Spring Break at Temple Square!

Okay, so I know that Spring Break was actually a month ago, but I am just getting around to posting now.  Oh well, better late then never!

During the week of Spring Break Jan, Melissa and I went with our kids up to Salt Lake to the children's museum and then to lunch with Jen. 

The tulips had just come out and looked beautiful, so I took one with them and the temple.

In one of the talks during general conference a couple of weeks previous to our going on this trip.  Someone talked about letting your children touch the temple, so here are Annika and Emma touching the temple wall and the temple door.   And then a couple of Annika and Mieka at the children's museum looking darling.

All of the grandkids love Aunt Janice and Aunt Jenny.  What a treat to get to spend a day with them.  I love the other picture of Emma and Matthew holding on to the iron rod.  Matthew is going the wrong way.  Hope this is not a forerunner of things to come!  :)

Emma absolutely loved the baby station at the children's museum.  I think she is going to make one GREAT mommy someday!  She is so cute about the way she takes care of her babies.

Matthew was a bit of a handful (as usual).  He kept running all over the place, but he sure seemed to have a good time!

We did have lunch with Jenny afterwards at her work, but it wasn't the best.  Matthew and Mieka were a little overstimulated with all the noise and wouldn't eat very well.  They were fine once we got in the car though, so that was good.  All-in-all it was a really good day!

What Kind of 3 Year Old?

I am sad to say that I did not make a good choice (this is what we say to Emma when she doesn't obey) tonight.  Actually, let's back up.  

This morning we went to my nephew, Ethan's, baptism.  We would probably have arrived just in time except that I made a wrong turn.  That made us late and me upset.  I was trying very hard to be patient with Emma.  However, when we got into the church she couldn't decide where she wanted to sit and began crying quite loudly just as the prayer started.  I scolded her in a rather unkind voice and basically made her feel worse.  Fortunately Janice let Emma come and sit by her, so at least I didn't totally ruin the baptism for her.

After that bad choice, I decided that I would dedicate my fast today and tomorrow that I could have help with being more patient and talking more kindly to my children.  It didn't last very long however.

Tonight as we were getting ready to read scriptures, Emma was not obeying.  After asking her 3 times to obey, I told her that she wouldn't get songs tonight if she didn't obey.  She didn't obey and I lost it.  I didn't yell at her, but I did raise my voice and was talking very unkindly when I put her in bed.  At least I didn't yell, but for how sensitive Emma is, it might as well have been yelling because it probably has the same affect.

At this point of the evening I was fuming, not at Emma however.  I was so upset at myself for losing it with her when the very thing I was fasting for was to be more patient and kind to her.  I finally decided that I would go in and tell her I was sorry.  I took some clothes I had folded in to her room and began putting them away just before I talked to her.  As I was doing that, Emma said, "Mommy, I love you!"  She said it with so much sweetness and truthfulness in her voice that I broke down crying.  What kind of 3 year old says that after her mother has just punished and talked unkindly towards her?  I was truly humbled.  It is moments like this that make me realize what the Savior was talking about when He said to "become as a little child."  I hope that someday I will get to the point that I can forgive that easily.  She is so sweet and so pure it amazes me sometimes.  

After a while I told her about all the things she had done today that were good choices and as usual I realized what a good and obedient little girl she is.  This of course made me feel even worse about the fact that I had punished her for one of the few times that she did not obey.

Anyway, I did end up apologizing to her and we both felt much better, but I am still amazed at the incredible spirits that I am blessed to be raising.

I am finally getting around to doing a post about Easter.  Woohoo!!

We had a wonderful Easter!!  On Saturday we went to my parents house and had a great big Easter egg hunt/BBQ with my fam.  Unfortunately, Daniel had to work that day, so he couldn't be there, but we still had a nice time.  It was a little rainy that day, but not too bad in the morning.  While we were doing the actual egg hunt, there was a tiny bit of sprinkling, but we hardly even noticed it.  It wasn't very cold though, and we all had a really nice time.  All the kids did so great!  I don't think there was any fighting all day.  It was so nice!

Bubbers didn't quite understand what was going on at first.  He didn't really want to pick anything up, because he was looking around and trying to figure out what everyone was doing.  However, after a bit he did finally start picking things up and putting them in his little basket a bit.  He mostly just wanted to eat the candy though.  He was so darling!

Emma loved the Easter egg hunt!  She was so excited for it the whole week previous to the hunt and had such a good time running around and gathering up eggs and candy.  She was pretty fast this year and ended up getting a bunch of candy/eggs.  She was bummed when we had to go in.  She wanted to stay out and get more candy, because she didn't understand that the candy was all gone. 

Later that night, we dyed Easter eggs with Jan & Jenn and Dave & Melis and their kids.  It was a lot of fun.  Matthew didn't really care so much about dying the eggs as he did about banging them on the table until they cracked open.  He did seem to have a fun time though, even though we didn't let him break all the eggs.

For some reason we didn't get very many pictures of Emma dying eggs, so there are only 2 somewhat blurry ones at the bottom.  She did have a good time though. She cracked several eggs as well, but that was more on accident as apposed to Bubbers who just liked to whack them on the table.  :)

Easter morning was a lot of fun!  They were still young enough that I just left all the candy in their baskets from Saturday and added a couple of more Christ centered things as a surprise for Easter morning and so Emma would remember the real meaning of Easter.  Daniel had a meeting that morning, so he was gone when Emma woke up.  I was in the shower and Emma came running in saying "look what the Easter bunny brought!"  She brought both baskets in till I finished my makeup, etc.  Then we put them back in the hall so Bubbers could be surprised too.

Bubbers was pretty excited about his basket for about 5 seconds.  Then he was bugged because I wouldn't let him take everything out of Emma's basket.  After throwing a brief fit however, he did calm down enough for me to get a  picture of them.

The middle pictures are pictures of them in their Easter clothes.  We didn't get any great ones, but at least it shows their outfits.  I love the one on the right.  Bubbers looks like, "I am so board, can we be done with pictures already!"

Anyway, we had a great Easter holiday!  Hope you all did too!

I'm Behind!

Well, it's time to do a little catch up!  We have not done anything way exciting, just life, so here goes.

I went to a Zumba Instructor workshop all day about a week ago.  Then the following day, I went to the Draper temple dedication for most of the day.  That left Daniel with the kids for 2 days in a row.  I was a little worried about how things would turn out, but Daniel was wonderful.  He even cleaned the house and did laundry on Saturday, and had dinner ready when I got home on Sunday.  It was great!  He was great with the kids and as a result, Matthew likes him even more now.  Daddy is definitely his favorite.  As a matter of fact when I got home on Saturday night, it was like he hadn't even noticed I was gone.  He didn't even want me to hold him.  :(  Oh well, I'm glad he likes daddy so much.

This was taken last week.  Matthew sat and cuddled with daddy for about 10 minutes!  This never happens as he is not a cuddly baby, so I had to get photographic evidence.

Another Matthew moment happen about 2 days ago.  I got him out of bed and put him in his highchair to feed him breakfast.  While I was feeding him, he would snuggle his "da-ty" (teddy) and say "ooooooh!"  Then he would hand him to me and I would do the same thing.  We went back and forth like that for about 5 minutes.  He was so darling.

This was later that day, but at least it is a picture of him and his "da-ty."

On Saturday last week, Emma and Matthew played so well together all day long.  I was able to get a lot done because Emma was keeping Matthew occupied.  I ground a whole 5 pound barrel of wheat into flour.  I also cleaned out the barrels we bought (5 months ago) and put the flour we bought in those.  I mopped the floor, tidied the house, cleaned the kitchen and made bread as well.  It was great to get so many things done and wonderful to see them playing so well together.

Here they are all squished in a little corner sharing crackers with each other.  And they really did share the crackers too.  I was so proud of them.

A couple of nights ago, Emma and daddy had a little dance together.  He was teaching her how to do the jitter-bug.  It was so darling.

Things look quite different through the eyes of a child.  I gave Emma the camera the other day and let her take some pictures.  This is a little collage of the pics she took.  I helped her take the one of Bubbly and Daddy, but the rest were her own artistic genius!

Anyway, life is good!  We are doing great!  Business has picked up some at the rental center and will hopefully continue to get better as the weather gets warmer.  I am excited to start teaching a Zumba class at the end of April which should help things at the dance studio as well.  All in all life is BEAUTIFUL!!!

Cute little Emma!

Yesterday was a really good day for Emma.  She was so good and we didn't have any problems the whole day.  (A rare thing lately)  Here are a couple of funny little things she did.

Yesterday, while Matthew was napping and I asked her if she wanted to read a book together.  She said she couldn't because she was being a doctor.  Then she told me I was sick and she was going to take care of me.  She told me I needed to lay down on the couch and take a nap.  I had to follow the doctors orders, so I did lay down on the couch.  Then she whispered that she would turn on the "star light" (the nightlight lamp that we turn on in her room) so that I wouldn't be scared.  Then she quietly tiptoed away.  After a bit, I started to doze, when all of a sudden, I felt something on my cheek and I jerked to consciousness.  I realized that Emma had kissed me on the cheek.  Lately when we put Emma to bed, she will ask us to check on her before we go to bed.  I go in every night and "check" on her and give her a kiss on the cheek.  Often times, the next morning, she will ask if I checked on her and I will tell her that I did and that I gave her a kiss on the cheek.  So, she had come back to check on me and gave me a little kiss on the cheek.  It was so sweet and she was taking such good care of me.  I think she is going to be a great little mother when she grows up.

One more fun little story:  As I started making dinner yesterday, Emma decided that she was a spider.  She started crawling around on the floor and saying things like "The spider is thirsty," or "the spider wants a toy."  She played like this for several minutes and then started talking about the "mommy spider," (me) the "baby spider" (Matthew) and the "daddy spider" (Daniel).  She was in this little mode of pretending when it was time to start dinner.  She wanted to say the prayer, and this is what she said:

"Heavenly Father, please bless the baby spider to be good.  And please bless the baby spider that he won't pull my hair. In the name of... oh and please bless the food, and please bless - in the name Jesus Christ, Amen."  (Lately she says "please bless" at the end of every prayer, but doesn't add anything to bless.  So that is not a typo at the end of the above prayer, that is how she said it.)

It was all I could do to keep from laughing right out loud, especially when, in the blessing on the food, she blessed the food as an afterthought.  Anyway, I thought it was pretty funny. 

Help!! I need ideas!

So, here's the deal.  I have to do a float for my ward again this year and I need some help with ideas of what to do.  So, please leave me a suggestion of what you think a good idea would be.  The more the better, so if you want to ask friends or other people and get me more ideas, it would be greatly appreciated.

The theme that the float has to follow is, "If I could I would..."  It's pretty broad, so most any idea will do.  Thanks in advance for any help.  :)

Time For a Post!

It's been a while since I posted, so here are some random things that have happened lately.  (I actually started this post a couple of days ago, and am just now getting it finished.  Oh well, better late than never.)

I gave Matthew a haircut for the second time.  Here is a picture of it just after he woke up.  Of course with the 5 cowlicks on his head it usually looks like this about an hour after I comb it anyway.  So here is a picture of him in his normal state.

Matthew has learned a few words lately and he loves to say them.  He has recently learned how to say "boo," "ga-ka," (cracker) "da-ty," (teddy) "pitza," (peaches) and his favorite, "NO."  He loves that he knows these words and finds every opportunity to use them.  He has learned how to open our pantry.  He will open it up and get the crackers off the bottom shelf and bring them over to me saying "ga-ka, ga-ka."  It is not specifically that he wants a cracker, I think it is more that he is excited to be able to say it.  I suspect this because as soon as I give him a cracker he will take one bite and then go and get another box of crackers and bring it over saying "ga-ka, ga-ka" again, and leave the previous cracker on the floor with only one bite taken out of it.  It is a very cute little ritual.  I have taken to leaving the crackers on the counter because he does it so often.

The other day, Emma and I were reading a book on the couch and Matthew went behind the television and started playing.  I kept calling his name and he would bend over and peek out from behind the television.  Then he would disappear behind the television again.  We probably did this ten times and I just thought it was so cute that I had to take a picture.

The other day, Emma was eating her smoothie and suddenly said, "Look at my pretty lipstick mom."  I turned to look and saw that she had purposely put smoothie all over her mouth and pretended it was lipstick.  So, here is another picture of her with a smoothie face.

Whenever we put "lipstick" (lipgloss) on her, she does little kissy lips like in the picture above.