Monday, March 30, 2009

I can use my hands for...

Cade can now wave, clap, and bang piano keys. He responds to others' greetings by waving, whether they wave, say hi, or just smile. He knows it's a greeting, and it's oh so cute. He waves with his hand vertical and twists his wrist back and forth. Unfortunately I still have not caught it on camera because he won't do it if he sees the camera.

Above is Cade (left) and Asher G. (right) playing the piano at Grandma Bailey's. Apparently it's one of Asher's favorite activities so he showed Cade the ropes yesterday. They were very cute playing together on that bench and Cade just loved it. He had a blast!

These are just cute pictures with Grandma.

Asher is very sweet and affectionate. He loves to give kisses and Cade was on the receiving end most of the night. As they were playing the piano he kept kissing Cade, holding his hand, and patting him on the back. So sweet!


Bugs, Bugs, Bugs!


Welcome Spring! (or so we thought, until the snow started falling...AGAIN)


My little bug:


Zach's little bugs:



We made bugs out of an egg carton, paint, pipe cleaner, and googly eyes. Zach had a lot of fun and plays with the bugs in the grass we made. He calls it his bug farm.

Saturday, March 28, 2009

He's in!

Congratulations, JAKE!

Jake's been admitted into the U's doctoral program in Political Science. He's worked really hard to get this far in his academic career and I'm so proud of him. Good job, Jake. I knew you'd get in. Now he has even more hard work in front of him, but we're excited. This is something Jake's wanted to do for a long time, and he's excited to get going. The U made a good choice and certainly won't be disappointed in Jake.

You can call him Dr. Jake Petersen, PhD (in the near future)

Congratulations, Jake!

I've included a little comic I found about doctoral dissertation writing. (Probably only funny to those directly involved in that activity, but this is what Jake has to look forward to)

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Anyone interested in a STARTER for AMISH FRIENDSHIP BREAD?

WARNING: It is a 10 day process for making 2 loaves of yummy bread and 4 new starters (one for yourself to make more bread in 10 more days and 3 to give away to friends). It is very easy, but it requires a ziploc full of ooie-gooey bread starter in your kitchen for 10 days.

I've never made the bread myself, I was just given a starter 9 days ago and I'll be making bread tomorrow along with 4 starters, so I'll have 3 to give away. There are lots of variations possible on the vanilla flavored recipe. Tomorrow I think I'll make one vanilla loaf and one chocolate, but I've also heard of lemon bread, pistacio bread, banana bread... I did have a taste of someone's vanilla bread and it was very yummy. Worth a 10-day wait? Not sure yet, but it's fun anyway.

Let me know if you are interseted.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Zach's noggin knockin

These pictures were taken about 1 minute after Zach fell off of a kitchen stool and knocked his head on the tile. He had an immediate goose egg on his head that was purple/black. I was really nervous about it, but we put some ice on it and he acted fine. Now he sports a nasty looking yellowish bruise. By the way, this happened the day after Jake shaved his head, so it was very very noticable. People were surprised to see his naked head, but always asked about the bump first.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Spontaneous Trip to San Diego

Jake came home around noon on Friday with a crazy idea to get out of town. He has been working very, extremely hard for months and months and needed to get away. So, we very quickly planned some rooms in Vegas and San Diego and packed up and were out of town by 6:00 pm. (If you know us, you know we are not the spontaneous trip-taking kind, so we are very proud of ourselves that we were able to let go and...go). We drove to Vegas Friday night and stayed the night there. Then got up that morning and took off for San Diego. We spent Saturday, Sunday, and Monday in the San Diego area and drove all the way home Tuesday (good driving Jake and good job kids for putting up with carseats and seatbelts all day long!!)

This is us at the San Diego Zoo Wild Animal Park.

This is Jake trying to convince Zach to reach out and touch the sting rays at Sea World. I think the word STING rays probably doesn't help. With my future kids, I'll call them ray fish...

This is me and the boys after the shark exhibit. There is Zach doing his best shark mouth. Luckily for all of us, he doesn't have as many teeth as the guy behind us.

Cute Cade on Dad's shoulder.

Most of his time, however, was actually spent right here in the stroller. I don't think he minded too much.

Zach makes a good orangutan baby, huh?

Elephants are always the animal Zach wants to see first when we go to the zoo.

The polar bear exhibit at the San Diego Zoo is really cool. Zach loved climbing on the silver statues. He was the only kid that got to the top of the tall one (thanks Dad!)

He liked the polar bears so much that the souvenir he chose is a little polar bear named Arca. She is his "very best friend." See how nicely he carries her and takes care of her? He always tucks her into her own bed before he goes to bed.

On the way to San Diego Zach watched The Lion King 2 or 3 times, so the whole trip he was looking for animals from the show. He found Pumba many times, Timon, Zazoo, and hyenas. We never saw a baboon, which disappointed him, but when he saw this lion, he called him Simba. We almost met the whole cast...

And this is Cade's impression of a pouncing lion...

And, of course, we played at the beach.

We all got our feet wet, even Cade, who cried when the cold water hit his feet. Poor guy!

Sand castles and "lakes"

Zach had a blast playing in the sand and water!

While we were all down at the water, I left the diaper bag open sitting back with our stuff and a seagull pulled everything out of it and stole our snacks! Sneaky thief!

On the way home, we asked Zach what he liked best about the trip. He said the park, which might mean the Wild Animal Park, but probably means the park in St. George we stopped at for lunch on the way home. Then we asked him what else he liked and he said, "toilets." We did use a lot of different toilets... Glad we could go create good memories of toilets as a family.

Friday, February 20, 2009

Dressed for Work

2 days in a row Zach went and got himself dressed for work. The first day he just added the belt, hat and tie to his outfit. The second day he changed out of PJs into a swimsuit (no shirt), flip flops, hat, belt, and was trying to figure out how to put the clip-on tie on his bare chest. I suggested he put on a shirt so the tie would stay on.

Thank you,

Thank you very much!

(He's bowing, if you can't tell)