The Bike Experience

So Ben decided that it was time Laney learned to ride her bike without the training wheels. So they practiced a couple of times and set a goal for her to learn within a week. She did pretty good if she was telling Ben something and then when she stopped and started concentrating on riding she would start falling. The funniest was that she was always ready to bail. If the bike started falling a little bit to the side, she immediately had both legs on one side and would jump off...even though Ben was holding on to the bike the whole time. So Ben had a theory of how to help her. He told me on the way home from somewhere that he was going to take the training wheels off Laney's old bike (which is now Ty's) and let her ride on that. When we got home, two minutes after Ben told me this, we saw Laney's little friend riding around on her old bike with no training wheels and doing REALLY well. So having confirmed his theory Ben jumped out of the car and took the training wheels off the little bike, Laney jumped on and off she went. Now she's riding her own bike and doing excellent.

Laney's Birffday

Okay, as usual these are in reverse order...so sorry but I don't want to attempt switching them around... anyway, we had Laney's birthday for her friends after came home from Germany.
We were thinking about having a birthday party at our house with all 10 or so of her little friends. I had it all planned out in my head...i would decorate with big polka dots and stripes and make cute, fun oversized cupcakes and they could have a fun little hot cocoa party.....and Ben would take care of all the activities and I could go around taking pictures.
But when Ben humbly declined the amazing offer of taking care of activites and 10 kids because he doesn't really know what goes on a birthday parties I felt like we needed a different plan. So we diecided that Laney could take a couple of the kids she plays with the most and go to Jungle Jim's.
It was really fun and turned out good. They have fun rides that they kids played on for about an hour and then they served us pizza and drinks. We brought our own cake and plates and such since Laney wanted a Strawberry Shortcake Party.
The kids had a blast.


Here's the Celebrated One's Strawberry Shortcake Cake.
And the birthday table.

Frankfurt, Prague, Paris, Dresden.....

We went to Germany to surprise my mom for her 50th birthday. While there we also took a short trip to Paris and went with my whole family to Prague. On the way home from Prague we drove through and stopped in Dresden....totally planned ;). When we came home I was uploading the pictures from our trip to the computer and Ty got angry because he couldn't play on the computer so he went over and pounded on the keyboard and...bibbety bobbety boo....the pictures had been deleted of the camera. Some of our friends helped us restore some of the pictures but most of the them are just gone. Anyway, here are some of them and sorry they are all out of order but I don't want to fix them.
Laney and Ty playing on my mom and dad's back porch....if Ben hadn't expected me to come back home I would have been sitting there still.
Uhm....I don't know quite know what to write about this picture except that the kids had SOOOO much fun with their uncle Zak. And Zak is a SUPER uncle.
The kids helped my mom put in some new flowers in the backyard.
Ty relaxing in Zak's hammock chair.
We went to a dinosaur exhibit at one of the malls.

In Paris you could rent one of these little sailboats and then play with them in a little pond.
Ty as the statue of liberty on a huge fun playground in Frankfurt.While driving up in the Czech mountains one day my mom got pulled over TWICE within 20 minutes for routine drunk driving test.....
The clock tower in Prague
Prague
The Cathedral in Prague.The Seine river in Paris
Ben and Laney by Notre Dame
Notre Dame from the back.
The Louvre
There is a golf course close to my parent's house where is a little pond. We brought bread along and fed the fish. It was really fun. When we walked back to the car we heard some frogs by another pond. It was really cool to hear how loud they were and we also spotted quite a few.
Chatting by the fountain in Jicin.
Pulling faces on the boat on the Seine river.
Czech Paradise with cool rocks.
Ben and Ty squishing through the narrow staircase going up the rocks.
The cousins...
On the Karls Bridge in Prague
Arc d' Triomphe.
We had so much fun and had a hard time coming back to Utah. Laney even said that she was going to stay til she turned 6 and Ty wanted Zak to come with us to Utah. Tak fordi vi maatte komme og "crashe" jeres ferie, Mor og Far. Vi havde det rigtig sjovt.

What Happened in March 2009....

We celebrated Laney's and Ty's birthdays early because we went to Germany to surprise Mormor for her 50th birthday.
The cake we ate.
The process of making the 12 or 14 layer cake (I don't remember how many it ended up being...I think 12 though)
Mmmmm, yummy chocolate.....begging to be licked.....
We flew kites.
And had A LOT of fun.
We even let other kids try out our kites.
We got in the bathtub a couple of times....:)
We got washed behind the ears....a couple of times.....
We painted Laney's and Ty's rooms.
We shaved with Dad.

Reading Scriptures

Every night when the kids are falling asleep in their beds, we read scriptures to them. We only read a chapter every night but the kids love it and always remind us if we forget. I don't know how much they understand but I know they love it and I have read in different articles that it's good to read to them because they can feel the spirit. Anyway, two nights ago the kids were in their beds and I was getting ready to read scriptures. I opened up the scriptures and took a breath to read the first verse. But before I had a chance to say anything, I heard a little voice from Laney's bedroom that said, "And it came to pass....."

Ty's Guldkorn

I love when kids get to the stage where they start making up songs. I guess Ty hit that stage yesterday when we went for a walk while Laney was at Joy School. We walked down to the little canal where there is always a ton of ducks and geese. When we got there the first thing we saw was a dead goose laying in the shallow water. Ty was mesmerized by the "died goose" and we looked at it for about 5 minutes before I could convince him to walk to the other side of the road where all the living ducks and geese where. After about 5 minutes of chasing the ducks and laughing at them flying away in horror, he wanted to go back to the other side with the "died goose". So we meandered back over there and spent another 10 minutes discussing if it was a mother goose or a baby goose and if it was dead or just sleeping. Finally he made up this little song that he sang to me:
"We are looding at a died goose.
When we are done looding at the died goose,
we are doing home."

Then today I finally took the kids to get haircuts after Laney's dance. Ty was starting to look like a young blond Beatle and Laney needed a trim. While we were driving from dance to the haircut place Ty made up this little song: (It was an upbeat happy song. Feel free to sing along...)
"We are getting hairduts,
we are getting hairduts.
We are doing to the hairdut place,
We are doing to the hairdut place."

Finally my last story for the day. When we got out of the car at Laney's dance class it was bright because the sun was shinning so lovely down on us. When Ty stepped out of the car he immediately started sneezing like crazy. Then he said, "When it's bright, it makes me bless you."
I laughed for a while over that one.

Oh and one more thing....Ben was sick a couple of weeks before Christmas and so he didn't go to work and was just in bed most of the time. I don't know where Ty got the impression that he dies but somehow he did. (obviously he doesn't understand it...)Anyway, when Ben was sick Laney made a card for him and attached one of the Christmas candies in a little plastic bag for him. He didn't eat it and I finally threw it out. As luck would have it, Ty came up to me a couple of days later and said, "Where that dard and dandy that Laney made for Daddy when Daddy died?" I really don't know where he got that from but I remember he asked me a couple of times when Ben was sick if he died. I kept telling him no, that he was just sick but obviously he had made up his mind otherwise.

Phantom of the Opera

I had turned on our Phantom of the Opera movie and I was watching my favorite song and Laney kept telling me to turn it to the beginning. So after the song was done I did. Ty came in and they both watched the beginning where it starts in black and white and then it turns into to color and the music is really loud and cool. Anyway, both kids were just standing there with huge eyes watching and Ty says (while still engrossed in the movie) : "Maybe this is my favorite movie!"

Laney's Danse Klasse

Laney ville gerne have at Mormor og Morfar saa hende til hendes danse klasse. Det her er lidt tap.



...og her er lidt ballet.

Computer Nerds

It always amazes me how good the kids are on the computer. I think kids nowadays are born with a mouse in their hands. They can't read yet but they know exactly what to do and which buttons to click on. On the Wii too. They can navigate around on that thing and choose the rights things after we have only shown them once. Lately Ty will come up to me when I'm on the computer and want to write. He'll just sit and write "TYLER" and "LANEY" over and over. It's cute. Anyway, I just like this picture 'cause he looks so serious.


Both kids love playing on the computer and we have a couple of kids sites that they play one. Recently we discovered that there is a church kids website and so the kids have been playing it lately. I really like it because they have the primary songs in the background and the kids will sing or hum along.

Tired Fella

So on this particular day I had asked Ty to go do something upstairs and he didn't want to so he was fake crying and complaining the whole time. I could hear him upstairs but then suddenly he got all quite. I left him for a while because I figured he was doing whatever it was I told him to. But after about 5 minutes I got a little concerned and went upstairs to see what was going on.....He must have been really tired because he was dead asleep and slept for like an hour.