Just keep spinning

Here's a little snippet from playgroup a few weeks ago. The girls loved this. They've never played together so well. I love all their giggles.

The Pub Maze Trap

St. Patrick's Day came again! And lucky for us, we had Daniel and Christina (Paul's siblings) here to help us build a trap to catch the leprechauns. Like last year we documented our trap-building with step-by-step photos.


We found these wigs and hats at Wal-Mart. They're now part of the St. Paddy's day tradition.


Covering the trap with green paper, thus luring the leprechauns to our trap


Christina working on the artwork that would decorate the halls of our maze


Paul built the stairs leading up to the maze/trap


Working on the outer wall of the maze with the trap door in the middle...think "Tri Wizard Tournament"


The stairs are in place


More of the walls are going up


My new green braids


Doesn't he look handsome?


We dangled the keg right above the trap door, hoping to catch them and their leprechaun gold


The finished product: Our Pub Maze, tantalizing the leprechauns to enter and find the keg found in the middle


All that green has to entice the leprechauns this year


The leprechaun hunters


Sadly, we couldn't catch the leprechauns, but Hattie was pretty excited to see the trail of candy that they left


She would pick up pieces as she went and kept saying "cha-key" for chocolate


She was more into the candy than the trap...and she loved the stuffed animal her grandma sent her


Enjoying her Lucky Charms with green milk...she didn't even mind eating green bread


We wake up a little early for Christina

Dumpster Digging

This particular piece of garbage has been in the trash for about two weeks. It's the packaging to some Gerber onesies that we recently purchased for Hattie. Every time she comes in the bathroom, she sees it and cries, "Baby!" She pulls it out and starts to snuggle it and give it kisses. We have attempted throwing it away in a different garbage but she still finds it somehow. She even gets excited when she sees the print of the Gerber baby face on the inside of her onesies. She is certainly a little girl!

What it's like watching movies with Hattie

I don't know why we thought this was so funny. She stayed up there for a long time watching Nemo (by the way, we haven't watched it in quite a few days since the sick episode). She loves the step stool and runs toward it whenever she sees it out.

Table saw = kitchen table

After much debate, research, time, and consideration, I realized that if Paul is ever going to be able to build the furniture that he would like for us, we would need a table saw. Gratefully, for Christmas Paul received most of the carpentry tools he needed to start building. But as he tried (and failed) to survive without a table saw, it became apparent that we'd need one if he was going to continue his hobby (and so that we can finally have a kitchen table!) So while I was off in Virginia, his new toy arrived. He has spent the last few weekends getting it put together, since school doesn't really allow too much spare time. We finished it up this weekend, but he hasn't tried it out yet since I made him promise to read the entire instruction manual before he start :)

(you can see the food storage shelves he built for me in the background...but right now they just have his tools and gardening stuff :)

Hattie loved being out in the garage all day helping us. She would crawl on her belly back and forth under the table saw. And she loved helping Paul turn the wheel to raise the blade. Hopefully I'll be posting pictures of our new dinner table in a few weeks!

In her cuteness

A month after absent-minded Melanie misplaced our camera, I finally found it. Phew! So now I can thrill you with some cute pictures of Hattie recently.

She loves to sit at the piano. She looked particularly cute this day because it was one of the first times we did her hair...it's been a little too short til now. And amazingly it lasted all through church without her pulling it off.

Hattie LOVES being in the kitchen and "helping" Mom and Dad. We are having to be more and more creative in how she can help without destroying.

We went to the pool for the first time in a while. After about 20 minutes she realized that it was fun.

One of her favorite things is to play on Mom and Dad's bed, especially since we have no box spring or bed frame and the mattress sits on the ground, providing easy access for the kiddo.

She loves climbing in, out, over, through, and under this stool. I remember having a stool similar to this one growing up and it was one of my favorite toys. My sisters and I would climb between the rails and walk around like we were a train.

Caught up

After three days worth of naps and a few hours last night, I'm finally caught up. I logged on to Google Reader the other day only to discover that I had just under 300 new posts to read. For the last few months, whenever I get online, I only have time for email and maybe reading my sisters and sister-in-laws blog. So I quickly got behind. And being the perfectionist that I am, I feel that I have to read all of them...or at least skim through them for important highlights. I admit...when my friends had 10+ new posts to read, I would do a really fast skim. As it was, it took me a long time to get through it all. Is anyone else weird like that, or do you just click "Mark all as read" when you get behind? Or do you somehow never get 100+ posts behind?

Now I just hope to stay on top of it...because this is the second time I've been this far behind in the last 6 months. And blogging, for me, goes both ways. If I hope and expect others to read my blog, I had better read theirs. And post an occasional comment just so that they know that their words aren't wasted. So now that I'm back into it, hopefully I'll be leaving more comments for ya'll.

Oh, and I rediscovered a favorite blog of an elder I taught at the MTC about 4 years ago. This may appeal to you if you are single, or remember being single at BYU or anywhere. If you are one who enjoys witty and amusing writing, I think you'll enjoy it. Or maybe I just like it because I know him. Who knows?

Nemo Mania

Where was I at 6:00 this morning? Wal-Mart. Buying Gatorade. You're probably thinking, "Wow, Paul and Melanie really must be addicted," but sadly we have a house full of sickies. Trust me, Gatorade is something we NEVER buy. Hattie starting throwing up Saturday morning, and Paul had his turn last night. So we haven't slept much and have a great need for electrolyte replenishment. Oddly enough, this is the second time this year that both Paul and Hattie have had the flu and I have escaped unharmed. So I am the nurse while Paul and Hattie hang out in "sick bay" or the couch, watching "Finding Nemo" over and over. This is how we have spent the weekend:

We watched it 5 times yesterday. She refuses to watch anything else. If we try another movie she just says, "Me-mo, Me-mo, Me-mo." Once she's feeling better, we're locking it away for a solid month.