Friday, April 8, 2016

February




G&G Budge came with Nana for a baby blessing in Orem so they stopped by for a quick hello before heading home. We love living so close to everyone!

One of my callings here is Activity Day Coordinator. That means the fun part is that occasionally I get to attend the activities with these darling girls--SO much amazing personality!! And, in the process I've been able to get to know some inspiring women. This is one. She's how I want to be when I'm her age, but not sure I could ever measure up. Her husband passed away years ago, she raised her large family but she is the sunniest, kindest, marathon-runner I've ever met!


Soo close...he's hanging out with all the girls

How many can we fit on one chair?

For V-day Tony surprised us all and gave Ari and Rhett their own Book of Mormon. Then he showed them how they can pick out the words they know & read and underline them. What a wonderful way to start each day and a great way to learn to read! Thanks honey.

Cute kiddies waiting in line for the Provo Temple open house. Thanks to mom Cobia who got the tickets, but then we realized we got the dates mixed up so she went and stood in line for a couple hours so we didn't have to with all the little people. It was a neat experience.


At the end all the kids just ran up to Christ and immediately started touching his hands. I imagine it will be very similar when we all see Him again...children have such a connection to Christ that I hope to emulate.


Trying my hand at sourdough...I've had a start a few times and done pancakes with it, but I've never attempted bread until now...


nice and bubbly

This 100% Kamut flour bread turned out spectacular...and it's a good thing I took a picture because the next several batches flopped. They tasted fine, but they fell flat or had huge holes down the middle. I've made a lot of bread, but I'm getting used to using the start as leaven and it's a bit tricky sometimes. Luckily, the guy who taught the class at my house when I was pregnant has been very kind to answer my questions.

This is how school looks most days. Comfy clothes, me no make-up & cozying it up on the couch. We've been doing reading, writing and math at home with plenty of cooking lessons :), weekly story time/craft trips, occasional library music days (and scriptures of course) in addition to our co-op preschool twice a week (where I like to do some science-y stuff when its my turn). That's the extent of homeschooling so far. Ari and Rhett have loved it. I hope to start teaching them piano on Saturdays and gradually introduce more subjects, but this is on a year-by-year basis. I'm not sure I'll homeschool every year or not yet. However, I will say, this has been sooo rewarding to actually be the one to teach my children how to read. To see them go from letters to words, from words to sentences and now paragraphs. And it's wonderful to spend this kind of quality time with them--even if school sometimes doesn't start until noon, or I finish it right before dinner...I'm glad we did it this year. Super-dee-duper glad.


These are critically important pictures I'm not allowed to erase from the camera so I thought they should be blogged. Rhett's lego men on his lego ship. And his Superman hoodie (complete with detachable cape) that he got with his G'ma Debbie money from Christmas.

Maeser's only flare-up--when I put coconut oil on his tummy! Though it hasn't happened since, so weird...

Yummy recipe from Aunt Meagan--Gyro-inspired chickpea wraps with Tzatziki sauce. Everyone looved it.


Learning about bones for the letter 'X' we showed Rhett's x-ray from his broken arm, wrapped up our 'broken' limbs (or head) with T.P. and then made an x-ray out of our own traced hands and Q-tips. Fun kiddos.

4 months



He's mellow and deep. His eyes talk to your soul. Seriously, this baby couldn't be any cuter!
-He's started on tummy time more regularly but doesn't last long still
-His sleep is great during the day (no crying at all when I lay him down), but nights are still in the weird 2-4 day cycle where he sleeps from 7pm until 4 or 5 am, for 2-3 days and then wakes up earlier and earlier, even though I haven't fed him the '2am' feeding since he was 2.5months old (unless he was sick then we just threw it all out the window and started over when he was well again)
-He's getting pretty vocal and can really get the most amazing high-pitched squealing going on, but it's not very often. Mostly he just smiles and kicks his legs in contentment.
-He falls asleep on his own in the car and at church in his carseat, ahhhh...I just put his little cover over him and he grunts a bit and falls asleep. For the record, Rhett was the only other one that did that.
-He gets stuck on his side and then 'crashes' back onto his back
-Found out he has Eczema, say what?! I'm guessing it's something I'm eating so here we go down the 'eliminate, figure-it-out' train...it doesn't really flare up so far, it just stays scaly patches on both his arms and then the skin is just a bit rough on his upper legs and tummy. I think it might have an emotional base...

A bit more January

Pre-school happenings...





What he does during preschool...

A month later looking pretty amazing...it healed much better than I thought it would! I'm sure it will be red for awhile, but I think it looks even better than if it had stitches! Go Saniderm and Helichrysm!!

This dude loves to play the piano--and he's only had a couple lessons!

I walked into my bedroom to this view

40lbs of bananas for $10 means we get two dehydrators going (thanks to a kind neighbor who lets us use hers!), yeehah!

Yet another case of reverting to babyhood :)

Friday, March 18, 2016

January


A visit from the laptop fairy, Uncle Pascal & Aunt Laura (my mom's bro)...they were getting new laptops and gave us one of the ones they were replacing!!! We are so grateful to have 2 working computers!

My mom's siblings and parents (minus Uncle Alain who passed away a few years ago)

My grandpa and all 3 of his brothers...

Rhett's first balloon animal of his own creation!

A little reverting never hurt anyone :)

Nana hugs




Temple square visit

And for dinner we got to go eat at an English Bakery near Temple Square compliments of a nice lady Tony got a Blendtec for--what a fun, unique experience!! So tasty!





We enjoy our 'green lemonade' in place of our green smoothies, but when I use Spring Mix and let it sit for a minute, all-of-a-sudden we get a lovely purple layer at the bottom :)

Thanks to Grandma Debby's Christmas money, Ari picked a cute dolly n' me outfit from Costco--love it!!!

So, Maeser was born with this little red bump on his ankle. Since it hadn't gone away by his 4 month mark I took him in to a a pediatric dermatologist who said it's a "Mastocytoma" (less scary than it sounds). It's an accumulation of white blood cells in one location that, when triggered, can cause a histamine reaction (when it gets rubbed it ends up looking like a mosquito bite which is another kind of histamine reaction). Anyway, when the dr rubbed it (to see if she could trigger a response to prove her theory correct), his face did this as well:

He flushes super bright red (and if the literature is correct he may have had a nauseated tummy as well, poor baby meanie doctor)

And here is Rhett's picture he wanted me to take of him to send to Uncle Andy (they gave us sticker faces for Christmas and Rhett decided to apply them to himself)