Cody's Hamper Trick

Prince & Princess Birthday Party

Cody was invited to a little girl's birthday party which was today. All the kids dressed up as a prince or princess. Cody talked about wanting a mustache; so before the party I drew this mustache. I thought it was totally awesome, but before he even put on his costume he washed it off. At least I was quick enough to get a picture before he did.

He decided to wear this magician costume we have (the rabbit is hooked inside the hat). There is also a little wand that goes with it.

Here he is with the hat on. How gentlemanly he looks.

Prince Cody right before we left for the party.

Here are all the kids dressed up. By the time this picture was taken Cody didn't have a hat on or a cape. BUT he's smiling :)

Left to right: Malea Westover, Catherine Monson, Gabe Olsen, Kent Eckert, Cody Cramer, Robert Cooper, Nelaine Cooper (the birthday girl), Finley Wait, and Laura Nelson

Watch Out For Poison Ivy!

Steve did a service project last week with students from his program. They were doing some yard work at a Homeless Shelter. Steve spotted some Poison Ivy while they were working and steered completely clear. Four days later he woke up and thought he had a spider bite, but within a few hours his body broke out with puss-filled blisters everywhere including a fat stripe across his face and eyes! Steve has had some major Poison Ivy rashes in his life and knew that he needed to get some medicine fast. He went to an Instacare clinic, got a prescription, and the rash has slowly been going away ever since and he is doing well. Weird! We found out later that you can get a rash without direct contact with the plant - through the air.

So watch out for this:

Cousin Sleepover

My Cousin, Becky, her husband, Jon, and their daughter, Anna, stayed with us on their way from New Jersey to Chicago where Jon is doing more rotations for medical school. It was so fun to have a Cousin Sleepover! And Anna and Kylee are destined to be best friends (just like their moms) since they are only 2 weeks apart. It was a short visit but so fun to hang out and catch up. Here is a picture of Kylee, Cody, and Anna right before we left for church.

Thanks for staying with us Becky, Jon, and Anna!

Welcome to 867 Mirror Street

Our townhouse

Entryway

Up the stairs is our bedroom.

It has a lot of space.

Here is the view out our bedroom window. See how narrow our street is?

And this is our little front yard where we hang out with our neighbors.

Across the hall is our toy room

The kid's room. Cody and Kylee are asleep in their beds in this picture.

Our bathroom at the end of the hall with lovely pink tile that goes so well with the new brown and red shower curtain and towels that we bought before we moved :)

Our toilet paper holder is across from the toilet and way down low to the ground. You have to be a gymnast to be able to sit on the toilet and reach the t.p. Pregnant women are just out of luck. Isn't that weird??

Back down to the main floor. You can go straight back down the hall to the family room. To the left is:

This.

To the left again is a bathroom. Much better tile colors.

And then our little kitchen.

To the right is our dining room.

In the back of the house is a big family room.

The stairs to our basement. Does this look like Home Alone?

The unfinished part of the basement does look like the basement on Home Alone. Lots of great storage.

And then through this doorway...

Is a finished room where Steve studies.

And a lot of space for the kids to run around and play. I love the tall ceilings. It doesn't feel like a basement at all.

Out the sliding doors from the basement is our little patio...

And our little backyard.

Rainbow Toast

One of Cody's favorite things to eat for breakfast is "Rainbow Toast." You take a piece of toast and spread different flavors of jam in stripes. Usually we spread grape, strawberry, and apricot but we are out of grape right now.

Pittsburgh Children's Museum with the Stephenson's

Mr. Roger's Neighborhood is really big here because Fred Rogers is from Pittsburgh. There is a "Neighborhood" Exhibit with all kinds of stuff from his show. Here Kylee is playing his piano.

Cody is climbing in this maze. He's up there in the light blue shirt.

Cody and his friend Sara are making this guy move with all of those levers.

In the Bob the Builder Exhibit, Kylee wasn't intimidated at all by big, strange kids. She just got right in there and played.

The Waterplay area was pretty cool. You can make a boat, sail it, create whirlpools to sink it, and play in the water.

Cody really liked the plumbing area. There were pipes sticking out of the ground with water coming out of them and Cody added pieces of pipe to make his own plumbing system.

Kylee loved this giant light bright

We rode with our friends, the Stephenson's, and the kids thought it was really fun to play with their car seats once we came home. Here they are playing train and having a great time together.

In fact, they were having such a great time that we couldn't get them to stop for family scripture study, so we brought the car seats into the living room. The kids followed, and sat pretty still while we read.

After reading scriptures, Kylee practiced walking to each one of us and then walked right over to the car seat and stepped onto it. This little girl will be taking off pretty soon.

The Best of Days

(doing puzzles together in their pajamas)

(Cody at the park)

(right before we moved from SLC)

Today was such a great day:

Cody and I went to Playgroup at the Dinosaur Playground in Schenley Park while Kylee stayed home and napped since Steve was home for the morning. As we were leaving, we saw Cody's neighbor friend Ellie (they play together at least once a day usually) leaving to see her new baby sister at the hospital who was born yesterday. Cody was so sad that he couldn't play with her and didn't understand why she would want to go to the hospital instead of playing with him. He kept asking me why she couldn't play. When we got to the park though, Cody played so well with all of the kids and had so much fun. (Cody has really impressed me with how fast he makes friends wherever we go since we moved to PA). There are a ton of kids (like 10) in our ward his age and they are all so cute. I had fun too with all the moms. When it was time to go Cody didn't even put up a fuss at all.

Kylee and Cody played really well today with very little problems. Maybe it was because Cody could give Kylee more attention since Ellie couldn't play. Or maybe because Kylee wasn't mad at the world for getting a few new teeth. Maybe it was because I tried to give them attention when they wanted attention and leave them alone when they were happy together-even if they were making messes (Cody completely stripped my bed and jumped off it into the blankets with Kylee laughing for about an hour and I was downstairs the whole time).

They even did puzzles together. Cody is usually pretty possessive when it comes to toys - especially doing puzzles because he wants to do it all himself. But today, Kylee had a lot of fun handing him the pieces and then Cody would say "thank you" and she would smile and crawl to get another one. When the puzzle was finished, she would dump out the pieces and they would start again.

Kylee took a lot more steps today too. Cody has learned that he can ask her nicely to stand up and walk and she will stand up and walk to him. She laughs the whole time like she is getting the biggest rush. She also loves it when you clap and cheer and she starts to clap too.

While Steve made a delicious dinner of Spinach/Cheese Ravioli with a tomato sauce and cooked spinach on the side, Cody cleaned up his puzzles so obediently. Then, as soon as he was asked, Cody came to the table and the first thing he said was, "oh, thank you for making this dinner, dad." Wow! Usually he says, "This is gross. I won't eat it." He then ate the whole thing with very little persuasion and help. He even cut up some of his food by himself.

Without any whining, Cody and Kylee both ate a snack of fresh fruit at the table while I read library books to them. I haven't ever read to the kids at the table, but it turned out to be great because Cody and Kylee weren't fighting to be on my lap, grabbing the pages, and blocking the other one so they couldn't see the pictures. And Kylee usually gets bored before Cody does, but with the snacks to keep her busy she lasted the whole time.

Cody was the sweetest little boy while getting ready for bed. While he was getting out his toothbrush he said, "mom, you are the best at brushing my teeth." He held my hand while going up the stairs and went right to bed with no stalling or fits.

Life couldn't be better!

Kylee or Cody?

Steve dressed up Kylee in Cody's church clothes this morning before church. What do you think?

After church we went to dinner at the Lingwall's. While we were waiting for dinner to be ready the kids were checking out their fish tank. Kylee stood up and WALKED TWO WHOLE STEPS over to the fish tank. Steve and I were both witnesses. Yeah! I hope we are going to see more of that.

Our Church

This is our beautiful 2-story church in the middle of the Oakland area of Pittsburgh (where Pitt and CMU campuses are). It is only a few blocks from Steve's school buildings. It is also only a few blocks from the main public library where we went yesterday. Lucky for us, we can park in the church parking lot and walk a few blocks to the library. Otherwise we would have to pay $5 to park in the library parking lot or park at a meter. These next few pictures are the buildings surrounding the church. It is an interesting mix of ghetto and more ghetto.