Big brother

Hyrum is such a great big brother. He loves Zion so much and always comes to the rescue when he is crying. Hy is also full of energy, imagination, and playfulness. He put this baby toy on his head and said, "Mom, look, I'm a unicorn!"

He is full of one-liners and random things that make us laugh. We are so excited for his 5th birthday coming up soon. Hyrum is learning lots in preschool and beginning to read! He's asking me how to spell things and picking random letters to ask me what they spell.
Unfortunately, he doesn't like going to school. If it were up to him, he'd choose to watch tv all day instead. I'm trying to wean him from the excessive screen time that he loves, which tends to result in more disasters around the house. I'm pretty sure this little boy needs a backyard!

We sure do love our Hyro!

Halloween Costume Contest

The Dating Divas are having a great contest, so I'm posting this picture of last year's Harry & Hermoinie costumes.  This year might be even better with a family theme.  Help us win the prize package by clicking here to vote.  And be sure to check out the awesome date ideas on there, I love their site.

Pioneer Day Scavenger Hunt

On Saturday night we wanted to get out of the house, but we didn't want to spend money, so Jared and I came up with a plan for a simple scavenger hunt that would go along with Pioneer Day.  (Pioneer Day is the day we celebrate the early Mormons arrival in Salt Lake and honor our pioneer legacy.  It's an actual holiday in Utah.)  We told the kids that after dinner we would be having family date night.  We hopped in the van and headed to the district.  On the way there, I told the kids our first task.

1. Find something that would have helped the pioneers build a fire.
We searched REI until we found something.

Then we read the next task.

2.Find something that would have helped the pioneers make food.

On to #3
3. The pioneers slept in tents, find a tent you can go inside.

Those were pretty easy, so we left REI and gave the next task.
4. Get a ride on something that would have made it easier/faster for the pioneers to cross the plains.

The trolley!  We rode the trolley across the street and gave the last clue.
5. Find a horse you can ride - pretend to be a pioneer while you ride.

 We let her pretend the giraffe was a horse.

After the carousel (it's free all summer, by the way), we got some free popcorn and walked back to the van.  On the way, Jared told us that there was one more secret clue that we would find out about in the car.  Once everyone was buckled, he told us what it was,
6. After a long day on the trail, the pioneers liked to spend time with family and sometimes have a treat together.
At home, we ate some ice cream, had family prayer, and then got everyone ready for bed.  It was such a fun and simple family activity.  I don't know why we don't do that kind of thing more often.  I have to share a website that we often look to for inspiration when it comes to dates, family or just Jared and I.  thedatingdivas.com  I recommend checking it out to anyone who needs to spruce up their dates.

Here are a few pictures of us waiting for the trolley.

To find out more about what we believe, you can go to mormon.org.  To find out more about Pioneer Day, you can go here.

She's Growing Up!

I love my Daddy!

Lydia 13 months

Little daredevil

Yummmm avocado!

Pigtails!

Ladybug cake for Lydie's first birthday

"Can I eat this?"

Cake face

"Okay, I don't like this!"

The cake, after we tried to get her to eat some.

 

Finally eating some cake, the next day.

Easter eggs

She found one!

Sharing

She found the candy on her own and wouldn't stop eating it!

Lydia is getting so big!  The time is just flying by and I can't keep up.  She is now 13 months old!  I feel a bit overwhelmed about all the stuff I want to record about this little sweetie.  Lydie is starting to walk, especially for Grandma Lollie.  She says Daddy, Mama, I love you, bye-bye, night-night, and some less recognizable words.  She loves pretending to talk on the phone and will blab away happily.  She likes to shake her head no, even when she means yes, it's super cute the way she does it.  She gives a "donk" (bumping foreheads) or a kiss, or a "five" when we ask for them.  She loves her big brother and sister and lights up when they enter the room.  She loves to eat frozen Gogurt, and fudgesicles (when we let her).  She likes cheese, fish crackers, pears, carrots, grapes, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (sometimes), chips, treats, pretty much any junk food she can scrounge from us.  She does NOT like to be fed and usually stays away from messy foods because she doesn't like to get it on her hands.  Sometimes that can be frustrating for her mom who is trying to give her proper nourishment.  Her favorite thing to do is still nursing.  She loves it and gets so excited about it.  Lydie also loves playing with toys, especially her phone and ride-on V-tech bike thing from Grandpa Denny and Grammy.  (When Hyrum and Selah aren't playing with them.)  She also gets super excited for bath time!  She tries to climb in the tub and loves to splash and play in the water.  Her rubber duckies are some of her favorite toys.  (She also says duck.)
For Lydia's first birthday, we had a joint party with our friends who had their daughter a couple weeks before Lydia was born.  We did it at the park, and picked up some pizzas.  I made a ladybug cake for our Lydie-bug, and a butterfly cake for Ruby (with help from my talented mother-in-law).  Ruby's mom made super cute cupcakes.  Lydie slept through the first half of the party, and wasn't too thrilled with the idea of digging her fingers into her cake.  I tried breaking pieces off for her, but she didn't want to have anything to do with it.  The next day I fed her some leftovers and she decided that birthday cake wasn't so bad after all. 
We had a good time. 

I included some pictures of Lydia from the past couple of months, including Easter.  We love our adorable little girl!

Baby Ballerinas

Selah about 9 months old

Lydia 13 months old

Huggles from Hyrum

 We love our little man-child.  He's so sweet and fun.  He has grown so much lately, it's just plain crazy.  He is three and wears size 5T clothes, some of which are too snug in the waist, while still an inch or so too long.  I'm not ready to start buying the same size clothes for both him and Selah (she wears size 6).  I think he will be tall like his Daddy.  His hair is very thick and when it gets longer (like in these pictures) you can see that it's a bit wavy, especially on top.  He has beautiful dark brown eyes and super long eyelashes.  Jared buzzed his hair recently and tamed his uni-brow a bit.  He has a solid build and weighs only a few pounds less than his big sister.  He got my olive skin tone and doesn't burn easily, but his cheeks get flushed after just a few minutes of playing in the sun.  (I'm the same way.)
Life with this boy is never dull.  Hyrum has more energy than his parents know what to do with most of the time.  He's stubborn and doesn't always like to listen, but he's also affectionate and loving with a great imagination.  Everyone is always telling me that they rarely, if ever, hear him talk.  In his Sunbeam class at church, he is very reverent and folds his arms when they walk down the hall.  I'm told he doesn't talk or sing.  At home, however, we usually can't get him to be quiet!  He talks and yells and plays and laughs and goofs off like crazy.  At least a couple of times a day, I tell myself to remember something he said so I can write it down later.  Of course, I almost always forget whatever it was that had made me laugh.  I want to write down a few of the things he does and says to try and capture a little of our three year old Hy.

 Hyrum invented the word "huggle," which basically means snuggle or cuddle.  He loves to climb in our bed and huggle with one of us.  Because Lydia is often already there, Jared is usually the lucky one to help Hy fall back to sleep.  Lately he's been sleeping better and seems to like his own bed more.  Hy gave up naps about the same time Lydia was born, or maybe I should say that I gave up trying to make him take naps.  He usually gets tired in the afternoons, but as much as I wish he would fall asleep, it doesn't happen.

Another of Hyrum's invented words is, "wif" instead of "if."  As in, "What wif I could fly like Buzz Lightyear?"  He's always saying something funny that starts out, "What wif..."  I just can't remember anything right now.
This might be a little personal, but he pronounces penis, as pee-uh-nis, and as little boys do, he tends to talk about his frequently.  More often than not, Jared and I are chuckling under our breath about something he says.  "My pee-uh-nis is BIG!" 
Something else he does is change words around so they don't make sense.  If someone says something like, lollipop, he might change it to lolli-top or golli-drop, then it just keeps going and going until there's a new word or phrase to change.  This is very hilarious to both Hyrum and Selah and they don't tire of it as quickly as their parents.  Similarly, he will say something that rhymes (or that he thinks rhymes) and then say, "Get it?" or, "Get it?  It rhymes.  Get it?"  I'm not quite sure how to answer that question since I don't know if there was a punchline I missed or something.  We've tried explaining the proper way to use the phrase, but he's not quite "getting it."

There are a million things I want to write about, but this will have to do for now.  I love this little boy so much.  He brings so much joy to my life.

Selah the Smartie

Posing with a project she made recently.  She liked it so much, she gave it to herself!

Our Selah is getting so big!  She's in her last weeks of Kindergarten already!  I wanted to record some of the things she said today that made me laugh or smile.

I asked her to teach Lydia some animal sounds, here's a little piece of her lesson:  "Lydia, what does a whale say?....whoosh, whoosh."

She asked if she could start the next Hooked on Phonics box today.  We haven't worked on the Kindergarten one much lately, but today she read the few books she hadn't finished and read all of the helper words and pretty much knows all of the stuff in that box.  So I said we could get out the first grade box.  She said, "First grade?  That will be super super hard!"  I asked her why she thought so and she explained, "Because it's first grade!  That's hard!"  I know she will sail through the first grade material once she starts working on it.

We worked on her sight words today and she knows all 25+ and can spell them all too.  The "helper words" in Hooked on Phonics are a bit different than her sight words from school, but she knows all of them too.  I'm very impressed by how much she loves to learn and practice writing.  She's been working on reading harder and harder books, including the Book of Mormon, during family scripture study.

The one thing we are trying to work on that has been a big challenge is the after school grumpies.  Jared and I have very little patience for rudeness that comes out without provocation.  Unfortunately, it brings out the grumpiness in us, so we aren't really the best examples sometimes.  Like I said, we're working on it!

We love our Selah so much, she's a wonderful helper and growing up so fast!

One-handed

I have been learning to do everything with one hand this past year as more often than not, I am holding Lydia while at the computer or eating my dinner.  It's a bit of a pain, so I don't do much real typing.  I also frequently spill my food (especially when I'm eating with my left hand).  This is one of my reasons for not updating the blog lately.  Or writing in my journal.  Or cleaning my house....  hmm.  Actually, Lydie is very mobile now, and though she's not walking yet, she's crawling all over and climbing the stairs whenever we don't catch her first.  I use nursing as an excuse to sit at the computer, so that's why I'm so often one-handed.

I can't believe my baby girl is almost a year old.  That had to be the fastest year of my life!  And so much of it is undocumented.   Not that it was tremendously exciting, but I have probably already forgotten when Lydia reached all these milestones she has past.  Hopefully I will be able to catch up on those things at some point.  In the meantime, I'll do the best I can with one hand!

Giving Blogger Another Try

So I switched to wordpress a while ago, and my blogging frequency went way downhill.  I liked wordpress, but it was harder to figure out and I never quite got there.  I have really missed blogging and keeping up with at least some of our family activities.  Recently a friend suggested that I give blogger another try since they have worked out the kinks with uploading pictures and stuff.  SO...I'm back.  I won't make any big promises about how often new posts will show up, but I am hoping to be able to at least do a little bit.

Family Pictures

 These are from back in November.  Our friend Leah took them.  We love how they turned out. 

 I love Daddy-daughter pictures!

 My blue-eyed girl.  She's so beautiful!

 My handsome little man.

 It looks like she's falling from the sky.  She might be a little too tall for being thrown in the air!

 By this time the kids were complaining about the wind and wanted to be done.  Poor Lydie was so cold!

 Leah did a great job capturing this one, and making Selah's eyes look amazing.

 He wasn't quite tall enough to get the same shot as Selah.

 I love my family!

 This boy cracks me up and keeps me running.  Life is never dull with Hyrum around.

 Family hug!

 Cutest kids ever!

 Little hands.

 Leah told him to show her his teeth and instead of smiling, he did this!

 She was kinda hungry or tired and didn't like me putting her down over and over again instead of nursing her.

 Classic Selah pose....and, she insisted on wearing her necklace. 

 Yeah, she was tired.

 Yep, he's goofy alright.

 Sisters!

 She was much happier on this day.  We love this girl!