Happy Valentine's Day 2014!

Well I got into my usual mode for Valentine's day.  At least one of our meals has to be Valentine themed.  I figured to start it off nice for Steve and  actually make him breakfast (don't ask me when the last time was that I did that).  He was quite pleased. :)
 

Sausage, Scrambled Egg, and a Pancake with Apple Accents :)

Fired up for the day!

As he was just about to leave and I was finishing up Ross's breakfast, Ross came out saying he threw up....he just likes to give throw up as presents for the holidays I guess.  Christmas, Valentine's,  good times.
I snuggled him in with his blankets and pillow to chill and gave him tablespoons of water about every 5 minutes...which came back up after three Tablespoons.  I was flipping out a little bit since our friends, the Horchs, were supposed to be staying with us the next day on their trek back to their next internship.  I was guessing it was just something Ross ate since he was his merry old self otherwise.  I let our friends know and decided to watch him.  I was also flipping out because the kids were supposed to go stay with my parents for the night while Steve and I went out to celebrate Valentine's and sleep in the next day.  This hasn't happened since before Ross was born people....my plan was not to allow this to happen!  

Poor Sickie

This girl got to enjoy Ross's breakfast instead :)

Ross seemed just fine from about 9 on so I took that as a good sign and let everyone know our plans were still on!  
 

Cute Valentine clothes contributed by Grammy Joanne :)

Hugs!

This boy just gets cuter and cuter!

My love machine :)

This girl just wanted to brush her 5 teeth all morning...

I packed the kids up after their naps and headed to Cabela's where I was meeting my parents and brother to do the switch off.  Traffic was bad and just when I got off the exit, I took a wrong turn and somehow ended up back on the freeway...seriously...in bad traffic.  So about 20 minutes AFTER THAT, I finally met up with them and did the hand off.  Whew!

 Here's a video my brother made of what they kids did at Cabela's

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nQJumBuBEg&feature=youtu.be

I hurried home and Steve and I set out for some AMAZING Indian food (seriously - Flavor of India in West Jordan was fabulous!) and to see a chick flick - Winter's Tale.  It started out fairly interesting if not a bit confusing...but when Will Smith showed up in 1910 wearing a t-shirt with a suit coat and earrings, I just let it go.  Fun to see something different though.

We were both a bit weirded out with the lack of children sleeping and fans running...but when I woke up the next day at 10....boy - that was a beautiful moment!  Happy Valentine's to us!  Steve and I both wrote cheesy, cute love poems to each other and enjoyed some chocolate dipped strawberries I made earlier along with our Sparkling Cider.  It was a great holiday. :)

Dealing with Snow and Girl's Night!

Well we've been going a bit crazy being cooped up inside, so we have gotten a little creative at times in how to entertain ourselves.  We headed out into the snow a few times to do some digging.  

Our Snow Bunny :)

The first dig

Ruby mostly just sat patting the snow all around her. :)

Steve and Ross built this sweet awesome snow tunnel at the beginning of January.  It stayed around until a few days ago!.  They also built that now creepy looking snowman who's also hung around just as long.

These guys found a helicopter in the midst of snow playing.

Ready for take off!!

Taking off the layers.

Later we've tackled practicing letters and sounds as well as counting and numbers.  Ross prefers to play trains and cars for the most part, but we fit it in there. :)  We've also played some ball games as well as a ton of hide and seek.  Ross has finally learned not to shout out, "I'm right here!" When the seeker is looking....he can't help giggling though.  Ruby is the seeker's tracker as well.  She's pretty good at detecting where you're hiding.

A Quad bike goes with Q - Q can be tricky.

Letters are so much more fun to practice when trucks and cars are involved.

and Airplanes

And especially Monster Trucks

This kid is determined to sleep with his "Dusty" every night...I have no idea why - it is not snuggly in the slightest!

The other night, Steve took Ross for a father/son outing, so Ruby and I decided to take advantage and have a girl's night!  We painted toes, took pictures, and swapped girlie stories. :)  Ruby was really good at holding still for her toes to be painted, and then I distracted her with snacks so she would stay for them to dry.  She kept laughing when I would blow on them to hurry along the process. :)

Pink toes!  I love the girlyness!

Her pink toes make me so happy!

Cutie girl trying to get the camera.

Wahoo for girls!

Her hair gets crazy, but I love the little curl behind her ear - it's adorable!

This girl just thinks she can do anything!

We also have started turning everyday things into other entertaining objects...like turning bowls into hats.  All through lunch Ross wore his bowl on his head laughing every ten seconds. :)

Bowl heads

He's STILL amused with it. :)

Mr. Valentine

This girl has gotten a recent obsession with boxes.  She likes to plop herself down in them.

She likes to bring things in the boxes with her too...

Balls are also fun to bring in boxes.  She seriously will just sit in here for a good 5-10 minutes totally content. 

Ross helping Ruby fill her box up with balls.  You always need a dump truck to help.

Satisfied girl.

I wandered in here to find Ruby and found her sitting like this by herself.  Banana chair potato!

Silly!

Over the weekend my parents came up to watch the Olympic opening ceremonies and hang out with the kiddos.  Ross and Ruby had gotten sick during the week so we opted to stay in and relax with pizza.  We love the Olympics.  They are so much fun and it was nice spending time with my parents.  We also got to go out for our biannual Conference dinner with Steve's fam. (For everyone who read the General Conference talks).  It was pretty fun.  Steve's parents were nice and took the kiddos to their house and we snuck out to see The Lego Movie which I laughed quite hard at and felt like it was a sort of Monty Python/Napoleon Dynamite type of movie.  You can see it once straight through and quote the parts you thought were hilarious, and then not feel the need to see it again for quite some time.  We stayed the night at Steve's parents last second and headed back the next morning.

For FHE we decided to have a lesson on Obedience.  Something Ross has a bit of trouble with.  After Steve gave the lesson here's what conversation occurred:


Dad: "Ross, do you want to be obedient to Heavenly Father?"
Ross: "No"
Mom: "Should we be obedient to Heavenly Father?"
Ross: "Yes"
At least this kid understands agency...we just need to work on HOW we use it.

At Costco the other day Ross and Ruby were sitting side by side in the cart.  Ross was eating his snacks and Ruby really wanted one.  I asked Ross to hand her one, as he did, I had Ruby say, "Thank-you!"  She caught on to this.  So every time she wanted a snack she would dive bomb her hand into his snack cup saying, "Dank you!" as sweet as can be.  Ross didn't buy of course, but I couldn't help laughing at it. :)

Ruby's been screaming a bit more...such a fun phase right?  Her demands have become more and more in number.  I am not allowed to play the piano for longer than 30 seconds before she's demanding to be picked up suddenly and held so she can play.  Doing the dishes or cooking is out of the question as well.  Her perimeter checks have increased in their number and boundaries.  She now demands to see what's happening on the counter tops and shelves.  She's also added hand motions to some of her words :)

Ross gets more and more fun every day.  He's pretty much got potty training down.  He goes in the regular toilet, and even when we're out he'll let me know and hold it until he gets to the bathroom.  Naps are without diapers, and we're getting closer to bedtime being without diapers.  It's SO much easier now and I'm SO SO SO glad (knock on wood) that he caught on so quick.  I think it was good waiting a bit longer with him so he could warm up to the idea and I could psych myself up to just do it.  Hopefully Ruby won't be hard to do - which knowing her personality and wanting to do what big kids do - she'll be a piece of cake. :)

In other news, we've been watching the Olympics like crazy and wanting to be Olympians ourselves.  Steve's still loving his internship, learning SO much, and getting ready to go check out a job offer in Yuma, AZ in March.  He's got quite the load on his plate finishing his CAPstone, preparing an Inservice, job hunting, and studying for Boards.  He's amazing though and we are all so proud of how hard he works.  

All in all, we're riding out the winter and enjoying our little family as we go. :) 

Oh - and enjoying dance parties - those are the best.  My kids' gots moves!

 

A Few Things to Remember

My kids are adorable...I can totally say that, because it's true. :)  They are getting more and more fun every day.  I'm finding their personalities coming out more and more the older they get.

The other night while Steve was wrestling with Ross and Ruby, Steve pretended to eat Ruby up. Ross proclaimed, "We don't eat girls dad. We eat fish and cereal!" Thanks for keeping us in line buddy. The world would be in chaos without you to keep order.

Ross has also been having trouble settling down for the night lately and comes up with every excuse imaginable. After number 27 which was "my finger's sticky!" Steve grabbed his finger and licked it off (a pretty dicey move if you ask me) to which Ross happily scampered back to bed and Steve got to have the after taste of...ear wax. I think we've all learned a valuable lesson from that one. 

We were at the store the other day and I had Ross and Ruby strapped in to the boat cart they have for multiple kids.  Ross really wanted to get out and kept chanting, "Get me out of here! Get me out of here!" to which I replied to him, "Sometimes I feel the same way kid...sometimes I feel the same way."  He didn't really care and continued on his rant...and eventually ended up out of there (and behaved quite well to his credit).  Whenever he would be a little to far away for my liking and I'd call him back to me he'd yell, "Whaaaat?!  Oh!  Okay Mom!  I'm coming!!! aaaaaahhhhhh" all while he trotted or raced back to me so the entire store could here.  Hilarious.

Potty training is actually going pretty well.  He'll have the occasional accident, but it's never very big and he finishes in the potty.  He usually goes through naps without a diaper as well.  He still uses the potty to his advantage at night and gets up a few times to go, but we've even gone to the library and the store with him in underwear.  He's pretty good at letting me know if he needs to go.  He loves his sticker chart and M&M's, and seems to prefer underwear to diapers too now.  Hooray!  Hopefully this will continue to go smoothly. :)

I was getting Ross ready for bed the other night as well and as I was zipping up his pj's he looked at me with this ear to ear grin and said, "You're pretty mommy." and gave me a big hug....oh my heart - may he always stay this age. 

I love when he wants to read books with me and sit in the rocking chair to read them.  I love when he wants to snuggle with me (even if it's just to get out of going to bed), or how he likes to sit with me and share my food.  He will always give us kisses and hugs whenever we ask for them and can be so sweet whenever he's asking questions about the world around him.  I love being the one to explain things to him for the first time - it's a precious responsibility - it makes me try to be more patient and opens my eyes to see his perspective, being new to everything.  He is such a sweet boy and I love him with all my heart.

Ruby is a proper toddler and she's barely over one!  She walks like a monkey a bit still, but is pretty sturdy when it comes to balance.  (I think it has something to do with their toys everywhere and a brother who bumps in to her more often than not.)  Her vocabulary is growing like crazy.  The doctor told me the way she mimics things (like our words and actions - pretending to say hello on the phone, etc.), and how she had already been saying around 10-12 words was reflective of what 18 month olds and older do.  She's trying so hard to keep up with the big kids!  She's skinnying out more with all her activity, but still has a few rolls in her legs and cute potbelly hanging around.  She's pretty much weaned and I have been savoring these last few times nursing her.  My baby is getting older and I'll miss that sweet intimate time nursing I think - now that we're done of course.  Funny - I always hate it in the beginning and am sad when it's over.  Something about being a girl! 

I've found Ruby to be quite girly actually.  I saw her trying to put on my headband a couple days ago, so I helped her out.  She promptly left the room, heading for mine and stopped right in front of the mirror to admirer it on her head.  She LOVES hanging around the mirror - silly.  She likes to comb her own hair, (as well as constantly pull the bows out of it I put in), and has recently become obsessed with Ross's monkey, calling it, "Baby" and hugs it close while she says, "Awwww".  It's adorable.  

I've found Ruby and I have a Marco Polo game that goes on throughout the day.  She likes to do her perimeter checks, so when I can't see her I call out, "Rubeeeee!" to which I hear her reply, "Mommmmyyyy!"  It's hilarious.  

She can say, "Mommy, Daddy, Baby, Ruby, Dank you, Apple, Bu-bye, Hi, Hello, Lellow, Choos (shoes), I love you, Papa, Bama, Ba-ba (bottle), Ah Done (All done), Too (whenever she wants something too - like "me too"), Happy, Happy Bay (Birthday), Tah (Uncle Tom), Nae-Nae (Auntie Janae), Yaya, No No, Potty, Peepee, Poop (figures since that's said a million times a day to Ross), and Ligh (Light).
 

It seems everyday she wakes up there are more words coming out of her mouth!  She's a gabber!  Whenever we're at the store, she's the ice breaker to everyone around her since all she says to them is, "Hi! Hi! Hi!" and they all respond "Hi" back because, well, she's adorable. :)  She'll be a good little missionary someday I think. :)

Ruby is also very good at playing the dramatic card when she doesn't want to go to bed.  She experiments with different cries that are pretty impressive, and, given, I've gotten a bit softer the second time around and give in a little sooner than I did with Ross, but she usually will throw in the towel.  It's funny though - she still does the same thing after sounding like you've left her all alone in the world and you go in only to find her with a big happy grin on her face and a "Hi!" waiting for you like she knew you'd come all along.  She kills me.

We went to a Superbowl party yesterday with our friends, the Dilles and Schauss's.  Our kids are all about the same age give or take a few months which was fun.  I ended up staying upstairs chatting with the girls the whole time which was really fun.  I enjoyed catching up and planning our 10 year anniversary's together.  I think we planned four trips in there to be exact :)  A cruise, Harry Potter World, Naples, and Disney World.  I'm all about vacations!!  We also planned how to have all our kids married to each other's so we can make this all official.  Again - totally fine with that. :)  It was a fun night even though the bowl was a bore.  Nothing like getting together!

 

Hugs!

Hugs!

Moms!