Friday Five

Here are some things we've been up to lately: 

1- Grandpa Walker stopped by one afternoon and... brought ice cream! I love living so close to the freeway. My dad tries to stop most times when he's driving by, even if it's just for a minute. 

2- We had an Aubrey/Nathan weekend. The other Rencher kids went with their parents to Youth Conference, but Aubrey and Nathan got to stay and play with us. (Jacob was supposed to stay too, but he got a little sick and his parents wanted to keep him close.) The first night we had our very own "Movie Night" (one of Lydia's favorite special activities lately). The Saturday we played massive amounts of "Cover your Assets", made chocolate covered pretzels, and even went to the Towne Cinema to see the Good Dinosaur (complete with loads of popcorn and treats). David was even able to get off work early enough to come to the movie with us. It was so wonderful. 

3- I never blogged these photos when I took them, but I kind of love them. When Lydia was a baby I used to put her in the sink and let her play while I did the dishes. She loved it and so did I. I haven't done it with Austin as much, but one day he was especially clingy so I scooped him up and put him in the sink. Lydia insisted that I finish the dishes in the other sink so she could get in, too.  They played while I finished cleaning my whole kitchen. 

4- I love how well Lydia and Austin are playing together lately. I'm not sure what they were doing Well... I know that Austin was trying to get to the cords under the computer to flip the switch- effectively killing the desktop and turning off the wifi, argh. The cords are now boxed up and protected with duct tape. Lydia moved all the chairs over and climbed into the fort to play. So silly.

5- My Grandma Walker isn't doing super well and was taken to the hospital in Odgen this weekend. We went and visited her this week. It's not anything in particular that is wrong. Just more of the same. A lot of pain, low oxygen, and some stomach/bowel issues. It was nice to visit with her and my grandpa all the same. Lately when we've been going to visit them in Wyoming she's been working on some coloring books and seems to really enjoy it. So we brought her an adult coloring book of the LDS temples and it's lovely and I hope she likes it. They still haven't released her from the hospital and it looks like they are trying to get her into a rehab facility again. My heart breaks for her because I know that she really just wants to be at home but also that she's in a lot of pain. 

Austin and Lydia liked the view from her window. 

OH, and can I add one more tangent to the end of this post? Yesterday I got a surprise sneak peek at the final product for a collaboration I've been working on with a company called Pure Creations. Next week these Thank You Cards (along with 7 other Thank You designs) will be listed on Jane.com! I'm thrilled about the whole thing and the card is hanging prominently on my refrigerator. I know I say this a lot, but it's so neat to see the final product of something that I created in my mind and put together on the computer. I'm so excited about the whole thing! 

Also, I took down a giant pile of junk that had been placed on the fridge at one point or another, cleaned the whole surface, and put a few things back onto the fridge to "stage" it (including re-writing my grocery list) so I could take this picture and put it on my Red Ladder Design facebook page.

A haircut.

You might remember that I recently cut Austin's hair. 

Lately it's become a daily battle to do Lydia's hair. Usually she cries and and I fight/bribe her to let me either comb it or pull it back into a ponytail (it's amazing how a ponytail can cover up the rats nest in the back). I kept threatening her and telling her that if she wouldn't let me comb/do her hair we were going to give her a haircut. For some reason she hated this idea and said that she wanted her hair long and not short. I actually really loved her hair at the length that it was and didn't particularly want to cut it but finally I reached my limit and decided that it had to be done so that we could stop with the hair-coming battle. So I pulled up a youtube video about how to cut a little girls bob (which is actually the same video that I used the first time I cut her hair) and we started. I didn't even take a before picture. But what used to be this:  

Is now this!

I feel so proud of myself for cutting her hair myself. I think it turned out so good. I'm sure it's not really at a professional level - but I don't think anyone can really tell. It's already been such a huge game changer for us. Lydia loves it, she loves that we only have to comb through it each day. I love that I don't have to fight through the tangles on the back of her hair. 

Maybe it's silly but I'm already having dreams of cutting her hair in lots of different hairstyles as she gets older. Like, sitting down with her and figuring out what she wants her hair to be like and then figuring out how to cut it and making it happen. I've even thought about taking a haircutting class or some such thing. But probably YouTube University is the best I'll get. 

Thank you Lydia for teaching me so many different skills as a mother! I hope you love your new haircut.

Somtimes we do green things.

Today is St. Patricks day. No leprechauns came to play tricks on us, and there weren't any elaborate parties to be had. But we did turn some food green and make some little rainbow skewers.  I think that it's fun to celebrate holidays. My family always had green pancakes or eggs or milk in the morning, and maybe something like green pudding and rainbow toast for a snack. (Rainbow toast was a childhood favorite where my mom would add food coloring to milk and let us "paint" on bread before she toasted them for our snack.)  I feel like my mom was the queen of keeping things low key and child friendly but still adding fun and excitement to our childhoods.

St. Patricks Day was doubly fun because we got to celebrate with the Coopers, too. :)