Pictures again

One of these days I'm going to find a routine again for blogging, until then, here is a pictorial representation of some of the things going on around here lately

 We went to the zoo and got to see a few animal feedings-the keeper was trying to get this guy to jump in this deep pond--I'm glad he never did though because we would have been splashed by the yucky looking water.

 We went with some of our good friends, the Hunzekers. Aren't the kids so cute together?

 Savanna really likes her swim diapers--this night as we were reading stories, she kept bringing me them to put on her. I finally relented and put one on over her jammies, but she still wanted more-so you can't tell, but over her pj's she's wearing two swim diapers.  The kids both love to swim and get so excited when we get to go.

 Savanna really wanted the camera (desperately so--there have been lots of missed pictures because she is so busy trying to rip it from my hands that I don't get the shot I wanted). Alex and I had fun despite her screams.

 Not a great picture, but you can kind of see the leaves covering our brown lawn--an early fall look on the ground, though the leaves on the trees for the most part have not changed colors yet.

 We bought a new table/chair set. Alex was so excited to be Daddy's helper putting it together! And I did some mad negotiating to get a good deal on it! Thank you MBA-by-osmosis (through Keith's need to talk about his classes) negotiations class!

 We went to the zoo again with some other friends while taking some people in the branch to the airport.

 Zebras!! They had two kinds of zebras-narrow and wide striped. They were gorgeous zebras!

 Giraffe! Very pretty too!

 Chocolate chips!! Who knew what a mess a tablespoon of chocolate chips could make when given to a 1 year old!

 Alex came out having done all his buttons all by himself!! We were so proud of him! He has also been buttoning his church shirts solo. What a big boy! He gets up in the morning, takes off his diaper and gets dressed before coming out of his room. It's fun to see him taking on more independence.

 I signed up Alex for Lowe's "Build and Grow" workshop. Keith took him to it, they had fun building a dragon and Alex wore his little apron the rest of the day!

 Savanna working on our broken scale in the laundry room. She climbed up the chair all by herself to get to the tools. She is such a mimic these days--especially if it's something Alex is doing or encouraging her to do!

Macauley Culkin watch out! After bath Alex likes to see his "long" and "wild" hair!! Then he wants it combed "handsome" before he gets dressed. This is his CRAAAZY face!

Another new aspect of bedtime that amuses us is a few times as Keith has sat near his bed before heading out of the room, as he gets up to go Alex has tried to get him to stay by saying, "But Jesus wants you to stay." How can you argue with that?

Alex was spinning around in the living room the other day getting dizzy--he apparently wasn't the only one/thing getting dizzy because he warned me to "watch out, I'm making the room dizzy" "You have to be careful so you don't fall down and bonk your head, I'm making the room dizzy!"

Added to his imaginary conversations is often different voices (some high pitch, some low pitch). Well now he has started telling me what Savanna has "said" and he uses a high pitched voice for her and a normal voice for what he said. It's pretty funny.

Savanna has decided she has the VCR/DVD player all figured out. She has been working on pulling out DVDs for quite a while now, but now she is pushing buttons to put the DVDs in the player. She also aggravates Alex by pushing TV buttons while he is trying to watch something. As mentioned earlier--she is also really into mimicking Alex-much to his chagrin, he is teaching her quite a bit.
She is going from a little baby to quite the toddler. She is curious and helpful. She loves to help me do everything from wiping up spills, to vacuuming, to cracking eggs--she has some sixth sense about when I get an egg from the fridge, because she is right on my heels waiting to do her part.

Alex and Savanna both love to help me cook--I was making something the other day and they both really wanted to be right up there helping. Savanna had a set of measuring spoons and wanted everything to pass through her--Alex had the measuring cups, and between them and their tools and a bit of patience and humor from me, we were able to get everything into the mixer with a manageable amount of mess. I'll tell you though, it's quite difficult to cook with a baby on a hip and a toddler between you and the counter, both reaching and grabbing for their turn to pour/dump/scoop/crack.

Keith is busy with work, he is enjoying new aspects all the time. The past couple of weeks has kept him busy doing investigations into harassment/insubordination claims around the plant. He's done a few firings, and interviews. We'll see what the next few weeks bring in new experiences as he continues on.

I just started my new calling as Primary President in our branch. It has been interesting seeing as I've never had a calling in primary, ever. (well I don't count the one week I was called as a primary teacher that I never taught). Lots of callings to fill and if we can get those filled, I think it won't be too bad.