Jared goes to the Dentist

 

 

*Hats off to Mark for taking these pictures without me even asking him too.  After they left I totally thought "I wish I sent the camera with Mark."

Jared had his first trip to the dentist yesterday.  I think most people probably take their kids when they are younger but we just kept not scheduling it.  Mark thinks taking kids to the Dentist when they are really young is sort of silly since they are all baby teeth and are most likely all going to fall out . I am sure any dental people reading this are possibly dying right now.  I planned on taking him when he turned 3 but time just skipped by.  Thankfully he went yesterday and was perfect.  And so were his teeth.  A little tartar build up but no cavities. We watched a video on YouTube about what would happen when he got there which I think helped so he could see what to expect. Mark said he sat right down and did what he was asked.  He loved wearing the glasses and picking his prize. When he got home he was so very excited to show me his new toothbrush, a Lightning McQueen one no less. CARS has really been making come back in our house for which I am thrilled. I love listening to him have his CARS interact with each other and hear what he has them do. He told me the other day when he gets new underwear again he is going to choose CARS underwear instead of Thomas ones. Sounds good little buddy.

I am so happy that he wasn't fazed by the Dentist and it was a positive experience.  He's such a nice little boy.

Snow for real

Ever since we have lived here I have been shocked at how little snow actually falls here. Storms come and either stay in Denver or just die in the mountains.  Mark has family in Utah and whenever they get a storm they always ask if we got snow too since logically it would come to us after them.  But more often then not we don't.  Yesterday was the exception and we got a real snowstorm. Not so much to set any records but it was the most snow I recall seeing here in the 3.5 years we have lived here.  I don't really mind the lack of snow here. Growing up in California we would would occasionally go to the mountains to play in the snow but I don't recall ever thinking if was that great. Just wet and cold.  After this morning I think Jared feels the same way.
Since Mark had today off and the little boy I watched stayed home with his dad (he works at Peterson AF base and the base was closed so yeah most snow I have seen here) I took Jared out into the snow.  He was really excited but it quickly wore off when he realized how cold it was. In Jared's defense we don't have proper snow clothes for him. (we just so rarely get snow like this) We have warm winter coats and hats but not boots or snow pants. I am pretty sure if we did have those things he would have liked it more, well maybe.  The people who plowed our parking area made a huge mountain of snow and Jared couldn't wait to climb it.  He ran over and tried to climb it then promptly fell over. He said it was "a really tricky mountain." He did try a few more times with no success.  He walked over to me and sort of just looked at the snow everywhere.  I had him sit down in a pile of snow so I could take his picture and he could play in it and he lost it.  He started sobbing uncontrollably. It was so sad.  So our snow play lasted about 4 minutes. I didn't really mind. I much prefer being inside and watching the snow fall. That I love and wish happened more often.

Pinterest Projects

I am not super creative or clever or crafty but I am pretty good at using the Internet. I have a board on Pinterest entitled "I can Make that" and here are two things I found and we made! It's hard for me to spend money on house decorations (unless it's for a holiday) because I feel like we don't need them (although many people would argue you don't need holiday decorations but I DO) and I would really want to redo everything which would be way too much money. But I am happy with what we did and we didn't have to spend much at all.

Kids Art Display: Idea found HERE

 

I do lots of art projects with Jared and will soon start doing them with Lydia so my fridge was not going to have sufficient space to hang them up. A friend of mine is cutting out "MASTERPIECES" in vinyl and we will stick it above it. I LOVE it and it was incredibly easy. The wall has just been blank since we moved here in June 2010. Now our kitchen is a lot more fun.

Bedroom Wall Art

The walls in our bedroom have been completely bare since we moved in. I didn't really care because really we are not in our room very much but Mark has wanted to put something up.  We had to get some new bedding (it was completely worn out and ripping) so while we were at it we found some wall art to go with it. Awhile back I found this headboard made from a door and fell in love with it.

 

 

We looked for doors on craigslist with no real luck and went to Home Depot to look for a cheap door but the man helping us was convinced it would not work. I was frustrated because I finally decided to do something and then couldn't.  Instead we bought some shutters, spray painted them and came up with this:

We got the letters and & sign on sale at Hobby Lobby for 5 dollars each.



This is what you see when you sit on our bed.  So yeah, completely bare walls before.  I am quite happy with how it turned out and how easy it was but do still wish we could have done the door headboard. We rearranged our furniture and now our room feels so grown up.

Be mine Be mine Sweet Valentine!

I had so much fun with Jared for Valentines.  (Mark too, we are going on a hot date Saturday, out to dinner then to the Colorado Springs Philharmonic to listen to them perform the score from Casablanca while scenes from the movie show on a big screen, awesome right?) We added some Valentine themed activities to our learning time, had a Valentine themed bath, (ideas courtesy of Growing a Jeweled Rose seriously go check out that blog) festive meals and special Valentine deliveries each day in his very own mailbox. I will have to find another one for Lydia for next year.  If you haven't picked up on it yet I LOVE holidays. I love looking up projects and learning activities, meals and games.  They make regular things so much more fun.  There are so many things you can do with conversation hearts!

Jared's Valentines: 

Apple Juice: Youre' the Apple of my Eye

Crayons: You color the world with happiness

Teddy Bear Grahams:  I love your bear hugs

Chocolate: I love you more then chocolate

Valentines Bath

We made a lava lamp, love potion eruptions, chocolate treasures, and red shaving cream paint.  All the ideas were found HERE. There are so many fun things you can do with baking soda and vinegar!  Jared had a blast. 

Learning time fun: We stacked conversation hearts, graphed conversation hearts and made patterns with them.  We, well, Jared I think they are gross ate quite a few as well.  We matched uppercase and lower case letters like this: played a Valentine memory game and went on heart hunts.

Festive meals: What's a holiday without some fun meals?

Beef Stroganoff, his favorite

Valentines Floats: Strawberry soda with Vanilla Ice Cream

Brownie, cheesecake pudding, cool whip, strawberries, drizzled on top with melted white chocolate and chocolate chips

Decorations:

Heart Attacks! (the good kind)

 And cute kids!

I can't wait for Saint Patrick's day! And now maybe I can start blogging regularly again I have just had so much fun planning.

One week later

Lydia is so much happier this week. It's great.  She decided baths are okay again and survived her doctor's appointment.  She was not so happy to have unknown people poking her but she is healthy and growing well. (18 pounds and 28.8 inches compared to 15.5 pounds and 27 inches at 9 months) I can't decide if it was the nurse and doctor or the doctor's office she disliked so much.  At church Sunday a sister asked to hold her so she could have a "baby fix" and she did great with her. Maybe she just remembers her shots from 3 months ago.  Anyway.  She got over it quickly and I am happy she is doing so well.  Mark was disappointed she didn't weigh enough to turn her car seat around. We are hoping we will be able to turn it for our trip to Arizona for Spring Break.

I am not really sure what to do with Lydia's hair.  It is so baby fine and so crazy!

She was sporting a fancy Mohawk the other day.  I am not sure if I could get it into a pony tail and it would just stick straight up if it did anyway. I did see this cute hairstyle on Facebook today and I think I could actually do it!  Who knows how Lydia will react to me trying to do her hair anyway.

Lydia also decided she was ready to climb all the way up the stairs.  Now we have the joy of her climbing up there, getting stuck and squawking until we rescue her.  She has crawled up the bottom 3 stairs for a long time but just randomly (well it seems random to me) decided  to go all the way up on Sunday (Jan 27).  She gets so excited to do it almost like it surprises her when she gets to the top.  It will be a great day when she feels brave enough to come back down the way we have showed her. 

We have also had fun getting ready for Valentines day.  I was at the store the other day and saw these super cute Valentine pajamas and got Jared and Lydia each a pair. Holidays are such a weakness of mine. Although, in my defense we have been really fortunate to receive pretty much all of Jared's wardrobe from Mark's sister Cathryn and all of Lydia's from a friend in our ward so we have probably bought each of them 20 or less pieces of clothing so I think its okay if they get more pajamas then they need.  Jared loves them.  I think he has definitely picked up on my love of holidays.  We baked 4 dozen peanut butter blossoms Monday night after FHE and they  are all gone. I did give about a dozen to a sister I visit teach but really, we ate way more then we needed to.  We didn't even make it to February! Mark said if they were all gone before the 01st we should make more. We probably will, they are so good and we pretty much only make them for Valentines.  I think its funny that we have certain cookies we make for certain holidays.  Most people have them for Christmas but we go a little beyond that in this house. 

I really feel so blessed to have my sweet little family.  At church Sunday I was singing to Lydia to get her to sleep during Sunday school (1-4 church is hard, really hard for both our kids), and after I finished singing "Families Can be Together Forever" a song I don't really like very much I felt the spirit pour over me and I felt so incredibly blessed and grateful to live the life I live and to know what I know.  I looked down at this sweet little girl sleeping in my arms and felt So very peaceful.  More at peace then I have felt in a long time.  More sure of what I believe.  It was a special tender mercy. Often I go to church and it's kind of exhausting. Jared is really pretty good for sacrament meeting but it would be less exhausting if Mark did sit with our family and it is going to get harder as Lydia gets more mobile.  I don't write much about personal beliefs on here but should my children ever decide to read this blog I want them to know I know.  It's good for me to write down spiritual experiences anyway so I can remember them when I need to.

Life is so good you know?