It's the "Dog Days of March"

Everybody is busy and life is moving forward. We're just hanging in there having a good time as we go.

We are definitely "arts and crafts" kind of kids. I made this cool rainbow this week. I want to be an artist among other things when I grow up.

Here's Sam doing some measuring. He and daddy built a planet mobile to hang from his ceiling like I have.Of course there is always lots of time spent playing with trains at our house.

Sam got to spend a morning at the aquarium with mommy this week while his babysitter was at a funeral. I was in school - and loving every minute of it.They've added a penguin exhibit since we were there last - Sam says the penguins were fun to watch.

Sam isn't quite as tall as an Emperor penguin, but he's getting there.

And here's a funny picture of us helping mom take out the trash the other afternoon. Where are Sam's pants? Silly kid!

And here I am this afternoon jumping around. The boys have to get some energy out after trying so hard to sit quietly during 3 hours of church.Sam Alert: Howdy y'all. Just one cute picture of me from the week. Everybody have a great week!

Our Evening with Dinos . . .

and some sneaky leprechauns

We resumed our weekly trips to Thanksgiving Point last week to spend an evening at the Dinosaur Museum. The activity this week was to spot a whole bunch of sneaky leprechauns and see what tricks they had played on the dinos.
Above our favorite cave they put masks on some dinos.

And here are a trio of sneaky little guys that we found.

They painted this Utahraptor's toes pink.We got to spend some quality time at the sand and water table - it was a quiet night.And they had opened a couple of new exhibits - in this one we get to dig up some fossils.And in this new exhibit, we put dino puzzles together.We got quite a few of them completed.And we hopped on the scale to see which dino we were similar in weight to.
And finally, we watched the tornado go around and around and around. Cool stuff!Sam Alert: Hey everyone. First up for your viewing pleasure this week - another picture of me making music. I've got rhythm and soul like no other 2 year old!And a couple of "working man" pictures for you - I was in a fixing mood . . . looking around the house for things that needed to be repaired.
And on a separate occasion, I worked on the refrigerator. It's working perfectly now.And I've finally turned in to a "book boy". I love books! This seems to make mommy and daddy very happy - me too. This is what daddy found this afternoon during "quiet time" in my room. Have a great week everybody - Sam out.

We're Sick Again . . .

With SPRING FEVER that is!

It's official - we have Spring Fever! We're deep into March and here in Utah that means some lingering snow storms mixed in with some really beautiful days. You just can't help but want to be outside playing. We were lucky enough to have a few really nice days this week and we made the best of them.

First up though - you can't go play until your homework is done. Ugh! I'm loving school though and doing really well.

Here's Sam taking advantage of the warm weather that often follows a spring snowstorm. You can see the snow still on the ground - but it doesn't keep us down for long.A few days later, all the snow is gone and Sam is out digging in the dirt. We're ready to start planting as soon as the freezing nights are over - probably another two months mom says . . . hopefully that's not a very long amount of time?!?!And here is Sam breaking in the swings for the year. It was soooooo good to get back in to our sandbox for the year.

And you can't keep us away from playing sports in the backyard either. Daddy took some time off from working on his final project for another teaching endorsement that is due this week to play T ball with us. I think we've tagged him out - he's tricky, that daddy!

Here I am taking some whacks at the old T ball. I'm looking forward to playing in a T ball league this spring - can't wait! Look at that ball fly.

Even Sam gets in to the T ball action - and he's a good hitter just like me.

And back to the sandbox. Oh it feels good to be back - we've missed you dear old friend sandbox!

Sam Alert: Howdy y'all. I'm feeling better - just a little bit of a cough and a runny nose left, but overall - much better. Enjoy a few cute pictures of me from the week.

Here I am eating with mommy's chopsticks. We had some yummy Chinese (including sushi - which I wouldn't try) the other night for dinner. I'm getting to be a pro at using the "sticks" - look at that form.And here I am on the piano. I'm not sure you've ever met a little guy who loves music as much as me. Singing, dancing, playing, listening - - - I'm all over it. Have a great week everyone - Sam out.

It's Been "THAT" Week!

We seem to have one of these kind of weeks every winter - you know, a week were absolutely nothing happens. And we mean absolutely nothing! We've been fighting some germs around our house. In fact, daddy has spent more time taking people to the doctor's office/urgent care center this week than doing anything else. Sam had conjunctivitis (pink eye) on Monday. Then he came down with croup on Wednesday and Thursday night - the kind of croup that requires his parents to be awake most of the night walking him around in the cold air outside. Then daddy came down with conjunctivitis on Friday afternoon. And that same evening, Sam's cough got really bad and he was diagnosed with bronchitis.

So when we say nothing happened, we really mean it. We looked at the camera this morning and saw literally no new pictures on it. How sad is that!

We did end up doing one thing today that daddy found picture-worthy - - help with the laundry. Here is a clever picture of us each getting our own dirty laundry out of our hampers. Never let it be said that we don't air our dirty laundry on the blog :-)

Sam Alert: Howdy everyone. Anyone want my cough? I'm happy to give it away. Here's one cute picture of me from this week (the only one). It's me gathering laundry. Ah chores - somebodies gotta do them. Here's to a better week!

Our Big Day Out

Plus Digging for Some Fossils

Since Monday was a holiday, we decided to take off and do something fun that we had never done before. So we hopped a train in to downtown and spent the day at the Clark Planetarium. As our faithful readers know, we LOVE a good train ride, be it historic railroad or light rail.

Ah . . . watching the world go by.

One of the first things we saw at the planetarium was the giant marble maze. We could have spent all day just watching the marbles.There was plenty to see and do - here we are with a model of the earth.
And here we are walking on Mars. (Are you loving these poses?)
A quick hop over some planets and we're walking on the moon.

We watched a movie about a cardboard rocketship and learned all about the 4 rocky midgets and 4 gas giants (planets).

On our walk over to have lunch, a big firetruck pulled up right in front of us. The firemen and women got out and talked to us and gave us quite the royal treatment. We got to hop up inside the truck and visit with some of the firemen.I've officially decided that I want to be both a fireman and an artist when I grow up.This was definitely a highlight of our day!Here we are playing with playdough one afternoon - getting our fingers and hands strong for writing and using scissors. Then we went digging for fossils last night. Daddy found these great fossil bricks at the dinosaur museum last week and we got to dig right in to them. Each brick had 5 fossils inside and we had to carefully discover them and dig them out. Here's Sam working on his.And here we are, all cleaned up, with our fossils. We each found a shark's tooth, clams, ammonites, and other cool fossils.

Sam Alert: Hey everyone - Sam here. Enjoy a couple of cute pics of me from the week. First up - me and my laptop. Everyone knows that I love me a computer - I always have, even when I was a baby. This is mine from Christmas (thanks Uncle Carl and Aunt Fran!). I love to play with it.And here I am with my fossils. Have a great week everybody!