Scissors, Drawing, and more Light Box fun . . .

Last week Riley got the chance to play with scissors for the first time.  He was very excited about it and did a really good job.  I love how you can see how concentrated he was in these pictures.  He was trying to do "enormous" cuts and his mouth would open and close with each cut.  It was really fun to watch.  We are going to have to do this more often. 

Riley is really into monster trucks right now.  We have a show called "All About Monster Trucks" in our Netflix queue and he requests it all the time.  He also has a few monster trucks that he loves playing with.  Here is his first picture of a monster truck.  Notice the "enormous" tires.  (apparently he is using that word a lot right now too)

 This next picture shows the first time he tried to sign his name on a picture.  Notice the backwards "E" in the lower right-hand corner.

Here is a new game that we are playing on our light box.  I have six small glass jars that I filled with different colored water (red, yellow, orange, green, blue, purple).  We pick one jar and then Riley has to run to the toys and find something that is the same color as that jar.  He is pretty great at it and runs really fast.  I love to hear his feet stomp across the floor as he runs back and forth.

This picture you can see how pretty the glass jars are on the light box

This picture you can see his cute face and how well he matched his toys to the colors

Catch Up . . .

Here are a bunch of pics to catch you up on our goings on.

Sleeping baby.  This is one of the most beautiful sights of the day!

Dash always hooks his toes on the tray of his booster seat, so cute!

Trying out crayons for the first time

Where is Riley?

Peek-a-boo!

Brothers having fun in the sandbox

Gary and his friend Chad get ready for a bike ride

Riley and Anya playing tea-time at Gi-Gi and Pop-Pop's house

Eating a snack with Ethan

Playing with Mr. Potato Head

Dash and Cousin Seth

Stopping for lunch in Primm on one of our road trips to Salt Lake

Gi-Gi with her two newest grandsons

Thing 2 COVERED in sand.  He had some help, but he tends to do most of this himself.

Thing 1 also COVERED in sand.  Again, he did most of this himself, but Dash most certainly helped.

Most recent family pic, taken at Circus Vargus

Butterfly baby at the Wild Animal Park

Serious butterfly Riley

Having a great time playing cars and hanging out in a diaper

Superhero diaper boy!  Love it!

Hunting for Easter eggs together

Displaying all of our awesome Easter eggs

Happy 1st Birthday Dash . . .

 

Dash turned 1 on May 2nd.  Yes, it's been almost 2 months now, but here are some pictures from the big event.

On Dash's actual birthday we invited our neighbors the Buchman's over to dinner.  They brought Dash a gift and here  he is trying to figure out what he is supposed to do with this fun blue paper.

Totally checking out the glowing candle.  Gary has to hold his arm, because he really wants to grab it.

Digging in!

I made homemade banana cupcakes with pink whipped cream/cream cheese frosting.  Kaelani (our friends' daughter) asked me to color it pink, so I did.

Riley wanted a picture with frosting on his face too, just like the baby.  However, he has already licked most of the frosting off of his cupcake, so this was all he could muster.

He looks so proud!  He properly disintegrated the cupcake, woohoo!

This is how our family really looks all the time!

Riley (2) and Kaelani (4)

Later in the week we had a party with more friends at a really fun park by our ward house.  We bought an enormous dinosaur cake from Costco.  (No, Dash isn't particularly interested in dinosaurs, it was just really cute)

Digging in

Riley and Grant, Grant's dad Cameron, and the Agles

Peanut Butt-ud and Honey . . .

We make a lot of "Peanut Butt-ud and Honey" sandwiches at our house.  And I found this fun dino sandwich cutter at the grocery store, so I had to pick it up.

  

Riley is my big helper in the kitchen, but he tries to taste EVERYTHING!  Obviously tasting is a big part of learning in the kitchen, but this kid has a really hard time keeping his fingers out of every ingredient.  Since we are making this sandwich for him and his brother I let it slide, but we work on controlling the tasting all the time!

Gotta taste the honey too, mom!

Lining up the dino-cutter on the sandwich

Using our big muscles and pressing it down HARD

Removing the crust 

Removing the cutter

Ta-da!  Two delicious peanut butt-ud and honey dinos, yum!

Pool Time . . .

Our car is broken down so we are stuck at home.  But no worries, it is summertime and we have an awesome pool!  The kids LOVE the water and splash and play until they completely wear themselves out.  They also love to bring all the sand toys into the pool.  By the end the pool is absolutely full of sand and sand toys.  It's good though, because it forces me to empty and spray down the pool more often.  Good thing sand it cheap, because a lot of ours ends up slipping through the cracks of the porch.

Good clean outdoor fun! 

Cheese!!

Check out those blue eyes

Crazy splashing boy
(what a face!)

Sweet boy
(he totally reminds me of Gary in this pic!)