Max's blessing day

A nearly perfect day. A beautiful blessing given by Josh. Beautiful weather...blue and sunshiny. The only regrets: I let myself stress out for a few minutes after church when we were trying to get the food ready, and I completely forgot to invite my grandparents!! Duh!! I really feel bad about that and wish I could go back and change that.

Halloween Highlights

A ghost.
A seal.
This boy LOVES to cook! "Sawt, sawt," he says as he grabs the nearest thing he can find and shakes it over whatever he's cooking.

This girl LOVES to hug, squeeze, kiss, chase, tickle, and boss her brother.
This boy busted his chin open on the wooden stairs at the French House at the tail end of a family Halloween party. A few days later he busted it open again on the metal trim of the bench in the dressing room at Old Navy. The day after that he busted it open again when he tripped and smacked it into the carpeted stair between the kitchen and tv area. We used super glue to repair it each time, but after so many repeats the final result left a solid line of scar tissue in the middle of the healed wound. Oh well, at least it's on the underside of the chin, and not very visible. Poor little guy—that was a tough week.

Sock Monkey

I love my little sock monkey and Jack loves being a little sock monkey. He gets excited every time, running around repeating "monkey, monkey"!
Could he be any cuter?! His jacket was a dingy, whitish, hand-me-down that I upcycled with a bit of leftover dye from a tie-dye party at my sister's house last summer. I like the brown and grey version much better—it's just right for this little boy.

Beehive Bazaar — Winter 2009

I'm selling delightful goodies at the Beehive Bazaar in December. I'll have paper dolls, candy rings, papier mache deer sculptures, and more. Come see me there.

A whole new world

The bottom half of one of the wooden planks in the fence is broken off. The remaining hole provides lots of excitement as it exposes the neighbor's backyard, usually replete with boys and bikes, and sometimes even water balloons that the boys might throw at you. Mavis is intrigued by this window into a new world.

Wacky Jacky

At this age, 14 months, he is very insistent about feeding himself.




This is his favorite jacket that he asks ("uhh, uuhh") me to put on him whenever he spies it. Today, after wearing it during a very messy dinnertime, I took the jacket off of him to put it in the wash. Jack was irate, pointing to the jacket and screaming and crying, hoping I'd return his beloved possession.

Preparing for Easters

We dyed eggs at the 'rents place. I think Mavis and Annie (not even pictured here) dyed the most eggs — close to 2 dozen each. Izak is on his mission, and his friend, Jana, who is a girl (not officially the girlfriend, although they do write to each other every single week!) comes over every now and then to hang out. Jana and her sister Kate showed up when we were dyeing eggs. That was fun for us. It was also especially nice that Jana and Lexy watched the kids for us afterward so we (me and the sibs and spouses and 'rents) could all go to Shoga for dinner. I've only been once, but I was pretty impressed with Shoga, the new Japanese restaurant next door to Outback in Orem (kitty corner from the University Mall ... just South and West of it). Real Fresh! And flavorful. I'm excited to go back. Also, I finally made it to red mango and it was real fresh too. Great flavor! I had the regular flavor yogurt with strawberries and mango. It was exceptional!

Lastly, and more importantly, in the week leading up to Easter I ended up talking with Mavis about the meaning of Easter. We talked about Jesus' death (we didn't go into much detail yet) and His resurrection. Also, several weeks ago we visited Grandma Irons again, Janet's mom, who is quite old now, and close to death. She has soft, bony hands; thin, matted, grey hair; hunched over body; can't hear much, etc. It scared Mavis a bit, although she was a good sport and gave out hugs, danced for Grandma, and let Great-grandma hold her hand. So out of the blue, on multiple occasions, Mavis angrily told me, "I don't want to die!!" "I'm not going to get old!" "I don't like Heavenly Father's plan!" And then, when she was in trouble the other day she yelled at me "You just want me to die!" It seems that my attempts to teach her about Easter and resurrection, and our visits to Grandma have combined to cause her quite a bit of inner turmoil. She was so sad that it made me feel sad too, although I have to admit that deep down I also wanted to chuckle a bit at how sensitive and thoughtful she is. I was thinking about this in church the other day and realizing that the reason I don't suffer from the same fear is because I have felt the comforting spirit of the Holy Ghost confirming to me that there is life after death, and that there is a Savior, which is Jesus. I hope to be able to help Mavis find her answers and feel the same peace in her heart.

Milestones

Well, Jack is officially weaned. That doesn't mean he doesn't still want to nurse (he tries to get in there and smacks me where it counts when he's thirsty/hungry), but this week was the end of it. It's been more than a day now and we're not going back. I have to admit a little bit of sadness. I enjoy nursing. It's nice to have to slow down, sit down, hold baby and snuggle. I will miss that. But it's time.

He also learned to tell me he wants his diaper off by grabbing at it. Not that anyone wants to know about that, but I love to see him learning to communicate more clearly. He doesn't just cry at everything, but is really making efforts at more efficient communication. It's so cute. He also has a few new words. His first word was "nuh, nuh" which means "no". His next word was "uh-uh" which he's refined to "uh-oh" now. Today he added another one, "bah" for ball & balloon. He says "ma, ma, ma, ma" and "da, da, da" but I don't think he uses them as words yet, just fun sounds to say.

Boys and Girls 1

A few weeks ago we had a pizza party with a neighbor and her kids. I was prepping Mavis, telling her about the kids that would be coming to play and have pizza. When she learned that there were a lot of boys she sounded a bit concerned as she asked me, "Are those boys nice to little girls like me?" I assured her they were, but one of the boys gave Mavis a big kick/shove off of the couch at one point during the night, so I guess she was rightly worried. Boys!

Foodie Training 2

Mavis proved to me that she's developing a discerning palate. She is aware that there are different ingredients and flavors in what she eats. Case in point — the other day she said to me, "Mom, boogers have a lot of salt in them, don't they." Hmmmm. "Yes, they probably do," I replied.

Do NOT take any more pictures!

I guess sometimes I get too busy taking pictures and need her reminder to put the camera away! lol.

I spy with my little eye...

Oh, the fun we have!

(She's so dang cute and soooo sassy!)

First Time Skiing

So, I didn't get any good pics. Marcie and Sophie and Mavis and I went to Sundance for Mavis's first time skiing. Mavis was not excited and wouldn't even look at the camera because she was upset about the whole thing. Luckily for us, Marcie is a great teacher and gave Mavis a little lesson. We only did one run on the bunny hill then left because the rope tow for the bunny hill wasn't even on. Short trip, but good, as Mavis realized it wasn't so bad after all, and Sophie was a great helper to her.

First Haircut

Jack's had been sporting the comb-over look for too long, so on his first birthday he got his first haircut. Jennifer brought the buzzer and helped me out. He was a little under-the-weather, which probably helped because he was too tired to struggle much.


Mavis, Ewan and Sophie (not pictured) looked on from the sidelines.


Here he is afterward, wrapped in the brand new birthday blanket that auntie Amberlee made for him. The blanket has super snuggley minky fabric on the back in a nice blue (pms 207). Granna tries to hold him back as he reaches for the camera. Little Jack is always trying to get to the tools, the electronics, the adult things like cameras and keys.

"You're Elmo's Best Friend"

So grown up!

Mavis came out of the toy room yesterday with some little fake birds that she's not supposed to remove from the little bird cage hanging in her bedroom. They're just decorations that break easily. Now that she's four she likes to show how much more grown up she is.

"Mom, when I was free (i.e. "three") me and Sophia took these (the birds) out of my room. I have to put them back now." Later to Jack she says, "Me and Soph were naughty, Jack, when I was free." When she came back from returning the birds to her room I asked if she'd put them back in the cage. She responded, "Yes, and I lockeded the cage so naughty girls can't get them out; no free-year-olds!"

Well, she's still naughty on occasion, such as yesterday, when she cut her hair herself . . . or maybe Katie, the neighbor girl cut it. Each says the other did it, so who knows. It's her second hair cut ever. Remember the first one? Another neighbor friend. :)

Following are before and after shots from the same day (thanks to Erin for the lovely blue dress!!).