“Mama, where you at?”
–Asher

“Tessa, when Emmett and I fought Darth Vader and Darth Maul at Disneyland, how come you didn’t want to be chosen to fight them? Were you afraid of them?” Riley asked Tessa.
“No,” Tessa paused, tapping a finger on her lip, before continuing. “I think I was just afraid of being afraid.”
“You know, Tessa,” Riley said, “you can’t let your fear run away with you.”

“Mailys are not fun.”
–Tessa, writing an email (called a Maily) for schoolwork

“You can never change the past.”
–Riley, answering the question about why we don’t dwell on what’s already happened

“When I grow up, I’m going to have a brown baby. A fantastic brown baby. Like me!”
–Emmett

“You know, Mars is too cold to have any Martians on it.”
–Tessa

“Its got more potential energy!”
–Riley, when Tessa asked why a trampoline, who’s material allows for more give while jumping, will push someone higher than our bounce house

“Because Mommy, I taste good.”
–Tessa, when asked why she chews on her fingers

“No, no. Nanna in toes.”
–Asher, directing Daddy to put a banana in between his toes so he could eat it, like a character he saw on Paw Patrol

“No. Read! Read!”
–Asher, after being told its time to go to bed

Although spring has arrived, its been snowy here. More snowy than before Spring sprung. We’ve enjoyed the storms, playing in the heavy, wet, slushy stuff and realizing that spring snow is not ideal for snowmen or for snowballs. But it is ideal for snow drives and appreciating its blanketing effect from the comforting warmth of the kitchen window. The most perfect thing about spring snow in Colorado is that within a few days its melted and everything greens up. So, all evidence of our three blizzards has transformed our neighborhood into emerald perfection.

Into this blaze of color, we released our ladybugs. The second batch, that is. The first batch didn’t fare too well after Tessa and Asher dropped them onto the floor. Only three larvae pupated successfully. We let those go in the front yard in between snow storms and hoped they made it to the safety of a rock’s underside before freezing or being eaten by hungry birds. Our second batch pupated almost to a bug. We released close to twenty lady bugs yesterday.

Asher kept yelling, “Oh, cute!” and then laughing and shaking as the bugs climbed up his arm. Tessa, who has a bit of a heavy hand, squished a few while enjoying their release. She justified the accidents saying, “That’s okay. There are more.” We spoke of recognizing the need to be gentle and respecting life. She apologized to the dead and moved on. Riley and Emmett quietly enjoyed the release, letting the bugs crawl over them before placing them on the balcony’s edge, aiding their bids for freedom. Be well, little bugs.

We look forward to even warmer weather and more outside fun. We displayed our hard earned swim skills at the Rec Center last weekend with Daddy and everyone was well pleased. The big kids slid down the water side and splashed in the deep end, while Daddy swam with Little Pig. He loved splashing in the pool’s in-water playground, sliding down the little slide into the water and climbing up to shoot a water cannon. Cute!

Riley and Emmett passed a swim test allowing them to dive into the deep water next to the swim climbing wall, and Tessa professed to being “Okay” with not passing because she’s quite a bit younger than the big boys. She’ll work on swimming one length of the pool in a crawl stroke without stopping (which is what the boys did to pass). She’s almost there, though. Keep up the good work, Tessa! And well done boys!

We are slogging through story problems in math, which we all (all!) dislike immensely. We are getting to start reading chapter books and having been diligently working at our writing, both in emails and on paper. Our science understanding has been markedly improved by watching Go, Jet, Go on PBS and Miles from Tomorrowland and almost everyone understands how to apply what we learn to our real-world experiences. We talk about planets being in the Goldilocks Zone, what it means for a planet to have gravity, and finding life on other planets (and how we haven’t yet). We are budding astronomers and enjoying it.

Asher’s talking quite a bit more these days. His favorite thing to say is, “I got this.” Though, he’s also been known to walk down the stairs and call to the room in general, “Mama, where you at?” He’s learning more to share, not to scream when he doesn’t get his way, and to ask for help. Its a process, and we are all working as Team Pig to support him. He’s amazing, as are the rest of us, and we love him.

Be well,
The Larson Pigs

So much for the super, snowy Colorado winter. All of our snowstorms have been mild (nothing more than 2 feet) and have melted fairly quickly. (Save the driveway, which was an ice rink for a good 6-week period.) In anticipation of a cold, blowy season, Mom purchased an amazing bounce house for the basement. Although the weather hasn’t been strictly indoor weather, we’ve logged some serious bounce-hours, bouncing almost everyday.

We have foam swords that we use in the bounce house, we’ve got our ninja outfits, and when we feel compelled, we train. We roll, we jump, we flip. We are sneaky. We are loud. We’ve worked in teams. We’ve worked alone. But rest assured, we are ninjas-in-training. We’ve also all advanced in our swim skills. We are all doing the crawl stroke. We are diving unassisted to the bottom of the pool. And we are jumping in from the side, surfacing, and back floating or crawling to the edge again. These skills will help with water-related ninja missions.

Our current favorite game is Miles from Tomorrowland. We go on space missions, saving aliens–sometimes saving entire planets–and we do it as a family. This is by-far Baby’s favorite. He sings, “Miles, Miles, from tomorrowland” throughout the day. He pretends his food is a rocket he’s flying through the galaxy. And this ties in nicely with our space studies. We learn about the planets watching this show, like we learn about planets with Mr. Neil in the show Cosmos. We talk to our friends about stars going supernova (a thought that has actually woken Tessa in the middle of the night) and finding another planet to live on that exists in the Goldilocks Zone (something we’ll have to do when our sun goes supernova).

We are also still very concerned about the Greenhouse Effect. We’ve been watching nature documentaries (our favorite being Great Migrations) and we don’t like what happens when the Polar Icecaps melt. We’ve seen what it does to the walrus migrations, how it effects the polar bears, and what happens to the coastal wildlife when the seas rise. This was already a concern for Tessa who said that when she’s the president, she won’t allow NASA to launch any rockets because of the Greenhouse Gases it puts into the atmosphere. (This is a real point of contention with Emmett who wants to be an astronaut when he grows up.) But, overall, we enjoy learning about our Earth and the animals that co-exist with us on it.

Like last year, we are greeting Spring with an insect metamorphosis. We are watching ladybug larvae eat and get fat so they can pupate and become ladybug beetles. Then we’ll set them free to help with garden pests and to lay eggs for a new generation of larvae to grow and pupate. We had a bit of a setback when Baby pulled the Ladybug Habitat onto the floor, spilling our larvae everywhere. But after some shouting from Mom, we made sure we didn’t step on any and recaptured those insects we could see. They are back in their home. Snug as a bug.

We enjoyed Valentine’s Day, making Valentine’s for all our family and friends and sending them in the mail. On a similar note, we’ve been writing a lot of emails to people to practice our spelling and sentence creation skills. Our favorite sentences usually include a reference to who we love, what we love, or who our best friends are. But recently we’ve branched out and we’ve been filling others in on our field trips and what we’ve been doing with our days. We’ve also been back at crafts. We made crystal geodes with egg shells, egg dye, and alum. We tie-dyed long sleeve t-shirts. We’ve been creating little critters with our AquaBeads. And, of course, we are hard at work at our Lego projects–mostly Ninjago sets.

Check back next time and see how our Ladybug launch went.

With love,
The Pigs

“Mommy, what does it mean to not trust myself. And does it hurt?”
Tessa

“Because I wasn’t expecting it!”
Riley, answering the question, “Why did you stab yourself in the leg with a pencil?”

“I think its a g-g-g-ghost!”
Emmett, hearing a noise upstairs that turned out to be Isaac

“Who’s dat?”
Asher, hearing a noise upstairs that turned out to be Isaac

“Mommy, you don’t have to read to me for, like, the next week because I think that I can read to myself. But after a week, you can read to me again, if you want to.”
Tessa

“I’m a genius! I’m a genius!”
Emmett, when informed that only Pigs who own their own genius get privileges of TV and iPad

“I saw a comet!”
Emmett, when spotting a shooting star in the night’s sky

“No, thank you! Yuck!”
Asher, when Tessa tried to hold him down and give him kisses

“Mommy, I look fantastic.”
Tessa, after looking at her Red Ninja costume in the mirror

“Ipad, please.”
Asher

“March, march, march!”
Tessa and Emmett, in a sing-song voice while leading the baby in from the backyard

“I want him to be fat.”
Emmett, admitting he’d been feeding Isaac twice the usual amount and explaining why

Asher is officially the Class Clown. He’s out-of-control silly and over-the-top dramatic, all while managing to be so cute that no one can stop hugging him. Everything he does elicits an “Aww, our Baby is so cute” from Tessa. Swimming. Sleeping. You name it. Tessa thinks it is the bestest and cutest thing that’s ever been done by anyone.

His favorite things are to pretend cook and swordfight with two swords (double sticks, as its called in martial arts). He make Lego concoctions–like Lego pancakes, or Lego stews (where unfastened Lego pieces are piled into a measuring cup) and he opens the bottom over (which we never use) and he places them on the pizza stone for cooking. He then gets a spatula and makes sizzling sound effects while maneuvering his Lego pieces around the spatula. (He also pretend eats, but that’s more annoying than anything for Mom ‘cuz he’ll say he wants something and then take pretend bites and smile and shake his head when presented with a full fork for swallowing.)

He’s a master pretender, which makes sense as he’s Emmett’s little brother and Emmett’s so deep in his pretend play that sometimes you aren’t sure if he thinks pretend play is real and real life is pretend. Asher makes his fake chicken bites into space ships and crashes them into each other; he hides behind the closet door and jumps out with a lightsaber yelling “Ahhh!” to scare anyone coming by; and he’ll wander around outside with nothing more than an oversized salad spoon pretending its a plane flying threw a crowded sky. Lately, Asher’s taken to holding one (of two) black footed ferrets (ferris, he calls them) and making squeaking noises until you kiss them.

For months, since before we left Washington, he’s taken two butter knives and pretended that they are samurai swords. This is funny for us, as it is often accompanied by sound effects, and super cute, ‘cuz awwww. Look at the little man with butter knives pretending to straight-up fight you! how cute. But we all see how it can be (and is) off-putting for non-family members. Especially nannies. No one wants a small man coming at you with knives. Even if they are only butter knives.

He also likes to cook for real. He pushes a kitchen chair over to the pantry, scales the shelves, grabs a microwave popcorn bag, opens it, puts the wrapper in the trash, and pushes his chair over to the stove top where he pops the bag into the microwave–all the while humming a jaunty tune to himself. (This is his favorite part. Eating the finished product is a close third–after unwrapping the bag and putting the trash in the trash–which means he throws a fit when he wants to make more but can’t because there is leftover uneaten popcorn.)

And all the while, he’s so teeny! (Well, not really. He’s exactly where he should be with his height, which sets him up for a roughly 6’ frame when he gets older.) But he’s smaller than us. And because he’s so coordinated, he seems little because–honestly–what 2 1/2 year old is doing these things?! (Probably many of them, but Tessa would argue no one else is doing it with such cuteness.) He’s so accustomed to everyone stopping to laugh and smile at him, he plays it up when he’s in trouble, sticking out his tongue, turning his head coquettishly, and sly smiling when faced with “Say you are sorry.”

We are so, so amazingly happy with this little man. He’s melted hearts since he was fresh out of the oven, but now he slays too with humor and charm. Where does he pack it all in? (Same place the rest of us do, amiright? Or, maybe not?) Anyway. He’s fantastic and we are grateful he’s ours.

Pigs Out

This is the first year we’ve really celebrated Christmas. Oh, we’ve had Christmas-day presents in the past. We’ve gone to Pop-pop’s every year for yummy food and gifts. But this year, we wrote to Santa, we sat on his lap at Zoo Lights, we read books about how to catch him. In short, we were invested. Here’s what we learned…

Santa only comes when you are asleep. This, to us, was a bit of a sneaky move. We set up string traps in strategic locations throughout the house. If we were asleep, how could we know our gambit worked? More importantly, how could we grill him about the ins-and-outs of the holiday? (Once inside the house, how do you get out? Do your reindeers fly all year, or just on December 25th? Are you real?) But, in the interest of expediency (read: to get our presents), we accepted this preposterous condition and closed our eyes and went to sleep, waiting for the jolly fat man to tromp through our home.

Leading up to the 25th, we did our due diligence. We learned that Santa only visits the homes of children who’ve been good all year. (When faced with the choice of checking the naughty or nice box on a form letter, Tessa said, “Mama, I’m gonna lie to Santa.”) We watched the television shows designed to teach us the most about how Santa arrives to deliver presents. (Riley believed that without a star at the top of our tree, which is an in-ground tree outside, Santa wouldn’t come. So we bought a gold star.) We read books and we colored pictures and we wrote letters. Mom and Dad told us how Santa’s elves bring each of us a stocking stuffed with small toys and hangs it from our beds. Overall, we were prepared.

This coming on the heels of Emmett’s birthday and Hanukkah… We are not hurting for gifts. Emmett’s party was wonderful. It was a small celebration and full of Star Wars. Both things that the Big Pig enjoys. Mom got him a Han Solo trapped in Carbonite Cake, just like he asked for. And he got books and Cosmos-related games and presents. Perfect. For Hanukkah, we got lots of Hot Wheel cars and a racetrack, all of which have provided hours of fun (we are not exaggerating). We got a slew of My Little Ponys, books, and Star Wars vehicles and figures. So, to think that after all of this we were going to receive more presents? Well, it was starting to seem like a bit much.

At which point, Mom and Dad agreed. So starting next year, we will each research and pick out a charity to donate to, instead of asking for Hanukkah gifts and instead of such a large Christmas haul. This year, we learned that not all kids have warm homes, food for their bellies, or a loving Pig Pile. It surprised us. We want to help the small kids who don’t have what we have. We want to share with them. We want them to know and to be loved.

But this year… We were excited to participate in the pageantry of the Christmas holiday. So, the night before, we went on a holiday-lights drive, singing Christmas carols and eating chips (don’t ask). Then, before the sun had risen completely, we jumped on Mom and Dad’s bed, announcing that there were, indeed, stockings in everyone’s room. And, what’s more, there were presents downstairs along with a note from Santa thanking us for the cookies and for carrots for his reindeers. Amazing. Somehow, that fat, fat man had gotten down our chimney and back out again without tracking so much as one iota of dirt on the carpet. And he’d even tip-toed upstairs into our bedrooms to hang stockings on our beds! Kudos, Santa.

Our gifts this year had a decidedly science-y and craft-y feel. Yarn and a loom for T-bone. An entire fleet of cars and planes for Baby. Straw airplanes and a geode kit for Pie-pie. Nasa flash cards and science tricks for Emmett. (When Mom held up one of the Space flash cards and asked Emmett what it was, he barely glanced up from Dad’s new Lego Vampire Castle saying, “A butterfly nebula.” And he was RIGHT!)

Some presents broke from those themes. Riley got a joke book to flesh out his thin cadre of jokes. (“Mommy, how does the Christmas cat climb up the chimney? With her Santa-claws!”) Tessa got some jewelry. Emmett’s still waiting for his Lego Millennium Falcon. (Don’t ask.) And Baby got a ton of chocolate (he loves that stuff more than Daddy does!) and a new fuzzy robe.

So far, so good. We head to Pop-pop’s in a bit for Christmas Day Part Two. Is it too much? Perhaps. Will we do ALL of this again next year? No. But we know for sure how well we have it, and we will be looking forward to sharing that with the less fortunate come this time next year. Count on it.

Be well (and merry),
The Pigs

With Daddy commuting from Washington to finish up the tail-end of his Army contract, we maximize the time we spend with him when he comes home. We sled (LOVE the snow!), we build Legos (Riley and Emmett are finishing up marathon Star Wars projects–keep an eye out for pics), we go to the Zoo, we wrestle and play and Pig Pile. We FaceTime Daddy lots too. He gives us a tour of his office back in WA, and we show him how we’ve tied the Baby up in a blanket so that he looks like a little burrito. He brings us presents, and we come in countless time in the middle of the night to snuggle with him. We know he appreciates our displays of love. Mostly, we don’t care what we do, as long as we are together.

We loved trick-or-treating at Pop-pop’s with Ms. Ann. Earlier that day, we went to a trick-or-treat street at Wings Over the Rockies, so we got a lot of candy there too and saw and played on planes of all vintages. (They even had an x-wing fighter. Too cool.) So, needless to say, we still have a TON of candy in the pantry. After about two days, we stopped asking for it, which Mom and Dad appreciate. (Here’s something not appreciated: Tessa jammed a plastic candy cauldron onto Baby’s head and it got stuck. Ten minutes later– with the application of kitchen shears–it came off.)

Riley’s birthday was fun. Low key. Just family. And Emmett’s is just around the corner. He’s asked to go to a Broncos game for his present, so they boys are heading to the Raiders game the day after he turns seven. (Tessa said that the girls will stay home and do yoga.) Hanukkah starts a few days before then, and we have already started to ask for presents. Jammies, mostly. And this year, we are already talking about seeing Santa. Tessa says that if we stay up and see him when his sled and reindeer land, maybe we can offer to help him deliver the rest of his bag of goodies. Cuz who wouldn’t want our help?

Next week, we’ll go to Disney on Ice, our annual outing, which always is amazing. (Though, full disclosure, we’ve been angling for another trip to Disneyland ever since we left. Maybe when Daddy’s home for good, we’ll get a housetruck and we’ll drive around and see all the United States. You never know. It could happen. Any-hoo, we aren’t sure what the rest of the year will bring, but we are stating clearly our intentions… Stay tuned.) Baby’s never been to Disney on Ice. He’s sure to love it.

December is sure to be full of tree decorating, menorah lighting, present opening and general joy and amusement. No complaints here.

The Pigs

OVERHEARD

“Delicious.”
–Baby, while eating a cookie

“No, Baby. You are a kid. Not a dog.”
–Emmett, telling Baby not to eat Isaac’s treats

“When I grow up, I’ll be president and I’ll be in charge of the whole world.”
–Tessa

“When I grow up, I’ll be president and I’ll make sure no one is a slave.”
–Riley

“Stuck! Stuck!”
–Baby, while pinned at the bottom of a Pig Pile

“When I grow up, I’m coming to your house to eat pizza with socks and shoes.”
–Tessa to Riley, cracking each other up

“When I grow up, I’m coming to your house to eat pizza with underwear.”
–Riley, in reply

“When I grow up, I’m going to go to the moon and you can stay here on Earth.”
–Emmett, catching the end of the conversation

“But, Mom, why is the world like that?”
–Tessa, wondering why it hurts when she brushes her hair

“Daddy, is there a park we can go to without bears?”
–Riley, when Daddy tried to get him excited to go to Rocky Mountain National Park by telling him it had bears and elk

“Mom, I’m worried that the Sun’s going to explode.”
–Tessa, after watching Cosmos (Emmett’s favorite show)

“That will be a billon years from now. You’ll be dead by then.”
–Emmett

“No, I’ve decided I’m not going to die.”
–Tessa

We are (sort of-kind of) moved into our Colorado house. The movers (kind of-sort of) brought our Washington things and we’ve (mostly, but not really) unpacked. The stuff we wanted most, we have. The things that we weren’t sure about, we can’t find. And the rest? Well, if we can’t remember it, it’s probably something we never needed to begin with. Right?

Birthday season is upon us. Riley’s birthday is Friday, and his party is on Saturday. Nothing too big. Just family and a few friends to help consume Star Wars-related baked goods. We’ve been busy Pigs lately, too, though. So the thought of birthday season is pleasant but not ever present.

A few weeks ago, we went to our first pumpkin patch of the season. We rode on a tractor through bee-u-tiful fall foliage. We launched gourds (or tennis balls meant to act like gourds). We roped some steers; jumped on a trampoline; and rode ponies. We got sunburned and slept well that night. Perfect end to a perfect autumn day in Colorado.

Last night we went to Glow at the Gardens, at the Denver Botanic Gardens. They had the place lit up with luminaria and jack-o-lanterns carved with the theme ‘dinosaurs’ in mind. We got dragons, flowers, and spider webs painted on our, and Asher (sans face paint) was a wild man all night. Running and stomping and yelling, he was every bit the cave dweller the big Pigs were a few years ago. We’ve never seen him so confident in wandering away from Mom or Dad before. Although it tired out Mom, who got a good work out trying to hold onto a small struggling man, maybe its not a bad thing?

We’ve been busy visiting all our old haunts, too. The Wildlife Experience is always exciting, what with Nemo and the hissing crocodile. The Museum of Nature and Science is always interesting, and its current installation about the Power of Poison did not fail to amaze. We also had our very first visit to the planetarium, watching a show about the solar system. We love the stars and planets. So it was wonderful.

Our new nanny, Miss Tiffany, has been wonderful as well. She helps Mom with everything while we do our best (kind of-sort of) to do school work. We are swimming again with our favorite Miss Darcy, and Miss Tiffany helps Mom corral us for that twice-a-week adventure. With her help, we’ve dived head first into seasonal arts and crafts too. We pressed sugar skulls and decorated them for the Day of the Dead. We’ve constructed (and consumed) chocolate haunted houses. We’ve busily collected pinecones and leaves, and we’ve made them into nests for area wildlife.

We’ve been keeping ourselves entertained, but starting tomorrow the universe will entertain us. (Right?) After Riley’s party, we are going to Boo at the Zoo with Daddy. Then, next week we clean up (candy wise) on Halloween. And right after that we begin to look toward that magical time of year known as Emmett-anukkah. (Emmett’s birthday often coincides with Hanukkah.) Which is, of course, immediately followed by Mom’s birthday/Christmas/New Year’s. Which is immediately followed by T-Bone’s birthday. (And Valentine’s Day and Daddy’s Birthday and…) All of it is, yay!

It all starts with Pie-pie’s birthday. Riley’s sure to bring home a good haul this weekend. Stay tuned and see what he pulls out of the gift bags…

Be well,
The Pigs

We’ve landed back in Colorado! And this is the route we took: We drove (yes drove) with our trusty U-haul attached to the Sequoia all the way down the West Coast to Disneyland. Yes, that’s right. I said Disneyland. And it was everything we hoped it could be. Let’s start from the beginning. On the first day we got to see the enchanted castle, ride lots of rides, and eat a ton of cold ice cream. But all that pales in comparison to the training we received. Training, you ask? At Disneyland? That’s right! Riley and I got picked to train to be Jedi! We got lightsabers, went up on stage and practiced our crazy, cool Jedi moves. It was a good thing too because guess who showed up just as we were finishing our training? Darth Vader and Darth Maul!

No way, you say? Yes way! And Mom got pics to prove it. Check them out. I totally took out Darth Vader and Riley fought off Darth Maul. We were such amazing Jedi that they even left! They were too afraid of us to hang around. We got Padawan certificates showing that we trained with real Jedi and we were so proud of ourselves for days-days!-afterwards. Cool, huh? Does it get better than that? It does!

We met Tessa’s favorite Disney character. Minnie Mouse! And she was in a special red dress. Not her normal pink dress, as Tessa aptly pointed out to us. It must have been her dress-up dress for special occasions. We also met Anna and Elsa. Yes, I did say Elsa. My favorite Disney princess. Like, favorite of all time. I was shy when we got to the front of the line. But she and Anna were very sweet and took their time in talking to us about everything from our light-up crocs to our wonderful baby Asher. Then we got more pics. Baby was super interested in all the characters. Not sure what he thought. He stared a lot.

The electric light parade and World of Color shows were amazing. (I missed the parade, voluntarily absenting myself due to my dislike of fireworks, but the Blondies assured me that it was fantastic.) We got to see all the cool Disney characters during each show and there were fireballs in the World of Color too! Asher skipped the parade with me but he loved the World of Color too. He kept saying, “Wow, cool!” and “Whoa!” So cute!

When asked what my favorite part was, all I could think of was the stuff I want to go back and see. The Haunted Mansion was closed for Halloween decorating and we missed the Ferris Wheel in Adventureland. But Mom assures me that we’ll go back soon. Our cousins Colby and Brody get to go to Disney like once-a-year. Maybe we’ll make it an annual trip? Three full days in 100+ degree heat just wasn’t enough. I imagine that it wasn’t enough for Mom and Dad too, even when one of us melted down (possibly literally given the record heat) on cue each morning around 11am and again at 2-3pm. Even taking a break to cool down and have some quiet time. Can’t imagine that Mom and Dad thought that was at all tiring or frustrating or depleting. Because, in the end, we all enjoyed ourselves, so that stuff kind of floats away from memory. Right?

Which brings me to our next favorite experience, playing with our cousins! I’ve been calling them “My best friend boys.” Mom’s brother Jake lives in Phoenix, like Grandma Cheryl, and we drove there after Disney. We swam in our cousin’s pool, and had a pizza party with them while chasing each other around Grandma’s backyard. Asher swam for the first time ever with Dad. He was hesitant at first, but after a bit he refused to get out. Even after the sunset and the water got cold and he started to shake. He was giggling like crazy when Dad threw him up into the sky and caught him again. He loved it! Grandma’s sister Jane even came from Wisconsin to visit. It was perfect. I made clear to Mom that family is very important to me. That we should visit them again. (Maybe the next time they are at Disney?)

But I’m sure your big question is, how did you four pigs handle the drive of around 2200 miles? Amazingly! (Ok. Full disclosure. Mom and Dad souped up the Sequoia with an in-car theatre system. We each had our own DVD players, which were also connected to the car so Mom could play one and control all the ones in the back. This, as you may imagine, made quite a difference for us Pigs.) There was one marathon day of 14 hours. Hey, hold on there! No judging Mom and Dad. It wasn’t their fault. The highway was closed between Shiprock and Albuquerque and when we went north, all the hotels were full-up in southern Colorado. By the time we got to a hotel with space, Tessa was begging to lay down flat. But it all worked out.

Which brings us back to where we left almost two years ago. We rented a house pretty close to our old house because we aren’t sure where we want to live yet. Dad’s still exploring his Army and non-Army options. He’s got a heart for working with at-risk communities, so he may leave the Army a bit early (though his commitment wasn’t for all that long to begin with) and find something that fits his needs here. Or he may return to WA for a bit before he joins us permanently. He’s still deciding. But when Dad got word that the Army may ship him overseas, we all decided we’d rather be in CO were that to happen than in WA. So here we are!

Did we enjoy our WA adventure? Yes. Are get glad we are back. For sure. What’s next for us? No idea, except we are almost starting first grade at home with Mom, so that should give us something to do. Along with swim lessons. And riding bikes. And hiking. And… Maybe getting to know our CO cousins a bit better? We gained a new appreciation for family in our travels. And we’ve already spend a good deal of time with Pop-pop since we’ve been back. And we’ll see Miss Ann tomorrow, too. The more the merrier!

Keep checking in, and I’ll keep you posted. New place. New stuff. Same Four Fantastic Pigs!

Love,
E

This past month was a month of first (and seconds and thirds). Asher turned two on July 30th! We can’t believe that our littlest Pig is already two-years-old. For his birthday, we ate a crazy cool airplane cake and opened presents. Asher isn’t too much into opening gifts yet. He isn’t even really into the gifts, though he did get some fantastic jammies and books and a toy airplane from our CO family. His favorite things these days are Daddy’s cooking utensils. At one point last week, all the spatulas were outside. When Daddy went to make eggs, he had nothing to stir with. Asher’s greatest hope is that one day he’ll be allowed to play with the corkscrew. Dream big, little man.

Grandma Cheryl made her third visit to WA. She took us to Toys R Us and played with us at the park and read to us. Our best day was spent at a wildlife park. After an hour long car ride where we were all in rare form (read screaming), the day ended well with a tram ride through a buffalo, moose, and caribou park. And Mom got us all bubble guns. It was nice to see Grandma Cheryl and we hope that maybe we’ll see her again in September when we travel through her home state. We FaceTimed with our AZ cousins and we are looking forward to seeing them in September too. (Those plans are still in the works. Stay tuned.)

Riley lost his first tooth and Emmett pulled his third. Riley was very brave. He asked Mommy to wiggle it loose and then he yanked it free himself. The tooth fairy brought great books for all. Then a short week later, Emmett tied some floss to his tooth and had Riley and our nanny tug. He’d already jammed the tooth (a top decker) into a weird spot where the corner was at an angle and would catch on his tooth. So he was determined to remove the offending tooth. And, with a spot of ingenuity, he did! More books were brought by the tooth fairy! Emmett was ticked at the thought that he’d already lost three teeth and he had some choice words about the milestone: “I’m almost a man!”

We have our first whistler! Riley, after pulling his first tooth, figured out how to whistle. He whistles in the morning. He whistles in the evening. He whistles all over the house. Sometimes, we don’t think he’s even aware he’s doing it. But, after Tessa’s shrieking to approximate a fingers-in-the-mouth whistle, this is a welcome change. All other pigs have tried, but none have duplicated his feat. He is, so far, the lone whistler.

Asher climbed up the ladder into the playhouse for the first time. He loved the new point of view, and didn’t want to come down. Then he discovered the spiral slide and kept making the loop. (Until Tessa jammed him face-first down it, and that was the end of that chapter.) He also climbed up the boys’ loft bed ladders for the first time. Loved that too. Especially the snuggling that would ensue once he got into the bed.

We are nearing the end of our second summer in WA. This one has been hot and dry. Seems we brought the CO drought with us when we moved here. Our grass is (mostly) dead and the highway medians regularly catch on fire. Yesterday was the first full day of rain we’ve had in months. We loved the lightning and thunder and the power even went out! Very exciting events. Here’s hoping for more!

Be well!
The Four Fantastic Pigs