Once again. Here are some birthday cards the kids made for their other grandma. I can say “other†because she never reads my blog.
Text (including random capitalization and punctuation errors): Dear Grandma Bunny,
are you having a good Day! It’s your BIRTHDAY! Banana. HAHA I made you read banana! I mIss you
Love Isaac
Charlotte:
I always love Charlotte’s cards because they’re unique and random, but usually include a box of bananas.
We were so excited to be in Utah for General Conference this year. It was our first time back since we moved away in October of 2009. We have really missed living close to Mom and Dad Cochran.
Here are some pictures. Why? Because I love pictures:
I really wanted a good picture of my four kids together. I ended up buying a few more pictures as well because they did such a good job.
The following were taken on March 22, 2011 at Portrait Innovations:
We arrived safely in Utah late Friday night. On Saturday the weather was beautiful. We visited with our great friends, the Kelsons, and the kids played out side with no coats and at times with no shoes. The kids had so much fun that on the way home, Isaac told me that if we don’t ever move back into our old home (which we still own), then he would think I’m a bad mother.
Here’s what it looked like outside the next morning:
So those of you watching conference that noticed the spring flowers on Saturday and the Snow covered branches on Sunday, that’s just about what it is like. The snow is melting quickly though, so who knows what tomorrow will be like.
We have been in the car since about 7:50 AM PST and now it is about 6 PM PST with many hours left to travel.
This will be my first blog post from the passenger seat of the car. Here are some pictures:
Nicole held on to her backpack for the first part of our journey—she really loves that backpack!
Ila has gotten a little bored, but mostly she’s been fine.
Isaac tried to help navigate, but he didn’t know how to use that GPS well.
If you got any strange phone calls from me earlier today, this is probably why:
Also since it’s April Fools day we periodically see very strange things like monkeys jumping around on cows or our cats running along side the van (or at least the children believe us when when we say we see such things). They even tried to get into the act by telling us about the crazy things they’ve seen.
Oh, and if you see this while we’re still on the road, you can check out where we are by clicking here.
Our Saturday outing on February 6th really wasn’t that exciting, but I didn’t want to miss a week in my reverse blogging. I can’t remember what the original plan was, but we didn’t get our Saturday chores done soon enough so we decided to just take a trip to IKEA (just 3 miles away) with the family. The little girls fell asleep before we were completely through the store:
Based on the other pictures I took that day, we also played with play dough on that Saturday.
Nicole’s favorite thing to do was to make bears and then have them complain about missing body parts.
Ila is a good little talker. Her vocabulary is growing everyday and it’s often surprising what she can say. I have recorded a little sample of her vocabulary here:
Listen for the following words: unbuckle, no, walk, have a good day, and thank you. She prefers to say “have a good day†over “good-bye†as you may notice at the end.
Here she is saying “Peek-a-boo†I love that she says all three syllables:
Here she says “apple.†Apples have become one of her favorite and she requests them everyday.
Here she is calling for Isaac:
Her vocabulary includes: Charlotte, banana, bubble (when she wants a bath), stinky bottom (she has said these words together as I change her diaper), Mommy, kitty, meow (sounds like mnow), more, Daddy (Daddy always gives her a big kiss so she now says Daddy then makes kissy lips), hi, hello, oh no, uh oh, cracker, and my all time favorite is her “I love you†which she says as she gives me a hug and kiss.
I blame the fuzzy head that has come with my cold, but I neglected to document the second part of our March 5th adventure which was to stop and visit Zach’s grandmother. She lives in Seattle and the interesting thing about her house is that every inch of it is covered with plates, music boxes, cuckoo clocks, cups and saucers, and other collectables. Nicole’s eyes were wide with wonder as she looked around at all the pretty things on the walls:
Ila enjoyed looking around too:
Ila was particularly intrigued by this little music box with a bird in it:
Isaac thought that it was neat that you could walk around in a circle in the house. I took this little video of him showing how you could start in one room and walk around and end up in the same room through a different door:
Our Saturday outing for March 5th was the Lego Store. We gave the kids opportunities to earn a little money during the week so that they could buy something on Saturday. The Lego store was in a mall in Bellveue, WA. I left my camera in the van so I only have pictures from my phone for this outing.
The store was crowded and Ila was a handful. She just wanted to be free to explore on her own. Charlotte was looking around for something to buy, but she couldn’t find a pink lego set so I asked her if she’d rather spend her money on Legos or Chocolate. She wanted the Chocolate. Before we got to the chocolate store, we saw a Jamba Juice and she wanted Juice even more than chocolate. So she spent some of her money on a peach flavored Jamba. Which she offered to share with her little sister.
We decided to complete our outing with some Sushi. We took the kids to Blue C Sushi. The kids thought it was great because the food came around on a conveyer belt and you just took what you wanted. The plates are color coded and each color represents a price.
Here’s his class picture for his school here in Washington:
Also, he wrote me this letter at school one day. At first I wondered who “Kathliny†was and then I realized that it was me.
On March 12th, we went to the Renton Library for our Saturday outing. This library is neat because it’s also a bridge:
It looks like a normal building when you pull into the parking lot, but then you walk around to the entrance (pictured above) and it’s almost startling to see that you’re right on top of the Cedar River.
There’s not much else to say about this outing, but here are some pictures;
Here is Isaac picking out books with his dad. He ended up with a selection that included books about the Pueblos, the pyramids, electrical circuits, and frogs.
We’ve started going on family outings every Saturday and I’ve meant to document them here, but I have not done a good job. I will start with this last weekend’s adventure and work my way backwards.
We thought the kids would enjoy a ride on the Ferry into Seattle. We drove to Bremerton, took the Ferry across, then drove home from Seattle.
We drove across the Tacoma Narrows Bridge:
We ate our lunch (sandwiches) in the car as we waited for the Ferry.
We rode on a ferry named Kitsap that boarded at 12:20.
I think the whole family really enjoyed our ferry ride experience and it was neat to see the skyline as we approached the city. This was the only shot we got of the entire family:
Here are the cards my kids made for their Grandma Cochran. I love children’s artwork, especially when they start drawing more detailed drawings. It’s a unique expression of what’s inside their brains.
Here’s Isaac’s letter. He struggles with writing, but he is getting better.
Next is Charlotte’s. Her card is my favorite because it’s the most unique and creative. It is composed one piece of paper folded into a card.
Front:
Middle: She asked me to write “I hope you’re having a good birthday†across the top. The pen mark in the middle is Nicole’s unsolicited addition to the card. She drew the forklift and then scribbled some blue on it that represents the wrapping paper. She asked me to make a word bubble that says “I think this is a forklift.†When she drew the box on the other side she said it goes from black to grey and then she drew a bow on top. She wanted me to write that there are bananas in the box.
Back: Both pictures are of grandma opening her box of bananas. The yellow things are bananas. Once again, she dictated the text that she wanted in word bubbles. The green grandma makes me laugh because of the detail she added. That grandma is sitting on a box and has a stomach, bottom, and hair. She also has very long fingers.
Nicole’s picture: As she drew, Nicole said the following things:
(Did you find all those things in there? I think the grandma is the circles, the elevator is some veritable lines on the opposite side and I can’t even guess which ones the others are)And finally, Ila’s drawing: Nicole reached across to Ila’s picture a few times, so I can’t guarantee that every scribble is Ila’s.
I had a half a banana leftover and no one wanted to eat it, that is until I cut it up and put a chocolate chip on each slice. The pieces looked like eyes so I got this idea:
Charlotte loved it and we’ve had this snack everyday since it’s inception.
My kids love to celebrate holidays. Really, they love to celebrate anything and admittedly, I find great joy in creating excitement and doing fun or unusual things. So while I think I generally like the Irish, any celebrating we do on St. Patrick’s Day is really more for the joy of celebrating.
That being said, we really didn’t do much. I just turned some food green and we wore green, but it was enough to make the day a little more fun and enough to throw up a quick blog post. So what did I turn green? I made a loaf of green bread. I turned this morning’s eggs green, and I turned Isaac’s apple sauce green. Is that really worth a blog post, probably not.
Green Bread (I added food coloring at the same time I was adding flour):
Isaac’s Green lunch:
Green Breakfast (I also colored his milk green, but I think that was too much, no one really wanted to drink green milk)
Perhaps I was a bit hasty. I realized halfway through the haircut that I was in over my head. I have cut my girl’s hair before with no problems, but as I cut, I realized that I had 
been gradually slanting downwards. I tried to fix it and ended up cutting it shorter than planned. I had a terrible time trying to even out the back and the front. I almost Just quit and took her into a salon with her hair half cut (looking like it does in the picture to the left). I tried sitting her in front of a mirror and a movie, but she kept turning or tilting her head just as I was going to cut. Anyway, it took way too long, end ended up shorter than I had planned, and it looked choppy. And they have also said to me that Vampire Hair Treatment is not that costly so people with baldness or frequent hair fall can avail that treatment at affordable price.
When Ila woke up from her nap, I fed the kids and took them to a grocery store that had a salon next to it, but Nicole had a bit of a meltdown as we were leaving the store because I couldn’t fit her and my groceries in the cart and I decided that taking all my girls in for a haircut was just not going to work at that moment. So I still haven’t taken her in to fix it, but here it is.
Before:
After:
Charlotte looked in the mirror and shook her head from side to side and announced: “I like it because it has lots of angles!†She said her father would get home and see all the angles and laugh and laugh. That evening she proclaimed herself “angley hair Charlotte.â€
We were excited to join Rochelle and her daughter for a trip to the Seattle Science Center. We went on a free admission (thanks to Fred Meyer) day. It was nice to get to know Rochelle and see all the neat exhibits. This post is really picture heavy, so you’ll have to click on the link to read more (I didn’t want it to take over my blog).
We’ve had many invitations for playdates and outings since moving to Washington just under two months ago. It’s been great fun.
On a recent Thursday, Jessica called us up to see if we wanted to go on an impromptu outing to a place called Gym Starz.
The kids had a lot of fun climbing and jumping and running and I enjoyed getting to know Jessica and her cute family a little better. Unfortunately, I didn’t take any pictures of our kids together, maybe next time.
Ila’s hair is getting long enough to be messy. Here is her hair after a nap the other day:
I promise that I embellished nothing. I think she may be entering that awkward in-between stage that all my straight-haired girls have gone through. This is when I get impatient for pigtail length hair.
Here’s Nicole at that awkward hair length":
Here’s Charlotte:
