Random Photos

A few weeks ago Kylee set up her play tent and tunnel in our front room. Skyler finally got brave enough to go in after watching Kylee do it several times.

Another day, Kylee apparently decided to eat her pop tart for breakfast in the tent. I guess she left it sitting on a napkin while she went to the restroom, and when she came back, this is what she found. He helped himself! 

 We borrowed this from grandma Karen a few months ago, and Skyler loves to sit in it an eat Cheerios. He always drops some and they end up on the bottom. One day he decided to crawl in there and get them out. It took him quite awhile to figure out how to get back out!

Last week Kohl's had their baby swimwear on sale, so I got Skyler a combo with shirt and shorts. He wanted to wear them at our house since he is excited for the weather to get warm. He is growing up so fast! Kylee got a new dress that came with a smaller dress to match her baby, and her baby has been wearing hers non-stop since we got it. Kylee probably would be wearing hers non-stop if I let her as well. She loves to dress up in frilly things and dance around. Grandma KD gave her a couple of tutus for Chirstmas and her birthday, and I always have to convince her to remove them before she goes to school. I usually compromise by letting her wear them to the grocery store.

Skyler Videos

It took Skyler a LONG time to decide he wanted to move anywhere. He didn't start scooting until he was nearly 9 months old, and then he didn't attempt to crawl until he was 10 months old. It's just been the last week or two that he has finally started crawling more than he scoots, and at the same time, he has finally figured out how to get up and walk along the furniture and things as well. One night he had his walker toy, and he walked back and forth across the carpet probably 20 times. He thought he was hilarious, and we thought it was funny that he was so amused with himself.

Crazy Baby!

I cannot believe that Skyler will be a year old next month. He turns 11-months this Sunday. He has been a really fun baby, despite the fact that he wakes up every single morning between 5:30 and 6:30, eats for like 2 minutes, then goes back to sleep until 7:00 or 7:30. Why, oh why, can he not just STAY ASLEEP until it's time to get up? Anyway, the picture above is just one of the many weird positions he sleeps in. His favorite thing to do is roll up on his side and hold onto the crib bumper with both hands. Apparently it is his security blanket.

 He also LOVES to remove all the movies from the shelf. He can entertain himself for a long time, just sitting there. Now that he has learned to pull himself up on stuff, he likes to take the ones off the 2nd shelf as well. Poor Kylee hates that it is always her job to put them all back, separating kid movies on the bottom, and grown-up movies on the top.

The other day I got Skyler his lunch and then a client called me. I left the room for about 20 minutes so I could talk to her without kid noises in the background, and when I came back, Skyler had fallen asleep. He had missed his morning nap because the insulation guys were here making a lot of noise in our basement, so I guess he decided enough was enough!

Playing with the movies again. Daily occurrence, pretty much. 

Kylee had a bunch of plastic Easter eggs left-over from the ones we had to take to her school, the ones she got from her school, and the ones she got from the neighborhood egg hunt. Skyler LOVED them. Kylee kept putting them all in her basket, and he would just dump them all back out again and chew on them, bang them on stuff, and scatter them everywhere.

 

Some mornings when I have work to do, I let the kids watch Curious George, Word World, and Cat in the Hat. I love how engrossed they both are!

St. Patrick's Day/Easter

For St. Patrick's Day, Kylee and I made green pancakes, green eggs, and green milk. She really wanted to make green ham as well, because she has learned to read "Green Eggs and Ham", and she loves that book, but I wasn't willing to try to dye our "ham" (lunch meat turkey) green, so she had to survive without. 

We also didn't dye Skyler's oatmeal green, but Kylee fed it to him while he wore his green pajamas. She is really helpful, and she has even learned how to scrape the excess food off his mouth with the spoon before he has a chance to smear it. 

Saturday night before Easter Sunday, Kylee and I stayed up late making our monster eggs (kit from Wal-Mart for $1.47 - can't beat that!). They turned out pretty fun, and the next week she let each of her friends who came to play choose one to take home. I'm glad she likes to share. 

Our neighborhood did an Easter Egg hunt and breakfast on Saturday morning. At first we weren't planning to go, because they sent a facebook invite and asked for RSVPs, and only one family had said they would be there...but in the end, we decided to be supportive. It turns out that pretty much every family in the neighborhood showed up. I knew we had a lot of kids here, but this was a LOT of kids. It was really fun, even though I did get stung by a wasp during breakfast. Ouch!

Kylee and her friend Violet ran around together, and both came back with lots of eggs. Violet's older brother Preston (Kylee is right in between the two, age-wise), did what Kylee did last year - spent so much time deciding which eggs he wanted, that other kids grabbed them before he could. He only ended up with a few eggs, and without us even having to ask, Kylee and Violet each gave him some of theirs so he had more. I love when kids are nice to each other without being forced! Of course, it probably helps that Kylee thinks she's going to marry Preston someday. Sharing eggs with your future husband is apparently pretty easy. :)

 New clothes for Easter Sunday.

Spring

Last week when it was warm one day, we spent several hours outside. I always love Spring, when everything is really green and the sky is really blue.

I brought Skyler out to play on the porch as the sun was setting, and he loved it. I think he gets sick of being inside all the time, too.

This year, all the fields around our house are extra green because of all the snow we got. This is looking from our front yard out across the whole Utah valley that stretches out behind our house. You can see the Point of the Mountain way off in the distance. I really love where we live, and sunset is my favorite time to sit outside. Everything looks so pretty.

Reading - Book Club

Everyone knows I love to read. It always amazes me when people say, "Oh, I wish I had time to read." I just don't get it! I have a job, I have two kids, I do a lot of things...and I still usually read at least one book per week. I think it's really just a matter of what your interests are. If you really wanted to read, you would stay up an extra 1/2 hour instead of going to bed, or read instead of watching t.v., or something else you spend your time on. I don't think there is anything wrong with having other interests that trump reading, but saying "I wish I had time to read" is like me saying "I wish I had time to excercise." I can't say this, because I know that if I REALLY wanted to, I DO have time; it would just have to come in place of something else I want to do. There is always time to do the things you love, it's just a matter of prioritizing. For me, my extra time is usually spent reading. Other people sew, make crafts, go running, etc. To each their own.

That being said, I recently joined my neighborhood book club. I LOVE book clubs, because they motivate me to step outside my usual genres and read something else. In March, we read a book called "A Thousand Splendid Suns". It was such a sad book, and such a great reminder about how lucky we are to live where we live and have all the freedoms we enjoy (especially women!). Though we hear about wars in other countries, you (or at least I), never really think much about the everyday life of the civilians who live there. This book was about people living in Afghanistan from about 1970 to 2010 or so. As I was reading it, it made a reference to the World Trade Center bombings, and it really hit me that this is their life NOW. This is not a long time ago before we were born, and now things are better. This is what they live like each and every day. We are so blessed.

The book for April was called "The Covenant". This time it was about the Jews in Isreal and all the acts of terror they endure from the Palestinians who think they've stolen their land. This one was set in 2002. At the end of the book, it says that between 2000-2003, there were nearly 16,000 terrorist attacks (am I going to get busted for saying terrorist on my blog?) against Israeli civilians, not including firebombs or rock throwing. I read this book this week, right in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing. That news made me feel sick, and I was so glad to read today that they've identified the two boys reponsible. As I was listening to the news, and feeling so much for those who were there...I read this book and thought...Israel is a TINY country in comparison to the United States. I cannot even imagine living in a place where in the course of three years, close to 16,000 events like this occurred. I would be packing up my family and leaving ASAP, but they stay and try to build a peaceful life because it is their home and they believe in their cause. How brave they are, and how lucky we are.

I think we can learn from the examples of these people in the war-ravaged countries. Making laws that take away more of our freedom is not going to prevent these things from happening. We just need to learn to move on, move forward, and don't let fear rule our lives. If we do that, they will never win. When we allow chaos to ensue, and start lobbying for all kinds of new laws governing the sale of guns, security at schools and public events, etc., we're letting them win. No amount of extra security or gun control will stop people who really want to cause harm. It just puts extra and unnecessary hassle into our lives, and fear into everyone's hearts.

Okay...that's my two cents. Now on to the pictures I've slacked in posting!