Spring Time

We had a lot of fun this Spring.  We spent as much time outside as possible.  We went on a lot of walks, especially to go visit the horses and foals in the field across from our neighborhood or to the pond to throw rocks.  The kids love to go to the park, McKay especially loves the swings.  We were able to get to the zoo once and ride the carousel. McKay actually did really well and was happy to stay in the stroller and see all of the animals.

 Our most favorite thing of the spring though was the new swing set.  We bought it at Costco, but knew it would take us forever and a day to put together so we paid someone to do it for us.  Good thing we did because it took two of them 12 hours straight to get it put together.  I'm sure Craig and I would have given up after about 2..  The kids absolutely love it.  They are out there multiple times a day, every day.

Another super exciting thing that happened this spring was that Craig's parents got home from their mission in Anchorage Alaska.  The kids were so excited and we are all so glad to have them back.

Craig and I were also able to take a day and head over to Twin Falls, just the two of us.  My Mom watched the kids for us and we went to the Twin Falls Temple and then out to a nice lunch and to check out Shoshone Falls.  The temple was beautiful, lunch was delicious, and the falls were spectacular.  It was a really nice day together.  Sorry mom you had to deal with cold and rainy soccer and then McKay throwing up all over your living room.

We had a great spring and are excited for a fun filled summer.  Brooklyn is excited to swim as much as possible.  I have already told Craig to not expect the house to be super clean because we will be spending all of our time at the pool or at the park or splash pad.

Preschool Graduation

I cannot believe that Brooklyn has graduated from preschool and will be heading to kindergarten in the fall.  She has loved Harmony Preschool so much and loved her teacher Miss Michelle this year.  She really does thrive in school and loves to learn.  Each night when she says her prayers she always asks for Heavenly Father to help her to learn.  Brooklyn is a pro at all of her letters, both upper and lower case and their sounds.  She can count to 100.  Her hand writing is better than Craig's (sorry honey) and she has started to learn how to read.  We have been working on sight words and starting to sound out words as well.  She really loved all of the crafty/artsy things they did at school, since I am not a big fan of doing those things.  She also loved to just play with her friends.  She really has grown up a lot this year and is such a big girl.  She is going to do so well at kindergarten, but I am going to miss her dearly.  They had a end of the year program on the last day of school.  They sang songs, handed out awards (Brooklyn's was Sight Word Wizard, her teacher said that if she saw a word she knew she would also shout out "that is one of my sight words") and watched a cute movie their teacher put together.  She was so sad to say goodbye to her teacher a friends, but I reminded her that she will get to meet a lot of new friends at kindergarten.  After her program we headed over to McDonald's to celebrate with Pops and Nana and some of her cousins.

A few weeks ago at school they had a little Mother's Day program where they sang us a few songs and gave me a bracelet that they had made at school.  The teacher did a great job putting this little program together and amazingly McKay sat through the whole thing.

Soccer Star and Dance Diva

Our sweet little girl decided to try her hand at soccer this spring.  She was really excited and was ready for the season to start.  Her first game of the season though was a little bit of a let down, it was so cold and so rainy and my poor mom had to tough it out with the kids because Craig and I were gone.  Her second game she was just getting over her nasty stomach bug, so there were a lot of tears throughout that game and a very frustrated mom (both Craig and I are very competitive and we will have to learn how to be parents to a non-competitive kid).  Finally the third game was a success with good weather and the bribe of donuts after the game.  The next game was a bribe of Panda Express and then after that no bribes were needed.  It wasn't a matter of her not liking soccer, but more so the chaos that is 5 year olds playing soccer.  She loves order and knowing exactly she is supposed to do.  She is also very timid and was not a big fan of the few very aggressive kids that liked to push their way through everyone.  By the end of the season she was talking about wanting to play again next year.  She was pretty disappointed that she never scored a goal, even though she was very close a couple of times.  I hope that she will continue to want to play because I feel like you can learn so much from playing team sports, but I do have a feeling she might be more of an individual sport type of girl.

Brooklyn also loved ballet this year and she just recently had another recital.  For this recital her class were ferrets as part of the Carnival of the Animals.  Luckily their costume didn't really resemble a ferret much at all, but they sure looked adorable.  She really does enjoy dance and I do feel like I am becoming a little bit better of a dance mom and I do feel like there will be a lot of dance in our future.  She was so excited that both set of grandparents were able to make it to her recital and that her Daddy got her flowers again.  Our cute little ferret was sad that dance had to end and can't wait for it to start again in the fall.  She loved her teacher and all the girls in her class and was so excited when they got to wear whatever they wanted to their last class.

21 Months

May 15, 2018
Size 3 diapers
12-18 month clothes
16 teeth

Well this kids personality just continues to bloom.  He is constantly keeping us on our toes, he is either crazy happy and fun or throwing a huge tantrum.  Luckily the fun times outweigh the tantrums.  He is becoming a little bit more of a picky eater, but still eats fairly well for the most part, it is just a little bit more work on our part.  He refuses to sit in a high chair or booster seat anymore at meal time.  He has fallen off the chair a few times, but not near as often as I thought he would.  He also insists on feeding himself all the time, no matter what the food is, which was fine when he was sitting in a high chair, but now most of his food ends up on the floor.   He loves to be outside and when he is cranky we try to get outside as quickly as possible and luckily he loves to help pick weeds.   He has a few new words this month like ouch, no (actually saying it not just shaking his head), he will occasionally say up and down.  He still loves to say please and will say that anytime I ask him to say something that he doesn't want to say.  Everything is still pink, hopefully soon we can throw another color in there.  He continues to get friendlier and more outgoing.  He loves to show people things and try to tell them things with his grunts and hand motions.  He will even occasionally let other people pick him up.  He has been kind of obsessed with necklaces ever since Brooklyn made him one.  He wore it every where for a good week.  He is slowly getting less attached to his binky, don't get me wrong he still loves it, but he can now go without it sometimes.  He now will leave it in the car when we go in somewhere like the gym, church or the park.  He loves to hide his binky which makes it difficult at bedtime when he is crying for it, luckily we have a stash of them for this very reason.  He loves to play basketball on his little hoop and where his basketball shoes (he has a pair of Jordan's).   He really can be a stinker sometimes, but he is the cutest stinker I have ever seen.  I love that goof ball so much and he truly does make this family whole.

The both insisted on wearing their Christmas jammies 

He found a worm in grandma's garden

He loves to put clothes on by himself and will put on anything that is left on the ground, including sisters undies

Brooklyn wanted to dress up, so of course McKay needed to dress up as well

Brooklyn wanted a picture of her dinosaur tower (she has been watching a lot of Land Before Time) that she buil,t so of course McKay needed a picture of his tower  as well and these are the faces he gave me:

playing grandpa's harmonica and he actually does a pretty good job

20 Months

April 15, 2018
Size 3 diapers
12-18 Month clothes

I feel like this month was full of changes, but really not that many.  He didn't get any more teeth, his sleeping is the same, but yet his personality seemed to blossom even more.  He has the funniest, cheesiest smile and it makes me crack up every time.  He refuses to say any other colors besides pink, everything is pink. He has a few new words this month like "beam" when he wants me to sing Jesus Wants me for a Sunbeam, "wing" for swing when he wants to go to the park, and his hand motions just keep getting better.  I feel like I am just playing charades all day everyday with him and we have gotten pretty good at it.  I feel like he communicates really well for how few words he says.  Whenever I ask him to say something like up, down, out, etc he always just "pease" (please) and gives me a super cute smile.  Brooklyn didn't start saying very much until she turned two and then all of the sudden she just started talking like crazy, so hopefully that is what will happen with him.  He absolutely loves going to the gym and to nursery.  He especially loves coloring and showing me what he has colored when I pick him up. He is still napping pretty well, but usually wakes up pretty grumpy.  I have found that he is typically happier if I can get him outside as quickly as possible.  This kid eat ALL THE TIME,  it is nuts.  He snacks all day long, but still eats his meals well, hopefully that means that he is creeping up on the growth charts a little bit more.  He has figured out how to scream/yell and he does it all the time, I really hope he doesn't end up being a screamer.  He loves to show you things, like when he builds a block tower, draws a picture, etc.  He takes his shoes and socks off almost every single time we get in the car, which I find pretty obnoxious, but he is always so proud of himself.  He has started to really like to wrestle with his sister and Brooklyn eggs him on all the time. He finally lets me sing to him again before bed, but he only likes songs with actions like popcorn popping, Book of Mormon stories, itsy-bitsy-spider.  He is so dang cute and such a happy boy and we are so lucky that he is ours.

At the end of the month a crazy stomach bug went through the whole family.  Brooklyn got it the worse by far.  It started with McKay throwing up at my parents house and then Brooklyn threw up like 3 times all throughout the night.  We then woke up to McKay in the morning, who had actually slept really well and didn't make a peep all night, with puke all over himself and the bed.  McKay threw up a few more times that day, but then seemed to be doing ok after that for the most part.  Poor Brooklyn continued to throw-up for 4 more days, she couldn't keep anything down, not even water.  She felt so awful and I felt terrible not being able to help her.  Of course during all of this I caught the bug and couldn't move off the couch.  One morning when Craig (who wasn't feeling fantastic either, but luckily not as bad as the rest of us) left for work, Brooklyn was laying on our bed looking more than half dead, I was laying on the floor curled in a ball crying and McKay was just trying to get anybody to pay attention to him.  It was quite a sight I'm sure.  That day I finally took Brooklyn into the doctor, she hadn't kept anything down for over 4 days and you could tell she was losing weight.  She had lost 5 pounds, which is a lot when you only weigh 34 lbs to begin with.  The doctor then prescribed both of us some anti-nausea medicine, but told me if in a few hours she still wasn't keeping anything down then we were going to have to take her into the hospital to get IV fluids, because she was getting to dehydrated.  Luckily she was finally able to keep some fluids down and a few crackers that evening and then slowly was just able to start eating more.  It took  a good week to get all of her energy back.  It was not a fun week that is for sure and I am glad that is behind us.

whenever he gets tired he puts his hands behind his head, no matter ig he is sitting or laying down.