P is for PARKER

Earlier this month, Austin and I had our nephew Parker come stay with us for a weekend. Oh boy, was he excited. Staci and I met half way so I could get him and on the way back to Logan, he kept talking and talking. Bri came with me to get Parker and she gave Parker some of her Subway sandwich. As he was eating it he would ask, " What's this?" Bri would say, "A tomato." Parker would then say, "I love tomatoes." He did this for cucumbers and pepperoni. It was cute.

Parker is in preschool, and if you recall your preschool days, you made things at school. Well, when we got back to Logan, we had to pick up Austin from school. When he got in the car, Parker asked Austin, "So what'd you make?" Unfortunately, college isn't always full of fun projects to make, so Austin didn't really have an answer for Parks.

Some of the things we did while Parker was with us: Got white carnations and put them in food colored water. Over the weekend, the color moved up through the stems and into the petals. It was pretty cool to watch. We put the flowers in the colored water on Friday afternoon, and on Saturday morning, Parker woke me up with whispering: "Leslie........ Leslie!" "What?" "I'm excited to look at our flowers."

We went to dinner at Fredrico's with Bri and Joe. Parker got his own six inch pepperoni pizza. He loved it and ate most of it, plus a salad, and one slice of garlic toast.

He helped Austin break off one of the links to his count-down chain for the semester.

We decorated a gingerbread haunted house, played outside on the playground, rode around on the longboard, took Jazz for a walk. We played Mario Kart on the Wii where Parker won "every time." I think his favorite part was getting "treasures" (which are the little boxes that have the turtle shells, or mushrooms and such). We read lots of books while he cuddled up to me before quiet time, we went to all three hours of church. When it was time to go to Primary, he was so excited to go play and have snack he forgot to say goodbye.

The whole weekend Parker made sure that Jazz had a toy to play with and in return, Jazz gave him plenty of kisses - which Parker willingly took. He would laugh the whole time Jazz was kissing his face. He loves animals so much.

We sang songs together and his favorite is 5 LITTLE MONKEYS SWINGING IN THE TREE. For those who don't know the lyrics, here they are:

Action: Swing your hand back and forth
Lyric: Five little monkeys swinging in a tree.

Action: Shaking finger back and forth
Lyric: Teasing Mr. Alligator "You can't catch me. You can't catch me."

Action: Hands together forming a point and making it swim forward
Lyric (whispering): Along came Mr. Alligator quiet as can be...

Action: Snap hands together on the word "snap."
Lyric: ...aaaannnnddddd SNAPPED that monkey right out of that tree.

Repeat with 4, 3, 2, and then 1 monkey on hands. Parker loved this song, and of course, his favorite part was when Mr. Alligator snapped the monkey. :D


Parker was extremely happy about his bed we had for him. It was made from two sponge camping pads about three inches thick. We put tons of blankets on it and he would jump on his bed and say, "It's ok for me to jump on my bed because it won't break!"


Parker ate all his food, and took his naps and went to bed without any problems. He is such a fun-loving guy. We have so much fun when he comes to stay with us.