Body Paint

We had some time to kill before naps yesterday, so we decided to get out the fingerpaints. I was excited because this was Jack's first "art project" and I wanted to see what he would think about playing with the gooey paints. He thought it was really fun, but he thought that putting the paint on my nose, and then all over Cat, was even better. Notice, Cat didn't particularly mind playing the part of canvas. Thank you for making washable paint, Crayola--almost all of it came off with baby wipes!

Beach Trip

We decided to brave the crowds and head to the beach Memorial Day for a little family fun in the sun. We had a blast, and it really wasn't very crowded. Cat got her first body-surfing lessons from Ben, despite really cold water. We made sand castles together, watched Jack explore the beach, dug in the sand to make our own private tide pools, and tried to eat snacks with sand-covered hands. (Jack eventually gave up and just started eating the sand.)

The Un-Adventure

This is what a sick one-year-old looks like. Poor Jack hasn't dealt well with losing his paci (per pediatrician's orders) and I think that was partly to blame for his getting sick at the end of last week. He's still not sleeping great, but at least he's not throwing up anymore!

It was really sweet to see Cat get on the floor with Jack when he was feeling so yucky Friday morning. It seemed like she was really trying to empathize. And it lasted for about two minutes!

Cat Meets Big Foot

If you're like me, you might be wondering where Cat met an over-sized ape from 1940's sci-fi movies, but there's actually another Big Foot.

I learned about Ford's Big Foot after Cat told me about the adventure she had with Ben when they were running errands together Saturday afternoon. They were listening to the radio and heard about a local tire shop that was celebrating its grand opening with Big Foot. Unfortunately, they arrived right after the car-crushing session, but Cat was still able to admire this, in her words, "Car with big big big big big big big big big big tires. It's huge." (Her explanation when I was trying to find out what Big Foot was.) She further explained, "It smushed the cars flat forever." She thought it was great--I may be seeing a Monster Truck rally in our future...?

It'a an Emergency!

We usually rotate the food in our 72-hour kits by having a big pigging-out Emergency Dinner on the floor of our living room around the same time as General Conference (April & October). We were late this year, because we kept thinking we would have a full Emergency Campout, but every weekend we wanted to do it, it was too rainy, including this past weekend. So we did the usual Emergency Dinner Friday night with the lights off, and enjoyed some MREs, boxed cereal, granola bars, fruit snacks, cookies, dried fruit, boxed milk, juice boxes, Capri Suns, and Pop Tarts--most of which we don't eat on a regular basis!

This is one of Cat's very favorite things. It will be so funny to see how she reacts if we ever have to use our kits in an actual emergency, since she has so much fun in pretend emergencies. First of all, once she found out that we were having our Emergency Day, she couldn't wait to get started. I told her that we needed to wait for Ben to come home, but she couldn't stand it, and finally we compromised on bringing everything into the living room, but waiting to eat until Ben actually came home, about 30 minutes later.

She immediately put on her emergency clothes (whatever I found at Goodwill that was in her size), colored in the coloring book that we keep in her kit, turned on every flashlight she could find (even before it was dark outside), and found a radio station on the battery-powered radio. She loved eating her cereal out of the little bag it comes in (in the individual-size boxes) with milk poured in the bag, and helped us eat the M&Ms from our MREs. Then, she and I slept on an air mattress in the living room all night. This was surprising for me, since I thought that sleeping with her sleeping bag would be enough to keep her happy, but she insisted on being on the air mattress as well. Ben wasn't too keen on sleeping on the couch, which is too short for him, but he tried it for a while before he gave up and went to the nearest "hotel," our bedroom.

Jack had a lot of fun too, since we gave him a bag of Cheerios and let him just go for it. Before long, they were all around him, and he was picking them up to eat at his leisure. He liked the MRE dinner too, drank his fill of milk and juice, then on Saturday morning helped clean up by putting whatever he could find into the suitcase.

Cloudy Beach Day

Today was Cat's preschool end-of-the-year beach picnic. Despite rain last night, this morning, and 80% of the way to the beach, we had a rain-free, though overcast--which was great, day at the beach. Cat had a blast from the moment we arrived, when she took off with her friends before I even got everything out of the car. She played mostly in the water, and once the tide started coming in, she was up to her chest in water about 20 feet away from me with her buddies before I had to tell her to come back. Here, she is throwing sand into the "river" with her friends Sam and Justin.


I was not looking forward to taking Jack (who is still very much crawling and putting everything in his mouth, and likes his mid-morning nap), but he had a lot of fun too. When I first put him down in the water, he burst into tears, but I think that was mostly because it was a little chilly.


He wound up happily playing in the tide pool most of the time, and when it was an hour and a half past his nap time, stayed pretty content in the stroller, but didn't fall asleep until a few minutes before we loaded up the car. All in all, we stayed for about 4 hours, when I was only planning on staying for 2. It was great! (And only 25 minutes from our house, so if anyone wants an excuse to come visit...)

Arrrr.... Happy Birthday, Captain Jack!

The crew

Our ship, the SS Jackson


(okay, so it's not exactly a sea-worthy vessel)

Captain Jack enjoys some salmagundi (read: pizza).

"Yo ho ho! Cut me off another piece of yonder cake."

Look Who's One!

"Da da da da da da da."

Summer Has Begun!

This was our first baby-pool swim session of the summer. Last week we did some serious cleaning (leaving the baby pool on the back porch for 8 months was a mistake) and got the pool swim-ready. Although the water was too cold for me or for Jack, Catherine had a blast.

Jack was pretty well entertained just watching Cat have fun in the pool, and eating the occasional leaf or stick. I feel so blessed that he's such a good baby!

I expect we'll have lots of these swim sessions in our future, especially since I don't think I'll want to take Jack to the beach very often until he's a good walker. Too bad, considering it's 20 minutes away.

To the Zoo...

but the one in Jacksonville, this time.

On May 1st, Cat's preschool class took a trip to the Zoo (in honor of "Z" week, of course) and she had a blast. Of course, the animals didn't hold her interest very well, but she loved all the other stuff!

Cat was so excited to get on the train that she ditched us so that she could ride sooner, and went along with her buddy Justin and his family. So here is Jack on his very first train ride. He and I had a lot of fun together!


This is an ostrich we saw during our train ride. The conductor informed us that his name is Jack. He must be a pretty cool guy!


I don't know which Cat was more excited about... the water play area, or the train ride. But she was ecstatic to be able to experience both, and we stayed in the water area for a while. Jack wasn't so sure about the water area when the water was spraying on him, but once I moved him out of the spray and he could just sit and watch everyone (and splash in the water every once in a while) he was happy.


Brushing the goats with Justin.


Catherine's first carousel ride! This is her and another friend from school, Blakeley. We will sure miss these kids when Cat starts Pre-K next year!