Remembering Jan

Four years ago today, my friend Jan passed away. I will never forget her, and often think of her and how she influenced me. I know I would be a different person if Jan had not been a part of my life.

She was one of my closest friends during those hard teenage years. I can not imagine going through Jr High and High school without Jan.

Jan had the ability to go for what she wanted no matter what or who got in her way. If she wanted it she went for it. I admired that in her and was always amazed how she never let her peers stop her from doing what made her happy. She also encouraged (sometimes pushed) me to do things I was afraid to, and was one of my best cheerleaders.

Jan was also the perfect example to me of Christ like love. No matter who you were, or what you were doing, Jan loved and accepted you. It did not matter how old or young you were, Jan was your friend, and wanted to help.

Jan and I had many great times together. I still laugh about some of the crazy things we did. She was my friend I could talk to about anything or call at anytime of the day. My house was her house and her house was mine. (Ryan didn't know what to do the first time Jan came too visit us after she got back from her mission, and just walked into our apartment.)

I am so grateful Jan was a part of my life. I could not have had a better friend, and because of her friendship I am a better person. I love you Jan!

Victory

When Emily was a baby Ryan and I could not wait to see what her first word was going to be. The experts say that a baby's first word is usually Mama or Dada. So during the day I would say mama to Emily a lot, secretly hoping that she would say it first. When Ryan came home at night he would say dada over and over again to her, just like most parents do. I don't really remember which one she said first, but she started calling Ryan, Myda.




When Joe arrived, there was much of the same anticipation over his first word. However during the Joe baby period, I realized that if they learned your name they could call for you in the night and it gave Ryan the perfect excuse not to get up........"He's calling for you."




So when Josh came I changed my game and started encouraging him to say Dada when he started to jabber. Ryan quickly caught on and encouraged Mama. I can't really say which one he said first, because he had his own language, and I think his first word was Boo boo. (train) But, I am happy to say that when Josh moved from his crib to a bed I trained him to go to dad's side of the bed when he got up in the middle of the night.



Valerie has been quite talkative as a baby and jabbers on about many things, no real words yet, but lots of good talking. Then last night as I was making dinner, the magical sound of Dada started to fill the room over and over again.

Victory!

When Ryan realized what she was saying he immediately started encouraging her to say Mama, but the only response he got was.......da da da da da.




She hasn't connected the sound da to the meaning of the word dad yet, but it wont be long, and she is not even trying to say Mama yet. This might make some moms a little sad, but not me. I know I am still her favorite because, she always comes to me over dad, but now when she calls out in the middle of the night I can roll over and say, "She's calling for you."




Lucky for Ryan, Valerie is a good sleeper and rarely wakes up before 7:00am.

The Secret Is Out

When we first moved to San Diego I found it amusing that people wore coats in the winter. I think there was maybe two days the whole first year that I even wore a jacket, and we never turned on the heat. After a couple of "winters" there I started bundling up a little more and even turned on the heat a few times. Five years later I found myself living in San Diego wearing a coat.

Then we moved back to snow country in the middle of November and I thought I was going to freeze to death. Even though I had lived here for most of my life, the short time in heaven ruined me. My body had acclimatized to the warmth. Needless to say I do not spend too much time outside in the winter. Once the snow starts to fly I am happy to find indoor activities to keep me occupied.

The only problem with this plan, is the fact that I have children. Children who do not care how cold it is, they want to be outside sledding and playing in the snow. I can't blame them. I was the same way when I was younger. Emily was 6 1/2 and Joseph was 2 when we moved here. So I bought a sled and told them that the "hill" in our back yard would be perfect for sledding. (and it was for a 2 year old.) They seemed happy going up and down the little hill.

A couple of years past, eventually Emily started to ask if we would take her sledding on a big hill. We signed her up for ski lessons and she was happy again for a while. Every now and then, after they had been sledding in the back yard, she would mention that we could take them sledding on a bigger hill. Luckily whenever she would really start to push the subject, some poor child would be on the news with an injury from sledding. That was enough to deter Emily.

This year when it snowed my kids happily went out to our little hill. Then after the last big storm Joe's friend Charlie invited him to go sledding and my secret was out. It is a lot more fun to go sledding on big hills. I already knew this, because we had great sledding hills in my neighborhood when I was young and I loved going sledding as a kid. Joe came home and told Emily and Josh how awesome it was, so they all started begging me to take them. Over Christmas beak I loaded the kids and the sleds in the car and we went sledding with some friends.
In the neighborhood where I grew up there was a park that had a great sledding hill, and we have a similar park by our house. It is like a big bowl, so the kids don't go out into the street.

I have to admit it was lots of fun.

Because it was Christmas break there were a lot of people on the hill. The kids were pretty good about making sure their path was clear before they started. However, people who were not on sleds were not very careful about making sure they were not walking into a sledders path, so there were a few hits and a lot of close calls. Luckily no one was hurt in the crashes.

We stayed at the park all afternoon, and by the time we left Josh was too tired to walk to the car. Now my kids are waiting for another big snow storm to come, so that we can go sledding at the park again. I can't wait either.

6 Months Old

Valerie has reached big mile stones this last month. She has started eating real food, like apple crisp and peach cobbler. She does not like rice cereal or carrots, but she will eat oatmeal, apples and sweet potatoes.

She can now sit and play without any support. and she is already learning how to talk back. The other night Ryan and I were ready to go to bed, but Valerie was still awake. We put her in her crib to see if she would go to sleep on her own. (She has before.) I can't say that she started to cry, because it was more like she was yelling at us rather than crying. After a few minutes she quieted down and went to sleep.

Valerie is starting to get better control of her hands. She is getting really good at putting her binky in and out of her mouth, and she loves playing with toys. One thing I have noticed is that she gets bored sometimes, but if I change what she is playing with or if we change our activities, she is happy again.

She loves it when her siblings play with her and when they start running around she kicks her legs and laughs. It won't be long before she is running with them.

Now she is trying to figure out the answer to her biggest question,

Which tastes better...............

Your Fingers,

Or Your Toes?

Happy Birthday Josh

This post is a little late, but it is just because we have been having so much fun celebrating.

Josh turned 4 on Tuesday!

We started celebrating Saturday by having his friends over for a party.





Josh wanted his party to be just like Joe's. As the party got closer he changed a few things, like they played with play dough instead of making monsters, and instead of a monster cake, Josh chose to have a dirt cake.



I was surprised that 3 and 4 year old kids were more wild with the silly string, than Joe's friends were.

I was not sure how the balloon popping would go with the younger crowd. To be honest I expected more crying. So instead of putting all of the prizes in the balloons I took a tip from my sister and only put a bouncy ball for each kid in the balloons. When they found the ball they brought it to me for their prize bag. This ended up being good, because the little guys were having a hard time popping the balloons. They mostly just bounced off of them. Ryan and I ended up getting pins out and having them bring us the balloons they wanted to pop. The kids still thought this was fun.



Josh knew that Saturday was not his real birthday, so he was still counting down the days until he was 4. Monday night when he looked out the window and noticed it was dark outside he said, "Look mom! I'm almost 4." He happily went to bed knowing that when he woke up the next morning he would be 4.
















His day was spent playing Geo Trax,


and we finished the day having dinner With Grandma.

Happy Birthday Josh.


I hope that you have a good year being four, and that you will continue to discover who you are and what you like.

Stuffed Animals

Over Christmas break, Ryan's dad invited us to go to BYU to see the "Stuffed Animal" exhibit at the museum. I thought it sounded fun, and I was interested to see why a museum would have an exhibit of stuffed animals. (being the blond I am I was picturing Teddy Bears and Beanie Babies) If I had known he meant real, dead, stuffed animals, I still would have loved to go, but I think I would have prepared my kids a little better.

There are two things Ryan's dad has taught my children.

1. BYU is the best. (I know they learned this from their grandpa, because grandma, Ryan and I, are all UofU fans.)


2. Love the earth and be kind to the plants and animals.

Because grandpa has brain washed my kids they were really excited just to be going to BYU. They loved driving past the stadium and seeing where all of the sports are played. They were hoping that maybe we would go to a game while we were there.

Then we walked into the museum and I don't think the kids knew what to think.

When Josh got to this exhibit he asked why someone kill-led the duck when he just wanted to swim in the water. At that point we started making it a little more fun by playing Eye-Spy with them.

By the end of the visit the Joe and Emily were having fun looking at all of the animals. They thought it was really cool to see all of the wild animals so close up, and Joe turned into a wild animal himself.
Josh was a little disturbed by the whole thing, and I think he still is, because he does not even want to look at the pictures.
Emily was excited to find a cougar and wanted a picture of it with her in her BYU shirt.

Joe really liked the butterflies and the live black widow spider they had on display.

Shasta the Liger was my favorite. (I remember her at the zoo when I was younger.)

Because part of grandpa's job is protecting the Prairie dog, (it is threaten and endangered) we found it very amusing that every Prairie Dog in the museum was either being eaten by another animal, or about to be eaten by one.

Thanks for the fun outing Grandpa. It was very cool!

Food At Last

Valerie and I could wait no longer. I started her on cereal a couple of weeks early.

She is so happy.

Chef Emily

A couple of years ago Emily had a homework assignment from school to bake a cake. She was so excited and did a great job. After that she wanted to cook more and would often ask if she could bake another cake. So I started having her try to make other things, like banana bread, mac and cheese, cookies, and even pancakes.



For Christmas, my sister gave Emily a kids cookbook. She was so excited to get it and started planning what she was going to cook for us. After the Christmas morning chaos was over we sat down and picked out a couple of things she could make. Emily wanted to try a few desserts, but the main courses were easy enough that I told her she should try a couple of those. Emily was excited to try because I had only let her help make dinner in the past. (I am still a little leery of her using a sharp knife) She went to the store with me to buy the ingredients and then with a little guidance she made us two great meals.

The first night she made this yummy Lasagna

And the second night she made Asian lettuce wraps.

School is back in now, but Emily is hoping to make us another meal this week. She has even picked out a cake she is planning to make for Josh's birthday. Cooking is something I really like to do, and it is fun for me to see Emily enjoying it too.

Welcome 2010

We brought in the new year at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

Eating,

playing games

watching a movie, and putting together puzzles.

Valerie had some playtime and showed off her new talent of being able to sit up and play.





She was not interested in making it to midnight though and fell asleep around 9:00pm.

The other kids lasted quite a while.


Josh went to sleep sometime around 11:00pm. I am not sure of the exact time because, I noticed he was missing from the main group and when I found him he was passed out on the floor in the basement.

If you ask Emily she will tell you that she made it to midnight, because she kind of woke back up when everyone started cheering, but she really fell asleep at 11:45pm.

Joe was our die hard this year. He really wanted to make it to midnight. About 5 minutes before he got his blanket and started to curl up on the couch, but Grandma helped him stay awake.....He fell asleep soon after.

It was a fun night and I am excited for this New Year to start.