A Little Snow and a Temple Trip

Can you believe that we FINALLY got some snow?! The boys were so happy when they woke up to find the ground all white and it kept snowing as the day went on. I was just happy that Joe made it to his meeting in SLC without incident.

After we picked up Jacob from school, we had lunch and ran to the library for Story time. We usually trade kids with Karyn, but Joe and I were trying to work out going to the temple that day. So we skipped it.

When we got home we found Daddy had beat us there. So the boys got to help Daddy shovel off the snow that had accumulated on the driveway during the day. I was feeding Amelia her milk, so I did not get outside in time to take too many pictures.

Look at what great helpers the boys are!

Amelia took a good afternoon nap (and so did Daddy). Then we had a quick dinner (leftover pizza from Daddy's meeting), before dropping the kids off at the Miller's house. Then Joe and I went to the temple and did sealings. We had a great evening at the temple. They were so happy to see us at the sealing office. Apparently they had been waiting for proxies for a few hours. We had a great sealing session and really enjoyed what the sealer had to say to us.

The best part was when we got back to the Millers we found Amelia happy! The last few times we left her with a babysitter she cried the whole time we were gone. So it was nice to find her calm and happy.

Amelia at 11 months

I finally got around to taking Miss Amelia's 11 month photos. Go mommy!

Once again, it was a bit of a challenge to get he to let me take her picture. She just doesn't want to hold still for a picture. She would much rather crawl around or stand up and do her own thing. She gets really annoyed when I keep putting her in the same place to try to take a picture

I did manage to get some pictures that I think are pretty cute.

Just look at all those teeth! Amelia has four teeth on the top, and two on the bottom. I think she is getting a cute little grin.

As you can see, Amelia was standing up next to the coffee table. I guess next time I should get a cute decorative chair for her to hang onto or something. I figure these work for now!

This next picture is nearly a miracle to me. Last month I could not get one picture of her sitting still, so I am really happy with this one. My favorite place to take pictures is outside, so I really can't wait until it is warm enough to move our photo shoots outside.

What a beautiful girl! Can you believe that she is already 11 months old. In less than a month she will turn one! WOW!

We love Amelia so much! She brings so much joy and happiness to our lives. That is why we call her our little sunshine. For her first birthday we are going to have a "sunshine" theme because it is just perfect.

It's a good thing that the two pictures above turned out so well, because Amelia was not having it when I tried to take her picture with her 11 months old sign.

What a funny girl!

Baby Behind the Couch

Today Amelia has discovered the one really fun crawl space in our house- behind the couch!

She figured out how to get behind the couch at the end table by the piano, since the open side has actually had her exersaucer in front of it. She had a great time crawling back there and giggling.

I don't really let the boys back there, and normally wouldn't encourage her to do this either, but I needed to take a photo for a "glimpse" prompt on my public blog. I figured one of these would be perfect!

The boys even gave Amelia a flashlight, so she wouldn't have to be in the dark. Aren't they sweet?

Apparently it is nice and cozy back there. She thought it was tons of fun!

After letting her play for a little while, I put her Bumbo seat in front of the opening so now she can't crawl back there. I don't want her to learn bad habits, even if it is fun!

Health and Safety Week= Craziness for Mommy

This week is Health and Safety week at Jacob's school. For some reason this means that there are different days for the kids to dress up or wear something special. So Wednesday was "crazy hair or crazy sock day". I don't know if you noticed, but my boys have pretty short hair. When I asked Jacob if he wanted to spray his hair some fun color and his response was, "No way!".

No problem, right? He can just wear crazy socks. Um... did I mention that my boys only own socks that are white and grey? They also have black socks for church... boring! So on Tuesday night while Joe was teaching at UVU (he had to teach on Tuesday because Monday was President's Day), we were running around the stores trying to find crazy socks.

Melinda recommended that we look at Target or the dollar store. We went to Target first, but they didn't really have much of a selection. Then we went to the Dollar Tree. They had TONS of colorful socks. Here are the ones that we settled on.

Fun huh? Jacob absolutely loved them and was excited about getting such crazy socks. Then when he put them on he said, "I can't wear these! The kids will laugh at me."

I told Jacob to trust me in that nobody would laugh at him because there would be people looking much more crazy than he did! Of course I was right. He wore his crazy socks on Wednesday with sandals so the kids could see his socks and he said it went great. He was definitely not the craziest  kid in his classroom that day.

Then on Thursday it was Sports Day or Fitness day or something. Anyway, Jacob wore Joe's old soccer jersey, and I thought he looked really cute.

He wore long sleeves underneath because it has been a bit cold here lately. Apparently lots of kids wore sports jerseys, so Jacob felt right at home.

Then Friday was Hat Day. Instead of having Jacob wear a boring baseball cap, we let him pick one out of the dress up box. With Daddy's help he chose the explorer hat, and wore it to school. I did not get a picture of him in it, but I couldn't help but laugh when I went to pick him up from school. I could spot him right away amongst the other kids.

I am glad that this week only comes once a year! It is a bit more work to get my boy ready for school when he has to wear something "special"!

Monster Preschool and No Power

Then today was a bit of a crazy day. When we woke up the power was off. Apparently it had gone off in the middle of the night, and when we called they said it would not be on until after 1 pm. Ugh!

There was a big wind storm last night and apparently there was a problem with a power pole. It was 63 degrees in our house when we got up, and I was supposed to have preschool at our house. Since we don't want the kids to freeze, I had to call around and arrange for a new location. Luckily Karyn was OK with having preschool at her house. So I gathered up my stuff and headed to her house.

We had to take a little detour because the street by the cemetery was blocked.

Ephraim and Ty really enjoyed seeing the fire truck and utility trucks!

Preschool went really well at Karyn's house. I had a ton of really great monster books and the kids wanted to read them all! I even had a flannel storyboard that I borrowed from the library for "The Big Green Monster". It was a lot of fun.

For the craft, we made paint-blob monsters. I let the kids choose the colors they wanted, and put drops of paint on the folded paper. Then they closed the paper and smeared the paint around inside, making colorful paint blobs. We let them dry a little bit and then added googly eyes, pom-poms and stickers. Didn't they turn out great?!

Of course I had to put Ephraim's monster up on the refrigerator. I think it is totally cool.

We ended up going to Melinda's house for lunch because the power was still out when I stopped at home after preschool. She let us play for a little while, and then when I took the kids home the power was FINALLY on. Hooray!

Poor Amelia was a bit tired. She did not get her usual morning nap, and she was very ready to go to bed. I finally got to take a shower and get ready for work. It was a bit of a crazy day.

Speaking of crazy, later this afternoon I noticed a little something in our flower beds out front:

Can you believe that my flowers are starting to come up? Crocuses and daffodils,  in February?! Now that really is a little bit crazy.

Super Precious Sleepy Beeper

I was the recipient of an accidental nap today. Hooray! At lunchtime Ephraim was whining because he did not want to eat the lunch I made for him. Usually I let the boys choose, but I had already made macaroni and cheese for lunch.

So I told Ephraim that he was welcome to make his own lunch, at which point he went in his room to pout. Apparently he was tired because this is what I found when I went to check up on him:

Doesn't he look just like a little angel when he is asleep with his hands under his face like that? It almost makes you forget what a little pill he was being just before he fell asleep, huh?

I actually got Amelia down shortly after this and it was only Jacob and Mommy for a while. It was actually pretty nice. We don't get to spend a lot of time alone together, you know?

IPad Baby

Can I just tell you how much I love my iPad? Joe bought it for me shortly after Amelia was born and I use it constantly! I love the convenience of having the internet at my fingertips, not to mention my calendar, recipes, music, reminders, games, etc.

I am not the only one at my house who loves it. Jacob and Ephraim love to play games on the iPad and beg me to let them use it! Their current favorite is Where's My Water?. They also still love to play Plants vs. Zombies and Angry Birds, among others. This weekend I got even more competition for my pad.

Yep! Joe showed Amelia that she could draw with her finger on the iPad, and she was fascinated. I guess it's a good thing that she can't beg me to use it yet!

She has always been drawn to our phones and the iPad. She loves our "shiny boxes".

This is a drawing app that we have. I suppose for Amelia it is a scribbling app.

Isn't it amazing how comfortable and familiar our kids will be with technology? I can't even imagine the kinds of things they will be working with by the time they are older. They will probably laugh at me when I tell them that I had type class in high school and we actually used typewriters. Heck, they probably won't even know what a typewriter is!

Valentine's Day

Happy Valentines Day! We are definitely feeling the love at our house!

Don't you just love all the red, pink and white decorations? I made the banner using my new Cameo, and I think it turned out great! I especially love our cute Valentine's mailboxes.

We had these mailboxes last year, but we have added a mailbox for Amelia. I used my Cameo to cut matching vinyl, which turned out great (I love that machine!). This year I also printed out the little cards for the kids to fill out and put in the mailboxes. We have been having tons of fun with these!

Amelia was dressed in her cute lovey onesie, so I just had to take some pictures.

Don't you just love her little pigtails and all those teeth?! What a cutie.

This girl can stand up and sit down like nobody's business. She is working on figuring out how to cruise around the furniture. Joe says she will be walking by the time she's one, and I am afraid he's right!

We love this girl!


We have also been busy sharing the Valentine's Day love. Look at what I made for Jacob's teacher for Valentine's Day:

It is a pencil bouquet. On the inside are regular pencils with a layer of Valentine's pencils on the outside. We tied a nice red ribbon around them with a heart-shaped note that says, "You're the 'write' teacher for me!". Then I put some nice fake flowers on the top to finish the bouquet. Cute huh? I hope his teacher liked them. I know Jacob was really excited to give them to her. He was really cute about it this morning.

I found a cute glass to put the bouquet in for a "vase". I love how it turned out and I may have to use it again next year.

Here is another Valentine that I may have to make again. Superhero suckers!

We made these for Ephraim's preschool class, since it is pretty small. But I have to say that it would not be hard to do them on a large scale. Especially with the printable from HERE.

Super cute and super easy! We had a few left over, and Jacob gave them to his friends who are not in his class at school.

I have also had a blast making cute cards and cookies. It has been a fun Valentine's day so far, but now I have to go because the kids are in bed and I finally get to spend some time alone with my Honey. Hooray!

In Seach of Snow

It almost snowed here this week. It looked like it was going to snow and a few white flakes came down, but then it stopped. The boys were SO disappointed.

Since they wanted to play in the snow so badly, I drove them up Provo canyon again to find some snow. Mount Timpanogos is all white, but none of the snow stuck in the valley. So I was sure we would find snow up the canyon. I was surprised by just how far up the canyon we had to go, but we did find snow at Vivien Park.

We also found a phone booth that was nearly buried in the snow, thanks to the plow clearing out the parking lot. My boys thought it was great fun to climb up the mountain of snow and play by the phone booth. Of course they had to make a couple of phone calls.

They were kind enough to pose for me, since I thought it was hilarious for them to be standing in a phone booth that was on a snowbank. Ephraim was really hilarious!

This time Miss Amelia was awake when we got to the park, so I bundled her up in her cute little snowsuit.

She actually wasn't too happy about me sitting her in the snow and walking away. I had a hard time getting a smile from her. I like the picture below because you can see all the teeth she has grown in the past few weeks.

I may not have gotten a smile, but I did get a wave. Or maybe this is just a request for me to come and pick her up!

The boys had fun playing on the park equipment as well. Apparently it was much more fun to play in the park because there was snow at the end of the slide and the slide was wet and slippery.

The boys' snowpants were soaked when it was time to go. Good thing I thought to pack a garbage bag to put their suits, boots and coats in!

The scenery in the canyon was lovely. I enjoyed the way the snow highlighted the layers of rock.

There was only one thing that I regret about this little outing. Today I could not find my headset for my phone! The last time I am sure I had it was driving up the canyon and I haven't seen it since. I use my headset constantly, and it is really nice to be able to talk on the phone and have my hands free to do other things. I have nightmares about my beautiful Jawbone headset falling out of my pocket into the snow, never to be seen again. *sigh*

Hopefully it is just misplaced in my home somewhere, but in the meantime it sure has inspired me to start my spring cleaning a little early!

No Stitches!

It was a regular Tuesday. After picking Jacob up for school we had a quick lunch and then headed to the library for Story-time. We like to go to Storytime on the same day and time as the Esplins so the kids can hang out together (and of course so Karyn and I can chat).

After we were done at the library we decided to swap kids, which we do regularly. So Jacob and Micah went to play at the Esplins, and Clara and Ephraim played at our house. They have so much fun playing together, and it is actually easier to have a friend because then the boys are not asking me what they should do. They just play!

We had a fun playdate, and I headed to Karyn's house to pick up Jacob and drop off Clara. Apparently I got there just moments after Jacob's head met up with Karyn's coffee table. The kids were spinning around, Jacob tripped and whacked the side of his face by his eye. Karyn felt really bad about it, but these things just happen with kids! Jacob is pretty hysterical when it comes to getting hurt, but we got him calmed down and headed home.

When we got home and showed the cut to Joe, he said we should probably have it looked at. So we had to wait until 6 pm to get an after-hours doctor appointment. Jacob DID NOT want to go to the doctor, and we kept reassuring him it would be ok.

Jacob chose me to go to the doctor's office with him. When they called us back I was practically dragging Jacob by the arm. He did not want to get up on the table so the nurse could look at him. I had to lift him up and set him there and then sit next to him. The doctor came and looked at it. He said the cut was pretty deep, but it was far enough from his eye that they wouldn't have to stitch it.

Good thing he didn't have to have stitches because they would have had to sedate him for that! As it was he screamed the entire time the doctor was holding the cut and gluing it together. The nurse had to hold his head still, and I was holding on to his arms. It was quite the adventure, let me tell you!

I sure am glad he didn't have to get stitches! His cut will heal in no time!

And I am pretty sure that he will not be physically (or mentally) scarred for life.

I think it is pretty cool that they can just glue the cut shut. We have to put Neosporin on it after 5 days to help the glue come off and that's it!

I was supposed to go to a book group meeting that night, but after all of our trauma I ended up missing it. Instead we had a little FHE lesson (which we do on Tuesday because Joe works on Monday) and then we went out for ice cream. When we got the kids in bed, all Joe and I wanted to do was relax for a little while.

Phew! What a night!

Super Day at the Park

The boys have been dying to go to the park. We haven't really had any snow, but the weather has been a bit chilly. Today the weather was finally nice, so we decided to take a trip to the park in the afternoon.

I admit that I had ulterior motives. I needed some pictures for the scavenger hunt that I regularly participate in, and I figured the park would be a better place for pictures than our house.

First I took some pictures of Amelia in a hat that I crocheted. Isn't she a cutie?

The best part was that when I set her down under the tree or in the leaves she did not crawl away because she didn't want to touch the leaves or pine needles. She would put her hands down and then immediately pick them back up again!

So I actually got her to sit still for a little while. I love her grin with those two little bottom teeth!

Jacob finally agreed to pose for me in his superman cape. He would wear it for me earlier in the week, and we actually got into a little argument about it. He was being a grouch and hurt my feelings by telling me that he didn't like the cape that I made him so I told him he could give it back to me and I would give it to a little boy that would appreciate it more. Oh the drama (on both of our parts). Of course Jacob didn't really mean it, he just didn't want to pose for me. So we worked it all out and here are the resulting pictures.

Doesn't he make a great superhero? I just love these pictures, and don't even mind that I had to lay down on the ground to get them!