Easter Eggs...and more...are Yummy!

We had a lot of fun dyeing Easter eggs this year. The kiddos loved coloring on the eggs and all the other fun elements, like wrapping rubber bands and adding stickers and mixing colors and everything. Bryce just kept trying (unsuccessfully) to drink the dye...doesn't it look like juice or something? Yuck.
Things took a turn for the worst when Caleb spilled the red dye. Fortunately, it was contained on the deliberately placed table cloth. Plus we had 3 egg dyeing kits (I forgot that I bought some last year!) so I just opened one of the little packets that had a red tablet to refill our red dye. Caleb was thrilled to still have red.

All of a sudden, Bryce is bawling his eyes out. Apparently, though it looks like candy, egg dyeing tablets do NOT taste like candy! He managed to grab the blue tablet and chew it up! His entire mouth was dark blue! And like the cruel mom I am, I withheld giving him a drink until we could get a picture!
He gratefully accepted a glass of water, and back-washed blue every time he took a drink...so funny! Grandma gave Bryce an animal cracker to help get rid of the yucky taste. He stopped crying to take a bite and when he took it out of his mouth, he looked at it...it was green...and he said, "Uh-oh!"
In spite of the drama, Caleb's eggs turned out adorable, and he had a blast.
Bryce was eventually happy too, and the blue mostly disappeared out of his mouth by bedtime.
It did take another day and half to get all the dye out of his system...but he seemed none the worse for it! I hope he has now learned his lesson, but I'm not holding my breath. Happy Easter!

I'm Still Here...

Hey everyone, just a quick post to let all of my loyal readers of my deeply entertaining blog (ha!) know that I haven't died, because of course that's what you would assume since I haven't blogged in months. I've actually got some really fun posts coming up, like "Is Easter egg dye edible?" and "Caleb's favorite birthday present was from an infomercial!"

In the mean time, here is a quick update:

Bryce's favorite things right now are bubbles, meticulously copying Caleb's every move, and naming everything in sight. He has a shoe fetish as well...he wears everything from Caleb's flip flops to Jon-Michael's basketball shoes to my high heels.

Caleb just turned 5 and can't wait to start "real" school. (Because joy school doesn't count.) We continue to be pleasantly overwhelmed with the amount of paper he goes through because he draws every day.

Heather is forever on a quest for the perfect book, although some recent favorites include The Queen's Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner and Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater. She thinks she can grow green things and has been watering dirt on the back patio for over a week in the hope that the seeds there will grow.

Jon-Michael is deliberately punishing himself by playing basketball at 5:30 am a couple days a week, which is good, because his body is really starting to show his age at the recently attained age of 32. (Ha ha!)

As you can tell, we are just full of fun lately, but stay tuned for actual posts in the near future!

Craig Ferguson...in the flesh!

As an avid reader, I've signed up to get emails about local book signings. It's been great because I've been able to see a couple authors I never would have seen otherwise! Most recently I found out that Craig Ferguson, host of The Late, Late Show, was coming to town for his "memoirs." I haven't read it, and I suspect it will have a bit of language...but how often do you get to see a famous tv star! Jon-Michael and I occasionally watch his show when we're up that late, and he is very funny. We went with Jon-Michael's mother and sister, who, along with their husbands, are fans!
We didn't get very good seats; we sat in the very last row, in fact. I'm just grateful we got seats in the same room...many people couldn't fit and had to sit in an overflow area where they could only hear him. Here's a good idea of how far away we were:
Craig read a bit from the preface of his book and then answered questions. As you can imagine, he was very entertaining. We laughed our heads off! One of the things I like about him is that he's so unpretentious. On the other end of the spectrum, he said not to make him a role model, but he won't promise not to disappoint.
We spent about 3 hours at The Tattered Cover downtown, all in all. We had to wait in line to get tickets to get a book signed. Then we had to wait for another hour for him to come speak. He answered questions for about 45 minutes, and then we had to wait another hour or so to actually get our books signed. We got tickets in the 220's so we had to wait for at least that many people to go before us. We had a good time though, and have officially autographed merchandise!

Haircuts! oh, and Happy Thanksgiving...

So Bryce finally got his first haircut! Here is a good shot of his curls from October when we went to the Denver Aquarium. They were so cute, but when you get the ward's resident mullet-wearer complimenting Bryce's hair style, it's time for a change. So on Thanksgiving, I took advantage of my two stylist sisters being in town! My sister Jocelyn cut Bryce's hair.

Bryce was pretty good about it...once we gave him a sucker. Then he pretty much didn't care what we did to him!

He also got a washcloth so he could wash his hands and face whenever he wanted. He likes being a big boy.

I'm not sure what this face is, but it's so cute and it makes me laugh!

Almost finished!

But Bryce wasn't the only one who got a haircut! I get sick of my hair style every so often, and since I have two sisters and a sister-in-law who are stylists, I pretty much get it cut whenever I want! For illustration purposes, here is my hair a couple of weeks ago with my girls Leah and Tricia. I was totally ready for a change...so that's what I did!

I know the lighting isn't great, but if you can't tell...it's short! And I love it! For some reason, I don't have a picture to post of my sister Allie, who cut my hair...well, I do, but I don't think she'd want me to post it! ;) Thanks for the haircuts Allie and Jocie!

We had a really fun Thanksgiving at my parents' house with my two sisters and their hubbys and my brother in from out of town. We don't all get to be together as often as we'd like, so it was a great time. And I'm grateful for more things than I'm willing to type up right now, but know that I am grateful.

And here's a funny little video of a few things that I'm grateful for...it shows Caleb trying to do push-ups (hilarious!) and you can get a good look at Bryce's finished haircut. Enjoy!

Snow Day!

Caleb loves playing in the snow, but I admit, I don't take him out very often. It's cold and wet...neither of which are favorites in my book! But with Jon-Michael home and a fantastic amount of snow, we couldn't deny him that.

Here are all the boys before we went outside...and it took at least as long to get ready as to play out there! It was so funny to see Bryce all bundled like that. It was truly adorable, and his first experience actually playing in the snow. He was 9 months old the last time we took him out, but he couldn't walk yet, so he couldn't even do anything.
Caleb took full advantage and dove right in as soon as we got outside!
Bryce was a little more tentative, but was happy to watch at the beginning. It was cracking me up because you couldn't tell he if was smiling or crying because of that big scarf around his face...but he was smiling in this picture.
Jon-Michael did a lot of shoveling. Fortunately the snow was pretty dry and it was easy to shovel. Bryce liked following him around because he didn't have to walk in snow where ever Jon-Michael shoveled.
Caleb found all sorts of dinosaur bones and teeth and eggs in the snow...he's obviously into that lately...
Bryce would get so mad every time he had to touch the ground, and I don't blame him because he had such a hard time getting back up!
We don't get as much snow in our entry walk way because it's sheltered pretty well, but it was deep enough for Caleb!
After a while, Bryce just retreated to the garage and sat in the wagon where it was nice and snow-free!
We had fun climbing around in the snow, and yes, even I did! I think we're all happy to sit inside with hot cocoa and just look outside for a little while though now!

St. George!

We spent the week before Labor Day in Utah, and a good part of it in St. George for a McNeill Family Reunion! It's the first time we've all gone somewhere together since before Jocelyn or Allie got married. (Translation: over 4 years...) We spent 4 nights in a great condo a couple of my mom's sisters own and it was so much fun! Nine adults and two kids...all in a 3 bedroom condo. Well, we know we love each other now that we've done that! Besides swimming, we spent a ton of time eating...

L to R: Heather (and I'm not pregnant, even though I know it totally looks like it in that picture!), Jon-Michael, Mom, Dad, Brett
Caleb is actually in there sleeping on Jon-Michael's lap.

We couldn't all fit at one table without waiting forever, so we were in two booths across from each other. L to R: Jocelyn, Scott, Jonathan, Allie, and you can actually see Bryce sleeping on Allie's lap! We wore them out so they wouldn't give us any trouble at dinner! Of course that's not true, but we couldn't wake them up for anything! All that swimming and running around really just drained them.

Caleb took over the camera, as always, and here are some pictures showing what a great time we were having! (And a good illustration of each person's character, as you will see...)

Bryce being cute...
Brett being happy...

Jon-Michael being goofy...

Allie and Jonathan being confused...

Jocelyn being...well, I'm not sure what...

Scott being funny...

...and Caleb just being himself!

We had so much fun we miss everyone already!

Trip to the Museum

A few weeks ago, we went to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. I hadn't taken Caleb since I was pregnant with Bryce, and they loved it! We will definitely be going back.

Bryce had the most fun in the play area (because he was in the stroller every where else!) The girls volunteering there thought it was hilarious that Bryce would just throw balls and chase them around the room...under chairs, through adults' legs, around toys...and then grab it and throw it again! He was just happy to play fetch with himself!


Caleb was the most excited to see the dinosaurs, of course...why else would we go? It cracked me up because he kept talking about how everything there was dead. It didn't seem to bother him, so I guess he has a healthy understanding of death, because he's pretty mellow about it for a 4 year old.

The highlight was seeing the "rex" head. Because that's Rex from Night at the Museum. For some reason it didn't bother Caleb that he didn't have a body! But he wouldn't stand right in front of it...even if it is dead, I guess there's still the possibility of getting chomped...

Caleb's other favorite place was the Space Odyssey. He spent forever dressed up as an astronaut picking up moon rocks and launching the shuttle with other kids there. He was just making friends with every one there and had a blast.

So if anyone wants to go to the museum, we will definitely go with you again!