A Special Bond

I thought that Kimberly looked particularly adorable on Sunday, so I tried to get her to smile & take her picture, but to no avail... Plenty of mediocre pictures, but no "perfect" pictures. So then I enlisted Skyler's help and got these:

Adorable, huh? Yeah, there's something between those two kids that I just can't match! They seem to have a special bond that only brothers and sisters can have.

For example, a couple of weeks ago when Kimberly was teething, she wouldn't eat anything, wouldn't nurse & didn't want a bottle (even of juice!) because her teeth hurt so much. But if Skyler offered her the bottle, she would drink it right down! It was a good thing we had Skyler around, or Kimberly would've been pretty miserable AND hungry.

Also, lately Kimberly has been waking up in the morning before Skyler, and when she wakes up & sees Skyler across the room sleeping silently, she just can't help herself but yell over to him to get his attention until he wakes up. Skyler doesn't always appreciate it (in fact, he groggily comes out of his room rubbing his eyes & announces, "Kimberly woke me up again Mom..."), but I know that Kimberly just adores him. In fact, if I go in to get her from a nap & Skyler's not with me, she searches the room & looks over my shoulder until she finds Skyler. Then a big grin creeps up on her face as if she's just spotted a huge pile of birthday presents. :)

They also have that special kind of brotherly/sisterly bond that knows just how to bother each other, but their special moments of pure love quite often overpower those other moments. What a sad life it would be without FAMILY!

Fun Moments in the last few Weeks...

-Last Sunday after we picked Skyler up from Nursery, he ran up to Kimberly & gave her a great big hug & exclaimed, "I missed you Kimberly!"

-After getting Skyler dressed one morning, Skyler looked down at himself & proudly said, "I look almost awesome!" Just almost though... :)

-Kimberly loves dirt... If we set her down outside, she crawls straight for the cracks in the cement to dig it out & eat it. Inside, she likes to crawl over to our sliding glass door and pick out dirt from the tracks at the bottom & eat it. She's like a girl-version of a boy!

-When the kids were playing together the other day, I overheard Skyler making one of the toys say this: "Behold, this is my beloved son. Hear him." Wow, he has been listening!

-Skyler told me this the other day after I apparently said/did something funny: "Mom, you make me laugh all night!"

-Both of my kids tried their first cherry tomatoes this week, and amazingly, BOTH of them liked them! Impressive.

-Kimberly ate her first moth last Thursday... Crunchy, yet apparently satisfying! SO GROSS!

-In Skyler’s prayers, we've had him make sure to bless the prophet & the missionaries lately. But it’s so funny to hear him say “missionaries”… He pronounces it: missa-ronies (a cross between missionaries & pepperonis). Pretty cute.

-Laron: "Skyler, do you have to go to the bathroom?"

Skyler: "I already went to the bathroom yesterday!"

My awesome little girl

Well, Kimberly's at that stage now where she pulls herself up on everything. Today she pulled herself up on our toy kitchen set & started opening up the fridge and grabbing at the faucet & I had to do a double-take... Wow, where did our little girl go?! When Skyler saw her standing there, he turned to me & yelled, "MOM, Kimberly's awesome!" Yes she is Skyler... She's imitating you.

Baseball Fun

Yesterday we played a fun game of baseball here in the backyard... My favorite feature was that the bases were from the rugs in our cars (Laron's idea, of course!).

Although Laron naturally went a little easy on Skyler,

I'm impressed at how good Skyler's getting!

He's going to be just like his Daddy... :)

Finishing Touches

Well, we've lived in our home for 6 months now & I'm finally getting up some of the finishing touches in the house!  Here's some of the latest...

A beautiful wreath for above the stairs & our family picture finally up with vinyl lettering saying "Families are Forever".  I often find myself just sitting and staring at my beautiful family.

Wow! We sure are blessed!

Pictures of my cute kids on the wall & "Behold your little ones..." vinyl in the kid's room above their dressers. I love it because it brings a smile to my face as I get Kimberly up from her nap or as I glance through their bedroom door throughout the day. These beautiful children of mine will always be my precious "little ones."



A simple flower arrangement for the kitchen table & more vinyl for the computer room wall...  I absolutely LOVE it there because the computer room is the easiest place for me to waste time doing other things that don't directly help my family, & so this quote reminds me of the greater things in life & ultimately brings me back to my family.

This picture and greenery was another simple little finishing touch in the computer room that I think really finished it off.  This vinyl is above the window in our downstairs Family Room. I love it because it sums up the atmosphere that quite often accompanies our TV room/Toy room:

"Live Simply, Laugh Often, Love Deeply."

I'm sure there will always be more finishing touches that I'd like to add here & there, but I feel like these really added a lot & are turning my house into the Home I want it to become.

Eating grass & apples...

So, Kimberly loves the grass outside.

More specifically, she loves to EAT it.

But, if it's just the right length (not too small), her favorite thing to do with it is to just suck on it. She'll put the blade of grass in her mouth & then slowly pull it out. Put it in again, then slowly pull it out. Maybe she likes the texture or the taste?... Either way, I'm just glad she's found a way to enjoy it without always having to EAT it!

We also had our very first apple off of our apple tree today! It was sure yummy as we tried to savor every bite (because our wonderful apple tree only produced three other apples besides this one this year)! Oh well. We've been told that certain kinds of apple trees only produce apples every other year, so we're keeping our fingers crossed for NEXT year. Until then, we'll try to drag out the remainder of our plentiful crop for another couple of days...