Growing Up

These kiddos of mine just seem so big to me lately!

A few days ago, this happened. I put the babe on her mat, vertical, feet towards the piano. A few minutes later I walked out of the kitchen and found her here:

Then she rolled a few more times...

...and ended up here:

She's on the move. And that, is crazy. She was just born!

Yesterday I took the kidlets for a walk. Darin had the car and I forgot to grab Belén's car seat before he left. She doesn't sit up by herself yet, but I just leaned the stroller seat back and strapped her in tight. Worked perfectly. She looked so old to me sitting this way!

This crazy just seems so much bigger everyday. The way he talks and plays and doesn't fit into his church shoes anymore. Yesterday he kept saying to me, "Hang on mom. Hang on. I eat my sandwich." I guess he hears that phrase often.

He's been really into making "bubble helmets" in the bath tub recently.

And as if bubble helmets didn't make him seem old enough, he went to his first dentist appointment this week! Seriously guys, I couldn't get over how big he looked in that dentist chair!

He did not like when she put the chair back. He flipped out for a minute so she put it back up a bit. He also flipped when she put the napkin thingy around his neck. I told her I didn't care if his shirt got wet. Other than that, he wasn't really scared of anything. The hygienist did a great job explaining the different tools to him. I thought he might be scared of the toothbrush, but he loved it! Er, he loved the toothpaste... He also loved when she squired the water into his mouth. By the end she was just squirting it in his mouth and he was gulping down the water for a little after appointment refreshment. 

Belén chilled on the floor making toothless raspberry sounds the entire visit.

We're also finally figuring out haircuts around here! Shae still hates it, but sits semi-still now.

Anywhere we go, someone always says, "Enjoy it now! They grow up so fast!" I know my kiddos are still super tiny, but I can already feel that that saying is true. They really do grow up so fast! Can't imagine how I'll feel when they are 8 and 6, or 15 and 13, or 20 and 18!!!

Wholesome Recreational Activities

"Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities."

-The Family: A Proclamation to the World

I've always loved that "wholesome recreational activities" is part of this list, and I truly believe that getting out and doing things together as a family makes for a successful family (not even always "getting out", just doing things together really).

Wholesome: Conducive to or suggestive of good health and physical well-being.

Recreational: Relating to or denoting activity done for enjoyment when one is not working.

Okay, so the "wholesome" part we might need to work on just a little, but we've got the "recreational" part down. After all, what would YOU do if Chic-fil-a sent you a bunch of free sandwich/biscuit coupons? You use them right? But as a family...of course. I say it's wholesome in spirit.

Last week we took a trip to Chic-fil-a for breakfast before dropping Darin at work. The little spontaneous family activities are some of my favorites. The ones where you just wake up and say, "Let's use these coupons for breakfast today." Although, even the little ones can be fun to plan ahead too because they give you something too look forward to throughout the week. Like when we planned to go to the library for FHE a few Monday's ago to watch Big Hero 6. I was super excited about it all weekend, Shae was excited for it all day. He was so cute at the movie too, it was his first "real" movie experience and he did great--besides that one time he kept yelling out "It's the bad guy!" and wouldn't stop.  He just sat curled up in our laps with his blankie. It was precious. That might not have been the most "wholesome" activity either (according to the dictionary definition), but it sure was fun!

Shae wanted to play in the kid area at Chic-fil-a so badly but he was just too short (and not a good climber) and wasn't able to get himself up to the top where the cool tunnels and slides are.

Through the glass in the play area.

The only thing he could do in the play area was drive the plane.

Awkward almost family photo.

I promise not all of our family fun is centered in food and movies, just a good chunk of it...

We also really enjoy being outside together. Whether its going to the beach, taking the ferry to the farm, the playground, or just a simple walk, we love to be outside (except when it's 95 degrees with 100% humidity, which it has felt like the past few weeks.  Then we eat as much junk as we want and watch as many movies as possible...I kid I kid).

A couple Saturdays ago we got up and went on a family run together. It was so fun to go on a run TOGETHER. Darin and I ran together often when we first got married, but with the kidlets, we always take turns going or I go with the kid(s) while Darin is at work. I say "kid(s)" because I used to run with Shae all the time, but man, that double stroller adds a good bit of weight to the run. I've only actually RAN with it once. (I still absolutely LOVE the stroller, especially walking with it :).  Hopefully I can build up some extra strength to run with both kids, but for now, I'm all about these family runs where Darin oh so willingly pushes the stroller and I jog next to him. My idea of the perfect run.

We ran up to the park. This girly tried out the swing for the first time and loved it.

Shae just HAD to bring the goggles with him. Toddlers are the best.

 Playing our favorite playground game: Pirates. He was chasing daddy around with the sword (stick) trying to touch him.

"We should not need a hurricane or other crisis to remind us of what matters most. The gospel and the Lord's plan of happiness and salvation should remind us. What maters most is what lasts longest, and our families are for eternity." ~Elder M. Russell Ballard

29 Months

My one word to describe Shae would be FRIENDLY. He always has been and I hope he always will be. He LOVES people. ALL people.

Our favorite Shae words: Moodie (Smoothie), Oller Pop (Otter Pop), Mato (Tomato), Faffles (Waffles) -- We only talk about food at our house, well, and "Wessle!" (Wrestle) and "Foo-mans" (movies). He also calls popcorn "corn" and peanut butter "butter", that can get confusing for people.

Things that I want to remember about this stage:

He does "roll call" quite often. Before bed, during his prayer etc. This is when he starts saying names of people he knows and he just keeps going and going. Sample prayer: Dear Heavenly Father, mama, dada, belen, anna, flala, sarah, kyler, mee-a, gama, pilup, a.j., kunta, etc. etc. Pretty much anywhere he goes, if he sees someone he first says, "Name, Shae." Then starts listing off all the other names of anyone he has ever met.

A lot of the time when he runs, he sticks his arms back and wrists up like he's flying.

If he is not throwing all of our pillows down to the bottom of the stairs to play in, he tends to sneak down and grab all of our shoes to play with.

Sneaky Shae

I usually come back to find something like this:

He might be a little OCD when it comes to certain things.

He is going through a stage where he pluralizes everything: "I want shoes ons." "Hi Ezras!" "I gonna stirs it."

He is finally consistently going poop in the potty! He even tells us himself when he has to go, rather than us always encouraging him to try when he is on the potty. Yay! 

He loves jumping up on the couch next to his sister the second I put her down. He also really likes to pretend her swing is a rocket ship and blast her off into space. She cracks up while I stand by in panic preparing to rescue her from a face plant.

Currently enjoying: 

The Summer Reading Program. He loves the different activities we go to. He loves getting ice cream coupons and a prize each week for doing his daily reading.

Letters. He has started to recognize letters and stops wherever we are if there is a sign with letters and "reads" it. The other day during scripture study he turned to the title page of the Book of Mormon and pointed at the letters and said, "B-O-O-"k" sound." Talk about proud parent moment. Darin and I couldn't stop smiling, and trying to get him to spell more words but he was like, "Okay padres, that's enough for one day. Spelling one word is kind of a work out."

Numbers. He likes to call them letters. He definitely knows 1-10, although he only counts the full 1 to 10 occasionally, he still prefers to leave out the 1 and 8 and add 11 and 14.

Picture Books. I might be loving this one slightly more than him. I get SO excited to get new books from the library (he could probably read the same book all day and be happy), especially when books that we've put on hold come in. I just love that his attention span has extended from little one word a page board books to full on paragraph, okay sentence(s) on a page. I've really been enjoying putting these books on hold for us to pick up each week, along with books on a list of Books to Read by Five that Darin's mom picked up at a book store for us. I'd say Shae and I have similar taste in books because we are both currently loving this and this and this book. I just love the imagination within these books.

Alphabet Shows. Like I said, he has all of a sudden taken a huge interest in letters, so all he really likes watching these days are shows like Super Why and Leap Frog shows--both of which are on Netflix (Although, he REALLY loves the Shapeville and Numberland leapfrog shows...to the point where I have had to ban it for a few weeks because the songs were keeping me up at night).  He loves these short Leap Frog clips that Anna has shown him as well as well as these Super Simple Nursery Rhyme songs.

We are currently loving how his imagination is booming. One minute he is falling off the pirate ship (playground) down the plank (slide) into hot lava, the next he is using a fishing pole for one of his puzzles as a tool to be a doctor, and the next he is under the table--when I ask what he is doing he says, "I in cage! Jaguar! Water!" I love that I get to be such an integral part of fueling his imagination. Of turning the simple things around us into whatever we want them to be. Needless to say, I'm really loving this stage. I know I've been "teaching" Shae since the day he was born, but I feel like the teaching is so much more rewarding now. 

He is obsessed with his tie. The minute he sees it he has to put it on and won't take it off until we make him at the end of the day.

(He was burying his pirate treasure here).

He's also going through a phase of loving his water cup. Which is funny since until he now the only thing we could ever get him to drink was milk. His water cup has become sort of an attachment item. He asks for it before bed and nap. He also holds it right next to him while he drinks out of his milk (you didn't think he'd stopped drinking milk had you? Oooohh no).

Our conversations may not be very in depth at this point, but I love that we can have simple conversations with Shae now. 

S: "Mommy, Fun? Fireworks?

M: Yes Shae. I loved the fireworks. Did you?

S: Mmmhhmm, yellow, orange, purple, blue...

I love that he can talk to Darin after work and tell him what he did that day or tell us what he played with in nursery. I love that we can tell him at night that we will do something in the morning and that the first thing that he says when he sees us (after "I awake!") is "Go beach!" or "Blueberry pick!" I am just absolutely loving his excitement for life right now. It definitely makes me more excited for life each day too.

This picture was taken on our first adventure out with just me and the two kids. He looks so much smaller here. He has really grown these past two months.

4th of July

The Fourth of July was a fun weekend, a 3 day weekend! Which always means it will be a good weekend. I still had some work from home and a Spanish tutoring session, but Darin was home and got to play stay-at-home dad which was nice for all of us. Once I was done with everything we hit the beach. We've loved having Jamestown beach right down the street from us. The weather was great (as in I wasn't dripping sweat the second I got out of the car), as was the water. Shae could have stayed there all day.

The girly and I got our legs wet, but mostly watched from the sidelines. 

We saw a massive heron fishing for it's dinner right before we left. Which reminded us how hungry we were, so we went and got some all american Philly Cheese Steak Sandwiches and fries for dinner.

Saturday, the fourth, was rainy (what's new. It's been raining for weeks). We kept our fingers crossed that the fireworks wouldn't get cancelled because we had a two year old who couldn't stop talking about seeing fireworks.  (We may have told him a little too early in the day--right when he woke up--that we were watching fireworks that night. He didn't seem to grasp the whole 16 hour wait to see them).  We had a fun cook out with the Trichlers and Lukes. I made this Roasted Potato Salad and it has now become my new favorite potato salad, plus I've just been obsessed with roasted potato wedges in general lately...and this food blog. Love it. Tangent. We made our way over to Colonial Williamsburg in hopes of listening to the Fifes & Drums performance before the fireworks. On the way there we ran into a torrential downpour so we just drove around waiting for it to stop. Poor Shae was so confused. The rain settled around 9 p.m. We got out and Shae was pumped again to see the fireworks, however, due to the rain they delayed them quite a bit. By the time the first one went off, he was done with life. 

He "watched" the rest of the fireworks like this:

We kept trying to lift the stroller cover so that he could at least see them but he would just get mad, so yeah. That was exciting. So we just enjoyed them with the girl instead, whose face pretty much looked like this through out the entire thing:

We were worried that Shae was going to be sad the next day that he missed the fireworks.  We had nothing to worry about. The next day he went around saying, "Fireworks! Fun! Orange! Blue! Red! Green! Yellow! Boom!" So yes, moral of this story, toddlers are strange creatures.