Growing up!

Another fun week in the sun!  All our usual walks, library visits, playing with friends and each other.  Kylie is getting better and better at playing with her toys and playing make believe.

On our walks Hayden always lingers near the pool.  You can totally tell he is ready for swim season!

Friday is always our big friend day, since Kylie doesn't have school that day.  In the morning we went to the park with Kennedy and Acadia.  With a whole park of fun things to play on, Hayden would rather climb the rocks and play in the dirt.  Figures.

Later that afternoon Peyton came over to play.  It is so fun to see both Kylie and Hayden get so excited to play with friends.  Hayden especially gets super excited and wants to show whatever friend that is over all the toys.

Saturday was a busy day.  Especially for Hayden!  We took his crib down, and gave him the twin bed from Kylie's bunk bed.  Both kids had so much fun playing on Hayden's new bed and Hayden really enjoyed his dinosaur bedsheets.

Everything was awesome until bedtime.  Then Kylie realized she didn't have a bed over her anymore and flipped out and was hysterical for 20 minutes before she passed out.  Hayden, who wouldn't leave his bed for the previous hour, suddenly wouldn't stay in his bed at all.  But I expected it.  That's what happened with Kylie.  Hopefully he will adjust in the coming week.

Also this week Hayden suddenly loves the cat.  LOVES the cat.  Like uses him as a full body pillow and tracks him down for forced hugs.  It is actually quite tortuous for the cat.

Trauma-rama

Another beautiful week full of walks and park playing.  We even went to feed the ducks and run through sprinklers!  In mid-February!  It was awesome.

On Friday we went to go play with the kid's friend Sophia.  They had just moved to Hurricane, so it was a bit of a drive to their new house.  They had a lot of fun, though, playing with Sophia and her toys.  We even baked sugar cookies and frosted them.  Then we did a little 'heart-attack' hunt outside which Hayden just LOVED.  He thought it was the best thing ever!

On Saturday it was a big family fun day with Daddy.  We went to the park and had a picnic and afterwards went to Brandon's work for a few minutes.  When we were getting back into the car, Kylie was getting into her seat and I was helping Hayden into his, Kylie began screaming bloody murder.  It was instantaneous and escalated so quickly; I had no idea what was going on.  Kylie was screaming and crying and pawing at her stomach.  Did she get stung? Bitten by a spider??  After I got her out of the car and examined her I could finally hear between her hysterics "I swallowed my gum!"

Wait, what?  She swallowed her gum??  Apparently all the horror stories Brandon told her about swallowing gum and what it would do to your stomach had flashed into Kylie's mind after she accidentally swallowed her gum for the first time.  It took awhile to calm her down and explain that she would be alright and her stomach wouldn't hurt or lay bug eggs or whatever Brandon told her before would happen.  Eventually the only thing that made her feel better was telling her to drink lots of water and that would help it not hurt.  She downed her water so fast it was amazing!  Afterwards we couldn't help but laugh at this sudden and terrifying episode.

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!!