Brotherly/Sisterly Love

Kimberly adores her big brother Skyler (at least most of the time)! Although sometimes she gets a little smothered in his love, there are those moments when you can just catch them smiling at each other & I can't wait for them to grow up a little so they can really play. But I'm sure when that day finally comes, I'll be wishing for these precious ones back!

Helping Himself

For our Family Home Evening treat the other day, we decided to have ice-cream.  Laron got everything out & ready to go, we turned our backs for a second, and this is what we found...

Skyler helping himself!
Yummy!
He was pretty proud of himself!

"Help Me Find the Way"

Lately when Skyler needs help with something, he says this:

"Mom, help me. Help me find the way."

If you don't recognize that phrase, it's from the song "I am a Child of God."

And who says parents aren't influential?

I Love These Shoes!

There is something about these shoes that I just love...

I think they make him look older or something.

Either way, they're BOTH cute (Skyler and the shoes)!

"This is the way we get up in the Morning"

I had to make this for a Digital Camera class I took, so if you have a higher-speed internet, you might want to take a look... The quality of the video automatically is reduced when I put it on here, but it's still cute anyway. Enjoy!

Oh, and for the record, it took me 3 hours to get Skyler to pose for all these pictures!

Homeowners

I looked out our back window yesterday & saw this... Although I'm not a fan of yards that are cluttered with children's toys and junk, it made me smile because I realized that we HAD a yard to clutter.

Sometimes I can't believe that we actually own a home! It's something that we've dreamed about for so long, that it kind-of seems surreal. Pretty amazing.

The Big Moving Day

So, the big move went well... I think we worked everyone pretty hard, including Skyler.
Thanks so much for everyone's help!
Sorry we took up so much of your Saturday!

To make a long story short, it took us TWO HOURS to get this dumb couch into our basement family room...
Good thing it's comfortable! Thanks Dad!

Once I get our house unpacked and put together a little bit more, I'll post more pictures of our new house.

Until then you'll just have to be curious!

Getting Ready for the Big Move!

We tried to really get ready for our big move the week before

so that it wouldn't be so bad the week after...

The main "project" we did was to paint a wall in the living room

(it was a sponged-on green color before).

Skyler wasn't about to be left out! I was really hesitant to let Skyler help us, because I was SURE

he'd mess something up, but Laron talked me into it.

He sure had fun & was such a great painter!

Daddy's Little Girl

My Mom made the comment the other day that I never put pictures of Laron on here... But in all fairness, Laron's not really one for getting his picture taken. So, without further ado, here's a picture I had to twist his arm to take. Laron with his little girl... Most of the time when we're together, I'm naturally on baby-duty & Laron's on Skyler-duty, but it's cute to see them interact with each other during those occasional moments when their paths cross. I can tell he already has a soft spot in his heart for his little girl, & I'm glad. I wouldn't have it any other way!
This is the first picture we've been able to take of Kimberly smiling. She smiles quite a bit now, which really makes things so much funner, but our camera has such a delay to it that by the time the second flash goes off, she's usually
wide-eyed & curious looking instead of cute & smiley.
And don't you love that dimple!

Kimberly's Blessing Dress

So I reallized the other day that I never took a picture of JUST Kimberly in her blessing dress... So, it's a few weeks late, but I still wanted the picture none-the-less.

Wow! I'm sure glad her Great, Great, Great Grandmother could make this for her, because I sure wouldn't even know where to start. I bet when she made it she had no idea it would be

passed down for 5 generations!

Potty Training Success!

I thought the day would never come when I could finally say this, but Skyler is officially potty-trained! Yeah! We had tried potty-training a few months ago, but kind-of gave up after some on-again, off-again attempts. But, we finally got brave enough to give it one more go...

We decided to jump full-force into potty-training and just started putting Skyler in underwear 2 Mondays ago. Let's just say that by the end of the day, I was ready to give up once again. But we stuck with it, and luckily, by that Friday, he had just about figured it out, other than an occasional poop episode (yeah, of course, the fun ones to clean up!). He still occasionally has an accident (like the other day when he got really excited to see Laron come home), but for the most part, he has done REALLY, REALLY well! I definitely can't take too much credit though...
I think Skyler was just ready. But boy are we proud of him (and happy for ourselves)!

"Mommy Time"

Skyler has always LOVED his Daddy, and sometimes I get jealous. So recently I created something called "Mommy Time". It's just a time everyday that I try to really spend some one-on-one time with just me & Skyler. It doesn't sound all that complicated, but with having a second baby around now, sometimes I find that a whole day has gone by without me really sitting down to play with him. Now that I created "Mommy Time" though, and Skyler will beg for it all day long, somehow I enjoy making the time more.  Sometimes we just play with toys or play hide-and-go-seek (one of his favorites lately), and other times I try to do a craft with him or teach him about a new letter. It's pretty fun though to see how much kids just like to spend time with their parents when they're young. So I figure I'd better enjoy it while I can, because Skyler is sure growing up fast on me!

Fascinated with Cell Phones

Skyler has always been fascinated with our cell phones, but especially lately. He'll ask to borrow our phone, pretend to dial a phone number, and then have a 5-minute conversation with some pretend person. It's pretty funny to hear him say the same phrases as we say on the phone... "Hi, Chris home?... Oh, he's at work?... Oh, okay... See you later... Bye, bye." Then he'll say, "Click" to hang up the phone.

Well, the other day Laron had just left somewhere & Skyler was home with Kimberly and I. Pretty soon, Kimberly started crying and Skyler asked for my phone. I quickly gave it to him, hoping to make at least one child happy, when I soon heard him pretending to talk to Daddy on the phone. "Um, Daddy?," he said ever so seriously. "Can you come pick me up?" Well, Daddy must have said yes, because Skyler quickly ended the conversation with a "Thanks... bye," and then announced that Daddy was going to come pick him up. With how much Kimberly was crying at the time, I couldn't blame him. Maybe I should have called Daddy and had him pick me up too!

How Come Everything is so Fun to a Kid?

Skyler loves to scrub walls. I remember my mother telling me that her brother used to have to do that as a punishment, but no, Skyler loves it. In fact, I usually have to limit him to WHICH rooms he's allowed to scrub the walls in.

It's usually when I'm getting ready in the bathroom that Skyler decides the walls need scrubbing (or maybe he just needs something to do). Next thing I know, Skyler's grabbed his stool, his squirt bottle, and his scrub-brush & is hard at work. Man, I wish I had the same enthusiasm for life's menial tasks as HE does!

We're Buying A House!

Well, tomorrow we're signing papers for a new house in Clinton! We're super excited to finally have a house of our own & are planning on moving in on March 6th (less than 2 weeks!).

The house was built in 1980, so it's definitely not brand-new or anything, but we knew it was the one for us as soon as we walked through 2 rooms of the house... It just "felt" right.

It is in a cul-de-sac, which we like, it has 5 bedrooms (one of them is technically an office), it's on 1/3 acre, it has a nice big backyard with 4 fruit trees (apricot, plum, apple, and pear) as well as grape vines and a garden. It was remodeled on the inside 3 years ago (new carpet, paint, and bathroom fixtures) & a new shed was built a year ago. It doesn't have a garage, and like any house, we've already got a list of things we can do to improve it, but we love it anyways and can see ourselves being happy there. I've only got a few pictures for you now, but I'll post more later once it's really "our" house with our stuff in it.

Saying Prayers...

Skyler decided last week that he no longer needed our help to say his prayers at night. This was his first prayer on his own:

"Dear Heavenly Father, bless Mommy, bless Daddy, bless Grandpa, bless Kimberly..." Then he got up off his knees and looked at the front of his bedroom door where he has a snowman decoration he made, as if to remind himself, and then came back to finish... "Bless snowman, bless peanut butter,
bless toys, bless Daddy, Amen." Once again he got up off his knees,
then quickly went back down and finished with,
"Oh yeah, one more... Bless Kimberly."

He then stood up, pretty proud & confident of himself,
waiting for the praise he knew he was about to receive.
Wow Skyler! We're pretty proud of you!

Kimberly's Baby Blessing

Well, Kimberly's Baby Blessing went well on Sunday. We enjoyed getting together with family, we enjoyed showing off our newest edition, but most of all we enjoyed taking the time to be grateful for our little Kimberly & the blessing she is in our lives.


Kimberly was blessed in the same dress as all the women in this picture, as well as her Great-Great-Grandmother! Only the very first girl born in each generation were blessed in it, so it's pretty amazing.





A big thanks to everyone who came to the blessing & made it a special day!

2-years-old

This is how Skyler shows how old he is. For some reason he likes using his pinkies better than his pointer fingers... It's cute though!