Siblings

 So funny how they both tilted their chins up...

I LOVE taking pictures of these two together. Lydia loves watching Jared run around and play.  He always brings a smile to her face. Jared is very sweet as he "keeps Lydia company!" when she plays on a blanket on the floor and pats her tummy to say "its ok Lydia" if she is unhappy. He did stop calling her Lydiat last month which I sort of miss.  I love watching then together. ♥

No camping for us this summer

Mark took this picture of tonight's sunset with the Waldo Canyon fire. The fire started on Saturday and has currently burnt 4500 acres.  It is near Manitou Springs which is like 25 minutes away from us.  Fortunately for us, I- 25 is between us and the fire so we aren't in danger from it.  Growing up in Northern California I am no stranger to summer fires although, Southern California always seemed to have it worse then us up North.  There have been really high winds today and through out the weekend so that is not at all helpful. 
Lots of people love going camping in the summer which I do enjoy but my favorite part of camping is having a campfire. I am pretty sure there is going to be a ban on campfires this summer so we will definitely not be going.  I heard that this summer was supposed to be one of the hottest for Colorado Springs so that is another good reason to not go camping.  Only 98 days till October 01. Sigh.

What do you see?

The other day Jared and I were building with blocks together. I made this "tower" and Jared looked at mine and said "the temple! I go to temple!"  Then he said that we needed a fountain so the blue blocks were my attempt at a fountain.  Jared loves the temple.  As I have mentioned before often (like way more then I expect) when we say we are going somewhere or ask where he wants to go he says "The temple, Mommy, Daddy, Jared, Lydia go to temple."  It's sweet. I was impressed/happy that a temple is what he saw when I just planned it as a tower.  I don't feel like we have focused on the temple or done special things to make Jared like the temple so much so I wonder how his love for it came about? I hope he can always keep it.  We plan on checking out the Oquirrh Hills, Jordan River, Mount Timpanagos and Draper temples (since Jared loves them so much and they are so close to each other) in two weeks when we head out to Utah for the Spencer family reunion.  Jared can't wait!

Summer fun (I guess it can happen)

Spray painting:
Jared loves playing with spray bottles and he loves painting.  So when I saw this idea online to fill spray bottles up with a little paint and then add water and "spray paint" outside I knew Jared would love it. I mean it was kind of a no brainer: paint + water + spray bottles + outside = one happy boy. .  I wish I had some darker paint though.

 Cheyenne Mountain Zoo:
Jared loves the zoo.  We hadn't been in awhile and so he was really happy when we went.  Our pass is up this month but I think we will get a new one as Jared loves to go and we have some friends who have passes as well so its fun to meet up and have a picnic.
I knew these would be dark but he is making really cute faces.  He really likes to see the gorillas. I was really happy they were all outside because the "room" you walk through to look through the exhibits is smelly and hot.

Pinterest:
I finally got a pinterest account and have found all kinds of fun ideas. One was to make this wreath:

The example online looks better then mine but its still a fun idea.

Lately I can't believe how grown up Jared looks.  I have to keep reminding myself that he is closer to three then two now.  His birthday is only 3.5 months away.  He really is a sweet easy going boy.  We certainly have moments or "terrible twoness" but really he is just a sweetheart.

Hello?

 We are having a yucky heat wave this week and next week.  I am so NOT a summer fan. I feel so unmotivated during the summer, thus the lack of blog pots. But Lydia is 5 months old today and that is worthy of noting.

She is still a little sweetheart and super adorable.  She is sleeping well and is super easygoing.  She was less so today though so I started looking in her mouth and a little tooth is starting to make itself felt so Mark went to the store and stocked up on Oragel and teething tablets. Poor little girl. She does have the cutest laugh and it just melts my heart. Today she tried sweet potatoes and seemed to think the were way cooler then oatmeal as evidenced in the pictures.

Getting closer to sitting up by herself. She has yet to roll over but is never in the same spot we put her in.  She kicks her chunky little legs and moves her arms and is either facing the opposite direction we laid her down or moved back quite a few inches.  Jared was really similar, it was like he did it once then decided it really wasn't that cool. I am sure she will get around to it until then we will have fun watching this little girl grow.



Happy Kids

 I have been wanting to get Jared a water table for like a year now but never got around to it.  I kept looking on Craigslist but these are hard to come by! Yesterday I finally went to the store and picked one up.  Jared was thrilled.  I expect this his how we will spend most of our days for the next few months. He has always loved dumping and pouring water I wonder when I can channel this into washing the dishes... I am thinking we can just move it into the big tub in our master bath once we can't do it outside anymore but we should be good for some time since summer did just start, (boo.)

Lydia just before eating her oatmeal, she was pretty excited.  She is the sweetest little girl.  So content and happy.  I love it.  I love her chubby cheeks and thighs and how easy going she is. When she gets excited she kicks her legs like crazy and makes the cutest little noises.

I am pretty fortunate that water (even without a cool table) and oatmeal are good enough to keep my kids happy.  If only life would always be so simple.

As a side note we have had CRAZY thunderstorms the last two nights. We even had a tornado warning tonight but only for like 35 minutes and thankfully it didn't amount to anything. Here is some of the hail from tonight's storm.  Mark planted some flowers in the backyard a few weeks ago and they sure did not last long! Thunderstorms are one thing I do enjoy about summer.

Park, Picnic, Playing, Pretty

Nice alliterations eh? 
Park:

We all went over to a park on Memorial day and had a nice BBQ.  That evening we went to some friends house to make smores over their fire pit. I love fire pits even if I do smell like smoke after. Jared was really happy that we all went to the park  together since normally I just take him.  Often when Mark and I are sitting by each other with Lydia he will come over and say "Our family" with a huge smile. It just about melts my heart.  I just love this sweet kid.

Picnic:
We also cleaned our carpets Memorial Day weekend,. I love it when Mark cleans our carpets.  We did it Saturday night so we needed to keep Jared upstairs while it dried so Sunday morning I made pancakes and we had a pancake picnic upstairs.  Jared thought it was pretty awesome. He loves picnics indoor or out and we had never had one in Mark and mines bedroom before.  And then I spilt his milk all over our carpet.  Luckily we had not cleaned the upstairs yet.

Playing:
We do this all the time but this time I took pictures of it.  While we were at Lydia's appointment there was an article on the bulletin board in the examination room that talked about how little time kids spent playing each day. I am all about structure and learning time but really? Let kids run around and use their imagination. Let them play!

 Look at that sweet smile!

I LOVE the above pictures. I love how happy Lydia looks when Jared is near her and how sweet he is with her.  And as I mentioned before I really want them to be best friends. Maybe I will show them all the pictures I take of them playing nicely together when they don't want to be friends when they are older.

Pretty:
No explaination needed.



Liquid Oatmeal

At Lydia's doctor appointment last week we got the go ahead to start feeding her oatmeal. She still wakes up a few nights a week to eat in the middle of the night so I wanted to try to get more calories in her.  I hope it helps!

Sometimes she looks like this:

And other times she looks like this:

I am not sure if this face is the oatmeal though or getting her fingers in her mouth which we were trying hard to avoid since we didn't want oatmeal everywhere. Just look at those cute rosy cheeks!

What to do when your child wakes up too early.

I love these pictures.  I love this kid; even if he does wake up way earlier then I would prefer. Jared has always been an early riser.  Fortunately he does an awesome job staying in his bed until we get him.  Lately he has been waking up even earlier though,* like befor 6:00 and I feel bad making him stay in bed till its time to get up.  So I started putting a pile of books by his bed when I go to bed so he can read them once he wakes up.  Each night before we leave the room he says "Mommy put books by my bed?" he also often asks to hold them before I leave the room silly yet sweet kid.  I hope that besides just giving him something to do while he waits in the morning he grows to love books/reading as much as I do.

**I think it is because his room gets so bright at least that is part of the reason.  His curtains are blackout curtains but it is still really bright in there.  I think we are going to go buy him some blinds tomorrow.  We have told him to cover his head with his blanket if its too bright so sometimes he does and sleeps longer but not often.
** Jared loves looking at our blog and any pictures on the computer.  He is gong to be really excited to see this post because his blanket is in it.  He always says "My white blanket!"