Play Dough Day

The other day, Peter was getting a little crazy, so I asked him, "Hey Peter, do you want to read a book, go outside or play with play dough?" The second I gave him the play dough option, I wanted to reel it back in. We didn't actually have any play dough. But, surely Peter wouldn't choose that over being outside. False. That is exactly what he chose. "Play dough! Play dough! Play dough!" was the rallying cry. 

Fortunately, my upstairs neighbor had given me a play dough recipe just a few days prior, so, Peter and I got the ingredients, measured, poured, and tasted flour (that part was Peter). We made it and added some green food coloring, and had a blast! 

I'm not so good with food coloring.

This little guy was thrilled!

Peter building.

 This was the longest he'd ever sat still in an activity. He played for at least 30 minutes straight in his high chair. He would squish it into shapes and tell me what it was. Below, he made a volcano. It was just a flat piece of play dough, but he knew what it really was. He said, "Volcano." then made a rumbling noise with hands flying up to show the explosion. I made a little man and he sat on the volcano with Peter warning, "Hot. Volcano, hot."

Little man on the volcano.

Peter said this was a moose.

 Jonathan came home and soon after he was home, Peter was done with the play dough- Dad trumps most things. We were putting together Peter's new bedroom set (yay!), and Peter came in with really dark liquid all over his hand and on his face! Someone found the food coloring! Jonathan said, "Peter, do your hand like this, and run to the bathroom!" as he clenched his hand into a fist. Peter, luckily, followed directions, and I got him in the bath while Jonathan cleaned the table- thankfully it didn't get anywhere else in the house!

 We've played with the play dough once more since we made it, and it was a little sticky, so I added some more flour, but so far so good. It was super easy to make and made Peter's day, thus making my day more awesome.

Here's the recipe I used:
1 cup flour
1 cup water
1/4 cup salt
2 tsp lemon juice
1 Tbsp vegetable oil

Mix it all in a pot on the stove- med heat until it is no longer liquid and it forms a ball. Let it cool and play with it! And put the food coloring away before your child finds it.

Here's a little video I took of Peter boy playing.

Snow Day in April

Ready for the snow!

 The weather last week was crazy. Tuesday was super windy all day, and it was really dark in the afternoon because the sky was brown from all the dirt being blown around. We have winds 37-40mph. At one point, we had big pieces of construction foam being blown across the fence from the middle school into our yard. The pieces were about 6-8 feet tall and about 2 feet wide. Granted, it was foam, but still, seeing giant things being blown into your yard while the trees sounded like they were going to crash down at any second was disconcerting.

Then, the wind stopped and around 5, it started raining, which turned into sleet, and then snow. I thought it would snow for an hour or two, and stop sometime that night and be melted by mid-morning. Little did I know, we would wake up to a winter wonderland. It snowed the whole night, and we woke up to at least 3-4 inches of snow. Then, it continued snowing the entire day!

When Jonathan got home from work, we dug out all the snow clothes, bundled up and went outside to play with our neighbors! The boys had a blast building snowmen, throwing snowballs and making a fort. It was great.

Peter and Ty

Filling up with some delicious snow.

Bundled children are the best.

Friends for life! Sitting inside the "snow fort"

Peter off exploring

The backyard looked so neat with the green leaves covered in snow.

Snowy River

Snow Boy

The gang at work building a snow family

Peter, Robin and Jonathan with some snow people

A snowman lost his nose because of this kid...Peter ate the entire carrot!

The snow throwing began

 We all played outside until it started getting dark, but even then the boys didn't want to come in. Jonathan made a snow fort with the boys, and after they got distracted, Jonathan kept shoveling for a while. He stopped piling snow at one point and said, "I think I missed out in my childhood." Haha, he played just as hard as the little boys. We had a great time with the snow! I know tons of people hated that it was snowing in April, but I'm glad we got one last chance to play. We had a blast.

Our yard the next morning. 

The snow was totally gone within two days, and we are back to shorts and t-shirt weather. The kids were playing in the stream today and cooling off. I'm still working on collecting up all of the winter clothes again and repacking the coats and boots and gloves. It was a great snow day!

Hollbrook Canyon Hike

Since we moved to a new place, it was only fitting that we hike it. Jonathan has a need to be outdoors, exploring, climbing, conquering- he claims his beard is calling him to the wild. Peter is incredibly content when outside, if he was screaming as a baby all we had to do is open the door and step outside and almost always he would calm right down. I am not one to initially want to hike things, but I am always in a better mood after getting out and getting some exercise and I always build awesome memories every time, and once we get going, I remember I love it. Hiking is excellent, and we love it. So, we decided to hike part of the Holbrook trail. There is a trail that goes up a mountain...hill (?), and one that goes down. The one that leads down the hill follows a little creek, and that is the one we took.

It's got to be a good trail if you can see the temple from the trail head.

As we headed down, Peter and I took a moment to discuss weathering, erosion and rock layers....I'm totally serious. I talked to him about why there were different colors in the rock I'm holding and why you can see chunks of rock sticking out of the hill in front of us. He listened the whole time I was talking and then found a rock of his own. Nature...the best classroom in the world.

Peter and Robin, learning about rocks

Peter and his stick.

The main reason we chose this trail as our first hike in the new city is to look for a camping spot. A friend of ours said there were places to camp along the trail. We want to do a hike and camping trip with them, but we wanted to scout it out first, so we know what we would be getting ourselves into. Also, this was an easy trail- read accessible for Peter so we didn't have to carry him the whole way, but we also weren't scared he'd fall to his death. And easy trails with a toddler are the way to keep Jonathan sane- being outside- without stressing out me. Win win.

Love these boys.

Peter taking a water break with the mountain man...aka my husband.

I will take a moment and talk for a second about Peter and his beautiful white hair. I had to edit every single picture I took that had him in it and darken the picture, because if I didn't his little head was just a glowing bright little ball. Little angel head boy.

He pointed out all the bugs and flowers.

How can you not love walking through this...beautiful. 

The trail followed the stream for a bit, and then crossed over it at least twice. At the second crossing, we turned back and headed home. Even though it was an easy hike, Peter is just 2. He is an awesome hiker, but we've learned his limits, and that it's much better for everyone if we head back well before he hits said limits. But, we did get to see the stream and Peter threw rocks in the water.

Jonathan and Peter on little bridge number one.

I love the stream!

Colorful rocks in the water!

Peter the Great exploring the wild frontier.

Practicing some rock throwing skills. 

Jonathan scouted out some places, for possible camping, but nothing seemed super good, especially knowing that we would have to hike in everything, as well as Peter's things. I think we are still at the car camping stage of life until Peter gets big enough to hike his own things in. Also, there were areas where a couple people could camp, but not  a big enough flat area for 2 couples and 3 kids. We would be really squished and the kids would have no room to play. So, this is out for camping, but I'm sure we can find heaps of other places.

I love hiking because look at this!

We hiked back to the car, everyone was still happy, so it was a successful trip, even if we don't camp there. We are going to go back sometime soon and hike the upper trail to see where that leads. As we were driving out, we had some amazing views from where we were. I made Jonathan pull the car over so I could take a couple pictures. The world is so incredibly beautiful! I love being able to explore with the family and discover beauty.

The Land Full of Bounty

Looking back at the Bountiful Temple and the B on the hill.

Another temple picture because I can

We had fun hiking, and I'm sure we'll do plenty more. We've been told there are lots of child friendly hikes in the area and we'll go on  as many as we have time for. We don't know how long we will be living here, so I'm kind of treating it like one of our travel spots. That way, we get in as many things as we can in case we don't stay too long. And, if we do stay longer, then we can just keep exploring.

Sunday Stories

Sunday with Peter is always interesting. He is constantly on the move, so to get him to sit quietly through an hour of people talking, a couple of songs and a few prayers is trying. This past Sunday, he did really good, but there were a couple of cute things that I need to record.

First off, we behind a family with twin girls, 1 year old. To say Peter was smitten would be an understatement. He was so happy when he saw them, and would play with them whenever their mom was holding them. We sat in front of our neighbors, who have a 4 year old and a 2 year old- both boys. Peter also loves them, and quickly shot under our bench to sit with them. We let him sit there until the meeting got started and then tried to keep him with us.

He was doing good, we got through the opening song and prayer and the sacrament was being passed. In our church, we all eat a piece of bread and drink water to remember Christ and the Atonement. We've been working with Peter to get him to sit quietly while the guys walk around with the trays of bread and water and pass them to everyone. Peter did great taking only one piece of bread. Then it was time for the water. I always try to find a little cup that is half full, because it makes everything easier. I gave him a little cup and then got one for myself, so far so good. He went to drink his, paused, and then I heard a familiar burbling sound...he was blowing bubbles in his tiny water cup. It wasn't super loud, but I'm pretty sure those around us heard. I grabbed his hand and whispered that he needed to drink it...which he promptly did. Then, as I handed the water tray back to the young man who was passing it, Peter exclaimed in a loud voice, "Tank You!" Well...at least he has manners down.

Then, we had made it to the last ten minutes. We brought new church books with us that Sunday, which kept Peter pretty quiet. He likes the Daniel and the Lions' Den story and Noah and the Ark- because of the animals. Anyway, he was getting more and more restless and he escaped to the row behind us to sit with our neighbors- he does a great job of adopting himself into their family all the time. He came back a few minutes later with about 5 stickers on him. He told me all about them, and panicked for a second when he couldn't find his tiger sticker. We have the best neighbors in the world.

After church we drove up to the Bountiful Temple and walked around it a bit. It was a gorgeous day and the temple was brilliant. Peter was holding a little chicken that he got for Easter, and with one quick movement, he threw it between the bars of the fence and onto the lawn. It was far out of reach, so we told Peter he had to say goodbye to the chicken. We continued walking and he kept going between asking for the chicken and saying "temple".

Peter, pointing back to the chicken.

Bountiful LDS Temple

As we were walking and looking at the temple, we noticed that the Dr was also visiting the temple. It's a good thing to do on a Sunday, no matter when you are from.

Peter, Jonathan and the TARDIS.

Peter kept asking about the chicken, and he had already snuck through the bars once, so we knew he could fit...he's fast, and small. So, we took him back to the chicken and told him to go through, get the chicken and come right back out, and if he came right back out, he'd get a cookie. Luckily, the idea of a cookie was enough to get him to come right back out. If he had decided otherwise, we would have been in a heap of trouble.

Peter the burglar 

Successful chicken retrieval 

Get out of jail free card- success.

Sunday is an exciting day when you live with a toddler.