Growing up too fast

Sometimes it breaks my heart how fast these cute boys grow up. Miles was such a wonderful, cute, snuggly infant and he's becoming a big boy overnight it seems. He's still just as wonderful and cute but snuggly not so much unless he's asleep.
I've also been replaced as his favorite person by Ethan, Isaac, and especially Taylor. This boy LOVES his daddy. He starts laughing and reaching for him as soon as he sees him. I can't blame him, Taylor throws him in the air and tickles him and lets him eat his nose (which Miles thinks is hilarious) . And I can't blame Miles for liking Ethan and Isaac more too, they have lots of cool toys that they share with him and they do more fun things than mommy. Of course he wants to be one of the big boys!
He has recently figured out how to get almost anywhere he wants. He rolls and turns and somehow maneuvers his way around. He can even get up high enough to fish toys out of his box.
He's such a little charmer that he can convince Taylor to lay on the floor instead of the couch- and all without speaking any words.
He's such an easy baby that he even opens his mouth on his own to be fed. No prompting needed! That may not be much to some parents but we literally had to pry Ethan's mouth open or blow bubbles in the air so he'd look up and open his mouth in the process and we could sneak a bite in quickly.
We went to lunch last week after Ethan's program and the restaurant gave the kids balloons on the way out. Ethan and Isaac spent the ride home swinging them around the back seat and in the process Ethan's got tied up on Miles' carseat. The child went nuts!
And since it was so stuck that I had to cut it off, I tied it to a giraffe to weight it down and then gave it to Miles. You can tell how excited he is by his kicking feet! We love this kid!

A few more Playmats

My brother Jim and his family are coming out to Utah for a visit in July and since we've just lived through the struggles of really-long airplane rides with lots of kids in tow I feel their pain so I made these felt playmats for them (with lots of helpful ideas from Necia).
I actually got to make something cute and pink! Yeah! Just a basic version of the gray castle I made for my boys but MUCH cuter!
I almost want to buy some little princesses or fairies so I can play with it but I'll leave that to Madeline.
Nathan's stumped me for a while. He likes army men and volcanoes currently. Kind of an odd combination but we made due. The gray building is their barracks and both the mountain and the volcano have caves to hide in.
Necia requested a dinosaur mat for Robert and since my own boys have been begging for one, this is what I came up with. Kind of generic but lots of room for dinos.
And lastly another car mat for little Joseph. He's just 4 months older than Miles so he'll probably just eat the cars instead of drive them, but we couldn't leave him out.
I've stolen so many ideas off of other people's web sites so I figured I owed it to everyone to share these ideas.

That's more like it!

Monday's snow lasted until about noon and then the sun came out and it all melted and it even got up to 55 that afternoon. Whew! A little bit of winter to make me really appreciate the spring.
The rest of the week has been beautiful so we're taking full advantage of it and our wonderful backyard. Ethan and Isaac each got scooters for Christmas which they've happily used in the garage during the cold weather but they're loving riding circles around the pool.
Isaac can't seem to resist jumping off of... well everything. Couches. Stairs. Tables. Book shelves. Plastic play kitchens (that's another story). And of course the large decorative rocks outside.
I'm not sure which one I should blame for starting this game. It's like having their very own mountain of rocks (aka the stairs). You see they're very cautious with their jumps. Emergency room here we come!
Of course he can't just climb up the regular stair part. That's not enough of a challenge so up the larger, side rocks he climbs.
And ever faithful Oscar is always ready to chase a ball.
Or to sit dutifully by the baby.
who managed to find a stick amongst the grass. Stinker. But a dang cute stinker. Seriously who can resist the blond mohawk of curls.
Stay spring... please! Pretty, pretty please!

Making the Best of It

Miles has for the past week had the lovely habit of waking up between 5:20 and 5:40. It's terrible because you can't really go back to sleep after that but it's still too early for me personally. So this morning when he woke up at 5:20 I fed him and then crawled back into my warm bed. Ethan came running in promptly at 7:01 (he's officially allowed out of his room after 7am) to tell me that it was snowing outside. Seriously??? It's May 24th!!!
After much grumbling on my part and threats to pack everyone in the car and drive south to Vegas, we finally decided to make the best of it. I bundled up Ethan and Isaac in hats, gloves, coats, boots, and even snowpants and sent them out to play.
It was snowing so much my camera almost couldn't focus on the kids!
Yep, those are my Mother's Day flowers that the dog killed, then got re-bought/re-planted this weekend and now are going to be killed by the snow. Luckily they're under an overhanging balcony so it's just the cold air that might kill them.
Isaac covered in snow after just 3 minutes outside.
I do have to admit this was a nice adventure for the kids. It snowed lots here in November and December but I'd just had Miles and hadn't gotten them snow pants or boots yet so they never got to play in the snow. Then for the rest of the winter it's been really cold but not much snow- never more than 1 or 2 inches. Isaac had this silly grin on his face the whole time outside today.
And since Ethan's school is out for the summer he got to join in on the fun. He happily showed Isaac how to make snowballs.
Which Isaac couldn't resist throwing at me.
And at Ethan, and thus ensued a major snowball fight. Luckily they both have really bad aim so no one got it in the face.
Since it's supposed to be summer or at least spring- it was 85 last Monday- all the summer toys were already pulled out and got snowed on. Ethan discovered the slide was extra-fun with snow on it.
Isaac couldn't resist following his lead.
A fun adventure for this morning and now we're all holed up inside trying to stay warm. Hot chocolate and a movie anyone?

Kelli and Dana's Visit

My younger sister Kelli and her husband Dana came through town this week on their move from Texas to Washington State and we were lucky enough to be able to keep them for a few days. We'd really keep them forever but alas, Dana has a job and they need to move on.
Tuesday morning it was raining so we had to find something indoors. I searched online and found the Church History Museum downtown which I've actually never been to before nor had they so off we went. Let me just say if you've never been before you MUST go. They have just about every famous artifact from LDS church history that exits. They have John Taylor's pocket watch with the bullet hole in it, Joseph and Hyrum's death masks, real covered wagons, and keepsakes from each of the prophets lives. They also have a huge kids section where of course we spent a lot of time since Isaac's idea of a museum is to run-not walk and to either touch everything or climb on it.
They even have little old missionaries there to do crafts with your kids. So Isaac made a hand shaped dog.
Dana went with a green elephant. He assures me it's an elephant since I'm very confused.
And Isaac spent a lot of time throwing bean bags to decide which "kingdom" he'll go to. Tragically he's leaning towards the "telestial" but I'm blaming that on the larger hole.
And he and Dana built some amazing block temples. For a 2 year old he has some very steady hands.
Tuesday afternoon, since it was still raining and I couldn't think of anywhere else to take them, we brought out Guitar Hero. At first Kelli protested that she didn't think she'd like it or be any good but of course she turned out to be the real rocker in the family and beat everyone hands down.
Ethan's not quite old enough to be able to play the game so he brought out his fake red guitar so he could join in on the jammin' with Dana.
And Miles couldn't resist jumping in on the vocals. Actually this is how excited he got when I gave him the microphone as a chew toy. Luckily I caught the picture when I did because 3 seconds later he had that thing in his mouth and wouldn't let go.
Tragically for Miles, Ethan decided that he NEEDED the microphone so he could sing along (love his arm by the way). Miles is no dummy though so he decided to get back by rolling over and over until he could get at the cord plugging the guitar into the X-Box and pulled it apart so he could chew on it thus interrupting the jam session. Good times were had by all and Dana was caught several times later that night and the next day sneaking down to play more songs. Kelli promised to get him one if he passes the BAR this summer.
No rain Wednesday- yeah! So we headed off to the zoo which was Kelli's one request for the visit. A brief stop to see the baby elephant.
And a brief stop to let the boys climb on the statues since apparently that's more fun that the animal-watching.
And we were lucky enough to hit the penguins at feeding time so we got to see them waddle around, eat, and even swim to get the fish thrown in by the trainer.
We were so sad to see them go (especially Ethan who adopted Dana as his buddy) but we're glad they're just a 10 hour drive away instead of 16.

Ethan-Baloo

Today was Ethan's last day of preschool and they put on a play for all the adoring parents to see. They did an adaptation of "The Jungle Book" and Ethan got to be Baloo-the-Oso. I have to admit that when I opened up the program and saw that he only had 4 or 5 lines I was a little disappointed. In just the past 9 months he has gone from knowing absolutely no Spanish, to speaking well and understanding even more. It truly amazes me! So I was a little disappointed we wouldn't get to hear more from him. Of course it all turned out great in the end and we laughed our heads off at Ethan and all the other kids.
Their school is just in a tiny house so they used a local church with a stage for the show. Here's the whole group with Ethan in the middle in the dark brown. I was amazed by the costumes and the set especially for such a small preschool.

I think he's adorable and am just grateful he's willing to be dressed up with a painted on nose for a few more years.

And a close-up shot.
This was the only video I got where he was speaking clearly enough to understand. He says "Hola, yo me llamo Ethan, y yo soy Baloo" "Hello. My name is Ethan and I'm Baloo".



His big part came halfway through the play. If you've seen the movie you know Baloo meets Mogli in the jungle and teaching him to eat fruit and ants. Because the kids were so little there wasn't much dialogue and instead they let them dance around to the songs from the movie. So Ethan got to dance around to "The Bear Necessities of Life" and "eat" fruit off the trees (other kids).



As a proud mother I will admit I was truly impressed by his dance moves- especially the repetitive leg hops and kicks. Not sure where he got those moves. I love that when they went around to the trees to let them say their lines, he made them repeat it if it wasn't loud enough for the parents to hear. Maybe I should worry about him being bossy but I hope it made some parent's day that they got to hear their child even if Ethan was blocking the view.
And then I made a major mistake as the primary photo-video taker. I thought the scene was over so I switched the video to photo mode so I could take some still shots. I didn't realize the funniest part was still to come. After they asked the trees what fruit they were, he laid down on the ground and let Mogli scratch his back. It was truly funny. And then, as in the movie, Baloo got up and scratched his back on a tree. Which in this play happened to be another kid so it was hilarious.
I caught the end of his tree-back scratching and then where he scratches his back with a loose branch. I think he stole the show with this routine- at least from my unbiased view. Especially with his thumbs up to the crowd as he's exiting the stage!


I'm not the only one who enjoyed the show. Here's the proud Grams who laughed her way through the whole performance and also complemented Ethan on his dance moves.

A shot of the adoring audience. I left Miles with my wonderful neighbor since he prefers to nap in the morning and is also in the loud babbling stage and would have been very distracting. Isaac was a very good audience member and watched the whole thing quietly on his dad's lap.

Couldn't resist a few last photos with favorite friends. He will truly miss these guys when they move on to different Kindergarten classes next year.
L to R Darwin, Mika, Cassidy (Ethan's little crush), and Ethan (still with his Bear nose on)
And one last friend, Carolina who also stole the show with her booty shake dancing.

In case you can't get enough of these cuties (like me) here's just one of the 6 songs they performed and danced to. The booty shaking of Ethan and Carolina the panther next to him are to die for. Love it!

Ethan's End of School Program

At Christmas Ethan's little preschool put on a little performance where they all sang Christmas songs. Cute, but I was hoping for a little more. And they definitely delivered!!!
So instead of just some songs, they put on a little play- all in Spanish of course so we couldn't really understand much (3 and 4 year olds speaking spanish on stage never seems to work) but it was very cute.
They performed the Jungle Book and Ethan was Baloo the bear. So hilarious. I didn't even really he had a main part or even a funny part until we were there. He's pretty good at keeping a secret. This picture is the part in the movie where Baloo has a scratchy back and Mogli scratches it and then it's not enough so Baloo get up and eventually uproots a tree and dances around until it really scratches his back. HE WAS HILARIOUS!!!

Seriously, I'm totally sad these videos aren't working because we got it on tape and we could barely stop laughing. Okay we actually couldn't stop.




And here's the cute people who came along to support Ethan.
Grams with Ethan Baloo.
Ethan with his favorite friend at school- Carolina. She was Bageera the panther. And some other friends enjoying their cookies and juice afterwards.

Just one of those days...

When you think you have everything under control (the dishes are done, the kids have been fed and dressed, etc.) and then you turn around and see that your 2-year-old decided to turn himself into a member of the Blue Man Group. And incidentally the kitchen table too.