Keido's First Kiss and other Idaho Fun!

A couple weeks ago, Keido and I took off for Idaho to go to Holland's wedding, spend time with the family, and give Boyd a chance to sleep and study for his MCAT. Like always, I can't take Keido anywhere without him making friends with someone. On our second flight, from Chicago to Salt Lake, we sat next to a woman with a four year old daughter. They were very kind and really enjoyed having Keido's entertainment. I have to say I was thankful for their entertainment too. The little girl liked rubbing Keido's head and giving him toys to play with. I enjoyed making puppets out of barf bags with the little girl while Keido was sleeping. All in all, it was a pretty enjoyable flight.

When we landed, the little girl decided to she wanted to give Keido an extra special goodbye. She leaned over and gave him a cute little kiss. Keido was expressionless, but I know deep down in that little manly heart, he thoroughly enjoyed it:)

I was also surprised to find that the people in front of us and behind us had enjoyed Keido's company as well. A little boy with the biggest grin I've ever seen came up to us and asked what Keido's name was. I told him and the little boy said, "Does he like vegetables?" I said, "Yes, I think so." Then the boy said, "He better because his name rhymes with potato and tomato." Then he burst out laughing. I thought it was clever for someone who looked like he was seven.

Idaho was wonderful!!! We had such a good time with everyone. For the fourth of July we went to the Driggs celebration, watched a hypnotist, and swam at the Rexburg waterpark. I also got a personal kyaking lesson from Bruce, the studly man. I have a whole new respect for people who can eskimo roll. I tried my best until I had braille all over my body, and never actually did it. I am determined to try again one day though.

We Love the Little Things about Baby Keido

Charlotte: There are just so many little things about Keido that we love. We don't want to forget any of them, so I thought I would start a list:

• He jumped so hard in his door frame jumper that he ended up with a blister on his toe.
• He pants like a little puppy with his tongue hanging out of his mouth.
• He has the cutest little pouty face.
• He will give you a kiss, but watch out, he thinks he's French:)
• When he gets sleepy in his high chair, he will just put his head down as if he were a student sleeping in class.
• He says "mmmmm" when he eats something he likes.
• He has an uncanny ability to make anyone smile.
• We can't take him anywhere without someone commenting on something about him.
• He has the cutest little cottage cheese bum. It looks like an old ladies. Boyd thinks is gross, I think it's super cute!
• "Did your baby put his finger in a socket," said a woman at the store. We love his fuzzy hair.
• When seeing a cute girl, he will stand up straight, suck his gut in, and make grunting noises.
• He's not ashamed to pass gas in public places.
• When he's had a good nap, he smiles and kicks his feet when you go to get him out of his crib.
• He drools on Boyd a lot; I think it's funny. He used to spit up on Boyd a lot, so the drool isn't so bad.
• He can make noises with his tongue that I can't figure out how to make.
• He will fall asleep on your shoulder.
  
• Lately, he's had a little bit of an attitude where he gets angry, shouts, and bangs on something with his hands. The other day he hit his hands on the table so hard that he made himself cry.
• He has a great laugh.
• When pooping, he makes little grunting noises and his face turns a little red. It seems that he likes to do this when we are all at the table for dinner.
• If I eat an apple, he likes to lick it. Actually, he likes to lick everything.
• We went to Home Depot the other day and I had Keido in his stroller. I wasn't paying attention for a minute and when I turned around, I saw that he had popped his tray off of the front of the stroller. A little Asian woman had been watching and she said, "Your baby is very strong!" I was pretty impressed myself.
• He is a big hunk of chubby love.
• He would be a TV watching couch potato if we let him.
• He looks pretty cute in glasses.
• He has fast hands. When we were still in Utah, during sacrament meeting, I was passing the bread tray to a person a few seats away. I went to take it, but was snagged back because someone was holding on to it. I looked at Boyd first and he gave me a "It's not me" look, and then realized that Keido had snatched the tray just as it had passed by him.
• He was making eyes at a little girl in Taco Bell yesterday. They were both smiling up a storm.
• We love his sweet, playful face.
  

Well, this is probably all I will write for now, but there will definitely be more later.

East vs. West

(Keido's clothes don't fit over his head as well these days)

Charlotte:
All growing up I never dreamed that I would be living out East. I always thought that I was destined to marry some western farmer and ride horses for the rest of my life. But everyone who knows Boyd, my true love, can see how he would not even know what a tractor looked like until he visited Idaho. When we married, I knew that my horizons would be broadened and I would get to experience the East.

So far, I love it. Here are what I've seen as differences:

West: really dry, use sprinklers, and humidifiers
East: your can practically drink the air, they don't even sell miracle grow, empty a gallon of water every three hours from their dehumidifiers

West: LOTS of white people
East: I was the only white girl in the whole shopping mall

West: You have lizards and snakes and western wildlife
East: Boyd almost ran over a large snapping turtle with his car, they have giant bullfrogs in their ponds, and there are millions of squirrels

West: Most of the time your ward consists of your neighbors
East: Our stake center is 45 min. away and the only time you see your neighbors is when their outside not watering their flowers.

West: See for miles in all directions
East: Wouldn't even know you have arrived at your destination if it weren't for the signs in front of the masses of trees.

Hmmm...I can't think of anymore just now, but I will add more later. I do want to put some pictures up to show you where we live.

The Front of Boyd's Families HouseThe Backyard

Our Bedroom Upstairs


Keido's Room

The Family Room
The Stairs and the Front Room (not a very good pic)
The Reason Why Our Address is "Pondside" Terrace
(I think this is where the snapping turtle came from)

Boyd's Secret New Hobby

Boyd: Now I know it might come as a shock to most of you, but I found a new hobby. For whatever reason, I've started to actually like reading!!! I'm sure this comes as quite a shock to most people, most of all to me. Who knew that I would actually like anything else other than soccer, fighting, or fat babies?! I had no idea that I liked to read, let alone spend my own personal time doing it.

I think it all started the day that Charlotte was emitted into the hospital to give birth to our firstborn child. I won't lie, I was super excited for Charlotte to go into labor. With Charlotte in labor, that would mean that Charlotte and I would have a whole lot of time to do nothing, a.k.a. a whole lot of MOVIE time. But as it turns out, apparently when the wife goes into labor, the wife gets precedence on whatever we do, which means she all of a sudden gains power to override the husband and his very needy needs. So, since Charlotte was in labor, she decided that she wanted to read The Hunger Games before we started our movie watching marathon. But as it turns out, we got so invested in the book, that we forgoed our movies and finished the first book that first night, despite the fact that we read out loud. So that is how I came to enjoy reading.

Just a few weeks ago, Charlotte and I just finished reading a new book called The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. It is a fantasy book that is extremely good. I would summarize it, but the story is just too intricate to describe in just a few short words, so if you're interested in a really good story, I would definitely recommend reading The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss.

The Boston Temple Has One Less Tulip Plant

Charlotte: On May 6th, the Tamanaha family ventured to Boston to witness the marriage of the youngest Tamanaha, Rod. It was an eventful day to say the least. We all woke up at 3:00 a.m. to catch our flight to Boston. Arriving there, we rented a big suburban and set off for the temple. We had a little bit of spare time, so we took a little detour to see Keido's future university, Harvard:) He seemed to fit in perfectly with his froggy feeted pajamas.

We didn't exactly keep track of the time as well as we should have, so we ended up driving frantically through the confusing streets of Boston, and barely making it to the temple for the sealing. Boyd and I decided that it wasn't a good idea to leave Keido with the nice temple workers, he has a reputation for screaming at babysitters, so he and I went to tour the temple grounds. I was holding Eli's really nice camera and thought I might try my hand at a little photography. I put Keido on the low stone wall next to the tulips to try to get some cute pictures. Here's what I took:


I wish so badly now that I would have taken just one more of the seen that followed the second picture. He had leaned over to eat the flower and ended up falling flat on the whole plant. Realizing that I had just watched him as he face planted, I felt a little bad and decided I'd better come to his rescue rather than taking his picture. That poor tulip plant will never be the same again. I feel like I should repent for doing such a thing to a temple flower, but hopefully Heavenly Father just got a smile out of it like I did.

While at the Larson's, we asked Kristen to take some family pictures for us. We think she could definitely go professional:) We want to share some of them on our blog.

The Crazy Things That Happen In Idaho

Boyd: This past week we went up to Idaho to visit Charlotte's family before we made our cross-country trip. While in Idaho, many note-worthy events took place. For example, Lary Larson giving birth to a child while standing, a crazy easter-egg hunt that probably cost Louise an arm and a leg, and five crazy babies posing (or the lack thereof) for a cousins picture.

Lary Larson giving birth while standing: While in Idaho, Charlotte had the great idea of playing the action verb game. It's a game that consists of two concurrent players. Player 1 does an action, for example swimming. Player 2 then asks "What are you doing?" Player 1 then has to say an action different to what he/she is actually doing. Then Player 2 has to do the action player 1 said. This goes on and on until one of the two players makes a mistake. Well, there were many good competitors and a lot of great action verbs, however, there was none like Lary pretending to give birth. I'll let the video do the rest of the explaining.



Craziest Easter-Egg Hunt: One of the best perks for marrying into the Larson family has to be Louise's crazy easter-egg hunt. The easter-egg hunts that I've participated in were always more focused on the finding and less of the treats. Louise's easter-egg hunt is the exact opposite. And I have to say, I definitely prefer the latter. We got all kinds of good stuff. As a result of Louise's easter-egg hunt, Charlotte and I came out with gatorade, V8 splash, chips, rice krispy treats, granola bars, and loads of yummy chocolate. Oh how I love crazy easter-egg hunts.

Five Crazy Babies Posing for a Cousins Picture: With everyone around (and with Kristen's awesome camera and skills), it was a prime opportunity to take good family pictures. Natalie thought it would be cute to take a picture of the five crazy cousins sitting next to each other, all in matching coats. Everyone was so excited about taking this picture. We found the perfect spot, set up enough lights, and finally got the babies in their matching coats. The only problem was that we all totally forgot how difficult it is to have a young child sit still for 2 minutes while pictures are being taken, let alone five. As a result, here is our final product.