Birthday Boys

Having a few blogging issues today, but I have put this post off long enough, so it will just have to do. In no particular order (because they delete each time I try to adjust a picture) please enjoy some pictures from Noah's recent birthday which included GetAir, creative outfit choices, and presents:

Oops just somehow deleted another one. Annoying. What isn't annoying is that we got to celecrate Noah's fourth birthday earlier this month. Oh how I love this child. With Chloe and Noah's birthday being so close together, we have been counting down to this day forever, but despite Noah's worries, that his "birthday will never get here" the big day did arrive and we had a great time celebrating as a family.

In most respects Noah is very easy to please, which made birthday presents fairly easy. If it is dinosaur, shark, superhero, or car related he will love whatever the item may be, and if it's anything else, he will generally love that too. Love that about him. We were able to spend most of a low key day just playing with his new toys before we headed to the trampoline park, Get Air. This place is great, an hour in and my kids were exhausted because they played so hard. We came home and enjoyed a dinosaur cake, courtesy of Costco, and fun. Days don't get much better than that.

Little boys don't get much better than Noah, either. This kid is one of the sweetest little kids I have ever know. Chloe almost always gets her way when the two play. Even if he has a different idea, he will go along with Chloe's if it will make her happy. If he hurts, intentionally or otherwise, anyone he immediately starts to cry because he feels badly that he made a bad choice or caused someone pain. Noah is my cuddly child. If I sit down for even a second, he is right over by me asking to sit on my lap or next to me. He gives great hugs and loves nothing more than to make people smile.

Noah is very self concious. He doesn't like to try things that may make him look silly. We will have random spur of the moment dance parties at home and everyone, including Adam, will be shaking it like a polaroid picture...everyone except Noah. The one exception to this rule is when we go to Old Navy, where for some reason the music never fails to make him bust out a break dancing move of some kind. Cracks me up. He is very private about his body too, which I'm not complaining about. He's so private that he generally will get his clothes to change into and go to an area of the house where no one is to change and does not want help if he can help it.

Noah is a smart kid. He started talking at an earlier age than both Chloe and Adam and his proper use of vocabulary amazes me sometimes. Some of this favorite phrases are: "Clearly you aren't listening to me" "I definitely like..." "I would like one as well" He always likes the words: also (so you know that the end of his sentence doesn't mean he's done talking to you), fantastic, and absolutely. He can tell you most anything about any dinosaur you want to know and has his favorite book about sharks memorized. He knows all of his letters and, thanks to Chloe, is starting to learn some sight words too. Oh and I forgot yesterday's awesome sentence when Chloe wanted him to play: "Sorry Mom, I gotta bounce. It's time to play ball."

Noah loves playing with friends and doing things as a family. He's always asking to play with someone or for us to do something. The good thing is that he is almost always wasy to please and will often tell us that some activity made this "the best day ever." By the token, although he is easy to please, he also sometimes gets defeated very easily. If a friend is unable to play or we can't do a certain thing, he will often say something like "I never get to..." whatever the item may be. That attitude does go away pretty fast as soon as he finds something else, but it is one of the only things that sometimes gets me frustrated.

Noah is a sucker for suckers. Any kind, any size, he LOVES suckers. He is better at eating vegetable than Chloe and Adam, but hates breakfast, unlike Chloe and Adam. Noah would eat a bowl of cereal with a gogurt every day if he could. He's not a huge sandwhich fan, but likes to eat a piece of meat, with a slice of cheese, and a piece of bread all separately. His favorite dinner is creamy chicken pasta or navajo tacos. Most days he doesn't complain about what's for dinner, but beware, if I make pancakes for any one of the three daily meals, I will hear about how he hates them.

Okay, this just started two days ago, but Noah has learned to whistle. Or at least what he thinks is whistling. He will sit and purse his lips and make a noise that sounds like a whistle, but is so not. He love to do it and has been doing it almost non stop for the past two days. I love to see how proud of himself he is that he thinks he has picked up this new skill, I just can't wait to hear what he thinks about it when he actually does learn how to really whistle.

I can't believe how fast time flies and how big my big little boy has gotten. He has the cutest little face and smile and I love being around him. He makes me happy and I feel lucky to be his mom and to get to celebrate these days with him.

The above titled post is pluralized for a reason. That reason is that Joe and Noah both have March birthdays. Their birthday come four days apart, on the 10th and the 14th. Joe turned the big 3-2 which he said has bugged him more than almost any birthday to date. Joe is pretty low key so it was a pretty relaxing day. He got the grappling dummy he wanted along with a new Nike hoodie. We made chinese food for dinner and went to see the Lorax. One of the things that I love about Joe is that things don't always have to be about him. Here it was, HIS birthday, and he just wanted to do what the kids wanted to do. I love that he loves to make them happy more than to see something other than a kids movie. We have started to let the kids pick out their own gifts for us for our birthdays. This has been fun to see them use their own ideas to pick what they think we would like as opposed to us picking gifts and putting their names on them. Last year this meant Joe got batman underwear, and a Guess Who game. This year the kids both picked lego toys for him. Chloe picked a police officer lego set and Noah picked him a dinosaur one. They are so excited to see us open their gifts, and it makes it a highlight of the day.

I love my birthday boys and love that they are mine. We have one more birthday in April and then we take a birthday break until August.

Antelope Island

With the word "island" in the title one might guess that this post has to do with a family trip to a tropical island, with warm water and weather to match. Our real island destination was no less foreign than a faraway island given that the last time Joe visted this beauty was when he was 12 and the rest of us had never before been there. Antelope Island is located in the middle of the Great Salt Lake and is very easy to drive out to. When I use the word beauty to describe this place, some of you who have only visited in the summer months may laugh at me. Joe memory from his first and last trip was a hot August day 20 years ago where there was no shade, but plenty of bugs. Still we decided that it was such a beautiful day we had to get out and this because our beautiful destination. Really. It was BEAUTIFUL. With weather still cool enough to keep away bugs and to have no need for shade we were pleasantly surprised by how peaceful and scenic this island was. There were maybe ten other people also on the island and it was awesome.

We first stopped at the visitors center where I learned alot of facts about Antelope Island, the Great Salt Lake, and the Northern Utah area in general that I didn't previously know. The kids just liked to check out the statues.

After driving around a little we hiked down to get closer to the lake. The kids really wanted to touch the water but it was too marshy to be able to get close enough. They weren't sad for two long - easily distracted by posing for pictures and playing in the (soft) sand.

The day and the views were beautiful. We now really want to go back with a group before it gets too hot and either camp or just explore and have a bonfire before heading home. I can't believe I never realized what a treasure this place was so close to us. I don't think I will ever venture out in the summer months, but I think there are several more spring and fall trips in our future.

One gross side note story...Adam loved getting to be at a place where he was able to run free. He loves being outdoors and this was heaven to him. We were sitting at a picnic table enjoying a snack while Adam ran circles around. I looked over to where he was and saw that he was studying what looked to be dried animal waste (a polite term, yes?) Instantly I knew what he would do and got up, yelling no, as I ran over to him. Too late though as he grabbed the lump and got it to his mouth before I was able to grab his arm and shake it from his hand. YUCK!!!! I seriously wanted to throw up. On closer inspection we found that the lump was indeed waste, but not the kind we were thinking. Adam had found and touched to his mouth an OWL PELLET. DOUBLE YUCK. Double desire to throw up. This regurgitated mouse body was something I remembered learning about and disecting in school, but never did I think Adam would get such an up close education about so soon. Grossed out, we cleaned and sanitized him as best we could and stopped for burgers on the way home.

"See dad, no hanta virus here." Boys

February Wrap Up

Tomorrow is the last day of February and I'm pretty sure it couldn't have gone by any faster. Between a birthday, a day of love, school, and just regular life, our days have been full, sometimes with absolutely nothing, but they still have flown. I think this is the nature of our life right now. So now I catch up on some of our random activities that have propelled us through the month of love. .

The kids think Joe is the "best dad they have ever had." This always makes me laugh. He doesn't have to do much to have them singing his praises. Early in month he earned the rave reviews when he, not only set up this fort with their own separate rooms, but "slept " (a term I use loosely for this night) downstairs with them so they wouldn't be scared to spend the entire night in the best fort ever. This effort is one of the things that makes me feel lucky to have Joe as mine!
Adam spent the night in his own bed, but sure enjoyed the movie night we had before bed time so he could play in the fort too.

Valentine's Day. A day of love! For me Valentine's Day is kind of like Thanksgiving. I always know I love my husband and my children and think how that fact every day, but this day is a nice to set aside as reminder of how lucky I feel to have such a wonderful family to love.

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The Sunday before Valentines Day my mom made the effort to get all the grandkids into a picture to send to Elder DJ. I don't think she was ever successful at getting all the kids to participate at the same time, but it was humorous to watch.

Joe suprised me and took me on a overnight date on the weekend, but the actual Valentine's Day was more about the kids. Holidays are so much fun, making them fun for kids. Right now it takes so little to make them happy. Noah kept saying, "This is the best day ever" What did we do to make it so? About the most exciting this we did was send them on a scavenger hunt to find their Valentine treats followed by a dinner of pizza and individual sparkling ciders. Really, simplest thing ever, but they loved it.
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I had to laugh at how much fun they had with the scavenger hunt and how seriously they took it. This may have to become a tradition. Chloe, being the resident reader of the family, wants to read everything she sees on her own so I tried hard to use as many words that she knew or could sound out as I could.

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Some of our clues were:

In the room where the laundry starts,

Go find yourself a Chocolate Heart.

You kids we love to pieces and pieces,

And to show you, in our room, we have hidden some Reeses.

You love our car that's shiny and new,

We think you will like this stuffed friend too .

and by far the kids favorite (I wrote it because I knew it would be):

You kids make us laugh even when you say "fart"

Trot your noise making behinds to the table to find your box of hearts.

The laughter that comes out of them cracks me up. I need to follow my dad's example though and get them to "elevate the level of conversation in this house". It's still pretty funny though.

Chloe took the hunt seriously. She got out of her skirt and into "matching" (how many times can I use quotation marks today) leggings and donned her trusty lightsabers in case they came across anyone trying to steal their treats.

Kiddos with their treats

I tried to get a picture of the kids I love on Valentines Day, but Adam was having none of it.

Moving on to another fun day, just a few more pictures from Chloe's birthday. Chloe got to wear a crown at school and have a special cover on her chair for her birthday. She also got to bring a special treat to share with her classmates. Being in charge of handing out the treats may have been her favorite part of the day.

After looking through her birthday pictures, Chloe also made the special request that I "post these two pictures on the internet that is about our family".

Present opening

Pocahantas doll. Cracked me up that she wanted this doll because she has yet to it through the entire movie, but she hasn't slept without it since her birthday.

So many Chloe pictures, I need to add some of my favorite little boys too. Here is Noah playing with a camera.

"Here's a cool picture for you to take mom."

Adam. Last week I went on a girls night with my mom and sisters. So. Much. Fun. Living so close to each other I think we take the nearness for granted. Most of our time spent together is with kids and in chaos. I loved getting to do dinner and shopping with them and getting to feel immature for a few hours. Although by the end I think my mom was a little embarrassed to be associated with us, it was a great night. I only wish I had gotten a picture of us all together. What does this have to do with Adam? Well while I didn't get a picture of girls night, I did get a picture during it, sent to me by Joe, of Adam having an allergic reaction. Poor little guy.

After waiting to see if it would go away and wondering if I would need to cut the night short to meet Joe at the hospital (he said Adam seemed to be having a little bit of difficulty breathing too) the hives disappeared and he went back to looking like this:

So that wraps up our February as best I can, and I can't help but be excited for the month to officially come to an end, not because it's been a bad month, because it has been pretty good to us, but because it takes us that much closer to spring days, warm weather, playing outside, and swimming. I say: "I can't wait."

PS Can I just say that I hate how whenever I edit a post the spacing between paragrahs and pictures goes a little crazy. If anyone knows what I am doing wrong or how to avoid that, fill me in!

Happy Birthday Chloe!

Despite my best efforts, I can't keep these kids from growing and Chloe celebrated another birthday on the 10th of this month. Joe and I have often said that we would like to get our kids to the point where they can walk, talk, eat, and wipe their own bums and then freeze them. Getting past those points takes away a lot about what makes new babies hard, and freezing them means that we can keep them in the cute fun, make you laugh with how sweet and great they are stage forever. I know there are plenty of things that I will enjoy as my kids get older, I just also really want to cherish the years we have with our young kiddos.

To me the years continue to pass faster and faster. Six years ago I looked like this:and Chloe came out looking like this.
Now that beautiful little newborn is a beautiful big girl.

I love so many things about this child of mine it would be impossible to list them all. She is one of the most caring, forgiving, funny people I know. She loves to make people smile and LOVES being a big sister to her two little brothers. She is a complete joy and I am so glad I get to call her mine.



Being in kindergarten she has definitely started to learn more about friendships and about how people are all different - I didn't think those types of things would affect her so soon. Another thing I thought I had a few years to worry about is her interest in boys. This is definitely a product of kindergarten and Disney movies. She already worries about what it means if one of the boys call her "babe" or if she gets a Valentine that says "I like you" We've tried to explain that we don't need boyfriends at this age, just boys that are friends. Nevertheless, this is something that she has become aware of and is thinking about these days.



Chloe wishes she could be the mom. In fact, she asked me the other day why she can't be the boss and tell me what to do. Independence is something she is trying to figure out. While this is a good thing in many ways - like when she cleans her room all by herself without being asked or gets in and out of the shower and ready alone, it also has it's down side. I hear the word "NO" from her a lot more often than I have followed by "I don't want to." She definitely is testing boundries.



Chloe has quite an imagination. This year has marked a change in bed time habits for her. In the past once, prayers, bathroom, and books were done, she would grab her favorite stuffed animal and be asleep within minutes of being tucked in. Now I will go upstairs, sometimes even an hour past her bedtime, and find her sitting up reading a book, drawing, or playing with her dolls. She loves to create scenarios for her and Noah to play in and has a larger attention span for her toys when she sits down with them. She loves her miniature princess polly pocket like dolls, and she can spend hours in front of her dollhouse. Several times a day Chloe will ask to color and can sit forever coloring, cutting, and creating. One of her favorite coloring activities is to draw and color food items and "cook" meals with them for us. Her favorite ingredients are garlic and sugar.



Speaking of food, Chloe is a great eater. I love cereal, and Chloe would be happy if we never had it again, preferring pancakes, hashbrowns, and BACON daily if we were willing. She loves "everything" sandwhiches, which include mayonaise, mustard, any and all meats we have in the house, cheese, and lettuce. Her dinner favorites are navajo tacos, creamy chicken pasta, and after I just tried this pinterest recipe, Chicken Spiedini, has also been declared the best thing you ever made. Chloe is like her mom and loves chocolate. She also loves starbursts and bubble gum, apples and yogurt, cookie dough and cookie dough ice cream.



Chloe is becoming more aware of the things that happen outside the bubble of her existence. When Joe was involved in the recent shooting in Ogden, Chloe had a lot of questions about what had happened. Her prayers started including the safety of her dad a lot more. Just last night she prayed "Please help dad to come home safely tonight and if not, help Jesus to take care of him." I'm not sure what to do with her growing awareness. I know she doesn't display a lot of fears about Joe's job, but it also obvious to me she's thinking about it more than I know. Another thing she is paying more attention to is the gospel. From asking to teach family home evening lessons, to memorizing the first article of faith she is beome more active in her questions and participation with some of the activities in our home. I LOVE it.



Chloe is still afraid to try some new things. There are clothes that if they don't fit just right the moment she puts them on, she wants to get them off as fast as possible. Those same items when given five minutes to get used to, often become favorites. She is scared about learning how to ride a bike on her own, but promises she'll be ready to learn this summer. She gets nervous when we are reading and come to a word I know she knows, sometimes she will freeze and starting guessing for fear of taking time to think, sound out, and remember the word. I volunteer in her kindergarten class every week and she is so eager to please her teacher and reports from Mrs. LeFevre have been really good about how she is doing.



I am sure there is a lot more about her that I am forgetting. Oh, like I just remembered - you can't make any comment or noise about or related to body functions without her bursting into fits of giggles (thanks for that Joe) and you can't turn on music without her dancing around. After asking her a couple of times she has just said she would be interested in starting dance classes, but I have no idea where to start with that. We shall see. Chloe is a character. She brings so much life to our family and it would not be the same without her as part of it. Happy Birthday Chloe and although I wish they came a little slower I can't wait to celebrate many more!