Silence

Often if a house with little kids becomes suddenly quiet it's pretty suspicious. Fortunately for me yesterday's silence was  a good thing. I went up stairs to investigate and found this:

Jared just grabbed some books and started reading. Reading books with Jared (and Lydia) is one of my favorite things to do.  I love that he will go and read to himself. I think its important to let your kids see you reading so they can see you enjoy it. Obviously one shouldn't jsut read all day and ignore their kids or things that need to be done, but I do hope that he sees me reading and wants to do it.

Growing Up

This Sunday the Primary kids sang their Easter songs. It was Jared's first time and he was so excited to go up front!

I am not sure if he was more excited about singing and being up front or just being by Mark. We sang the songs a few times the week before and he knew all the words to both songs.  They called the Primary kids up and he marched right up to the stand.  He chose the right side of the stand (in front of Mark) and was ready to go.  Then disaster struck.  The Chorister wanted all the kids on one side of the stand and Jared did not want to move. He got moved over and lost it.  He tired so hard to be brave. All during the first song he stood with lip quivering and his fingers by his mouth and then they started the second song and he just started sobbing.  It was so heartbreaking! I have never felt so awful for Jared as I did right then. It made me start to cry. My sweet little boy was up there and I couldn't help him. I kept waiting for him to go to Mark but he was just frozen.  I found out that Mark was trying to get some kids to send Jared to him but it took awhile.  I am pretty much tearing up as I write this.  It was just so sad.  Jared eventually got over to Mark who helped calm him down and there he stayed for the rest of Sacrament meeting.  Which he loved by the way.  It is Mark's month to conduct so when he got up I saw him place Jared in the Bishop's lap where Jared was content until Mark was done then he was ready to go back to Mark.
The chorister was talking to me about it when I dropped Jared off for Sunbeams and she felt so bad.  She said that she thought maybe Jared was claustrophobic because he kept saying "its too crowded, its too crowded" as she tried to get him to move over. Jared was not terribly loud but definitely loud enough to interfere with the singing. I bet she wished she had just let him stay on that side! It was so so heartbreaking. I am glad Mark was right there so he could comfort Jared. I hope he won't be too worried next time they sing.  He was fine for the rest of church.  It probably took me longer to feel better.  I just felt so helpless and sad.  It's hard to fathom how many more times I will feel this way as his Mom.

 

Lydia had fun playing in her toy box before we went to church. She took all the toys out and had a great time.

 

All dressed up for Saint Patrick's Day.

 

 

 So sweet! I love this picture. It is my new favorite of Mark and Lydia.

 

Lydia has gained so much confidence with her walking. Today she was walking 75% of the time she wanted to go anywhere. She has also really started using her baby sign language which is so fun. It is amazing how much she has learned/developed this last month.

Of Mice and Men...literally

Our house has been infiltrated by mice. It is disgusting, annoying and bothersome. So last week I had a guy come out and try to get rid of them.  He walked around and sealed up "access points" and determined that they were getting into our house under the stairs through our downstairs closet. The dilemma with this was that there was no access to said area (stupid builders!!) so he could not seal it off as well.  He said he closed off all the entrances to the house so we shouldn't have a problem but I just couldn't let it go knowing they were still there waiting to eat through our Sheetrock and infiltrate again. So he gave us the name of a repair guy who would cut a little access panel into the sheet rock clean up under the stairs and add more sealant stuff.  Mark and I talked about it and decided to go ahead and spend more money so we could not only get rid of any remaining access points but have access to that area should we need it in the future.  So I called the mice guy to have him call his guy and set it up.  Then he called me back to say that his guy was in the hospital because he heart kept stopping (!) but he would call me back as soon as he got released.  Then the new guy called (that night, from the hospital) and told me he was going to send his brother over to do the job.  Great.  We got it all set up and were ready to go.  Turns out his brother is like super flaky! He got lost and instead of calling to ask for directions (Men, well some of them) he just drove around.  Eventually he did call after he was like an hour later then planned and made it here.  He walked in looked at the spot and said he needed to go get some material.  His brother told him what he needed before so he could bring it with him but he flaked on that too. This was Friday. He came back like an hour and a half later and said he couldn't do it that day and would be happy to come back tomorrow. We agreed on a time and called it a day.  That night the original repair guy called to tell me he fired his brother!  I felt awful here is this guy in the hospital trying to get some jobs done probably stressing more and more and now he fired his brother. And I felt bad for the brother. I wasn't even really upset just irritated. (We had taken everything out of the closet and had it all over our house) He told me his brother just hadn't done anything he was supposed to so we were just the last straw. So... today the guy came straight from the hospital after being readmitted last night and did the job. He told me he had been in because he was having a series of minor heart attacks. Crazy! The whole time he was here I kept worrying he was going to have another one.  Fortunately he did not and now we have a very nice access panel and hopefully no mice.  Yuck!

Saint Patricks Day Fun

We've had a lot of fun with rainbows, gold coins, shamrocks and leprechauns the last few weeks. This morning Jared woke up to find a trail of gold coins leading from his bedroom around the house to find his treasure.

 

We made Green Shamrock pancakes for breakfast which both kids loved and drank from our special rainbow mugs. Jared has been enjoying his special cereal (Lucky Charms) all month and part of his treasure today was just marshmallows cereal. He was so happy.

 

We made fun art projects and had special learning time activities such as:

 

 

Skittles and Lucky Charm graphing:

 

 

Rainbow Rice

 

 Rainbow Necklaces with Cheerios.

I really like how hard he is concentrating.  This was pretty tricky for him in the beginning but by the end he could do it really quick. He was so proud of his work that he didn't even want to eat it after we finished. It is still hanging on his closet door (Hopefully not attracting unwanted things)



 

We finished off with a special Saint Patrick's day bath. It was a little traumatic for Jared because Lydia spilled some of his shaving cream paint but in the end he enjoyed it. I thoroughly enjoyed doing all these things with him and am so lucky to be these two sweet kids mom and to have Mark as my partner.

I saw these online and decided they were too cute to not make.   I took them to the ladies I visit teach.

Our Easter activities will be a little off this year because we will not be home for Easter.  We leave on Friday for a week in Arizona followed by a week (or maybe less since we will have already been gone a long time) in Utah.  I have been checking out the weather and think I am going to have to pack for like 2 trips instead of 1 and I already way over pack every time we go somewhere. I couldn't believe how hot it already has been in AZ.  Yuck. And who knows if it will be spring like or winter like in Utah. We are pretty excited to see family and friends, check out this big canyon in AZ and go to my dear friend Kim's wedding.  It will be a long great trip! Wish us Luck!

This morning, last night and yesterday morning

"Are you LDS"
"Yes."
"You know how I knew?  Because you're very nice."

Two Jehovah's Witnesses knocked on our door today and I am glad that they could tell or figured I was LDS. Obviously most people who are not LDS are very nice too and not everyone who is LDS is nice but its nice to be part of something positive for the church even if it is just in my little neighborhood.  The other day I was looking up quotes for a short talk I am giving at a RS activity and I typed in something like "Quotes on self esteem-LDS" and got all these crazy anti- Mormon sites.  Yuck. I have been very fortunate to never have anybody care (to my knowledge) that I was LDS or try to convince me I shouldn't be.  I have often wondered if other denominations feel slightly discouraged when they find out who they are talking to is LDS? They certainly didn't stay very long and talk about many of their beliefs with me.  Just dropped off a flier about their celebration of Jesus's death and chatted a bit.

Jared, Lydia and I had just returned from a special breakfast outing. (Einstein's Bagels, Jared got choclate milk with his bagel and was in heaven. I hope little things like chocolate milk will make him happy for a long time, or forever!) Because I watch Tanner M-F 7:45-4:30 (He stayed home sick today) I don't feel like I get very many opportunities to just be with my kids.  Obviously I do I have weekends and evenings but it was just really nice to go and do something special with the two of them. Something out of the ordinary. That is the one thing I do look forward to about summer. (One of the very few things) Mark is home so if one of us wants to have a special outing with just one of our kids it is very doable.  I am looking forward to it.

 Bonus:  here is cute little Lydia with her very first ever ponytail. She was not thrilled when I put it in and it fell out shortly later (so much for no slip elastics!) but it was a first so there it is. She wakes up with some crazy hair some mornings. Its so feathery. She also was walking! a little too much for me to get a decent picture of it.

 

 

We finally got a decent video of Lydia walking yesterday.  Jared was watching it on the camera with me after and Lydia came over to watch too and was so happy to see herself. Maybe it will motivate her to walk more so we can record it again.  That is what I do with Jared.  If he is not in the mood to take pictures then I remind him about how much he likes to look at pictures and if he doesn't take them nicely he won't have any to look at. Mind games.  But innocent enough ones. Speaking of mind games, Mark and I finally watched The Hunger games last night. He wasn't too impressed (he hasn't read any of the books so wasn't sure what to expect). His question was "what kind of world/mindset does this author live in?  Sort of a, how did she come up with all this? As I read them I often wondered that too.  Mark was just happy I found a movie to watch. I much prefer short TV shows. He often tries to find one for us to watch with no luck. We will see if I watch another one before Catching Fire comes out on DVD.

Bonus 2: Last night at dinner Lydia looked at me and said Mahm, Mahm and she wasn't sad at all. Before this she would only say it when she was in some kind of pain. More of a bonus foe me then anyone else.

Climbing, walking and blowing kisses

Yesterday I walked around the corner into our kitchen and found Lydia doing this: 

 

She was quite pleased with herself. Clearly, climbing is her latest accomplishment.

Further Evidence:

 

 I have been carrying our camera around because I have yet to get a really good video of her walking which turned out to be helpful for these moments. She is gaining more confidence and walking more frequently but definitely prefers crawling. The chairs at this table have now been put into the pantry because the idea of Lydia falling off the table onto our hard tile is not a nice one.

 

She has also decided blowing kisses is pretty fun too. I think its so sweet.

 



 

And I think black beans may now be her favorite food. She has always like them but now just wants more and more.  She is doing well with her signing occasionally signing "all done" and "yes".

 

We have also discovered that "buh" is bananas and "bahl" is ball.  When she is really upset or sad she will cry out MaMa MaMa.  It may be nice to hear her call for me other times besides when she is pain but I will take what I can.  She did say Dada the other day while Mark was holding her so I really think she is making connections and now I can say so at her next check up!  She is having a really hard time with her naps this past week.  It could be the walking or the talking or the climbing that is interrupting her some, at least that is what the "experts" (or just websites) say. She does great for her morning one and sleeps in the afternoon every 2 days or so.  I am actually really looking forward to her going to one nap. I dreaded it with Jared but now I know I know how nice it can be. It will be extra nice to have her, Jared and Tanner all sleeping at the same time. I need to try to figure out when to stop Jared's naps but maybe I will wait for summer.  I will miss them. 

WHY?

"Why does our tummy hurt if we eat a lot of food?
Why did Lydia take her bib off?
Why sometimes we don't get things we want?
Why do we need to have short nails? (I was clipping his)
Why did Heavenly Father give Lydia blue eyes?
Why does daddy say sometime the kids at school are annoying?
When the cone falls over why you say poor cone?"

My personal favorite:  "Why don't you know?"
This is just a SMALL sampling of today's inquiries.

Jared has most definitely entered the questioning phase.  Sometimes I just look at him with an expectant look and he answer his own questions which I love and much prefer. I don't really mind answering lots of questions but I do get a bit irritated when he is asking something he just asked earlier or I know he already knows the answer too. Or when he asks a question, I answer it and then he asks 5 more questions, a new one right after I thought I gave a complete answer. Again and Again and Again.

 

And then I see something like this and any irritation fades away.

♥

 

Remembering

 One day Mark came home and I noticed he and Jared were (unintentionally) twins. 

 

Which reminded me of this picture:

Also taken in February weirdly enough (2010)

 

You can see that Mark's style hasn't changed too much or Mark himself.  Obviously there is very little the same about Jared except maybe his coloring which I am pretty sure he will have most of his life the sun will not be his friend.

 

Lydia has had a busy week learning all kinds of new things.  The biggest:  Walking! We have yet to get a video of it but we have lots of 4-6 seconds videos of her standing on her own then going back to crawling.  Yesterday she took about 6 steps but has yet to repeat it. I am not dreading her walking per say but know it is going to make Sunday's a little more challenging. Oh well. She also learned how to come down the stairs this week.  She was upstairs one night with Mark and then I turned around and she was downstairs. When he came down I asked if he had brought her real quick then gone back up and he said he had not.  So good job Lydia! We were very excited about that one because it means we will no longer have to "rescue her" or listen to her squawking at the top of them. She also mastered the well known (as in every house with kids 3 and under have them) stacking rings and the stacking cups!  Who knew this week would be so busy for her. She did reach 13 months last Saturday so apparently that is a big development time for her.  I love seeing her learn these things and thinking back to when Jared was figuring them out.  Seriously time goes so quick!