President's Day Weekend

Well the weather down here has just been GORGEOUS!  We couldn't help but go outside and play everyday and have fun at several parks.

On Friday we made the long trip up north.  Brandon's Grandad had died and we went to his funeral on Saturday.  Kylie and Hayden were super excited to see grandparents again after just seeing them last weekend.

On Saturday we went to Grandad's funeral, and Grandma Tess was nice enough to come watch Kylie and Hayden during the service, because we all know they wouldn't sit still long enough for that!

We did take the kids to the burial, and it was cold!  When the veterans fired their guns in salute, Hayden started freaking out, which is understandable, because they were pointing their guns directly at us (!?!?) when firing and they were loud!

Afterwards we went to the luncheon where Kylie ate hardly anything until the treats popped up, and Hayden sat with Uncle Dallan who was an awesome feeding coach and got him to eat practically everything!

On Saturday evening we went over to visit Grandma Tess and Grandpa Pete.  We had dinner at Winger's and then went out to explore the mall.  They had these fun little mechanical animals that you can ride and Kylie and Hayden thought they were the best things ever!  Kylie zoomed around so fast that I eventually had to get on with her just to slow her down!

Sunday was a lazy day and the kids just played and Hayden finally got a decent nap in (which means he slept 4 hours!).  Monday was President's Day and we all went to the Museum of Ancient History (AKA the dinosaur museum).  The kids really enjoyed it and had lots of fun! After the museum we had lunch at the Deli and then our long trip back home!

We had a fun trip and thanks to all our family who accommodated us on such short notice!  It was fun to see everyone in February up north which is something we never get to do!

Birthday Weekend!

This week was super duper fun!  As always!

Hayden tried all sorts of new things this week.  He suddenly decided that he could play with scissors.

That he and Kylie were chefs at a Goldfish restaurant.

He woke up as a monster one day from his nap.

And he wanted to start potty training!

I am not totally pushing the potty training on him yet.  A few times a day we will just practice sitting on the potty.  Kylie is like a drill sergeant, though... "Go pee pee Hayden!  Go pee pee!  GO! NOW!"
It's pretty hilarious to watch her try to help him.

On Friday Grandma Shari and Grandpa Gary came down for the weekend!!  The kids were so excited and Kylie kept saying they came down for "mommy's birthday".  Kylie had my party all planned out with pink and white cake and balloons and presents!  Haha I wasn't planning on any of that though, much to her disappointment.

That night we went to dinner at Sakura.  We were cautious though, last time we were here Kylie freaked out with they lit the grill with a huge fire at the beginning and wouldn't sit down at the table afterwards.  This time, though, she actually made it through the dinner.  She did have a little freakout at the beginning (from another table's fire show), but she managed to calm down and set up an extra chair 5 feet away that was her 'safety zone' for all the fire tricks.  Hayden did remarkably well, and while he got concerned, he didn't get too scared!

Saturday was my birthday, and Grandma Shari and Grandpa Gary surprised me with balloons! And cake!  And presents!  It was awesome.  The kids were very excited for the balloons.

That morning we all went to a park that we never go to because it is clear across town.  Everyone had tons of fun climbing and sliding and running around!

Then Kylie ran down the hill really fast, tripped on a tree root, went sprawling onto her face and slide several feet.  After tears, consolations, bandaids and crackers she was done with the park.  So we went to eat at Tom's Deli where Kylie met her friend Peyton and everything was hunky dory again!

That afternoon Brandon and I went on my birthday date and the kids had super amounts of fun with Grandma and Grandpa.  They went to a park and wore themselves out and then to McDonalds where they somehow had enough energy to run all over the play place.

Sunday morning Grandma Shari and Grandpa Gary had to leave.  We were sad to see them go; we had such a fun time this weekend!  Thanks to all your help and making my birthday awesome!

The Little Things

The days all blend together when you've got a good schedule going on!  School, walks, library, and playtime with friends keep us pretty busy!  Hayden's favorite word right now is "game", and Kylie has been saying some pretty funny stuff too!  Like "It's a perfect day!  Let's go on a walk!"  Her thing right now is convincing you to do things or get her stuff.  Sometimes she is so cute it is hard to resist!

On Wednesday we did some shopping and Hayden found his new favorite Pj's: Spiderman!  He wore them for practically two days straight before I could convince him to wear something else and hid the jammies in the hamper.

The kids are getting better at playing together, though Hayden has the attitude of "whatever I want, I get" which is very frustrating.  There is this one show they like to watch which promotes a lot of movement, and it is really fun to watch them do the motions together.

On Saturday the kids had another 'Daddy-date' and went to the wildlife museum. Hayden hasn't stopped talking about bears ever since!

One thing the kids liked this week is that on one of our walks we discovered that the fountain was being cleaned and so it was filled with bubbles!  That is every kids dream, right?

Let's Play!

What a crazy fun week it has been!  Monday was a holiday off school, but we didn't do anything special.  Same old laundry and chore day and in the afternoon we went  on a walk.  Hayden has been taking his scooter on our walks now.  He only rides it one or two blocks and then is done, but it is an improvement!  We stopped to play with Kylie's friend Peyton and got to jump on her new tramp.  The kids love trampolines!

My kids are known to play with everything that isn't a toy, and they are so good at it.  On Tuesday morning they got out all the canned food and built towers with them.  That kept them busy for an hour!

Later that day they perfected drinking their juice with no hands...

On Thursday we went to Story time like usual.  For once the kids were fairly well behaved!  They especially loved the craft at the end where they made elephants and got to have little party favors for the trunks!

On Friday we went to play with our friends Acadia and Kennedy.  They had lots of fun playing in their yard.  It was just landscaped, and they all still want to play in the pile of dirt in the corner.  Of course.

Saturday was a fun day with Brandon.  Every weekend it is just Daddy time for the kids!  They love spending time with him.  We ran some errands and Brandon took them to a park to play for a while.  So fun!

Swimming!

Nothing too crazy happened this week!  Kylie is doing a lot better at school, and she is sleeping in a little bit more (still getting up at 6.30 though...).  She is still obsessed about her baby dolls, which is good, and still rides her scooter constantly inside.  We got to take several walks this week because of the decent weather, and Kylie loved riding her scooter everywhere.  She is so fast now!

Hayden has been hooked to the little fake iPad that Aunt Kendra brought from China a few years ago.  He loves to play the "Find the..." game, even though he doesn't know any of his letters or numbers.  Plus, half the time he has it in Chinese.  He also loves to have his own stories read to him at bedtime (reading with Kylie just won't do), and his favorite ones are about dinosaurs or dragons right now.  He still rides his scooter inside, but he will not ride it outside again after his last fall.

Sometimes the littlest change can make the kids super excited, and this week it was when I moved the couch a couple feet to clean underneath it.  The kids would just sit back there and play and eat their snacks and set up little beds.  It was pretty fun to watch them!

After a whole week of late nights Brandon finally got in some daddy time Friday night.  We went to Fiesta Fun to play the arcade.  The kids were super excited, until we realized that they had changed everything.  There are no more tokens or tickets, everything is done on a little credit card.  Took the fun right out of playing all those games. :(

On Saturday we went swimming at the rec center!  When we told them to get their swimsuits on both kids were just jumping up and down, and Kylie was saying "Yes!  Swimming!  It is my favorite!" over and over!

Swimming was super fun and we did something new: Hayden went down the big waterslide for the first time!  He loved it so much and went down several more times with Brandon.  Kylie also went down the slide, but by herself!!  I would go down first (not too excited about that part...) and then catch Kylie when she went down next, and then Hayden would come down with Brandon.  It was lots of fun and really wore us out!!

Winter Blues

This has been a tough week for everyone.  First off it rained all week, so we were cooped up inside most of the time.  Of course, we still had plenty to do inside with all our new toys and games.  Some of our favorite things this week were baby dolls (both kids would just carry them around all day), and Legos.  The Legos were a huge hit and we had tons of fun creating new things.

Kylie went back to school on Tuesday and she was so excited to see her friends.  She came home with a list of sight words to work on and in the first night she already knew 90% of them!  She is awesome!

Sadly, though, at the end of school Thursday Kylie's teacher said that all week Kylie has been unmanageable.  She didn't want to do anything, would lay on the floor and cry, or seclude herself in the corner.  The only thing I could think of was that over the break she got used to waking up at 5.30 AM, and during Hayden's naptime (which is the same as her school time) she would have quiet time in her room with the tablet.  (Not the whole time, but a good hour was spent that way).  So it seems that she is just used to being tired at this time of day and can't handle school right now.  The big question is how to fix it?  How do I get her to sleep in during the mornings again??  During the afternoons I have been doing more engaging activities and not letting her go have tablet time.  Ugh... I don't know.  Hopefully I can figure out how to change her internal alarm clock for the mornings and then maybe things will work out...

On Friday I got out all the puzzles and we had fun doing them.  Hayden has about four wooden ones, and I mixed them all up and he had to put them back together.  It didn't phase him at all and he did that several times while Kylie and I worked on a harder puzzle.  It was lots of fun and I enjoyed it because I usually can't get both of the kids doing an activity like that together for a long time.

By Saturday our weather finally cleared up and we went outside for a bit to ride our scooters.  Kylie loved it!  Hayden loved it until he fell down, and then he was done.

And the only reason I got a picture this week was because Kylie requested a picture of herself with her baby:

And A Happy New Year!

Ah it is so nice to be back home after the holidays.  Back to our normal schedule, normal activities, and most important: normal bed times!  We spent most of the time indoors, trying to get Kylie and Hayden cured of their colds.  They both still have a minor cough, but their energy levels are through the roof again!

There is an abundance of toys to play with as well.  We even went through all our old toys and donated a huge box to DI!  So we always have something to do!

Kylie was also out of school all this week so I had to come up with fun activities to do with her during Hayden's nap time.  One game she especially enjoyed was "find the letter".  I put the letters (uppercase and lowercase) on a post-it and put them all around the living room and kitchen.  When she came downstairs she was super amazed and so excited.  The hard part was differentiating between uppercase and lowercase, but Kylie figured it out!

We also got to go to the library this week (practically the only time we left the house!) and get some new books to read.  Kylie loves to read, especially before bedtime, and it makes me so happy.  We are still working with Hayden.  He doesn't sit still long enough to enjoy the book yet.

Other than that we have had a pretty normal week!