Grandma & Grandpa Whitney

I have no idea how they managed to come, stay with us for an entire week and still get away with only one picture each on my camera! I guess we were having too much fun doing things that pictures were forgotten!! They got here late the first night so we just talked and talked until bed time. The next day we ordered pizza and Geoff and Maria came over and we all enjoyed eachother's company. While they were here we got to get together again with the grandparents, Geoff & Maria, Claire and Grandma Dott - we went to the Super China Buffet to celebrate Grandma Dott's birthday! I cant remember how old she was turning but it was 90 something...

Then they went and got a hotel room for one night before they left so that we could go swimming (namely Kaleb, he associates them visiting with "their" pool!) They didnt want to disappoint so they got him his pool!! haha...We went and played all afternoon in the pool. It was a lot of fun (even though Cameron tried drowning - she slipped and fell in the big pool) but all was well and she still loves water!!

Oh - while they were here they got Cameron a little dress - or should I say a big dress...a big white poofy girly dress that she just loves!! Ok, I think thats the highlight of the visit and the pictures I have!!! We miss them always and wish they lived closer to have more time with them! Joe and I think they should just move to Moscow again!! :)

Oh - and one more thing - we got to go inside their old house! Its for sale and the door was unlocked so we walked through it. Its big and empty but beautiful. No wonder they all loved it so much. They had so many memories still clearly printed on the house (writings on the wall from Will, old campaining signs from Doug, etc..) it was awesome.

THE LEPRECHAUNS CAME!!

What a day! On St. Patricks Day we got up early and went to the Troy Library for story hour. We listened to the "library hour book lady" (as Tanner called her) read several books about little birds and springtime! Then we made little birds by coloring a paper bird and putting it on a popcicle stick and flying it around the library. WE GOT OUR FIRST LIBRARY CARD! We, the Whitney's, finally got a library card! I let Kaleb pick our four books to celebrate! He picked three for himself and one very nice butterfly book for Cameron. We've been reading them for our bedtime stories! We will go back for story hour on Thursday and get some new books, Kaleb is LOVING this idea!

Anywho, then the kids got to go to two friends' house (Tera's and Miriam's) and got to play while Michele and I did our visiting teaching. Then we went to Michele's house and played and played and played! We were there several hours while the kids played like crazy and me and Michele ground wheat and made homemade wheat bread!

Then we came home and ate dinner and went to bed!! BUT we were the only ones asleep in our house that night!! A few little leprechauns snuck into our home and PLAYED! They made a HUGE mess! They throw our clean clothes out of our dryer all over the floor. They lost money out of their pockets ($4) and lots of coins! They also spilled a bunch of green and gold chocolate all over the floor! They played with our shoes (put Kaleb's on the TV) and even snuck upstairs and colored with green marker on the kids! Those mischevious creatures!!

These are the kids setting their traps (which unfortunately didnt catch one this year!)

This is what the house looked like the next morning!

This is what Kaleb looked like colored on!

Joy School

The day before St. Patricks Day we had Joy School at our house. To keep with the fun of St. Patricks Day I planned all of our school work around the little holiday. We made leprechaun catchers (we gave them to Andrew and Tanner since we had made some different ones the week before). We made a color wheel with pain to learn the colors of the rainbow! We did some counting worksheets, and make shamrock cookies with homemade bright green frosting!! We had a lot of fun! The kids loved it and it set up some more excitement about St. Patricks Day the next day!

Kaleb made this color wheel, He did an AWESOME job!!

Our two leprechaun catchers! (Made out of oatmeal canisters!)

Our bright green homemade frosting!! Perfect for our shamrock cookies!

Cameron Rolling her dough!

Cameron using the Shamrock Cookie Cutter to make her cookie!

Cameron learned the hard way...

not to jump out of grocery carts. Joe had Cameron in the cart at Walmart when she decided to stand up. He reached over to pull her back to sitting and before he could reach her she head dived out of the cart. Landed about 3 feet down onto hard concrete. It was the loudest "thwack" you've ever heard. I was an isle over when I heard Joe shout "no" once he realized he wasnt going to reach her in time. I ran around the corner and she was still in the "silent scream" - I know it must have hurt horribly. All night long we checked on her, throughout the night I went in and made sure she was still breathing while sleeping. Overall, one of the most scary things thats ever happened to us. Now she gets buckeled in and tightened up. No more squiriming out of the seat. Ugh - the worries of parenting. I didnt get any pictures of her the night it happened (I was too busy worrying to take pictures, but these are from a day later. As you can see it didn't make a HUGE lump, and the bruising didnt even get that bad. We think its because she managed to get her arms under her just enough that they took some of the shock away from her head.)

We got a PUPPY!!

The Whitney family has a new member: Lord Grizzly Bear River Raider! "Grizzly" or "Gizzly Bear" for short! He is a beautiful chocolate lab. He has been a wonderful new addition to our home. He is learning quickly about potty training and kennel sleeping. He loves the side yard and gets to visit his Brother "Kody" (short for Sir Kodiak Ice Water King) often since my dad bought him!! We actually got to dog sit Kody this weekend while my parents went to Spokane. We got some pretty fun pictures, although they are not all clear as the boys didnt quit wrestling pretty much the whole time!

Grizzly and the kids are priceless! They run back and forth in the house like crazy beasts! Grizzly plays fetch as of recently and the kids have LOVED throwing his stuffed animal ducks around for him! He is a great dog! Joe is looking forward to hunting with him this year and me and the kids are looking forward to river play time this summer! Overall, we couldn't have picked a better dog to fill the shoes of our "third" child! :)