any jumping off the rock.  So Whitney had a lot of fun at the park.  She learned how to walk on the unstable wood chips and the grass, so it was a good balancing exercise.  Unfortunately, it got a little too chilly and windy, so we left the park early and ended up having our picnic on the living room floor.  But it was good that Whitney was able to get outside for a little while.  Hopefully, warm weather will come back and we will be able to play outside more often.