Star Command

For the last few days Ethan has been pretending to be Woody. If we call him Ethan, he corrects us and says, "No, I'm Woody." He has been calling Kyle "Buzz", me "Jessie," and Brooklyn "Bo Peep."

Yesterday, while I was saying our lunch prayer, Ethan tried to interrupt when I talked about Daddy at work. When I was finished, he wanted to say his own prayer. It went something like this:

"Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for our blessings. We thank you for this food. Please bless this food. Please bless Buzz to have a good day at Star Command. In the name of Jesus Christ Amen."

He's has been dressing like Woody at all times and even insists he sleeps with his hat, vest, star, and boots on his feet. We love our boy!

Grandma Got Run Over by a Muskrat

Earlier this week Jen had to go to a "meeting" (that's where we tell Ethan Mom is going whenever she goes anywhere by herself) and Kyle took the kids on a walk to a local park. Ethan has such a vivid imagination. We were two doors down from our house, and Ethan decided that he would be Woody and Dad would be Buzz Lightyear and Brooklyn would be Jessie (the yodeling cowgirl). Then he said he was going to ride RC (the toy car from Toy Story), reached into the basket of the stroller, and pulled out an imaginary RC car. He rode the car for a few more houses until he decided he wanted to fly. He put the car back in the stroller, and started flying down the sidewalk.

Our destination for this walk was a small nearby park that we don't usually go to. This park has a couple of raccoon toys for the kids to ride. Ethan was excited to jump on (as Woody) and ride his horse, Bullseye. Brooklyn had fun too.
This weekend, we went up for a late Easter/birthday party with Kyle's extended family in Brigham City. Grandpa Morrey brought his horses to give the kids a ride. Ethan said that he wasn't big enough to ride the horses. Once Brooklyn got on she didn't want to get off!

Both Ethan and Brooklyn loved riding the 4-wheeler's up and down the dirt road. Ethan kept shouting things like "This is so fun," and "Rock and Roll!" (Anyone familiar with the Bob the Builder cartoon will recognize that this is Scrambler the 4-wheeler's catch phrase)

Another highlight of the trip was when the dog ran up to the party with a freshly killed muskrat in his jaws. He chased Grandma Morrey around the 4-wheeler a few times before running off to show the everyone else. We really wish we would have gotten a picture of that.

And now, a few miscellaneous things:

Brooklyn has started saying "Ethan" and "Brooklyn." Ethan is "Eth" and Brooklyn is "Broo" (pronounced as if she is going to say it correctly, but leaves off the "klyn"). We bought some Blue's Clues Luv's diapers the other day and she loves to point to the picture of Blue (the dog) and say "Blue." She's been trying to emulate whatever we say instead of just ignoring us.

For the last couple of months, whenever she sees or hears anything that has to do with Elmo she sticks out her tongue and says, "la la la la" as if she's singing "Elmo's Song."

We've discovered a great trick to get Ethan to do what we want when we want him to, whether it's getting him ready for bed, finish eating his dinner, or get ready to leave the park without an argument. We show him the clock and say, "Right now the clock says 6 - 2 - 1. When the clock says 6 - 3 - 0, it's time to . . ." He agrees, continues doing what he's doing, and then when it's time we show him the clock again and say, "Ok, now the clock says 6-3-0. It's time to . . " and he's ready to go. Works like magic.

Go Fly a Kite!

Friday afternoon was perfect for kite flying. We took the kids for their first time, though Brooklyn had more fun running around and playing with Ethan's soccer ball than with the kite. Ethan really enjoyed himself and did a great job with the kite (which he got for Easter).


"To infinity and beyond!"

Sometimes it seemed like he forgot what he was doing and he would just start walking with the kite trailing behind him. Silly boy!

After flying the kite, the kids had a blast playing on the playground in the distance.

Yesterday, we went to visit their cousins for Allie's first birthday. We had a great time visiting with family and playing outside. It was probably the nicest Saturday weather we've had so far this year.

Here are a few words/things Brooklyn has been saying recently:

• box
• roll
• flower
• cereal
• more cereal
• marshmallows
• bird
• bee
• it's a bird

Brooklyn LOVES books, especially "We're going on a Bear Hunt." While Jen was busy doing something the other day, Brooklyn brought her the book to read. Jen asked Ethan if he wanted to read a book to Brooklyn and he was excited about the idea. It was amazing how well he remembered the words to the book. We asked Ethan to read it again to her the other day and got some of it on tape (sadly the tape ran out so we missed the best part, but we'll just have to try it again). We were surprised he remembered the words so well since we haven't had the book too long. It just melts our hearts to watch them have fun together.

Non-Generic Easter Greeting

This was a really fun weekend with the kids. In the past we have visited family for Easter, but this year we wanted to celebrate at home. We really enjoyed listening to Conference and celebrating the holiday together, and hopefully pick up a few new traditions.

This afternoon, we had a nice turkey dinner and had an Easter egg hunt with the kids. Most of the eggs had a small treat in them, but some of the eggs had clues in them that revealed where some larger prizes were. Ethan loved the clues since he recently was introduced to "Blues Clues." He even likes to draw in his own "handy dandy notebook." Brooklyn didn't really understand what was going on, but she loved the candy and anything Ethan helped find for her.

On Saturday morning we took the kids out to the Deseret Peak compound in Tooele for their Easter Egg hunt. It was amazing! There were thousands of eggs/books/toys/etc. laid out in a parking lot with probably at least a thousand kids all waiting in anticipation. Ethan was a little wary about going out there with all the other kids, but he got excited when he saw Smarties and Tootsie Rolls. Brooklyn was in the youngest age group but they didn't get to pick up eggs. Instead they just gave all the wee ones treats and a little book.


He did not want to wear his coat, so we didn't make him. He ended up with Kyle's jacket after he realized that he wished he had listened to us.

Some of the eggs had numbers on them for big prizes. We didn't get any of them, but we were amazed at how great the prizes were. There were kids everywhere with new bikes, and even a bounce house. Maybe next year . . .

When we got home Ethan wanted to lay all of his candy out on the rug just like he did after he went Trick-or-Treating (though this time he got lots more candy). We thought it was funny that he lined it up in a row. It's a good thing he's a good sport for letting us limit how many pieces he can have in a day.

We thought it would be fun to make marshmallow eggs for Easter. Ethan was excited to "help" form the egg shapes in the flour. . .

. . . and to lick the spoon!

Brooklyn has been showing much more interest in her baby lately. It has been so cute to see her giving them love.

She's also been obsessed with hats, or making things into hats. (She was losing her balance when we snapped this one and we thought she looked funny).

We've had some crazy weather this week. It was nearly 70 at the beginning of the week, and three snowstorms. Each one dumped a few inches, then melted within a day. Ethan wanted to build a snow man on Friday.

Here he was Sunday (before we smashed him). We think he looks like a duck.

Ethan got this soccer ball for Easter today, and has already had lots of fun with it. It looks like he's already posing for a soccer team photo.

Kyle's birthday was on Tuesday. Kyle asked for a carrot cake. Ethan insisted that Jen make a Doc cake (Doc from Cars) for Dad's birthday (and a Sally cake for Jen's and a Flo cake for Brooklyn's). He was disappointed until we put a blue candle on his piece of cake, then he was satisfied. Notice that once again, Kyle's candles are in binary (29).

Kyle walked in Sunday morning and found Ethan sitting at the computer with Notepad open and the box for "The Princess and the Frog" DVD in front of him. Ethan was carefully copying the letters from the DVD box. Kyle had to point out that there were words between "Princess" and "Frog," and this is the result:

We went to Kyle's mission reuinion on Friday night. Attendance was a little sparse, but that was probably a good thing because Ethan was off the wall. We were sitting down for dinner, and in the silence Ethan turned to Jen and out of the blue blurted out "I love you...your hair is nice" (he might have said "cute" but we dont' remember for sure) and touched her hair. People got a good laugh.

Ethanisms

Ethan has said some of the funniest things lately, though we often forget them before we have a chance to write them down. Here are some recent favorites.

• For FHE on Monday we talked about Easter. We asked him if he could say "ressurrected." He replied by saying, "No I can't. That's another language."

• Whenever he sees me eating anything he likes he gets worried I'm going to finish it off so he gets concerned and says, "Don't eat too much of those or you'll get sick!" He keeps saying that until I stop eating them.

• Yesterday, I asked him why the broom was in the bathroom. He said, "Because I was wiping the peep off."

• "Happy means we should make cake."

• "I like meatballs. It's kind of like a snowman with big and little and middle."