Family Photo 2019

Family Photo 2019

Sunday, December 8, 2013

18 month update (late)

So as of December 2 the girls are 19 months old!  Crazy!  As most of you know this is a big deal when it comes to going to church - they can now go into nursery.  They have been three times now (due to stake conference, being sick and traveling for Thanksgiving) and they have done well.  It is fun to peek in the window and see them sitting in their chairs eating a snack or listening to a lesson.  Sacrament meeting is pretty hard - the girls just want to walk around and not sit still.  Today they were really tired and I took them to the mother's room to wander and cry.

So here are some thoughts about Jenna and Kaylee.  They are starting to interact with each other more.  In this picture they were each putting a toy in their mouth and making a funny sound to each other - I tried to get it with a video, but of course they stopped. 

When we are walking to school Kaylee is frequently behind a little bit and Jenna will look back and open and close her hand to tell Kaylee to come.  They give each other hugs sometimes.  Kaylee will sometimes feed Jenna or give her her binkie.  When they have a snack of Kix, Kaylee will put some in Jenna's mouth. Of course there is the pushing and taking each other's toys too.  But over all they treat each other pretty well.  Most of the time they just each do their own thing, but if one sister gets something, they other wants it as well.  It was funny last night we were watching a movie and Doug and I each held one of the girls in our laps.  Then they both got up and switched laps, then did it again - it was pretty funny.   

Jenna was our little climber, but now it is Kaylee that wants to get up on everything.  Maybe Jenna fell once and that discouraged her.  She is a good eater and is now getting her two bottom canine teeth.  She runs everywhere and play with her brothers.  Tyler will pull them on a blanket across the tile.  Jenna is now 20 lbs 9.5  oz (21%) and 33 inches long (69%). Her hair is getting longer and she has a cow lick right in the front that makes it hard to part her hair to the side - her hair is always in her eyes if I don't have it pulled back.  Jenna does not like having bows in her hair and will quickly pull them out.  She will pull out her pony-tails too, just not as frequently. Both girls were sick a few weeks ago, but we are glad they are back to normal even though they are constantly getting into things.   Jenna goes to sleep well and loves it when Daddy comes home.  She will tell him good-bye when he leaves and shout 'Daddy' when he comes home.  

Kaylee is now our little climber.  She can pull herself onto the bar stools and even made it into her high chair. She has also made it up our playground ladder outside.  Kaylee is pretty fearless.  She climbed up on the playground at the park and went right down the big slide without me around at all.  I had to grab onto her jacket the to slow her down and prevent her from hitting someone at the bottom. Kaylee is also very smilely and gives happy faces readily when she is feeling well.  She also has been sick, but we didn't have to give her any medicine.  Kaylee is now 20 lbs (15%) and 32 inches long (53%).  She continues to be about a 1/2 pound lighter than her sister.  She can now walk and run as well as Jenna, it just took her a month to catch up.  They are both learning now to eat with a fork and spoon and Kaylee seems to like to do that the most.  She is also a good eater - she does better at eating things from a spoon from me (Jenna likes to feed herself).  Kaylee loves to sing and will sings "ee i ee i o" if I start singing Old MacDonald. Both girls will also sing "Rio, Rio" spontaneously - we have been listening to that a bit lately.  

It is hard to find differences between them since they are both learning the same things.  They both sign lots of things now and mostly try to say the word as well: milk, cracker, fish, dog, bird, frog, cat, banana, apple, candy, cheese, more, drink, juice, hurt, water, bath, car, plane, hat, coat, shoes, socks, please, thank you, sorry, grandma, grandpa, mom, dad, and others.  It is fun to see what they are looking at as they point things out to me.  I think Kaylee's first word was 'apple' and Jenna's was 'more' - I think.  They started signing first so I have a hard time remembering what they actually said first.  

I had the girl's pictures taken at JCPenny's.  I had prepared for their pictures for awhile hoping that they would be happy and healthy.  But of course they still had their colds- their noses at least didn't look too bad.  But they were not their normal happy selves.  We got a pretty good one of them together, but their individuals were pretty bad.  sigh, oh well.  I am going to try and take some myself sometime this week.

Jenna

Kaylee

Jenna

Kaylee





Folk Dancing


I just wanted to post this quick to remember what the boys were able to do at school.  They have been practicing line dancing and square dancing during P.E. and I think during some of music too.  They put on a pretty good show learning some fun steps.  Both boys enjoyed it and were pretty coordinated.  I was glad I was able to go.  I got someone to watch the kids for Damon's grade, then I took Chris and the girls for Tyler's.  Chris joined Tyler for the 'chicken dance' at the end.  Glad that they learned this at school.




Tuesday, December 3, 2013

JCPenny Pictures

We managed to get our family pictures taken at JCPenny.  We got one good shot, which is all we needed.


Space Derby

Back in mid November Damon had a space derby with Cub Scouts.  It was the first time for the ward, so it was a little bit slow.  Damon only got to race twice, he got second and then third.  He did a good job of making his ship with Dad's help.  We were proud of him.  



Sunday, November 10, 2013

TMNT

I have to put a blog about our Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle phase right now.  The boys love watching the newer cartoon and pretend to be the different turtles.  We even went onto the web to find the lyrics of the song; we have all learned it and can rap the song quite well -myself included :)

Here are the lyrics:
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Heroes in a half shell
Turtle power!

Here we go! It's the lean, green, ninja team
On the scene, cool teens doing ninja things
So extreme, out the sewers like laser beams
Get rocked with the shell-shocked pizza kings

Can't stop these radical dudes
The secret of the ooze made the chosen few
Emerge from the shadows to make their move
The good guys win and the bad guys lose

Leonardo's the leader in blue,
Does anything it takes to get his ninjas through
Donatello is a fellow, has a way with machines
Raphael has the most attitude on the team
Michelangelo, he's one of a kind,
And you know just where to find him when it's party time
Master Splinter taught them every single skill they need
To be one lean, mean, green incredible team

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Heroes in a half shell
Turtle power!

So to add a picture, Tyler had an assignment to dress this turkey to be a part of our family, well you can see what he came up with.  It was pretty fun to help him and make him look so cool:


Toy Room

 So I wanted to turn our office/guest room into a toy room/office.  We moved the bed downstairs - we don't get many visitors so I don't think it will be missed much.  Then I found this entertainment center/shelving unit on craigslist.  I really wanted to find something that could hold all of our games and puzzles and entertainment centers are deeper than book shelves, so it worked really well.  I also found this toy box on craigslist.  It was painted a bright aqua green and teal - which was fun and playful, but I wanted something more simple - and it was scratched up a bunch and needed a new paint job anyway.  So this project was a bit more time consuming than I thought.  I had to paint the white 3 times and I sanded in between each layer (just lightly).  I had a hard time decided on what accent color to choose, it was between this blue, a burgundy red, or a yellow.  I like how the blue turned out.  You can't really see it, but there is an indentation around the fake blue drawers and I painted a darker blue in the groove, it adds some depth.  So now we have a nice place to put those random toys that don't fit on a shelf very well.  I had bought these metal cube things in Vernal at the D.I. I had them separated and in the boys' closets.  So I rearranged their closets and brought most of the toys down here, so now their rooms don't get as messy.  We just left the train table and the animals in Tyler and Chris's room.  Yea for organization - and making room for more toys come Christmas time.





Sunday, November 3, 2013

Last assignment for my photo class

 So my photo class has gone well and it makes me get out and take pictures.  So here are some of the ones I took for this week.

Yes the girls can climb the playground now - not too excited about that.





Jenna

Kaylee



Halloween

 I couldn't decide on which pictures, so you get a bunch.  Some fun ones in the leaves:





Kaylee


Jenna
 We decorated pumkins for FHE.  My mom sent us a new Halloween book that came with this pumpkin named Spookly.  Damon liked it so much he wanted to carve his pumpkin like it.  He even slept with it that night.  I have to remember he is still a little boy sometimes.
 Tyler is smiling weird to try and show his vampire teeth.


 I was able to help at Tyler's Halloween party.  They do a breakfast which I think is a great idea.  It was fun to see all the costumes and help out.  This is his friend Jacob.
 Tyler's 1st grade class:
 Damon as Obi Won Kanobi and his friend Dalton.
 I couldn't get a very good picture of the girls, Jenna never holds still - ever.  Note the cute butterfly hair-bows that I made.
 They didn't like having wings on.


 Robin, Batman, and Obi Won - in case you couldn't tell.   Damon was going to be Batman as well, but then changed his mind.  He was Obi Wan two year ago, but I'm glad that it still fit pretty well.
 The red in Kaylee's mouth is a piece of candy, not blood - Tyler was concerned.

I handed out candy with the girls and Doug took the boys around.  They didn't stay out too long, back in time to help put everyone to bed.  Thankfully Chris took a nap earlier so he was pretty happy while trick -or-treating.  It was really cold and windy, so that probably made their outing shorter.  Jenna was excited to answer the door with me.  She would run over every time the doorbell rang.  Then she would be sad when I closed the door and she couldn't go out.  They both started saying bye-bye at the end of the night when the kids would leave.  It was pretty cute.  

Our ward had their Chili Cook-off the day after Halloween. I didn't take any pictures.  It was pretty chaotic.  The girls were good to stay in the stroller while we ate then we let them wander the halls for a bit.  Then it was time to Trunk or Treat.  Doug handed out candy.  Damon and Tyler were good to follow the line on their own.  I was trying to chase both girls who wanted to just run everywhere.  A brother in the ward was good to ask if I needed help.  He carried Jenna and I held Kaylee so I could follow Chris around the sidewalk.  As soon as Chris was done we buckled up the girls and high-tailed it out of there.  The girls were very done and had not slept well the previous night (neither had we :) ).  Doug and I sometimes wonder why we go to these activities.  The kids don't eat the food well and it seems like more effort than reward.  But I guess it is good to support the ward and the kids did seem to have a pretty good time.  I'm just glad that Halloween is once a year.