Our Trip to Utah... Week One

First came the lovely drive from Iowa to Utah.  The kids were very good, although Baby S was pretty sure he was being tortured.  We stopped often at rest-stops where the Baby got to play.

Sleeping in the car:

Visiting Great-Grandma Salazar:

(M was obviously very excited to be in the pictures.)

New picture at the Temple.  No, my lighting is not great.... but all four children are in the picture and looking at the camera.

Hanging out on Grandma's bed:

Dressing up at Grandma Becky's:

Swimming with the Walsters, and making soup:

Golfing with the set Grandma bought him:

E is my mud child.  She will stick her hands in dirt and rocks at every opportunity.  Below she used mud and dirt to get this umbrella standing up all by itself.  Then they poured water on it so that it was raining.

Swimming Lessons

We had two weeks of swimming lessons for E before we left town.  Poor Baby S had to hang out in his stroller. M and GQ enjoyed watching the swimming for the first week - and then they decided it was very boring.

E was very excited about swimming this year and dunked herself repeatedly.  She is getting the hang of swimming, which makes me very happy since I was always so talented at swimming myself - cough, cough.

Cute Baby

Baby S not only looks like E, he also acts like her.  He loves to stand up all the time and hates sitting or laying on the floor.  Since he is so stiff, Justin pulled out Grandpa Duck's standing trick.  Obviously Baby S enjoys it:

GQ picked out Baby S's hat for the summer.  I thought it would be silly, but GQ insisted S try it on - and boy did it end up being cute.  It's good we have one trendy person in the family.

Sucking his thumb:

Swimming

We went swimming with the family before we ran away to Utah.  Once we arrived, Baby S did what he always does.  He spit up:

Talented fellow, isn't he???

Cherries

GQ insisted he didn't have any cherries on his face.  Then, he pointed to all the parts of his face that were clean, which meant the cherry juice on his hands stained everything, everywhere.

Orders

For dinner we had spaghetti:

Mom: M, do you want red sauce on your spaghetti?
M: No. Just cheese.

Mom: E, do you want red sauce on your spaghetti?
E: Yes.

Mom: GQ, do you want red sauce on your spaghetti?
GQ: No. I want blue sauce.

Eisms

(Baby S has a bouncer with toys that he enjoys.  One of the toys is a gecko in a see-through ball.  The ball turns and the Gecko gets pelted with small plastic balls.)

E: Mom, that lizard looks like a poisonous lizard I saw in a library book.

Mom:  Then it's a good thing it's in a bubble or it might hurt Baby S.

E: For someone who isn't usually funny that was a pretty good joke.

Mom, Why You Dressing Me in Girl's Clothes?

Everyone always asks who Baby S looks like.  I always say that I don't know.  But recently I took a look at these old pictures of E as a baby.  They pretty much could be Baby S dressed in pink:

Back in Blue (photo by Angie):

Kindergarten: Check!

E has officially finished Kindergarten.  We are excited for the summer here, although E is already worrying about next year - good ol' Andersen style.  Here she is with Mrs. Swartzendruber on the last day of school, which happened to be really rainy:

Since we had just done a "real" gift for teacher appreciation, E made a gift for the last day of school.  I didn't get a picture of the puzzle she made Mrs. S., but the puzzle below is similar.  E likes to draw intricate pictures and then cut them up to create her own puzzles.  Justin had the patience to put this one together:

This is one of my favorite drawings E brought home this year.  While it looks pretty simple, it is the detail which says "E" to me so completely.  This is a picture of our dining room and E has made sure to only have two of the five lightbulbs working above the table.  (We are down to one now!)

This next picture was hung up in the hallway, which made E very proud.  It is meant to be similar to the famous "Grant Wood's" paintings.  E became very traumatized when a few days later the head of her cow was ripped off.  They later found it taped to another painting and she was able to fix it.  (I am not sure why it is sideways.)

On Stage

**** All of the following photos were once again taken by the lovely Angie Wilson ****

Waiting to get their costumes:

 

The dressing rooms:

Staging the show:

(Do you see those balloons?  Very hard to come by, my friends.  You know, there is a helium shortage nowadays, and no one in Iowa carries balloons anymore.  Luckily WalMart has a balloon kit you can buy because this was all I had planned on for circus scenery.)

There was a brief time when one of my wild animals broke his leg and another was going to be out of town, so I recruited M and a friend to be stand-in animals.  While the whole class eventually danced, M and her friend got to dance too.  Check out M's roar:

GQ was an excellent roar-er.

Tight-rope walkers flying away (E is front, left):