Bridget is 2!

Bridget turned two!  What a fun age!  After dropping the big kids off at school (and the customary hand washing at Evelyn's classroom)...

we went to a park.  Due to the grey and threat of rain kind of day it was, we had the place all to ourselves!  We played on the playground...

And fed the ducks and pukekos.  (Look at those curls!!!)

Here is Bridget and her little double layer lemon cake, which she didn't actually eat.  She liked the ice cream far better!  

Not only did she get some great grandparent cards and a really cool paper crown (thanks Oma and Opa)

she also got a little walking neighing unicorn, which she loved at first sight (after her obsession with Evelyn's purring cat we knew she'd love this).

And a little plastic dish set, which everyone enjoyed!

We love our cutie patootie!  She is so sweet and so much fun!  Happy Birthday, Bridget!

Seeing things we never saw before...

What a fun day today!  This morning before breakfast one of our neighbors came over to show us what she found in her garden this morning.  An echidna!  

She and her husband had worked with thick gloves to get it out and into a small garbage can with blanket.  So she brought it over to show us before releasing it into the wild!  We were soooo excited!!  It was about the size of a soccer ball and was trying to burrow in the blanket.  We got to touch its spines.  Sharp things too!  Like hard hollow quills.  Yikes!  

AND this afternoon our senior missionary Elder North came to check out why one of our piano keys was sticking.  He just happens to tune pianos for a hobby (nice hobby to have when your wife is a piano teacher).  We got to see the inside of our piano!  The kids were amazed at how pushing the keys make the hammers hit the strings.  What a neat day!

Pigtails

Had to share this from a few weeks ago.  I was doing Evelyn's hair before school and she said "I love pigtails, because they do jumping jacks with me."  Which she then demonstrated.  I love her and her pigtails too!

Keeping the Tooth Fairy Busy

Isaac has lost 2 teeth this weekend.  He came in last night to blow his nose and ended up spitting out his tooth.  "Ack!  I almost swallowed it!"  He lost another one two weeks ago (in the middle of Primary).  The kid looks hilarious!  Mike says Orc, I'm thinking more Sid the sloth.  What a funny stage!

Fun Date!

There's not a lot to do on date night in Gladstone so when we heard about this cool annual soup night at the local pottery place we jumped at it!  We weren't the only ones, cuz the place was packed!  We got to pick out our own handmade bowl and try a myriad of different home made soups.  There had to have been twenty crockpots!  My favorite was the butternut lentil, but the ham and split pea was a close second.  

Mike really liked the Greek lemon and chicken, but the creamy butternut was good too. Ooh, so was the potato and leek.  So many yummy soups!  

It was fun to walk around and look at the pottery for sale too.  Like this reef piece.  Too cool!

Mike bought a neat mug and I bought a momma bear sized bowl (perfect for ice cream, not too little and not too big).

What a fun date!  With souvenirs even!  

Little friends

We got to babysit two guinea pigs for a few weeks, Fred and Digger.  I was happy to babysit, because I certainly don't plan on ever buying guinea pigs.  Ever.  Evelyn and Bridget loved them!

They loved to wrap them up in the guinea pigs' blankets (which my friend brought to shade the cage) so their little claws wouldn't scratch them and would hold them so sweetly.  The first thing Bridget would do when I'd hand her a guinea pig was gently rock and it and shush it like a baby!  Adorable!

She also loved to sit on this little stool, which she'd often drag to underneath the trampoline and that was her little guinea pig play house. 

  Evelyn with Fred and the classroom rabbit.  

The kids actually surprised me and were amazing care takers!  I didn't have to do a thing!  Lydia, Isaac, and Evelyn would bring the guinea pigs out of their cage in the shed in the mornings and put them in the little wire enclosure in the yard and give them food and shade and water and put them back to bed in the shed again at night.  They were fantastic!  What a fun little adventure for them.