Friday, June 20, 2014

64 Like a Dinosaur

When this one was little, she told me she loved me 64 like a dinosaur, which is a two year old's way of saying things that are huge and generally mean "a lot."  When Jerel and I got married, there was Sadie on Jerel's side and Elise on my side.  I mean, there were other nieces and nephews, but they were still too little to be fun, so these two were our favorites.  At one point Jerel had like 13 pictures of Sadie on the fridge.  (See here http://jerelandamanda.blogspot.com/2008/10/baby-ban.html if you're interested in the backstory)Anyway, everyone's growing up and so although Elise and Sadie are still our favorites, Asher, Mason, Cooper, Eve, Monroe, Clara, Ruthie, Sadie, Brigham,  Bonnie Ann, Lincoln, Mollie, Sophie, Taylyn, Rexton, Emmaree, Ezekiel, Zachary, Kayla, Logan, Isaac, Ellie, Jocelyn, and Kimball are also our favorites.  Like my mom used to say, "You're all my favorites in your own special way."  She also used to take each of us aside and tell us we were her REAL favorite, but not to tell the other kids because it might make them feel bad.  Fortunately I have just one boy and one girl, so I just tell them "you're my favorite boy/girl" and I'm done. 


 Elise has family on her dad's side here in the Portland area.  She met them at her dad's funeral a year or so ago and they have been so kind to her.  She hasn't had much opportunity to have a relationship with anyone on her dad's side so this has been a real blessing.  Anyway, one of them was having a baby shower and Elise came down for it.  Even though she used to fly by herself to visit me in Utah when she was like six years old, this time she brought her mommy.  I love it when people come to stay with us and it was fun to have them here.  And fun to watch Tab watching my little kids do little kid things  (Elise is WAAAAY to mature for little kid things.)  It's easy to forget how funny kids are.  I have to say, and he'll be so mad about it later, but one time when Tab was here, Isaiah was still in his phase where running from the potty to the bedroom for clean underpants was not something that required covering up.  He came out of the bathroom (after his usual full-blast serenade) and ran right up the stairs--bare bum complete with potty-seat lines.  Of course I've seen that scene a million times, but Tab cracking up reminded me that kids are fun.  Anyway, they happened to be here on the day of our Great Mac n Cheese Hunt for the month, so we dragged them to a mac n cheese food cart for lunch.  I can't remember what it was called, which means it wasn't super fabulous.

After lunch Eliza went home with Jerel for a nap and Zay and I joined Tab & Lisie to wander around Portland's Saturday Market.  It was, as usual, a fun people-watching activity.  We even saw a real life bike-stealing--complete with the owner yelling "Stop that guy!  He stole my bike!" and some bystander chasing the thief who proceeded to get off the bike, hand it to the good samaritan, and calmly walk away.  Anyway, Zay decided the only good part about the whole market was getting ice cream.  I suppose window shopping is a skill he has yet to learn.

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