Tuesday, March 31, 2009

The Little Things - A Precious Gift

I haven't posted "The Little Things" in quite awhile but this post is in honor of a wonderful friend. My dear friend Cynthia sent me this hand towel in the mail last week. It was such a thoughtful gift and it reminded me how thankful I am for wonderful friends like her! I was so touched! Cynthia - this one is for you!! :)

Haylie - This week we stopped dance class. I know it's very sad but I had to make the tough decision that I didn't think Haylie was quite ready yet. Every week in class she was the last one in line, the only one swinging on the ballet bar when the other kids were all sitting in a circle listening to the teacher (and she wasn't supposed to swing on the bar in the first place), or the child showing all the other kids how to crawl around on the floor when they were supposed to be doing a shuffle step. I think we all want our kids to be the perfect student, listening and following instructions so I'm not sure if she was the one not ready or I was! I think we'll try it again in the fall. It's funny because even when she was a year old when we went to Gymboree class - all the kids sat on their parents' laps and did the itsy bitsy spider motions along with the teacher, but not Haylie - she had to stand in the middle of the circle and dance all on her own! I absolutely love her sweet, silly personality, so I want to find ways to allow her to use that and shine!

James - James has been saying all sorts of words lately. He loves to repeat things we say and Bernarda even told me he said his first Spanish word: "agua." His newest favorite word is "burp" - typical boy. Whenever he burps he says "burp" and then cracks up at himself. It is pretty hilarious!


Raider - Raider is on the track team again this semester and I just had to share this story. He isn't exactly the fastest runner (no pun intended), so when I picked him up from school a couple weeks ago after one of his track meets and he told me he won his race, I was so excited for him. He told me he got 3rd in one and 1st in the other. I was so proud and he sure was too. The whole way home we talked about how he was getting better at track and what an accomplishment that was. Later that night when Micah and I were getting ready for bed - I mentioned the fact that Raider had won his race. Micah said, "did you ask him how many people competed?" I said "No, did you?" He said "yes, that was my first question." I didn't think that was a very nice question but I asked how many anyways - come to find out Raider was the only one in the race that he won!!! Can you believe he bragged all the way home and never shared that information with me? Teenagers are hilarious! I guess he needed some encouragment and a little self esteem boost! I never said anything about it to him - pretty funny!:)

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Rahhhrrrr!

James' new favorite sound effect...


Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Little Brother of a Big Sister

It's tough being the little brother of a big sister!!


For starters - all the good hats are for girls, and all the houses have pink doors. Can't a guy wear a hat and do some cooking in a manly house?!?
I'm growing attached to a pink blanket and pacifier:

When I'm trying to cruise in my wheels my sister puts necklaces on me and they're kinda shiny so I can't bear to take them off:

There's way more Princess cups than Cars cups and my sister kinda likes the Cars ones better so she always makes me trade:

Even the balls in this place are strung up into some kind of girly contraption...

My big sister's favorite color is blue so I always get stuck with the pink bucket. C'mon Mom - when are you going to get it and just start buying everything in blue!

Poor James - I think we need to start "boy-ifying" our house! :)

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Rock Box

Last summer we got a play structure in the backyard for the kids. I have been wanting to get one since before the kids were born and we found a really good deal on Craigslist so we went for it. We had orginally intended to put rubber bark all around the play area for safety but recently made a change of plans after going to our friends' house for playgroup and watching the kids play for hours in their "rock box."

So we decided maybe we should do rocks instead. The price was definitely better - the special bark would have been near $1000 but the rocks were only $150. So we had them delivered last weekend and Micah and Raider hauled them into the backyard. ...Well the kids are in heaven! They LOVE the rocks. They will sit and play in them for hours. They already loved playing outside but there is just something fascinating about shoveling rocks into a pail, picking them up and sprinkling them all around, and just sitting on them even! Thanks Skaggs family for the great idea!!






Wednesday, March 18, 2009

So busy!!!

I have been so extremely busy lately it has just been crazy!! I have a little growing list of all the things I want to blog about but at 11 every night after I have finished processing pictures from the latest shoot, or grading papers or checking emails for my work the next day, there is just no time left!! I really want to be better at blogging mostly because my lack of blogging means I am not recording all the wonderful things the kids are up to and I love going back and reading those stories later!! So - I hope to be better soon. In the meantime, I took the kids to a field last week for about 30 min to grab a few "Easter-esque" pics of them. James was totally uncooperative and Haylie was semi-cooperative. Micah stopped by on his way home from work and grabbed one of Haylie and I that I really like though! So here's a few quick pics until the next post (which hopefully won't be in another 17 days!).

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Tahoe Slideshow

Tahoe

We love our annual vacation to Tahoe. We have started booking a week the same time every year and enjoying some family time in the snow. It's so fun developing traditions with your own family and so far this is shaping up to be a really good one. When I was a kid our family went to Mt. Shasta every year for 4th of July and I always looked forward to it and remember those vacations fondly. I took soooo many cute pictures of the kids playing in the snow I couldn't decide what to post, but here are some of my favorites (with a slideshow to follow!).