Helping Daddy with electronics

We had a really close lightning strike in a storm a couple of weeks ago that actually damaged a few pieces of electronics in our house.  One of them was Mommy's clock radio - it turned on even in the off position!  Daddy wanted to take it apart to see if it was something simple to fix, and of course I wanted to be right there helping.  Well, we quickly determined it was unfixable, and then saw no reason not to completely take it apart!

Mommy's back, super late!

Mommy drove back from Washington, DC tonight after she finished teaching her class.  I had a special deal with Daddy that I could stay up until she got home, which was only going to be 8:30 or 9:00, so no real big deal.  Well, there was a lot of construction, and a big storm came through, and Mommy didn't get home until around 10:30!  But I stayed awake the whole time - Daddy and I watched a movie (Ice Age), played games, and read books.  Then once she got home, I gave her some loveys and promptly fell asleep on the couch!

I love old planes

Daddy and I were at our local small airport today, and we came upon the row of abandoned, derelict small planes that most airports seem to have.  I asked Daddy why they were so old and worn out, and he told me that sometimes people don't take care of their things once they get old, and then they just keep getting worse and worse.

I said back to him that "I love these old planes, Daddy, because nobody takes care of them!"

He sure gave me big hugs after saying that!

Mommy is out of town this week

Mommy went out of town this morning.  She is teaching a course near Washington, DC and will be back on Friday night.  So Daddy and I are going to have a lot of fun, just the two of us!  I already miss her though.

Big hair!

I wanted Mommy to give me "big hair" this morning, and she sure did!

Ready for yard work and writing thank you notes!

I'm all ready for some yard work with my new gloves and my own shovel!  I wanted to try to plant a canteloupe seed in our garden, so Daddy helped me out.  We'll see how it grows!

Later I was sure to write thank you cards for my friends who came to my birthday party.  Mommy said this was very important, and I thought it was a lot of fun too!  Mommy helped me with the spelling of the words, but I wrote all the letters myself.

Father's Day!

We had an extra picture frame from the party yesterday, so I painted it up extra special, put some love hearts on it, and spelled out "Happy Father's Day" for Daddy.  He know what picture he's going to put in it, the one of him throwing me over his head a few weeks ago!

My real 5th birthday party!

And now it's time for my "real" birthday party!  I had lots of friends over - Zoe and Mia, Tori and Alex, Avery from my preschool, and Brayden from next door!  The weather was great and we spent a lot of time outside.  We started off with lunch.

And then dessert of course!  I picked out the cupcakes myself, and I wanted the brightest pink icing they had.  It sure was messy and got all over our faces!

Avery is my best friend from school.  But her family moved to Colorado just a few days later.  I already miss her!

We set up the slip-and-slide, and our giant tarp to make it even more fun.  We played on it for a long time, adn got really wet!

We were all pretty worn out, so we came inside and did a little project Mommy got for us.  We painted our own picture frames!  I wanted to use every color we had.

It was a great birthday party.  Now I've started telling Mommy and Daddy how I can't wait until my 6th birthday!

Birthday presents from Grandma and Papa Roslewski

This birthday is great, I keep getting more presents!  Today I opened a package from Grandma and Papa Roslewski.  There were lots of neat things, including a Barbi doll with a dress just like the one Grandma made for me earlier this year, and a neat jewelry box too.  Thanks Grandma and Papa!

Birthday presents from Grandma Bunny and Auntie Jennifer

Today I opened a package of birthday presents from Grandma Bunny and Auntie Jennifer.  I got a lot of neat gifts, including this silly umbrella with ears that I love.  Thanks!

Utah vacation

Wow, what a vacation we just finished up!  Mommy's good friends Betty and Herald are retired and rent a condo in Park City, Utah, every year for a month during the summer.  They invited us to come up and stay with them sometime, and so we did!  Mommy and I flew there on June 5th, and Daddy flew in to join us on June 8th.  We stayed until the 12th, and really had a great time.  I had so much fun getting spoiled by "Auntie Betty" and "Uncle Herald" that I didn't want to go back home.

We got to see where Mommy went to college (BYU), met her friends Nylene, Lanette, Natalie, and their families, went hiking to a waterfall, visited the site of the 2002 Winter Olympics, went to a carnival, saw a parade, and got to play in a hot tub every day!  What a busy time, but so much fun.

At BYU, Mommy always tells us of this big hill she had to climb to get to her classes (uphill both ways, in the snow no less).  She wanted us to climb it too, but there was construction and we couldn't!

Here I am with Mommy and one of her former roomates, Natalie.

We hiked up to Bridal Veil Falls, but before we did, Mommy and I stuck our toes in the water at the bottom.  It was cold!

When Mommy mentioned that we should go walk the trail to the falls, Daddy assumed she meant the dirt trail up the side of the hill to the actual waterfall.  Mommy had only meant the paved road down at the bottom, she had never hiked up the hill.  But we started up the hill anyway, and although it was pretty steep at points and I had to hold on to Daddy a lot, we made it up to the base of the falls (not the top)!

Every morning I wanted to play in the hot tub in the condo.  Since we didn't really have much of a schedule, Mommy and Daddy thought it was a great idea, and we had fun.  We even tried to play "Marco Polo" but there wasn't really enough room!

When we visited Lanette's house, we got to play in the nearby park.  Her daughter Lisa played with me a lot, it was like having a big sister.  Daddy caught us hiding in the tunnel!

I surprised Mommy and Daddy by swinging across these super-high monkey bars, no problem!

We went to a carnival and a parade too.  Then had some carnival rides that were a lot of fun.  I always like slides.

I really wanted to go on this little ride too.  Lisa was nice and joined me.

Of course my 5th birthday came while we were there, and Betty and Herald gave me some presents.  Look at this pretty dress!

We even had a little party with cupcakes!

When we went to the Olympic Park, we got to see lots of neat things.  They still do training for the different types of ski jumps there, and we got to see athletes practicing.  Some of them were spinning all around too. 

Daddy and I both like maps, so we had to stop and look at this big map of the local mountains.

I climbed right on in the bobsled, and of course wanted Daddy to join me.

We took a ski lift ride, and got a good view of some of the ski jump practice.  I thought it was fun, so we rode it again!

It was a really great trip.  Betty and Herald go up there every year, so I sure hope we can go back again sometime.  He were all are right before we left!

Uncle Chad, Aunt Sandi, and Alex came by!

Daddy's best friend Chad, wife Sandi, and daughter Alex are moving from Wyoming to Washington, DC, and passed through here last night on their drive out there to do some househunting!  It had been a long time since I saw them, since our trip to Hawaii in April 2009, when I wasn't even 2 years old yet.  So although I didn't really remember Alex at first, it didn't matter to me at all even though she's now 8, we quickly became friends again and had a great time.

They arrived at about 7:30 PM and stayed overnight, leaving this morning after breakfast.  So it was a quick trip, but fun.  Alex slept in the top bunk of my bed, which meant that I had my very first sleepover!  With them arriving so late, Mommy and Daddy were under no illusions that we would be going to sleep any time soon.  In fact, they pretty much just left it up to us as to when we fell asleep.  Chad and Daddy also stayed up super late, catching up.  In fact, that's how they know we were still playing my room at 11:30 at night!  We did finally fall asleep a little after that - we were just having so much fun!

I was super sad to see them go!  But hopefully we'll get to see them a little more often now that they're closer - Daddy tells me it's only about a 3 hour flight away, and we've already been invited out, once they find somewhere to live!

6-year molars are coming in!

I went to the dentist today and he pointed out that my 6-year molars are already coming in!  They are still really hard to see, but the edges are just poking up through the gums.  I'm growing up so fast!

Leaving Chicago

It was sad to leave Chicago today - I didn't want to leave my new friend and cousin Lissa!  Late last night, her older brother Ross had come in town and so I got to meet him too.  Mommy was very glad to see him, since Lissa and Ross are her only two first cousins - all her other "cousins" are more distant.

It was far too short of a trip, and I hope we get to come back again!

Brunch with more friends and relatives

This morning we headed out to meet some more of Mommy's family for brunch.  And Cousin Nancy, who I met when we visited her in Los Angeles in January, happened to be in town too!  I was very happy to see her, remembered her right away, and ran over and gave her a big hug.

I got to meet cousin Herschel too.  He's cousin Nancy's son, and at first I was a little scared of him.  But he wasn't scared of me!  In fact, I warmed right up when he asked me if I wanted to help him make a pyramind out of the butter packets.  Yes!

Mommy especially had a great time catching up with everybody.  Here she is with Fern (Nancy's sister) and cousin Nancy. 

Cousin Nancy gave me a big hug for a picture outside.  It was really bright, but I opened my eyes just long enough for the picture!

After the brunch, we headed back to the house for just a little while before it was time to go to yet another barbecue, at Aunt Julie's mom's house.  There were lots of people there too (but only a few relatives), and she even had some toys for me to play with, so that's what I did.  The best part was when Lissa showed up!  She had several other graduation parties to go to, but she stopped by and mostly just played with me the whole time.  I loved it!

Right before we left, Daddy and I played around a little outside.  Mommy even got a picture!  Look at how high I am!  Daddy is just happy he can still throw me up this high (although not as many times in a row as he used to).

We're in Chicago!

Yesterday we drove up to Chicago, Illinois to visit Mommy's Aunt Julie and Uncle Bobby, and see her cousin Lissa graduate from high school.  It was a long drive, punctuated by a lot of traffic and potty breaks, but we finally made it.  And when I met cousin Lissa, I knew we were going to have a great time!  She was super nice to me right away, and was just like a big sister.  Even though this was her graduation weekend, she spent lots of time with me, reading, playing, teaching me things, just having a lot of fun.  And I loved it!  The first night we were there, we played with some Spanish word magnets and she taught me some new Spanish words!

I got to stay up pretty late at night playing - it was a vacation after all.  My bed was a futon, and I had brought two of my friends to cuddle with while I slept.  Daddy loved that one of them was his Teddy!  I picked Teddy first above all my other friends.  He thinks it's great that Teddy keeps getting a bunch of love! 

On Saturday I put on this pretty dress to go to the graduation.  I like giving big toothless grins!

Lissa was the salutatorian, and got to get up in front of everybody and give a speech.  I thought that was pretty neat.  After the ceremony, I gave her a lot of big hugs.  She even took me around with her to meet some of her friends! 

It was really sunny, but I opened my eyes long enough for a group photo.

Once we got back to the house, we had a barbecue with some of her other relatives, and then it was time for more play!  She still had a lot of toys from when she was little, so we had a great time!

John Bryan State Park

We decided to do something different today and went hiking at John Bryan State Park.  We had never been there before so it was an adventure.  They have a lot of trails that wind along the Little Miami River, so we got to see some wildlife too. 

I got to practice my balance a lot trying to cross over some muddy parts and little streams.  I had to jump sometimes too!

We stopped right next to the river and had a little snack picnic.

It was a great day!

Tori and Alex came over again!

To continue with the fun day we're having today, we had Tori and Alex and their parents over for an afternoon of  barbecue and lots of play!  Our neighbor Bill and grandson Brayden came over too, so we had a lot of fun.  Mostly, we kids played on the slip-and-slide and in the sprinkler, since it was pretty hot.  We didn't want to do anything else!  Around and around we went, racing to the start of the slip-and-slide to be the first one down.  They even squirted baby oil on it so it was super slippery (and our skin was super soft)!

Of course, we took some breaks from sliding to splash in the water at the bottom.  Who needs a pool when you have a puddle?

My one remaining front tooth has been just dangling there, teasing me about falling out, but holding on anyway.  Well, Tori really kept trying to get me to pull it out, or wiggle it, or let HER pull it out - she really wanted to help!  Finally I agreed to take a big bite of watermelon - and out it came!  Finally!

By breakfast the next morning I was happily singing "All I Want For Christmas" which Daddy taught me.  I can say "S"es the right way if I try, but if I'm just talking normally I sound a little funny.  It's fun losing teeth!