Yes Day!

We checked out a book from the library called, "Yes Day". As the name implies, the little boy's parents say, "yes" to his requests on this one day. The kids had the idea to have our own, "Yes Day". I thought... "This will be pretty harmless." So, yesterday we had our own "Yes Day". It started off with Elia requesting to not make her bed and to watch cartoons which she did for an hour or so. Then kids the requested smoothie shakes (fruit smoothies with sherbet). They had a lot of fun eating with whatever utensil they wanted to use...Then Elia wanted a freezer pop, but as she was looking in the freezer, she saw the icing that was left over from her cake, so instead she and Ethan had a serving (whatever that is) of icing. Ethan wanted to put chocolate syrup in his smoothie, so they both did that (only to decide that it wasn't that good). Elia then played on pbskids.org for about an hour and then requested more icing. Grumbling to myself I made myself say "yes" (the first time it was kind of a cool request, but the second (and then third) time I was feeling a little annoyed. We then asked Elia what she wanted to do and she wanted to watch more TV. I was annoyed at this too because I felt it was so boring! I was afraid she'd want to watch TV all day! In any case, she watched a little more while I cleaned up the kitchen and Eric mowed the lawn. She then thought about it and said she wanted a puppy! I really was shocked by this request because I didn't think there was anything she'd come up with that we really couldn't do. In any case, we aren't ready to get a dog, but we went over to the animal shelter and spent about an hour playing with this dog ("Highway") and several of the kittens they had there.
While Elia was in the car and we were getting Kara buckled to go to the shelter we looked around for Ethan and this is how we found him on the front porch...

He had requested a popsicle earlier but then changed his mind. I guess he had decided that this was a good time. Keep in mind that all of these treats were eaten before 11:00 a.m.
After playing with Highway and the kittens at the shelter...
...they had both requested not to have nap time, but we went home with the idea of having Ethan take a nap with Eric. When I got home though, I got a call from a friend reminding me of the volleyball tournament for our ward. I grabbed the kids a cucumber (hopeful I could get at least something nutritious in them) and we went to the tournament. We didn't win, but since we are part of the Sugar Land 1st ward, we thought it would be fun to put up number 1 fingers. We had a great time. I'm so glad Eric was so supportive and kept the kids from going crazy while I played.

We then went out for pizza and slurpees and then home for movie night. Elia asked if she could stay up "really late", so we stayed up until 9. They sure went to bed easily!

In retrospect, Eric thinks the day was great because we get too much in the habit of saying "no" to things and it was fun for them to indulge in their fantasies. I mean, does it really matter if they eat a smoothie with an ice cream scoop once in a while? I'm glad yes day isn't frequent, but it was fun.

In other news, we are loving the weather! It's been so cool that we've kept our windows open!

We took Elia and Kara to the doctor last week for their 5-year and 2-month check-ups. They are both 75% on height and 50% on weight.

We blessed Kara about a month ago, but I finally got to taking these pictures of Kara in her blessing dress. She is getting more and more personality.

She smiles a lot more now and has been sleeping 11 hours at night. I feel so spoiled. She also has just one dirty diaper a week, so I decided I'd try cloth diapers again (I lasted a day with Elia... she had about six or seven a DAY!). I still use disposables at night and when we go to church and stuff, but I use cloth during the day. It has been working out really well. In fact, last week I changed a cloth diaper and it was just a tiny bit dirty so I put on a disposable and 15 minutes later she had done her one poo for the week! Isn't that amazing!? So far it is working for us. I'm not cloth diaper crazy, and I'm not sure how long it will last when she starts having more dirty diapers, but I'm saving about six diapers a day.

That's about it for the Petty's. Here is one last picture of our imaginative boy... He just makes me laugh all of the time. I'm amazed at his sense of humor...

Me (to Ethan after he had tooted): "Who tooted?"

Ethan: "You"

Another time, Elia was putting her feet on Ethan's chair in the car and pushing on it. He was complaining and we told her to stop, but she wouldn't. We then started counting to three (something that we try not to do, but still do sometimes). She said, "Don't Count!" Ethan then said, "Count!" It was all Eric and I could do to keep our laughing silent as we sat in the front seat.

That's all folks! Look forward to a special post next week. For our birthdays (Eric's is the 26th and mine is the 13th) I'm taking him to a super sweet surprise! Have a great week!