This one's for you, Great Grandma

We finally got rid of the old swing set we inherited with our house last year. The fact that when she swung on it and it would sway left and right just made me a little too nervous. So we got creative and decided to build a new one and Halle was sooo excited.

Here they are getting ready to build it. The slide is fun even without the swingset.

And here they are working very hard. And no, we don't let Halle use the saw in case you were wondering. We still aren't finished. We were missing some parts to make the lower platform that allows her to climb up to the top. But apparently ladders aren't included in her "fear of heights" list because she climbs all the way to the top on her own.

Cousin Time

Halle had some of her cousins come visit back at Easter time and I am just getting to the post. We went to the river again to feed ducks.

She and Caleb were best buds the whole weekend.This is her easter dress from Grandma. What a little princess. Of course I thought I had the right size white sandals from a sale last year to wear with it, but they are apparently too small. What a shame. She grew more than I expected over the winter. And since we didn't discover this until just before church, she went barefoot for the better part of the meeting. Needless to say, we did some shopping the next week.

The next week, we took her to the Gateway Children's Museum in Salt Lake. We met her other cousins there and they were so excited to see her. It was a lot of fun. She could have spent all day in the "store." If you haven't taken your kids there yet, I would definitely recommend it. Here are just a few of the pictures.

This water fountain was a lot of fun.
And Halle's favorite- shopping.

The real helicopter was also pretty cool. Even Daddy thought so.


This was the next day walking around the shopping area. Blurry pictures again. I need to get my camera fixed. Sorry.

The two brothers refuse to hold each other's hands, but they were content to have Halle in the middle dragging them along.

Farewell Rusty

My parent's dog, Rusty, has passed away after about 13 years of being with us. He was such a good dog and had a very good life with full indoor priveleges and a nice warm bed. I mean, even the kids didn't get to sleep in our parent's bedroom, so life was pretty good for him.


He loved it when we came to visit from Arizona because Neal would always go outside and play with him. Even though Neal could "only" get the ball half way back in my parents yard, he would still go grab it and take it for a run all the way to the back trees before bringing it back to you.
And we did torture him once when we introduced him to our cat, Charley, on one of our trips home from Arizona.

So even though I didn't necessarily appreciate licking as a sign of affection, we will definitely miss you, Russ. You were a really good dog and always happy to see us when we came. And thanks for tolerating our children. We know you loved them too.

And since I was digging through the archives for pictures, I came across one of my favorites. This picture tells so many things. You can see really how big our kitchen was in our first apartment. You couldn't have the dishwasher and the stove open at the same time. You can see Neal is cooking a turkey- his first and last. And you can see how skinny he really was when we first got married. My how times have changed (for the better I might add).

Dumpty's and Bird's Nests

We had an egg dying party at Grandma's house last weekend which is always a little nerve wracking with permanent dye and unpredictable children. But we all survived, thanks to our time-proven tradition of wearing garbage bags to protect their clothes.

The kits came with face stickers, so we had to give them all faces and line them up on the counter. Once she got them all situated around her, she exlaimed, "There, now all my dumpty's are happy!" She couldn't resist making them "walk" on the counter and of course one jumped off and had a great fall.

Then we had another project that I brought for the kids. We made birds nests out of melted chocolate and chow mein noodles. And then we put jelly beans and a Peep on top. It was a Easter fun project.

Hidden talents

Halle was sad on Sunday when I had leave for choir practice, so I pulled out her bag of hair clips that she is forbidden to play with because they are so small and numerous. I told her she could make her ponies pretty. That did the trick, and she was still occupied when I got home. Of course, you have to know that she had very talented help.

Feeding the Ducks

We took Halle to the river to feed the ducks a couple of weeks ago when it was actually starting to feel warm, and now I am just getting around to the post. The Canadian geese behind her were more persistent than the ducks out in the water. You could tell it was difficult for them to walk on the snow patch to get to the bread.

She of course got scared when we tried to look over the falls, but she was willing to crawl up to the edge and sit on my lap. What a brave girl.

"My Papa is as old as you!"

Neal took Halle with him to the city office when he was running some errands yesterday, and Halle launched right into conversation with one of the workers there. Here is part of their conversation.

City worker: "How old are you?"
Halle: "I'm three."
City worker: "You know, I have a granddaughter as old as you."
Halle: "And I have a Papa as old as you!"

You just never know what she is going to say, but it most always makes us laugh.

Our Brave Little Halle

Halle has a tremendous fear of heights that we have known about since she was just over a year old. However, she so desperately wants to try fun things like slides even when they scare her for the first few times so we patiently try to work with her. One day at Grandma's house, we were sledding in the backyard and she suddenly decided she wanted to go down the tube slide that had terrified her all summer long. So I helped her up the ladder to the playhouse and you can see she is safely standing away from the railing.

After we finally got used to being up there, she decided she was ready for the slide. But we were up there for a good 45 minutes to an hour before she could actually make herself do it. And I still had to give her a little push because I was starting to get cold. But after that first trip down, she wanted to go down again and again.

Here is one of the many videos of her trying to convince herself she's totally ok with it. She would sit there and say she was ready, but then say things like "maybe I should stretch my head first" or "I am just going to take a little rest."

And here we are after she finally made it down and discovered that she "loves it!"

Neal has been adding on to his parent's house for them. This is the view from the playhouse for those of you who are wondering how it's coming along, although you can't really see much of it through the tree.