Fall Update 2010

 

I can't believe that it is almost Thanksgiving!  We have had a busy fall and are really looking forward to the holiday season and lots of family time together.  Here is a quick update on the kids...


Allie is in 5th grade and is having such a great year!  She loves her teacher, has lots and lots of her very best friends in her class, and is doing well academically.  She played soccer this fall and can't wait for soccer to start back up in the spring.  Allie loves her friends and spending time with them.  She is still a voracious reader and animal lover.  She has started taking horse riding lessons, something she and her Dad are thrilled about. 

Landon is 3 1/2 and reminds me every day that he is "almost 4" on "twelve March".  He is fascinated by his growing body...he likes to see if he is as tall as Allie almost daily.  Our most exciting news is that Landon has finally fully embraced being a big boy and is completely potty trained!  Landon is participating in a little neighborhood preschool which he usually loves.  He is starting to get excited about discovering what sounds letters make.  He loves to be read to, ride his bike, play with his friends William and Brigham, play with playdough, do puzzles, and play with/torture Allie.  His most favorite thing of all right now is playing on the computer.  It's amazing how well he can navigate around!   

Three

When Allie was Landon's age we took her to SLC to see the lights at Temple Square with the Toone family. That night for dinner she requested that we take her somewhere that she could have salad and an ice water with 3 ice cubes. From that moment on she would always request/demand 3 ice cubes in her water. That went on for years and now Landon seems to have developed a similar fascination with the number 3. Every time we tuck him into bed he closely scrutinizes his surroundings to make sure that we have not forgotten his "3 blankies" and his "3 doggies". Every. Single. Time. It's a good thing I can count to 3. It has been a critical skill for raising toddlers in my home.

Texas!

We had such a wonderful time visiting friends and family in Texas. We flew out to attend the wedding of a close family friend and also enjoyed visiting with my cousin Jann and her family. Texas is one hot (and humid) place in August. Despite that, we had such a great time!

We flew out of SLC at 6:30 am. That meant a very early morning for all of us.

The kids did pretty well on the plane. Landon spent a lot of time watching movies and Allie pretty much read during the whole flight.


When we got to Dallas, Jann's husband Jared picked us up. We hadn't made it too far before we had a tire blow out on the freeway. Eric and Jared were troopers changing a tire in the middle of the hot Texas heat.

The kids and I remained in the air conditioned van.

Friday night was a Texas BBQ for Jon & Lori. Lori arranged for birthday cake to be the dessert in honor of Allie & Alex who share a birthday on August 9th.


Landon loved the cake and he still says "cupcake" every time we mention Lori's name. She was kind enough to give him a large second helping which really won him over!

Saturday was the wedding. Landon would not cooperate very well for pictures. This is the "best" one we got. (Lori, you'll have to share one of yours...I'm hoping someone got a better one!)

Exploring the Dallas Temple grounds...






Landon LOVED Katie Bell (my cousin's 10-year-old). He still asks for her!

We did a lot of driving while in Texas. All of the heat and the action had a sedating effect on the kiddos. They usually passed out while driving between events and Jann & Jared's home. It made for an extremely quiet car ride. Unfortunately Eric and I were so focused on not getting lost that we didn't fully enjoy it :)

On Sunday we slept in (yay! for 1 pm church). It was Allie's 9th Birthday so Jared made her favorite breakfast, french toast and she opened her present.


After church the party continued with a yummy dinner, cake, and time to play!




On Monday before we flew back to SLC we (well, Eric and the kids) took a dip in the pool.

It was a special experience for us to be able at Jon & Lori's wedding. We are excited for them and wish them nothing but the best! Thanks again to Jann, Jared, and the kids for having us in their home. They were great hosts and a lot of fun to spend the weekend with!

Christmas in July

Today I bought an artificial Christmas tree on Ebay. Since there is not much demand for Christmas trees in July, I got a pretty good deal. Why? Because it seems to be the one thing Allie really wants for her birthday next month. She wants to make sure that she has plenty of time to plan the decorations before Christmas. I think that 4 1/2 months should be adequate. Although it is a strange request, I am certain that she will be all smiles when she opens her gift. In the end that's all that really matters to me.

Lesson Learned (the hard way)

Allie has a small lamp that she uses as a night light. Lately she has been sneaking it into bed with her. I think it's probably so that she can read when she's supposed to be snoozing. Whenever I've seen it on her bed I've mentioned to her that it is not a good idea to place it there because it could be very dangerous. She is usually such a cautious girl that I can't believe she didn't take my warnings seriously. This morning she awoke to a terrible smell and this mess:

She handed the lamp to Eric and suggested that we take it away from her forever. I think it's safe to say that she learned this lesson the hard way. I'm thankful that she didn't end up torching her bed and getting seriously hurt. Thank goodness for flame resistant bedding! That little night light burned through a throw blanket, comforter, mattress pad, vinyl mattress cover and about an inch and a half of her mattress. The major casualty was the stuffed animal that came in her Easter basket. That was resolved by a quick trip to the store to replace it. I found a nice collection of stuffed Easter animals at Kohl's on clearance. It was the best $2 I've spent in a long time!

Family Night on the Farm

Last night we took advantage of the Spring-like weather and headed to Thanksgiving Point Farm Country. It was so nice to be outside in the beautiful weather. We hope that there is a lot more enjoyable weather to come!

Allie-isms

On Saturday Allie went to the UVU Women's Basketball game with our friends, the Boettchers. Chris is one of the coaches. When she got home she came in and showed me a rose that she had gotten at the game. She was grinning ear to ear and the first words out of her mouth were: "Mom, I know what you are thinking and I did NOT get this from him." She had gotten a rose from one of the players, but was horrified that we might assume it came from her friend Ethan (who she admits to having a huge crush on).

On Sunday I was sustained as the Camp Director for our ward. I am excited and looking forward to a fun week. Thankfully we have a great group of YW! Allie doesn't understand what all the fuss is about. She couldn't imagine why people kept commenting on my new calling. Because, after all, it is an easy calling in Allie's opinion. She said: "Don't people realize that you do Activity Days twice every single month? Camp isn't a big deal, it only happens once a year."

Christmas Traditions

December is such a busy time of the year! We have had a lot of fun spending time with our family and friends celebrating the holiday season. Allie suggested that recording some of our family's Christmas traditions would be a great idea for a blog post. She has been little disappointed by the number of posts recently.

One of our family's favorite traditions to kick off the Christmas season is new Christmas pajamas and a Christmas book for the children on Thanksgiving night.

We decorated our Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving. We were a little worried about how we would keep Landon from pulling the tree on top of himself, however, he has been a very good boy. As of this morning we have only had one ornament casualty this year. That's pretty much a record for this house.

Allie has been begging me all year long to buy an advent calendar that has candy in it. We bought both of the kids their own and it has become a fun morning tradition. It was a great $2 investment because I have learned a very important lesson about my daughter. For some time now I have been thinking that she had a serious issue with remembering things that should be a part of her every day routine (you know...homework, making her bed, brushing her teeth, etc). Would you like to guess how many days she has forgotten to eat her piece of candy before she heads out the door for school? That's right. None. I'm on to her now. "I forgot" is not going to fly around here any more.

Another tradition our family enjoys doing during the holiday season is giving service. Over the years we have participated in a wide variety of service opportunities. This year we made blankets for the Linus Project and Allie and I also made toy cars for the Humanitarian Services of the LDS church with the Activity Day girls.

A Christmas tradition that Eric and I both love is the adults only Christmas party that both of our extended families have. We have been abundantly blessed with many, many children in our extended families (our kids have 35 cousins and counting!). The opportunity to spend time with only the adults is something we treasure because it only happens once each year. It's amazing what you can find out about your siblings and parents without the distraction of small, demanding children present.

Every holiday season we go to see at least one family friendly movie. This year Allie is really looking forward to seeing "The Tale of Despereaux". She was a big fan of the book and can't wait to see the movie!

Here are a few more of our favorite things for the holiday...

• Driving around and looking at Christmas lights. This year we went to the Festival of Lights in Spanish Fork and we hope to make it to Thanksgiving Point before the season is over.
• Aebelskivers for Christmas breakfast.
• Attending the Ward Christmas Party.
• Each member of the family gets to choose a new ornament from the store for the Christmas tree. We have quite an eclectic mix!
• Watching the First Presidency Christmas Devotional.
• Baking and delivering sugar cookies to friends and family.
• Breakfast on Christmas Eve morning with friends.
• Playing Bingo!

Concentration

We know that Landon is seriously concentrating on something when he sticks his tongue out. He often does this when he is sorting things, building towers of blocks, and coloring. Tonight for FHE we had a picture for the kids to color. Landon was totally focused on the task at hand!

Allie's look of concentration is a little less intense.

That's what little brothers do

Allie has a new favorite phrase: "That's what little brothers do." She says it whenever Landon does something that irritates her. For example, the other day she accidentally left her purse and a pen on the table resulting in this unfortunate piece of artwork:

I thought that she was going to flip out but instead she just sighed and said "that's what little brothers do". Later that night she was asking me how many more little brothers we were going to be able to adopt. I probed a little, certain that she was expressing frustration about her brother's newly acquired habit of destroying her prized possessions. To my surprise she said she wants a lot of little brothers because they are "just so cute even when they do what little brothers do best". I am thankful that she sees Landon's antics for what they are...a little brother doing what little brothers do. I know. I have one.

A little taste of Oceanside

Eric downloaded all of our vacation pictures onto his laptop...and then left it at work. So, for now, I thought I'd share a couple of videos of the kids having fun on the beach.

Allie fell in love with Bodyboarding during this beach trip. She spent hours and hours in the water having fun. Allie was always the first one in the water and the very last one out. She couldn't get enough!

Landon hated the ocean and the pool! He would cry every single time we took him to the very edge of the water and put his toes in. We're going to work on that before our next trip to the beach. What he did enjoy was playing in the sand and chasing the seagulls all over the beach with his cousins Carly and Joe.

We had a really fun trip and the weather couldn't have been better. I love spending time vacationing with family more than anything else in the world. We are already trying to figure out how soon we can get back to sunny Southern California where the weather and the gas prices are a whole lot nicer right now.

Soccer Season

What a fun soccer season we have had! Allie is now in a new age bracket and it is such a blast to watch her and her teammates play. They work together and the result is a game that actually looks like soccer is supposed to. The best part of all has been the weather. The Spring season this year stunk! The weather was miserable for virtually every game. This fall has been picture perfect for every single game. Allie we are proud of you for practicing and improving your play. Way to go!

It's Been a While

What can I say? We've been busy. First of all, I would like to start by thanking those who have helped my family for the last couple of weeks while I have been recovering from pneumonia. Who gets pneumonia in 90 degree weather anyways?!?

Moving on to more exciting things...Allie has her new glasses thanks to very generous grandparents. Thanks Mom & Dad! She has loved being able to see in class. The best part of all is that she has been very responsible with them.

Landon has become quite a thief in the last little while. While I was sick he would sneak into my bedroom and take things and I was too sick to chase him. Eventually Allie or Eric would intercept him and return the stolen goods to me. Now he thinks it's a fun game. One of his favorite things to steal is shoes which he will either wear or hide in his drawer under the stove. When he gets more creative with where he hides things we could be in real trouble!

When did he get so blond?

Landon has also invented a new game for himself. He likes to take his sippy cups and roll them all over the dining room floor. He will roll and chase a cup for a good 30 minutes. It's pretty funny to watch him in action.

On Labor Day we went to Thanksgiving Point to the Museum of Ancient Life. It was a lot of fun and because we got there as they were opening, it wasn't too crowded. We had a 5-year-old neighbor friend with us while his lucky parents were vacationing in Hawaii. We tried to get a picture with all 3 kids looking at us and failed miserably...

The water table and sand box are always favorites with the kids!