Okay - so it's been a while!

Well,
It has been a long time since I've posted. Partly because we've been too busy to post. Partly because our business has not included fun and exciting stuff. And partly because I was having issues with taking pictures and dealing with some emotional turmoil of my own (nothing a good melt down didn't take care of) And I realized I was trying too hard and not understanding or remembering the reason for this blog which is for a family history and as a show and tell for our extended family and friends - not as a glamor scrap book!

So here are a lot of posts to catch you up with us... and the most important part of us - the kids!

In short.. Weston is doing great. Growing up and amazing us as all First children do to their parents. He loves school and everyone loves him. He is social, smart and getting way too silly.
Tyler is a middle child and sadly seems to be struggling with knowing where he fits - too big or too small.. It's a rough place to be, but he is doing well and everyone loves and adores him. He is picking up some of the silliness of Weston, I just hope he doesn't go through this phase twice. Elayna is something else and starting to come into her own, at least as much as a 1 year old can!

Enjoy ..... hopefully you aren't bored to tears with all my ramblings!

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Easter

Well Easter has come and gone at our house - and apparently really gone for Weston. Tonight he wagged his finger at John and said "tell me the truth dad"... So daddy did - and the Easter bunny myth is just that for Weston. But hopefully he'll be good and not spoil it for Tyler or Elayna in the next few years.

All week we've been getting "have you seen the Easter Bunny", "Is the Easter Bunny a bunny or a human" "big or small", how does the Easter bunny do that. ... And he saw the stash of treats in the locked room (ya still wondering how that happened).





But all is well. We dyed easter eggs. Elayna tried to drink the dye then eat the eggs, with the shells. She wasn't too happy about the whole affair and decided she would be happier in bed. She was and I think I've decided I don't care for this tradition much. But the boys did like being able to make a mess. We still haven't eaten the eggs and we forgot to hide them for the hunt, so I hope we don't get sick of egg salad sandwhiches this week!





Saturday we spent all day doing yard work, which the boys thought was so the Easter bunny would like our house -not so.... Sunday we slept in, had a nice breakfast (Ice cream drinks/shakes for the kids and Eggs Nicole (my favorite) for John and I). Then we got dressed in something other than pajamas and John hid the plastic eggs outside and left the baskets on the doorstep - pretending the Easter Bunny had done that.

The kids then went in search of the eggs. Weston loved finding as many eggs as he could. Tyler would open each egg to see what was inside before moving on. And Elayna wasn't sure about it all. John would show her some eggs, but then she would just stand there and watch - waiting for someone else to put it in her basket. I think she just liked being outside and carrying two purses with stuff in them!







After all the eggs were found we went inside to even things up (Weston didn't like that idea, but Tyler did). And once the eggs were distributed fairly the wrappings started to fly. But unlike most kids, my kids don't really like sugar treats. Don't misunderstand. They still care very deeply about getting and having treats and desserts, they just usually don't finish them.

Weston and Tyler had to take inventory of everything they had, Tyler sampled during that. Elayna just sort of took whatever she wanted, but each piece of candy she put in her mouth would end up on the carpet. Robbin eggs - she would suck of the coloring and then spit out the rest. You can see her look of 'ewe' with the peeps (I understand that). But I missed the look as she spat out the snickers bar... too bad for a slow camera hand! I just don't understand how she can be my child and not like chocolate!?

She finally had some nerds, which she tollerated for a few tries, then started pelting daddy with the rest (at least she tried to pelt daddy, then just ended up all over the floor). Tyler was concerened she might encroach on his territory and Weston was still in awe over how sneaky the Easter Bunny was.




We had lunch and got ready for church. After church the boys were hungry and wired and after muscling through dinner they made a fairly good headway on their treat stash.

Ahhh - I'm glad the candy rush will soon be over! Next year I'll have to think of what to get that Elayna will actually eat - as she didn't finish a single piece of candy today... and something that the boys will still think is fun to have. - oh the quandary!

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Elayna

You may conclude after reading through some of my posts that Elayna is the center of my universe, my favorite child and the recipient of all my time and attention. The truth is, that though she is not my favorite (how can you have favorite children) she is the most willing to allow me to participate in her life right now. And in all fairness, is going through phases which are cute and intriguing rather than too silly that they are irritating and hard to spend much time around. - And she doesn't run and hide from the camera or turn on 'how can I be super silly' faces.

So this is her.... Elayna is totally in a dog phase right now. Which makes sense that 'doggy' is her new word. She says it so softly and sweetly too - almost like she is still making sure she is saying it right. She can spot a dog or hear a dog anywhere we go... and usually seems to know with some sixth sense where they are. She gets all gitty and giggly whenever she sees one close enough to pet. Or gets this very serious and ponderous face if they are too far to touch.

This is how you beg... (or try to let the owner know you want to pet the dog... so they'll pet the dog for you so you don't have to)

This is how you pet a dog, without really petting it! (She is always about 4 inches away from the dog, but goes through the motions anyway of petting it... the closer she gets the tighter her hands balls up in a fist.)

Never mind... I'll just try to make the dog laugh.

Never mind... I'm done. I wonder if I can balance on the curb????

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Our little Dutch Girl


This was all Elayna - I'm just glad we had the camera handy!!!!


Well - we did put the apron on - I didn't want to deal with catchup stains on her little dress.

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Easter Dresses


I don't know if it's a world wide, nation wide or obvious holiday tradition. But I've always heard of girls getting 'Easter dresses'. I'm sure I got new dresses around Easter and wore them Easter Sunday but it was never a big deal growing up.


But now I have a little girl and she is the last and final, and she seems to appreciate my clothing choices, or at least to be willing to put up with them unlike the boys, which is why they didn't care that they didn't get any new clothes for Easter. Anyway - I found this dress at Costco months ago (many of you probably have the same dress) and just thought it was so cute. I actually bought it thinking I would try to copy the style for a dress I wanted to make for Elayna but after making the quilt I wasn't anxious to start another project any time soon.


So here is Elayna in her 'Easter dress'. We waited to put her in it until right before church so she wouldn't get it dirty and I wanted to get a picture of her in it with me since I held the camera through all the Easter festivities.. but she wasn't up for posing. So this is what you get.. The dress is so cute though - and no I haven't learned to tie bows yet, and we still have hair issues (mine too)- but her hair is growing (slowly) and it's curly so that's something! ??



I'll have to get some picts another day of her in the dress with her sunglasses.. She wore them to church (well brought them in her new purse and was putting on quite the show modeling them for everyone at church - just like a little movie star!) They have a little cat-eye look, all pink and just cute. I'll see what I can do - it'll be good for a little smile at least!

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Suck Ringers..

So again, Tyler asked me specifically to get my camera so I could take a picture of him. This time sucking on his ring pop. So here are the pictures of him doing that. Weston decided he wanted to open his up with Tyler's encouragement so we have the both of them being silly.


The best part is when Tyler was describing what he wanted me to do he didn't know what the ring pops were called. So I casually told him they are ring pops.. and I'm not sure what he heard but after that he kept saying... get your camera a take pictures of me and my suck ringer. Weston then said while opening his... hey look I have the same suck ringer you do.

Suck ringer..... can you get any better than that!?

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More Elayna

Elayna is now trying to get John to take her to work with him on the trailer bike. She crawls up there all by herself. And though that is somewhat discomforting because it's not that stable and we have no idea how she does it - it is still kind of cute!

She is also able to open our front door - dead bolt and all. I've watched her do it and am a little concerned that she can get the deadbolt open, but happy that she mostly chooses to ignore the door at all! I'm guessing she'll just get better and faster at it, hopefully we don't have a little run-away on our hands.


One of Elayna's favorite things is to wrestle. A good wrestling match guarantees a happy girl. She many times will initiate the match by trying to tackle anyone of the boys (dad included). Zerberts (or raspberries as they are also known) are a perk of any match. And she had become very skilled at giving them to others. I'm not sure why - but for some reason Daddy's back looked appealing to her and she was going to town giving him zerberts until he had just had enough spit all over his back!

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A day at the park



The Cookie!!!
As part of my emotional turmoil John has pointed it out to me that I don't know how to play. And I am being encouraged to learn how to play and to actually play each day. We had 2 day's last week that were around 55 degrees and sunny. A rare thing in this little town. So I decided to take my husbands council to heart and we went to the park and just meandered for a good two hours. The second day we remembered to bring bread to feed the ducks.

We went after weston was picked up from school so he could join us. And everyone was so excited to feed these ducks. Tyler was wearing flip-flops (or flippers as he calls them) and not being successful at it (John and I hate the contraptions so we don't encourage them or buy them for our kids - we had some at Hawaii and that's why he had them). Anyway, Tyler was struggling with walking. Elayna was still in meandering mode and had to hold my hand and walk. And Weston looked like he was ready to run circles around us. So I gave him the bag of bread and said he could go ahead and then just wait for us on a bench at the pond.

Weston ran off and soon after I started seeing a lot of seagles and hearing a lot of bird chatter. By the time we made it to the pond, I watched Weston through the last slice - yes slice - of bread to the birds Luckily we had to heafty heals left of dried bread so the day wasn't shot. But I had to explain to weston that the 5 slices of bread weren't meant to be thrown whole. Obviously we haven't done this many times before - so I figured it was time to teach them how to break off the bread for the birds.

Weston got his chunck of bread. Tyler got his and knowing that Elayna wouldn't know what to do I broke some pieces for her and set them on the bench for her to grab. Weston and Tyler started feeding the ducks and Elayna started feeding herself. I just laughed and figured the bread wouldn't kill her, even if it was a little moldy!

The ducks and seagulls were not getting along - in fact it must have been a feeding frenzy or some serious mating issues happening - but those birds were not happy. So we walked around to the other side to finish off our bread. At the next spot. We got a few ducks fed before the geese and seagulls came to take over again. I had also brought some cookies from a few days earlier so we could finish those off... again thinking that this would be a great way to 'play' at the park. Feed the ducks and have a treat.

So I passed out cookies which my kids decided they liked through about half a cookie each. Elayna though who never eats chocolate (doesn't like it) took the cookie and had two nibbles and then started breaking off the cookie to feed to the ducks. Why she eats the bread and throws the cookie is a little odd to me - but was just funny. The piece she threw only made it about half way between her and the duck, the duck nibbled a little but was too slow (probably scared by her proximity)- so Elayna walked up (scaring the duck away) and picked it back up off the ground and decided to eat it herself.

I wondered if she would eat the rest of the cookie - but she didn't. True to form she just held the cookie for the rest of our time at the park. Climbing up the play set and sliding down (her favorite activity - she is such a thrill seeker). She held that cookie in her hand for a good 45 minutes before she finally handed it to me so we could go to another play set.

And here you see proof of that cookie and how big it still was at the end of our day. It was silly to keep it -but it was just such a cute afternoon with the kids and I love that Elayna is so weird with her food preferences! Weston and Tyler didn't even finish their cookies - what kind of kid doesn't finish cookies???

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Conference Weekend

Conference weekend was like most with kids... we didn't hear as much as we wanted to which is why it's so great to have conference come a few months in the Ensign and then we can get it downloaded to ITunes as well.

So our conference was spent with kids playing legos - all three of them playing with all the sets we have. Since we just went through all the legos and built the sets to make sure they were complete.

Elayna loves them just as much as the boys - and in our little world.... Lego's and Hotwheels are our world.


Luckily Sunday afternoon we went to a friends house for lunch and the final session and the kids were able to play with friends so we were able to listen to the last session which was nice.

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A kick in the pants...

Elayna is a kick in the pants.....
I just don't know that describing her here will do her any justice. She is a character and more. She is in charge - the universe revolves around her - without her acting like it does. She is constantly getting oohs and ahhs at church, for being cute, beautiful, a doll, funny, and an angel.

She is always doing things that make me laugh. And will dress up with random stuff - and it's all self initiated.

Today (Easter Sunday) after she was up, John and I were trying to sleep in a little bit more. She eventually made her way into our room, stood by the door and just waited a minute. She started calling Dad, Dad, Dad - until John looked at her. Then she waved with her little hip out and her cute little smile until John said hi. Then walked around the bed to my side - turned on my lamp. Pulled my covers off. Pulled me out of bed. Waved me on until I was close enough to the door where she then went behind and pushed me out of the room and quietly closed the door behind us (I'm guessing so that 'her Daddy' could sleep). What was that all about!???

This day, she wanted to play with her necklaces but they were tiara's instead of neck wear. she went around all day with her purses, shopping bags and her phone - pushing her stroller. And no pants - I just got so tired of redressing her after all the bathroom visits. Another reason for more dresses!

She is getting more verbal - we have Mom, Dad, Thank you, Where are you - which sounds more like wea-aur-ohh. Doggy and a few others I can't think of now.

Life does not move on until she can throw away any garbage she sees. During dinner, if someone else's dinner looks better than hers or more interesting, or they look to be enjoying it more. She will get down and walk to their place and try to climb up and start eating off their plate with their utensils. If possibly she just goes across the table instead of waisting all the time walking around.

It doesn't matter what I expect her to do, she seems to do whatever she wants - usually oposite of what I had planned. And having two older brothers hasn't taken the girly out of her, it's just given her more ideas of what she can do... like digging in the dirt in white dresses! My own fault, but who cares when there are washing machines!

She is very patient in having you do exactly what she wants you to do. She will prod and preasure and grunt and motion until you are doing exactly what she wants you to be doing... and then is very content to just be knowing you are under her control. For instance if you set her on the couch, she will jump off and pat the couch until you sit down first - give you looks and push if necessary. Then once you are sitting down, she will position herself next to you or on top of you per her mood.

She puts herself to bed for naps and at bedtime. She is in the midst of potty training herself right now, and if I was up to it we could probably get it done - but I just don't want to tackle that right now. Maybe in a few months. But for now - we go through a lot of diapers due to a change with any activity. She will let me know when, she will bring me to the diapers or a diaper and wipes to me. And then we have to go to the bathroom so she can strip down, and sit on the toilet and wipe her bottom and then flush each time. The only problem is that when I start to get more involved she backs way off, but as long as she is in charge she's good.

We still have the binki's - but we're pushing that because she is such a copy cat and sucks her thumb whenever she is around Tyler (which is a lot). But we hope that as soon as we can reason with her the binki will be gone and we'll miss the thumb.

She is starting to undress herself and working really hard at it! I'm just waiting for the streaking in public phase!


John caught this one - she was upstairs playing and came down to model!




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Our little Model...

I say my kids don't pose - more accurately they don't pose when or how I want. But if they are in charge they will pose.. For instance Tyler - who has many times instructed me to get my camera and take pictures of him doing a number of various things.

This day - he wanted to pose on Elayna's new bedding (before it was finished - you can see the completed project further down). What a cheeser!



Tyler's been having a little bit of a hard time lately, or maybe it's just me that's having a hard time with him. We keep hoping it's a phase, but he keeps changing the phase and I'm not sure if that counts as the same phase we need to work through or as a bunch of little phases that I should be grateful that they don't last longer?

For now, we are working on keeping our bed dry at night, and have decided to let him suck his thumb if he wanted - which is now a permanent feature of his. He's not always sure if he is a big or little boy and seems to have a lot of emotion pent up that just spills over at any unprovoked moment.

So on his happy day's, we bask in the happiness and hope for a happy tomorrow. On the more emotional days, we hope for a better 10 minutes to come! He is a cutie though. I usually have my kids clumped together when being told they are 'so cute'. But the other day Tyler was singled out "He is just so handsome, he should be a model". And what mom doesn't love to hear that!

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Birthday Celebrations



In the midst of everything else (though we weren't having an exciting life, we have been very busy) I was in charge of organizing and pulling off a Relief Society Birthday celebration. I started with a board of people and had all but one end up moving out.

Thank you to John and Dave for their willingness to do all the cooking (for 50 people) - it pulled off and was great. We dressed up like pioneers (sort of) made paper bag bonnets and ate dutch oven for dinner and dutch oven cobbler for dessert. It was great fun! I'm just glad it's done with now.... on to the next project!

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Random head gear

Elayna is our little cleaner - and was washing the table but apparently the hat option won out over her need to clean!


What's more fun than putting buckets on your head......
or your back....
or both - Great!!!!
That works.

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