Spring Break Visit

Grandma and Grandpa de Jong came for a visit last week and we had so much fun.  When we first picked them up at the airport, Sydney started crying the minute Grandpa got into the backseat with her.  She calmed down pretty quickly but for the rest of the trip home, she leaned far away from him and wouldn't take her eyes off him.  Once we got home, it didn't take long for her to warm up to him and for the rest of the trip he was her new best friend.

We played so much while Gma and Gpa were here.  Gma is really good at playing with cars and Imaginext and space men.  We also dyed Easter eggs, of course.  Well, I did, anyway.  Mom and Grandma offered a few suggestions and watched me dip my eggs.

We went to the Museum of Flight and I found out that my Grandma's dad was in the Navy and flew these planes off an aircraft carrier.  How cool is that?!

We got to go inside an airplane that the President used to fly on.

Sydney loves airplanes and points to the sky any time she hears one--even if she's inside.  So she was super excited to walk around so close to all these planes.  But she wouldn't stand still long enough for us to get a good picture of her with one.

We were lucky that the weather was nice for a lot of the time that Grandma and Grandpa were here.  That meant we got to go on walks (where I go to show off my new bike riding skills--more on that later) and play at the park.

Of course, Sydeny wanted to try to do everything that I did.  She thinks she's a big kid instead of a toddler.

Copycat.

Sydney loved the ducks at the park and kept leaving the playground to check them out.

She wouldn't even take her eyes off them for a picture.

The tricky part about having Gma and Gpa visit is that we can't drive places all together unless we borrow Dad's car.  Mom's car is way too small.  And even with Dad's car, it's a bit squishy in the back. 

Mom would love a minivan but that won't happen until her car dies or we have another baby.

And I know my last post made it sound like Easter is all about the Easter Bunny, but I know it's really about Jesus being resurrected.  And since He was resurrected, I'll get to see my brother Cooper again.  So of course we visited Cooper while Grandma and Grandpa were here the day before Easter.

For some reason that Eater Lily started drooping as soon as we set it down.  But Mom propped it up with a stick before we left and it looked awesome.

We found a cute little frog while we were there.

Right near where Cooper is, there is a pretty area for cremated people to be buried.  It was such a pretty day that we decided to walk around there.  Brace yourself for a lot of pics:

 

Sydney was always on the go and Mom had to keep chasing after her.

 

It was such a clear day that you could see Mt. Rainier in the background.

Gma and Gpa and me and Syd guarded these rocks in front of the fountain.

Deja vu:

 Here's dad with me at Seahurst Beach when I was the same age as Sydney.

 Here's one of the things Mom loves about Grandma and Grandpa coming to visit--Mom gets to try new recipes and Gma cleans up afterward. 

I don't care about the new recipes, I just like playing with my grandparents nonstop for four days.  I can't wait for them to come back.

Easter

Did you have as good of an Easter as I did?  I was up (and dressed) bright and early on Easter morning and discovered that the Easter bunny had left a trail of jelly beans from my bedroom down the stairs to my basket!

I was up before Sydney so I got to check out my basket first.  I was totally excited about the firemen Legos I got.

AND the cool Pop Tart holder that I beg my Mom to buy every time we go to the grocery store.  How did the Easter Bunny know about that???

We couldn't hunt for eggs until Sydney woke up.  So while I was waiting for her, I put together my Lego fire jeep all by myself.

When Sydney finally woke up, it took forever for her to get down the stairs because she kept eating all the jellybeans on her way down.

She didn't even care about her basket at first because she was too busy stuffing her face with jellybeans.

So I decided to play with the cool new cash register she got.

We finally got to look for eggs...

  and some of them were in pretty tricky places.

Sydney didn't really get the whole egg hunt thing.  We had to lead her to the eggs and then point to them.  Sometimes she picked them up and sometimes she didn't.  Hello?!  Didn't she realize there was candy in them???

We finally got her to put a few in her basket.

Oh well.  I'm sure she'll get better at egg hunts when she's a big kid like me.  In the meantime, I really like helping out my sister the toddler.

General Conference

We had General Conference this weekend and I loved it.  Mom put together some cool projects for me so that I could listen better to the prophets and apostles. 

We had our very own Conference Center that mom made with pictures of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.  When they spoke, I moved their picture to the podium.  And there were pictures of things they might talk about, so when I heard them say temples, or families, I could move that picture next to them.  When they got done speaking, I put their picture on their chair.  Then when the choir was singing, Mom and Dad would share the notes they took from each talk with each other, and write their favorite parts on sticky notes under the apostles' pictures.

Mom made some popsicle stick puzzles to put together.  I got them done so fast!  (I bet it took Mom a lot longer to make them than it did for me to put them together.)

Mom also helped me make a Lego temple and an Easter egg laced with yarn.

Here's a closer look at the temple.  Do you like the fountain?  And the guys sitting on benches looking at the fountain?  They rode their motorcycle to the temple.

My favorite part of conference (besides hearing the prophets speak, of course) was the candy.  Mom had four little buckets with different candies and words attached to each bucket.  When we heard one of the words, we got to eat a piece of candy!

Morning conference was the best because Sydney slept through most of it and I paid better attention.  In the afternoon, she only slept through part of it and was totally distracting.  Plus, I was kind of tired by that point and wanted to do more playing. But I'm still glad we got to listen to conference.  It really is awesome!