Painting the Roses Red

Ammon had Good Friday off of work. A beautiful opportunity to do something extraordinary. Or at least to do something.

Our first few hours were ticking by.

What are we going to do today?

I don't know.

What do you want to do today?

I don't know.

Hey, what should we do today?

I'm not sure. What do you think?

Then at some point I said something like this:

Well, when I got up with Ammely this morning I was feeling super motivated and was like 'we should paint the kitchen.' It's probably too late to do something like that now.

No reaction. A little while later, Ammon: Let's paint the kitchen. Where's the painter's tape?

Next thing I know he's unscrewing face plates and taping off the trim. Awesome.

Here we go.

We'd bought paint for the kitchen within the first few weeks of buying the house. That was in August. We've had paint sample chips for several rooms in the house for just as long. This project was a long time coming.

And lookie there - paint on the wall! No going back now!...

...not even if you have a little one who will not be contained. She's found her independence and the high chair will only do for a little while. We cannot distract her with tortillas for long. But we'll take every distracted/contented moment we can get.

And then we will get creative. A chair barricade? Sure. Box her in (literally)? Definitely.
Can you see her trying to find her way out?

And she did. Several times. Over and over again we had to reinforce the prison walls.

Despite her efforts to thwart us, we continued to make progress.

Many long hours later, we at last had one wall complete. We stood back to take it in and decided that one wall was enough! Much more would be too dark for us in this space. The rest will have to wait until we paint the rest of our walls a lighter, neutral color.

So we took  a deep breath, pulled back the tape...and...

perfection.

We can't get enough of it. We just keep looking at it. And looking at it. And loving it. And looking at it.

Slowly but surely our vision for this house is coming to life.

Turns out being grown up isn't all bad - we can play house...only now it's MORE fun.

One Happy Easter

This year's Easter festivities were particularly great.

 

It all started a week early at Grandma and Grandpa Baysinger's house. We were lucky enough to attend their ward in the morning and hear Ammon's cousin, Jay Hatch, give his farewell talk, which was wonderful. He spoke with the Spirit and is clearly ready to be a power for good as he serves in Bolivia. We're excited to hear of the great things he does and experiences.

 

We were then able to enjoy some of the perfect weather that has greeted us Arizonans the past few weeks as we spent the day enjoying Grandma and Grandpa's house.



Slowly but surely the whole family made their way over and we spent a wonderful evening in family chaos. We decorated eggs. We made dinner. We ate dinner. We did an egg hunt.

Aunt Belle, Charis, Samuel

We sang Happy Birthday to Uncle Royal and enjoyed his singing talents in return. We ate his cake. We made our way down to Jay's farewell party where we ate even more.

And we even got Easter bags from the Easter Bunny (who worked through Aunt Tamzon this year to make it all happen - thank you Aunt Tamzon)!

Easter Sunday itself started out a tad stressful. Church services have recently moved up in time, which we're excited about, but not used to yet. For some reason, mommy just can't seem to be ready to go when she needs to be.

And then Mommy started in the Primary this week, which meant Daddy had to deal with a cranky Ammely (who normally naps during our new church time).

However, after all was said and done we DID feel the Spirit at church. And we DID have the opportunity to worship on this very important day. And we DID get to share our thoughts and feelings from our meetings with one another.

We got home and had plenty of time to relax and finish up our contribution to Easter dinner before heading off to Grandma and Grandpa Lords' house.


Strawbery Whip - turned out pretty good if I do say so myself.

Once there, we headed down to the park to take some Easter pictures of our beautiful little girl. She was very happy to be at the park...playing in the grass...watching the big kids play.

She was not so happy to wear a hat. Or ears.

We got some cute shots despite this.

And she even got to swing AND spend time with Daddy - she loves these things (she gets both of those loves from Mommy).

And being the type of parents we are, we just had to try the ears one more time...



Ammely: "You have got to be kidding me with this."

 

We went back to Grandma and Grandpa's and enjoyed an amazing ham dinner with our wonderful family.

 

Again, Ammely was thrilled to sit with the big kids. She loves them.

 

AND she ate better than she ever has. Yay!

 

All that eating has paid off. She's come a long ways in a year, wouldn't you agree?

 

Happy Easter!

And Sometimes the Kids do the Learning

I absolutely love the moment when Ammely figures out how something works. She has had an Alphabet Pal that we've been playing with for months. It can do lots of things, so the fact that it makes noise and lights up has been enough for her up until now. However, if you pull (or push) this little catepillar along it sings and plays music.

She just learned this.

And she has much more to learn. With this toy. And with life. I'm excited to watch it happen. To help it happen.

Sometimes the Kids Do the Teaching

Ammely taught me a new trick yesterday.

 

Very impressive, no?

 

Discovering the Local Attractions

Our little jaunt over to California for a weekend of fun at Disneyland and the beach has left us with a taste for travel in our mouths. We've been just aching for a little time away. Time to go do something new. To see something we haven't seen before.

But we're not made of money. And we have responsibilities that can't just be pushed aside at a our whim...you know the ones, measly little things like work and school and church.

So even though every week we say we should go somewhere on the weekend, usually we don't. That is until we were inspired by Belle and Kent (that is, inspired by them again - aren't they always inspiring us with the coolest ideas?) to go check out Goldfield. Seeing how much fun they had AND seeing that it is only like 35 minutes from home (which, you know, most everything is 35 minutes from home for us), we thought "Now this we can do!"

And so we did.

We got ready, making sure we had the important things ready to go - like sunscreen. We're sightseeing in the desert folks! It's already that time of year here!

We found our way there and started off with the train ride. We just barely made it on though - good thing they didn't count Ammely as a full person, as there was only room for two more. And we all still equal two as long as number three is strapped to our person! Ya-hoooo!

We really enjoyed this - especially the Train Conductor (even if he did think Ammely was a boy - in a pink hat...sheesh). He had lots of great information and we learned many interesting facts about the history right here and regarding the Superstition Mountains. We left that ride very impressed and much more educated. AND having gotten to see the town from a much better view. Amazing.

Then we headed into town to see what they had to offer. We liked what we saw. And so we partook.

Sooooo good. The cones were still warm because they were making them fresh right there in the waffle iron. Smelled so good. Tasted so good. Felt so good. Ammely will confirm my story.

While finishing up our treats we took our place along the boardwalk and watched the locals get into one of their shoutin' and shootin' matches.

 

Impressive. At least the first few shots. After that I spent the duration of the show trying to unstrap our crying baby from Ammon's chest. She was not a big fan of the performance. I guess we should have seen that coming. Oh well, Ammon says it added some authenticity to the show - you know, in real life if there were babies/small children there, they would've been crying too. You're welcome.

 

We made sure Ammely was feeling safe and happy again.

 

She was.

And so we headed on! We took a look around the church and headed up to see the house of ladies, but just like in the good ol' days there was a fee to get in. So we passed. But not before snapping a picture.

We tried on some gear at the local shops and some of us looked really good doing so.

Now ladies, isn't he one fiiiinnne lookin' cowboy? Mmmmmhmmm. Okay, stop looking. He's taken.

And some of us already had hats but still wanted to try something on...

...they look better on her than they do on mommy!

After that we called it a good day in the wild wild West and we headed home having satisfied our craving for a little adventure.

Eye Like to See Daddy

Mommy and I have fun during the day. Still, sometimes I just want to get out of the house. Spend some time with someone else - a different friend. Like Daddy. Mommy understands this so sometimes she lets me go see what Daddy is doing during the day. And I help him out. He needs me.

I like going to see Daddy. Everybody at his playgroup talks to me and includes me in what they're doing.
For example, last time I was there - they checked on my eyes just like they do with everybody else.

 The verdict? I'm farsighted.
-which, at my age, they tell me is code for perfect. Do you see how cool Daddy's playgroup is? They even talk in code.