Big 1 year old!

A few weeks ago our baby girl turned 1, and what an amazing 1 year old she is! It amazes me how much personality this girl has. She loves clothes, purses (or buckets, or anything else you can fill and empty and carry around on your arm), shoes, hats (putting them on and taking them off. Not a big fan of wearing them around), but at the same time loves cars and airplanes, and wearing William's jetpack.

My mom made her a green dress a month or two ago, and when we tried it on her, she got SO mad when we tried to take it off. So we put it back on her and she wore it around the rest of the day. Then a few weeks ago we saw a cute little green with white polkadots raincoat at the store, and decided to try it on her. Whether or not we were going to get it didn't matter. She was NOT letting us take that thing off of her. We had to cut the tags off of her to check out. I guess green is an appropriate favorite color for a St. Patrick's Day baby!

Spring and summer are going to be so fun with this girl. She loves being outside, eating dirt and woodchips, and walking around. She's been taking steps for over a month now, but has just recently voluntarily started to walk around. So cute to watch those wobbly legs.

She loves to eat. She loves it when I put a bowl full of anything in front of her, and hand her the spoon. It's so nice to be able to give her the freedom to feed herself. She gets quite a bit in her mouth successfully, but is also a bathe-me-after-every-meal type gal.

She signs really well. She started just before she hit ten months, her first signs were all finished and drink. In addition to those she now does eat, bath, banana, and a few others. She's not too big on words yet, but kinda says "dada," and she can tell you what cows and monkeys (mostly Curious George. She's a big fan) say. It's pretty darn cute.

She is a good "helper", always helping me "sort" laundry, load and unload the dishwasher, and put toys away. Basically it's really hard to get anything down with her around, cause she always wants to do things her way.

Her favorite books are Curious George board books, and she loves flipping through paper books as well.

She loves William and loves to be with him, and wants whatever he wants. Which is pretty sweet, but a little hard for a big brother who loves his independence.

I absolutely love the way her hair curls out around her ears and along the back.

She folds her arms for prayers, and every once in a while during a meal, she'll fold her arms and mumble a few sounds and keep eating. It's pretty darn cute!

I can't remember her stats from the Drs appointment. I know she was 19 lbs 2 oz (17th for weight) and was in the 60th for weight. She's so busy, it's no wonder she is on the low end for weight.

She is a momma's girl, which is kinda fun, but is also going through some intense separation anxiety issues. But once she warms up she is pretty social!

She's such a happy girl and has brought so much joy into our home and family. We love our sweet girl!

The boy is 3

Like every mother who posts about their child completing another birthday, I'm blown away by this boy turning 3 (a few weeks ago). He is such a good kid, and it was so fun to spend time with him during the week of his birthday, celebrating him. He had a week of celebrations, having cake and ice cream with my family one Sunday, and with Danny's the next, opening presents on the morning of his birthday, a party with some of his friends on his birthday. He loved every minute of it. He is so good with sharing (most) everything with Ann, so it was nice for him to be able to be in the spot light for a bit!

 We really love William to pieces. He makes us laugh with his silly faces, and funny ideas. He is so thoughtful, and shares so well.

He is so good at saying please and thank you, and gives great hugs and kisses. I need to savor that while it lasts!

He doesn't really care what he's wearing except for what is on his feet. He loves his cowboy boots and fireman rainboots (from Halloween a year and a half ago. I'm not quite sure how he still gets them on his feet). He loves dress ups, especially super heroes and Captain Hook. He still loves to dress up like Buzz, too.

His favorite books right now are Curious George. He asks to read them every night.

The bike he got for his birthday is probably one of the BEST things we could have gotten him. He LOVES to ride it anywhere we'll let him. Can't wait for warmer weather! (sidenote: we had to get him a helmet because the one sized age 5+ was too small!). Besides riding his bike, he still loves all things cars (sometimes I feel like I have cars coming out of my ears), Toy Story, anything fire department related, pirates, and superheros. He has a tender side, too, and takes good care of Annie's dolls!

He's still our tall boy, in the 90th percentile for height, and the 70-something for weight.

We have been so blessed to have such a healthy happy boy!

words from an almost three year old

William turns 3 in a month from today. I love the things that come out of his mouth.
 I was watching some videos of him from a year, and six months ago. It amazed me to listen to him talk, and to think about how far he has come with language. I miss his incorrect grammar as he figures out the correct way to say things.
One of my favorites is "Here me come!" or "Here me am!"
While potty training we watched a lot of Potty Time from people who made Signing Time. I often here him saying phrases from it, but my favorite is when he says, "You're my shining star, Mom."
William received Mater Hawk and McQueen Hawk from the Pixar short "Fly High Mater." At one point on the show Mater flies so fast that they say "He just broke the sound barrier!" So when we play, he often repeats that line. The other day while Danny and William were playing, Danny said "You just broke the sound barrier, Mater!" So William grabs McQueen and says excitedly, "I'll go fix it!"
He has recently fallen in love with the movie "Up", and loves to be Russell. When someone asks his name, that's what he'll tell them. Only people have a hard time understanding him when he says it, because it comes out "Missell."
And perhaps one of my favorites is when he was dancing around with his Buzz and Woody and stopped to tell me, "I like my style!"

this growing girl...

 Our sweet Ann is almost 10 months old! It blows me away how fast time goes, and how fast she grows. She is so full of life and personality. At her 9 month appointment the pediatrician kept saying how sassy she is. She knows what she wants, and what she doesn't want.

She gets in to EVERYTHING. She's still finding pine needles to put in her mouth from the Christmas tree, and I've vacuumed at least 5 times since we took the tree down. She loves to hang out under the exersaucer, finding treats that fell down from the last time she was in there.

 She loves covering her face, waiting for us to say "Where's Annie?", then throwing her hands in the air as if to say "Surprise! I'm right here!"

 She crawls all over the place, and pulls herself up to anything she can. She loves pushing the buttons on the DVD player, and I love watching her pull herself up to the piano, stand on her tippie-toes and play a couple of the keys. She loves sitting at the piano with anyone who will put her up there.

 She loves William, and loves to be anywhere he is, doing whatever he is that he's doing. He is so good with her, and is pretty patient about sharing his toys. Most of the time. And sometimes we have to remind him that she can't wrestle too much yet. But they are good little buddies.

 She's a good eater, eating anything she can put into her mouth by herself. Doesn't like eating off a spoon unless it's something she loves, and if it's not something she loves then there is no way to get it past her lips.

 She loves giving high-fives, hugs, and kisses.

 She loves dolls. She especially loves her Jesse doll, but really loves Buzz and Woody, too. She loves cars. William chose some pink cars for her for Christmas so she wouldn't want to play with his so much. She loves electronics (my phone, dad's phone, and the ipad), and it amazes me the things she can already do with them. It is pretty cute to see her put our phones up to her ear, too.

 She has 4 teeth, two on top and two on bottom. Hopefully the gap between the top two gets smaller with time! :)

Wearing a dress my mom made for me when I was a baby.

 She loves discovering what it means to be a big girl... sitting on William's chair, standing up to the toys and driving the Jeep at Discovery Gateway, eating new foods... it's so much fun to watch her discover life.

She has added so much to our family already. We love her to pieces and can't wait to watch her grow!

Gardner Village

The Saturday before Halloween, Uncles Leo and Adam invited us (and Auntie Sarah) to go on "Ride to a Witch" and on a Witch Hunt at Gardner Village. We had a blast!

 Buzz Lightyear (really Curious George dressed up as Buzz Lightyear) loved striking his super hero poses and watching his shadow. All day people would point to him and say "Look! It's Buzz Lightyear!" He LOVED it.

 

 Our little pumpkin had fun hanging out and always loves being outside!

William was a little nervous about the Witch Village we visited, but warmed up when one of them pulled out musical instruments. They all danced around the stage with her. Pretty cute!

William got a squeaky rat to squeeze.

Annie even got in on it!

We found all the witches (Thanks to Danny and Adam) and got our cookies. We are lucky to have such fun family! William loved the attention, and is always spoiled by his aunts and uncles. It was fun to celebrate Halloween at Gardner Village. We might have to make that a yearly thing!

Fav moments of Conference weekend

To start off our Conference weekend, we decided to go to our favorite, and most frequently visited (besides Harmon's) downtown store... the Disney Store! They were having Trick-or-Treating, a mini parade, and crafts. 

Side note: Yes, I'm a little ashamed to admit that we gave into the commercialism of Halloween and bought William a Buzz costume. Let's be honest, if he had wanted to be Woody, Dash, Peter Pan, or something along those lines, I could've made it. But it's not worth this much trouble to make a Buzz costume. At least to make one I'd be satisfied with. But the Disney Store had a pretty sweet, good quality Buzz costume, and we got a good deal. Besides, it's been worth EVERY PENNY.

 Anyway, went down to City Creek and had fun at the Disney Store, and not so much fun at the Dinosaurs. I'm not usually confrontational, but this lady was asking for it. And then a little girl threw up, so they kicked everyone out so they could sanitize the whole place. We left a little...disgruntled...about the way things had gone at the play place, so it was SO nice to walk out on to main street and see this:

 Conference was upon us, and there were tons of people downtown. Unfortunately, some of the crazies were out as well, and I wished they'd kept their profanities to themselves as I snapped these pictures. But even with them around, I was amazed at how quickly my mood changed as we walked past the temple. It truly is a beautiful building! (Another side note: Hooray for Peru for getting a 2nd temple!)

Saturday started off with Auntie Char and Uncle Jeff offering to watch Annie and William Captain Hook while I ran a few quick errands. Can I just say that they are the best? William absolutely adores Jeff, and Jeff is SO fun and silly with William. This is the picture I got while I was out, of the "pirate hat" Char made him while they played.

I was really excited to hear the two big announcements. Like I said, a temple in Peru! Woo Hoo! It's not near my mission, Arequipa is in the very southern most part of Peru. I'm excited for the members down there! They deserve it. And cool announcement about missionaries. It will be interesting to see the changes this brings to missionary work!

Saturday afternoon, after the afternoon session we got to celebrate our cute nephew Dallin's first birthday! I can't believe he is already a year old. Andrea and Spencer threw a cute Teddy Bear Picnic party, because his nickname is "Dall-bear." We got some cute pictures of this boy to make invitations.

 Here are Thomas and William enjoying some beary yummy cupcakes:

 I think they enjoyed the present we gave Dallin more than Dallin did (I guess Dallin didn't have a chance to like it... these two jumped all over it!)

Sunday morning I tried to help William get more into conference. We'd been talking all about the First Presidency, so William kind of recognized each one as they got up. We sat in the fort for the opening song, prayer, another song, and then President Eyring got up to speak. Our conversation went like this:

Me: Look William! It's President Eyring! (Pointing to the picture we had out, and then to the TV)

William: Yeah! He's my buddy.

Me: President Eyring is your buddy?

William: Yeah. He's so nice.

And then he ran off to play. At least the fort kept him interested for that long!

Danny and I always talk about how nice it is to live downtown. Yeah, we love Harmon's being so close, and it's so nice to be able go for strolls through City Creek and down to Gateway, but we love living so close to Temple Square! We love the feeling that surrounds it, and we love that William and Ann are able to be so exposed to it while they are so little. 

As another side note (and ending note), I found this costume tutorial. I'm really tempted by it for Ann, and if I hadn't all ready purchased the stuff for a costume for her, I might do it! Maybe next year. Props to anyone who knows who this is!

6 months

I’m a little late posting about our 6 month old, but better late than never (these pictures are from August, but I’m not sure where the camera cord is to upload more recent pictures. The video is from today, though)! We can’t believe how big she is.

She is SUCH good girl and we can’t get enough of her. She is so happy and content. She can make anyone who looks at her smile. She loves to reach her heads above her head, and lately loves to hold the long hairs on the top of her head. Especially when she’s tired. She is mostly a good sleeper, but lately tends to wake up a lot in the night (binkies put her right back to sleep, but still…). I blame teeth? She loves to pull hair and gives great slobbery kisses.

She’s a momma’s girl when she’s sad or tired, but loves to play with Dad. She doesn't like bottles, but is starting to love eating. She loves bananas, and really likes peaches, pears, and apple sauce. She acts like she’s dying whenever most vegetables enter her mouth, although she does like an occasional bite of sweet potatoes (not much more than a bite though!) and does okay when they are mixed with fruit. I didn’t know babies could be so dramatic when they ate. It took William a while to realize he could spit stuff out, or just not open his mouth. He’d just sit there, whimpering as we fed him. She, however, has learned early.

She’s a momma’s girl when she’s sad or tired, but loves to play with Dad. She doesn't like bottles, but is starting to love eating. She loves bananas, and really likes peaches, pears, and apple sauce. She acts like she’s dying whenever most vegetables enter her mouth, although she does like an occasional bite of sweet potatoes (not much more than a bite though!) and does okay when they are mixed with fruit. I didn’t know babies could be so dramatic when they ate. It took William a while to realize he could spit stuff out, or just not open his mouth. He’d just sit there, whimpering as we fed him. She, however, has learned early.

She makes the best faces right before she happily screams and squeals. She loves to suck on her toes, especially when she’s just in a diaper or in her birthday suit. She rolls EVERYWHERE, has been getting up on her hands and knees (or toes) for a while now, and even rocks back and forth, but no crawling yet. However, if she wants something, she some how manages to make her way over to it. She no longer sits content on my lap at church. She is a mover! She sits up really well. She loves the tub, and she loves the pool. She is getting to be quite the splasher, and doesn’t get mad when her head goes under. I think we have two little fishies in the family!

She loves people. The other night we were having dinner at the food court, and there was a guy at the table next to us who looked like he wanted to be anything but social. Annie sat there staring at him until he looked at her and she just beamed at him. You could tell he was trying hard not to smile, let alone look at her, but he kept giving her tiny smiles, and glancing over at her from the corner of his eye.

She loves her family, particularly her big brother. She loves to be by him, and touch him (he’s not as big of a fan of that). She loves his Woody. All three of them (big, little, and medium). Luckily he has three, so he’ll usually share one with her. She loves his cars, but she loves dolls and stuffies. Way more than he ever got into them!

We sure love watching her grow!