endurance

I guess not many can stand up to the rigors of my kitchen.

These two helpers expired rather early and I was left to recruit from a younger, more freshly napped group.

She seems happy to help so far. . .

January Blues

When Mom and Dad came for Christmas, Braydan got the twin bed out of storage for Alisha to sleep on and put it in Kaleb's room. Well, the bed never left. We decided Kaleb was old enough to move to a big bed (okay . . . and we were too lazy to move the bed back). Goodbye toddler bed!

His room was the only one I've never painted. The owners before us had a cute truck/car wallpaper border and curtains that worked, but the plain white walls have been calling my name, "PLEASE PAINT ME!" He needed an older looking room anyway because he's almost 4!

I didn't take good before picture, but here's the white walls with the unpainted wainscoting Braydan put up.

My painting "helpers."

After they wore these shirts for a day, I wondered why I didn't do it more often. No stains on their clothes and much easier to get them dressed.

After

Kaleb likes it I think

He still says he wants a spider-man room, which notion he gleaned from a magazine picture because he's never seen the movie. Unfortunately, I'm mean and want his room to stay boring. I need some frames on the wall, but not huge spider-man stickers like he wants.

A note on Eliza, one morning she suddenly decided she's done with highchairs, sippy cups, and bibs. What a mess :)

She's been calling us silly lately. The other day I pointed out a moose picture and she says, "that's a cow silly." She's constantly correcting us and tacking on "silly" on the end of things.

Saturday Kaleb gave me a scare. It was nice outside (hallelujah!), so Braydan and Kaleb worked all afternoon outside in the yard and garage. Eliza was asleep upstairs and I was finishing painting. Well, Braydan came in and asked if I'd seen Kaleb. I resisted the urge to say, "he's been with you, so why haven't you been watching him?" and went outside to look for him. Braydan said he was sanding in the garage and stopped to check on him and he was gone. We looked all over the yard and house and started asking all the neighbors. Nobody had seen him. Soon all the neighbors were looking. Wes went on bike, Tracy in her car, I got in my car and felt sick all over. Braydan told me his bike was gone, so I had no idea how far he could go. What added to my panic was the fact that Braydan WASN'T panicking. I almost wanted to shake him, but I didn't. Meanwhile, Amber stayed at the house with Eliza and she said she felt like someone was in the garage with her. Sure enough, she found Kaleb sound asleep curled up in our stroller in the garage. He never woke up with us calling or anything. I have the best neighbors ever!

Some other funny things Kaleb said this week:

"I'm cleaning up good Mom. If you guys want to help me clean up, you can (with a hint, hint tone in his voice)"

"Jesus is going to send you to the zoo!" (in a fit of rage he threatened me with that)

"Mom, bees have to brush their teeth cause all the honey they eat right? But I don't think they have toothbrushes."

Babe's Birthday

Eliza turned two on Sunday. My little baby is two (sigh). She awoke to a whole downstairs covered in balloons. Braydan almost passed-out Saturday night blowing up balloons for her,but she loved them. It was the first week church switched to 9am, so we didn't have time to do much in the morning. When I asked her earlier what she wanted to eat for her birthday, she said, "noodles and ice cream." When I asked her about breakfast, she said, "pancakes," but we ran out of time for the pancake part. I made it up to her on Monday though.

She did get to open some presents though before church.

She tossed aside the ponies, but loved her new baby. Yes, another baby.

But this one has lots of accessories, like bibs, bottles, a bed, and outfits. Girls can never have too many babies.

After church I made homemade mac and cheese, aka "noodles." Then she did her next favorite thing: took a nap (or maybe that's my favorite thing?)

After nap she got to have her cake and ice cream. Tina gave me a box of candles and other holiday stuff when she moved, so I had no idea that these were trick candles. She got lots of practice blowing out candles! She was kind of scared of them at first.

But then got the hang of it with some demonstrations from Kaleb and Kaitlyn. Amber took some cute pictures of her.

I love my sweet girl and can't remember my life before her. I'm sure we were happy, but I can't imagine Kaleb surviving without a sister to play with! It would be tragic. We love her so much. I love her crazy hair, her chubby belly, her little chatterbox voice, the way she runs, the way she pushes her hair out of her eyes. I just adore all the girly things about her. It cracks me up. I love how polite she is, always saying "thank you Mom" and "sorry Kayub" (even though it's usually him that needs to say it)

Here's a list Kaleb and Braydan helped me make about Eliza Susan:

"Loves dresses and skirts and tries to take off her jeans (she especially loves the panties that go with the dresses, which she's putting on in this picture)

Loves babies and is so sweet with taking care of them

Upgraded to 3 fingers instead of 2 (still loves her blankie too)

Likes to help me cook

loves shoes and purses. At the gym, the childcare lady says Eliza will spend most of the time trying on all the other kids shoes.

Loves to read books on Mom's lap

Loves to play with Kaleb

Likes to color

Sits on the potty forever and thinks it's fun, but never does anything

Loves to eat . . .and make funny faces while she's at it.

Funny things she says:

"Daddy can I hold you?"

"Do Zumba Mom?" She likes to dance with me. She can shake her hips like a pro

"Throw me to the sky Daddy"

"What the heck Mom"

"I don't want to go to bed"

"And it came to pass . . " When we say it's her turn for scriptures, she automatically says that. I think her reading scriptures is my favorite part of bedtime.

Her future career: harmonica playing

And performing twinkle twinkle. I think that's how she learned to sing her ABC's because it' the same tune.

Happy Birthday Sweetie Sue!

Christmas Break continued . . .

Kaleb really wanted to go the reptile zoo over the break, but no one wanted to take him. Except . . .

Alisha. What a nice auntie. Here's what Eliza thought of the deadliest snakes:

I don't know what this picture is about, but I'm hoping Kaleb is thinking what I'm thinking, "Ew, gross!" (but I doubt it).

I hope the glass is strong. My baby looks awfully small next to his python.

peek a boo!

I don't know why, but looking at these little baby snakes gives me the shivers more than all the big snakes combined! There's like 20 tiny snake heads looking at Eliza!

Merry Christmas

Sorry about the other posts! Kaleb kept hitting enter and it published twice before I was ready!

We had a wonderful Christmas this year with Mom, Dad, and Alisha. They flew in the 21st and stayed until the 29th. We stayed busy playing games, eating, cooking, shopping,

swimming at the gym,

going to zumba (I got Mom and Alisha hooked).

Christmas Eve we made a goal to not go anywhere and cook fattening things and play games, but Dad made me go with him to do his last minute shopping for Mom. He does that every year : )

After our big feast, we sang Christmas songs around the piano, read the nativity and acted it out.

Kaleb wanted to be the angel (ironic). Eliza was a very large baby Jesus.

Dad was the donkey for old times sake. Alisha had to help hoist Mary on to his back.

We watched the Nativity movie before putting the kids to bed. I love it and always feel the true spirit of Christmas, especially with the choir music. Christmas morning, I think I was the most excited because I laid awake for 2 hours waiting for the kids to wake up! Kaleb was so funny. He ran downstairs and passed all the presents and stockings and went to the kitchen. He climbed on the desk to the get scissors so he could cut the last chain off his countdown! He had to make it official I guess because he said, "now it's Christmas!"

Eliza loved her new baby, stroller and swing and played with that most of the morning. She even climbed in it at one point. No, it didn't break (yet). She also loved the dress Mom got her and put it on immediately.

Kaleb got dragons and lots of "robots". We thought it would be more fun if we individually wrapped each little robot. Mistake! He got in trouble a few times getting impatient for it to be his turn to unwrap a present. Next year we're putting all his gifts in one box because he was fine once he was done opening and we told him, "you're done, go play!"

Alisha got me this pretty purple dress. She thought it was horrible that I didn't have any dresses. Mom also got me some skirts so I'm excited to play dress up like Eliza now.

Eliza wouldn't go to Grandpa for most of the trip, but finally at the end she liked him :)

Braydan got his gun he wanted. Dad spent many hours finding the perfect one and flying it here safely, so thank you Dad!

Christmas Day was perfect. Mom made the best donuts, we relaxed

played games, watched movies and took naps.

One of the last days Dad was nice and watched the kids so the rest of us could go to the temple. It was the first time going through with Alisha so it was special . . . and funny. We got separated somehow, but those two zipped up and down those escalators like pros :)

I'll have to finish later because I'm tired!