Taste of Freedom

Yesterday was such a special day! It was the warmest spring day we have had....61 degrees!!!! It was awesome! So I took the kids for a walk in the stroller but when we got back it was just too nice outside to go indoors, I even had to take their winter coats off, yay!! I thought I would let them practice walking in a) their shoes and b) on the pavement. Mark usually gets sidetracked by the stuff on the ground and how he's going to eat it that he hasn't made it very far and so I wanted to see how they would do on the little piece of patio we have.

Elizabeth spotted a roly poly bug but thankfully didn't try to eat it:

Mark was excited that I was letting them out the sliding glass door!! He liked playing with the stroller but quickly moved on to playing with dirt (by the way, do you notice his drooling? He's teething! One molar has cut through on the top and we didn't even know it he's such a tough guy! I wouldn't have known he even had a tooth but he started acting fussy yesterday so I checked...I think the other side is trying to come through and is causing him a lot of pain, poor guy!):

Elizabeth quickly discovered the grass and as you can see below was really interested in it:

I was SO EXCITED to see them taking their first steps in the grass all by themselves!!

She wasn't wierded out by it at all, she just wanted to play in it!

And then Mark joined her:

And this is where it gets interesting. The two of them made it to where I was standing on the grass and I was so excited that they had made it so far and across the grass that I was cheering, which made them all the more excited! There is a playground right there and so Mark headed there to eat the wood chips and Elizabeth went the other way to more grass. The bad part was that there was dog poop where she was headed! So I ran to get her, keeping in mind that they are falling a lot but so excited to have a new found sense of freedom that they would get up and keep going, really fast! So I scoop her up and bring her back to the patio and while I'm doing this Mark has taken off in the opposite direction down the sidewalk! These two had me running for sure but I finally got them both back in, safe and sound!

I felt so happy for them because it was their first time really experiencing the outdoors, they got to put their hands in the dirt and the grass and feel the sunshine....just another one of those firsts that make me grateful that I can be at home with them all the time. I am so thankful that I can experience these happy firsts with them!

Hair cut time!!

I am not sure why I have been putting off cutting Mark's hair for the 1st time. It has needed it and I'm a little attached to it but mostly I think I was nervous. But we finally did it!

Let's start with Elizabeth 1st. Of course I didn't cut her hair, I just want to show off her curls! The hair nerd in me gets way too much joy out of seeing her 'S' shaped waves and the ringlet curls at her crown! Her hair is getting longer and curlier every day and I love it!!

Here is a gross after supper picture of Mark and his long, feathered 80's bang..I had to cut his hair in the high chair, thus the gross picture, did you notice his sleeve is covered in avocado?! Oops, forgot to roll them up!:

And here he is the next day getting ready to go to church:

Such a handsome boy!!! Oh and do you want to know what he learned to do in church this past Sunday? Pick his nose! He finally figured out that his finger can go up his nose and we thought it was pretty funny at first...until a member of the Bishopric was holding him and he did it and got a booger out at the same time!!!! So embarrassing!! Owell, not the first time our kids will do something to make us cringe I'm sure, haha!!

Swimming pool time!!!

We have lived in these apartments for 4 months now and have never used the indoor pool. We thought it might be too cold even though it is heated to 70 something degrees...we were right, it was too cold for them but we had a fun time trying out our new swimming suits and splashing a little in the water. Poor Little Mark froze and didn't seem to have quite as much fun as Elizabeth, I don't think he likes to be cold! This was their 1st time in a swimming pool and when we have some free time I would like to take them to a real heated pool because I know they would LOVE it! Elizabeth loves to put her face in the water during bath time and has started blowing bubbles too. They splash themselves in the face all the time and love it!

We had to skype Grandma and Grandpa T so that they could see them in their suits, Mark's were barely hanging on him!:

Testing out the water and Little Mark wants out already!

We stayed in for about 10 minutes or so and at least Mark and I got a decent workout in racing the kids back and forth across the pool! It sure felt good on my pregnant body to be in the water!

As an FYI

For my dear family who mock me (you know who you are) for refusing to feed my kids hamburgers and fries....here is proof that I'm not all that uptight about it:

We took them out to Red Robin for dinner last week and despite the wierd faces in the pictures they did actually like the fries....but they LOVED the mandarin oranges the most! It was our first time ordering something from a kids menu and they ate the entire bowl! I'm glad to know that they love Red Robin as much as I do!