Baking with Isaac

It's so fun having a two-year-old. I am really enjoying the range of activities that Isaac can now take part in. The other day we had a ton of fun baking cookies. Isaac really loved the measuring and pouring aspects of the activity, so eventually I just handed him a bowl and a tablespoon and let him have free range with the flour and a few other dry ingredients. A waste of food? Perhaps. But it kept him entertained for a loooong time and I'm counting it as a learning experience. Plus, he's so cute when he gets all intense and concentrated on something.

Plus he was even willing to help clean up!

Got Lemonade?

Notice the perfectly good cup of lemonade being completely ignored. What can I say? He's definitely got personality.

Bad Parenting

So, every once in a while I make a silly decision. You know, not often, but occasionally. Like, last month when I bought a giant bag of chocolate chips at Winco and decided that a good place to store them would be in a jar on our bar. Yes. In plain sight. In plain sight of the child.

Well, you can imagine how this played out, and here is the photographic evidence that our child is very good at getting us to let him do pretty much whatever he wants:

Come on, look how cute he is in that vest! (Thanks, Christian and Jennifer for sending it our way!) You'd give in, too.

Oh, the same day - Isaac had refused to take a nap, and so was super cranky and tired that evening when Allison and Michael came over for dinner. We gave in (hey, I'm sensing a trend here) and let him watch Diego while we had dinner. I got up to get something, and found this:

Silly baby.

Oh Zion, Dear Zion

Trying to play catch-up here. Bear with me as I post about things that happened long ago in an attempt to keep this journal of sorts going.


So, back at the very end of September, we took a trip down to Zion's National Park with some of our very good friends and their kids. We stayed in a bed and breakfast, which in hindsight was a bad idea - next time we are opting for a place where we have to worry less about disturbing other guests (three 2-year-olds plus the need to be quiet = total stress). Despite minor drama, we had a really good time. It was fun to hang out with our friends and fun to watch the kids explore and do all kinds of silly things.

After arriving at the B&B, we let the kids play outside in what amounted to a giant rocky sandbox. Isaac and Johnny got all their cars out and played and played and played. When we finally decided it was time to go get some food, we realized they had buried half the cars in the sand. So, Shelly and I spent a good while searching through the sand for all the cars and sorting out whose was whose. Miraculously, we found them all. Can you say, "Hooray for the super moms?"

For dinner we went out for pizza at a cute little place in town. The boys were mostly very well behaved, and the pizza was delicious.

Isaac enjoyed smashing his cars together.

Oh look, Johnny has similar hobbies.

Yes, that's a soda. We are bad parents. Isaac loved it though. Funny story - the nice girl at the register gave us Isaac's soda free, saying he'd probably just drop it anyway. Which he did. You'd have thought they'd charge extra for that. Nice people.

After dinner we went for frozen yogurt. There was a small mixup as someone (a stranger) who reached the door before us couldn't open it and decided they must be closed, even though the lights were on. We were a bit confused for a minute, and had pretty much decided to go home, when I think James tried the door and it was indeed open. Strange.

Cute boys enjoying their ice cream.

 

Cutest. Kid. Ever.

  

Brad and Shelly enjoying their shake.

The next day we actually did not have breakfast at the B&B, as the owners had to attend a funeral in the morning. Instead, they gave us vouchers to have breakfast at a very nice place about five minutes up the road. It was super yummy, there was a ton of food, we got to eat outdoors in the sunshine, and it was a lot less stressful than hanging out at the B&B, so what was initially a disappointment ended up being a real blessing.

After breakfast, we headed into the park. The boys really enjoyed running around, playing on the various benches and statues, and they especially enjoyed the tram ride. Johnny announced we were getting on a bus and going to school. It was pretty adorable how excited he was. Hopefully that excitement will last him a few more years. ;)

We took a walk along one of the paved trails where the kids could be in their strollers and we could take in some scenery. It was gorgeous, and I really enjoyed getting to talk to James about anything and everything as we walked. Isaac actually fell asleep in the stroller--he was so cute slumbering away. 

Once we hit the end of the trail, the kids had pretty much had it, so we left the park. There's so much to do there. We are definitely going to have to go back. Before leaving for good, though, we took a quick trip out to a little ghost town. There wasn't much there (uh duh, ghost town, I should have realized), but it was fun to just let Isaac run around before making him sit in the car for four hours again.

Just a cool guy with his carrots.

All in all a fun trip!