4th of July

We had a really fun time celebrating the 4th of July at Grandma and Grandpa's house.  Since the holiday was on a Friday, we get together on the 5th.

Grandma had a craft for the kids to do.  They got to pick a foam animal mask to make, and Cosette chose a ladybug.

 Almost immediately after she made it, she put it on Bear.  And he has worn it ever since (and now we're into November).

Here are the grandkids joining hands to run around the yard with Grandpa.  Cosette had a lot of fun playing with water in the backyard last year, so we anticipated that we would do it again.  But Cosette was the only kid with a bathing suit, so when we got out the squirt guns everyone shot at Cosette.

 Cosette had a lot of fun with the sprinklers.

All in all it was a really fun holiday with family.  We also stopped by to see the Jensens on the way down, but I didn't take any pictures.  We had lunch and visited for a little while, and Rachel was kind enough to share some of her delicious cherry crop, which we then shared with my parents and sister.  They were the best cherries I've ever eaten, and my dad LOVED them.  Thanks again, Rachel!

Happy Father's Day, Jeff!

When Jeff came home from work on Friday, Cosette and I were out walking around in the neighborhood.  She wanted Jeff to join us, so I called him and told him where we were.  While we were waiting for him to come find us, Cosette started talking about her daddy.  She said, "I like my daddy.  He's my friend.  He's a cool daddy."  I thought it was a touching and candid moment that I wanted to share.

Sometimes, in the middle of the day, Cosette will look really sad and say that she misses her daddy and wishes he could stay home and play with her.  She's always really excited for the weekend to come, and we like to call them "Daddy Days."

Here are some cute pictures of Jeff and Cosette that I took on our vacation to Park City over Memorial Day weekend.

And here are two videos showing Jeff and Cosette playing together.  The first was taken last September, and the second was on our Park City trip.

I love watching the two of them together.  Cosette is lucky to have such a kind and caring father.

And I'm lucky to have Jeff as a husband.  I know I don't thank him enough for all that he does for me and for our family.  Jeff, thank you for mowing the lawn, taking out the trash, doing dishes, making smoothies in the morning, and all the other odds and ends you do around the house.  But more than the physical things that you do, thank you for your unconditional love, your testimony, your example, your kind and forgiving nature.  Thank you for working so hard to provide for us; I am so grateful to be able to be a stay-at-home mom.  Thank you for being such a wonderful husband and father.  I love you!

Happy Father's Day, Jeff!

Love,
Christine, Cosette, and "Buh-buh-buh"

Park City Trip

As a gift, my parents let us stay in a resort that was affiliated with their time share.  We decided to go to Park City over Memorial Day weekend.  We left Friday afternoon and came home on Tuesday.

Here's Cosette "helping" me pack for the trip.  She was really excited to go.

We stayed at a place called The Lift Lodge.  Something kind of funny happened when I went to check in.  The person working at the front desk started getting flustered and making phone calls.  I wondered if our reservation got messed up, or if it didn't exist at all.  But it turns out that the worker had taken one look at me and worried that a pregnant woman couldn't climb the stairs to the unit that was reserved for us.  Once I discovered that this was the problem I reassured him that I was only 7 months pregnant and perfectly capable of climbing stairs.  It was considerate of him to worry about it, but I also thought it was kind of funny.
Cosette had a room to herself, which was nice.  She declared that we were staying at Bear's house, and she would get upset and correct us if we slipped and said that we were staying in Park City.

On Saturday it was rainy in the morning, so we did a little shopping, ate our bagged lunch in the car, and went to the Olympic Village.  We found a pretty cute toy store and let Cosette pick out one toy, and she chose a small red squishy bear that has a light-up ball inside of it.  If you look closely, you can see it in several of the pictures.

Cosette in an Olympic bobsled

On Saturday afternoon the weather cleared up, so we went to the Park City Mountain Resort (which turned out to be within walking distance of The Lift Lodge, which was very convenient) and rode a few rides.  Cosette rode the merry-go-round, a small train, and an airplane ride.  Jeff and I also played a round of miniature golf, and they were kind enough to give Cosette her own club and ball and not charge us for it.  She had fun walking around on the course and dropping her ball into the holes.  She even managed to hit her ball in from a foot or two away.

Sunday was pretty low key, which was nice.  In the morning we went to a local Sacrament Meeting.  To get there we took a nice drive through the mountains.  Then in the afternoon we went for a walk on The Farm Trail, which turned out to be a paved path that ran alongside a main road.  It also ran past an old historic farmhouse, which you can see in the background of my picture with Cosette.  We brought the stroller with us to push Cosette around, but most of the time she used it to push Bear around, which was pretty cute.

Look, Mommy - a stick!

On Memorial Day we spent the morning on historic Main Street.  We did a lot of window shopping.  My favorite stores were the artwork and photography stores.  Cosette's favorite part was riding the free "trolley" (which was basically a converted bus) around Main Street, which we did twice.  I think she was excited about that because of watching the show Daniel Tiger, which has a trolley in it.

Jeff and Cosette on a bridge over Main Street

Monday afternoon we went back to the Mountain Resort and let Cosette ride her favorite rides a few more times.  I was extremely tempted to ride the Alpine Slide, which I LOVE, but decided that wasn't the smartest thing for a pregnant woman to do.

After checking out on Tuesday morning we went back to that historic farm for a picnic lunch before heading on the road.  On the way home we spent a few hours at the zoo.  We got to watch the elephants take a shower with a hose and do a few tricks.  Cosette enjoyed climbing on animal statues and playing in the splash park.  I was really sad that we discovered the water feature right before we left, because Cosette didn't get to play there for very long, and her clothes were still a little wet on the ride home.

We made it back home from our trip just in time for me to tutor Nathan Bailey one last time.  And when I walked in the door, I discovered that one of our toilets had been running the entire time we were gone.  Oops!  Oh, well - as far as water issues go, it could have been a lot worse.
All in all it was a fun trip.  It was just right for our family - pretty low key, slow paced, and lots of down time. I think some of my favorite things were just being together, reading books, dancing, talking, laughing.  Thanks for making the trip possible, Mom and Dad!

Family

I realized that I had a bunch of pictures of Cosette with family members, and I thought it would be fun to post them.

With Great-Grandpa Bond on New Years Day

Having fun with Aunt Katie

Decorating Valentine's cookies with Grandma

Reading a story with cousin Adriana

Posing with Uncle Ken when he visited in April

And then this last photo was taken on Friday when my sister-in-law Rachel and nephew Kenny stayed with us.  Rachel came out for her friend's wedding, and here they are all dressed up for the reception that night.

Cute Cosette Moments

Our little girl is tons of fun.  I thought I'd post some pictures and cute stories from the past few months.

When you ask Cosette the name of the baby in Mommy's tummy, she insists that her sister's name is "Buh-buh-buh."  Don't know where that came from.  And if I commit the terrible sin of referring to the baby by another name, she gets very offended and corrects me.

Here is an example of her silliness and acrobatic skills:

We bought a membership to our local aquarium, and Cosette really loves it.  The first time we went, her favorite place was a tiny unfinished crawl space.  If you look closely at the top of the picture, you can see there's a circle for the kids to stand up and be inside of an exhibit, but it's not finished yet.  Cosette just loved crawling in and out and having a special place to hide with Bear.

Love how this picture turned out

One day I came home from tutoring to find that the living room had been transformed by Cosette and her babysitter Bridget.  I let Cosette keep it up for a day or two before making her take it down.  It was a pretty cool box house.

Cosette is always playing new make-believe games with Bear.  On the day I took this picture, Bear had been baby Jesus for a while, and Cosette and I took turns being Mary by wearing her hooded sweatshirt on our heads.  In this picture Bear is having a birthday party.  It's very common for him to be surrounded by a little shrine of toys, sticks, food, and other offerings.  He always gets the best of everything.  For example, on Mother's Day the picture that she drew in Nursery that was supposed to be for me went to Bear instead.  And I love it when she sets up a picnic for her animals, but the only one who has any food is Bear.

A side note about Mother's Day.  That morning I woke up when Cosette came into our bedroom.  She climbed into bed and snuggled with me, then we lay there talking, laughing and playing for 30 minutes or so before we got up to start the day.  I loved it.

Yesterday we finished planting the garden.  For a while Cosette took possession of the hoe, and it was so cute I just had to snap some pictures.

She was making vacuum noises while pushing the hoe.

And to end, here are some funny things Cosette has said:

Cosette: I'm wearing Daddy's shoes so I'm a boy. (She's wearing a dress and Jeff's church shoes.)

             (directed at Jeff) I'm a Daddy right now, so don't be Daddy - you're gonna be Mommy.

             (directed at me) And you're gonna be the little kid!

Me: I am?!?

Cosette: I'm gonna be a little Daddy who gets the porridge and eat it all around. (She's holding a bowl of play food Cheerios that she's been pretending is a bowl of porridge like in the Goldilocks story.)

Cosette: Daddy, why do you get hungry?

Me: Do you get hungry sometimes?

Cosette: Umm, no.

Me: Then why are you eating applesauce?

Cosette: Because I'm hungry.

Me: Oh, ok.

Easter

It was fun being able to have an Easter egg hunt in our own backyard.  We decided to do the egg hunt on Saturday.  It was a beautiful sunny day, perfect for a visit from the Easter bunny.

Here are a few pictures we took:

And here are some pictures of spring from around our yard.  It was fun discovering where the spring flowers were planted, because I didn't know they were there until they bloomed.