Just for fun

This little video is my attempt to record Erilyn's sweet voice, some of her cute sayings, and her singing her favorite songs. I will miss this age!

"I love him foot."

Erilyn continues her obsession with playing with feet. She hugs them, feeds them, plays with them, puts them down for a nap, bosses them around, and every other thing you could possibly think of. It's very amusing.

The rest of this clip is Anthon singing his favorite songs. Funny!

Oh--and please just ignore the basket of laundry waiting to be folded. Recording family history is more important...right?!

It's official...I'm a soccer mom.

 
 

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this new designation. I love watching Anthon play, though, so I guess I'm okay. No minivan yet...so that helps!

So far, Anthon loves playing soccer. He is by far the most talkative boy on the team. If there isn't another player nearby that he can chat it up with, he'll talk to himself...hand gestures and all. I love this kid! He's not the most aggressive player, but he almost scored a goal in his last game, and he's getting to be a pro at the rules. It's fun to watch him play. Go Green Lanterns!

No pictures again...I know, I know.

I can't seem to find the charger for my camera battery, so we're a little picture-deficient right now. But I have kid stuff to write about, so here I am!

Kirk thinks Erilyn will have a foot fetish when she gets older. I think Erilyn has a foot fetish now. She likes to come up to us when we're sitting down and hug our feet. She says in a dreamy sort of way, "I love him foot." And then she'll cuddle it, rock it, tell it to wake up (and poke it, and yell at until it moves or "wakes up"), and then demand that it kiss her (which she insists on by holding out her hand until you touch it with your foot, thus "kissing" her). This happens with delightful regularity.

She is also obsessed with being a puppy named Ruffy. She will crawl up to us and lick our pant legs and pant and bark like a yippy little dog. As a puppy, she is very obedient and cuddly. As Erilyn, she is...uhm...learning to assert her independence. Yeah, that sounds right.

Tomorrow I am 20 weeks pregnant. Can I be done? Sometimes I'm jealous of women who've had premature babies. It sounds kind of nice, doesn't it? Only being pregnant for 30 weeks? Any minute now a bolt of lightening will strike me down. The good news is we get to find out the sex on Wednesday. I'm betting on a boy, and Kirk has a name picked out either way, so he doesn't really care. I still have veto power, though; that goes pretty much without saying. But I said it anyway, just in case.

Erilyn's nursery teacher today described her as a "somber child." After doing a double take and thinking, "really?", I realized that it's probably not that far off. When Anthon isn't around, she's much more reserved and serious. She pays close attention to things, she's careful about staying clean and picking up after herself (my dream come true), and she observes...everything. She's a watcher. But when he IS around, she is silly, energetic, and a little crazy, to be honest. Anthon has that effect on most people, though, so I shouldn't be surprised. It'll be interesting to see her grow up and figure out how to be her own person, whether or not Anthon is around.

Rats

While I was trying desperately to go to sleep last night, I composed such an insightful and witty post in my head that I now can't remember at all. It's too bad. You really would have been amazed.

I don't have any pictures to go with this post, but I have to write down this little story. It's so sweet! And, actually, so typical of my sweet Anthon.

The other day Anthon had a friend over to play. Erilyn had had some trouble taking a nap at her usual time, so I ended up having her sleep in my bed downstairs. She was still asleep when Anthon came home from school so I told him that when his friend arrived, they'd need to play upstairs until it was time for her to wake up. He was totally fine with that.

When his friend came, Anthon immediately took him by the hand and whispered, "Steven, shh. Erilyn is still sleeping in my mom's room, so we need to play upstairs. You can choose what we do until she wakes up, but when she wakes up, she gets to choose at least one thing that we do so she can be happy playing with us, too. Okay? Do you understand? Erilyn gets to choose what we play when she gets up. But you can choose right now."

It was so sweet! He has the most tender little heart and is so loving and caring toward Erilyn. It just makes me want to cry everytime I see him help her with something without being asked, by me or her, or when he does something for her just because he knows she'll like it. He is really the best big brother. I love you to pieces, Buddy!

Tryin' out a kinky new 'do

For Church last Sunday, I wanted to see if I could get Erilyn's hair to be really wavy by braiding it. It didn't really work--her hair was still wet when we took out the braids the next morning, and what was dry was straight within an hour or two anyway--but she loved having the braids! She slept in them like a pro, and has been asking me to braid her hair ever since...and all her dolls' hair, and all her ponies' hair, and...well, you get the picture.

Be My Valentine!

The day before Valentine's Day, Erilyn and I went to Anthon's class party and celebrated with him at school. Erilyn loved it! And Anthon still loves it when I come to his class, so we all had a great time. Anthon was really sweet with his friends at school. He had made some valentines at home and he was so excited to give them to his friends. He has such a sweet heart and is really learning to think more outside himself and about how others might feel. So sweet! We celebrated at home by spending a week doing secret things to show our love and filling up our "Love Bank," a jar we decorated and filled with hearts for each kind thing done. Anthon loved looking for ways to show love, writing notes on the hearts and filling up the jar. By the end of the week our jar was totall stuffed! We then celebrated with heart shaped pancakes. I'm not very artsy, so I was pretty proud of myself for the pancake. Erilyn was so excited about eating heart pancakes. It's so easy to make a two year old happy sometimes! Hooray for sweet kiddos.

Catching Up...

Once we got back home from our Christmas travels (which included a trip up to Kanab, UT to visit The Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, which the kids loved), we tried to get settled in and ready for Mindy to come stay with us and help me through the next few weeks. She has been amazing! The kids love reading stories with her, going for walks with her, having boat races with her, playing with her, and eating all her yummy cooking! I've been so grateful that she could come and help. Kirk might be even more grateful she's here than me, considering it relieved him of all the cooking and cleaning! Thanks for coming, Mindy!

I had a great birthday. Thanks to everyone who remembered! Anthon thought it was fun that my birthday was also a holiday from school, and we had a great day hanging out at home. Kirk had lots of birthday surprises for me (I begged that a cake not be one of them!) and it was a great day.

I've discovered that if I take two different medications alternately throughout the day, and try not to do too much, I can keep most of my food down. It's amazing how much more energy I have when I actually eat! I've finally stopped losing weight (something I'm not usually happy about), and feeling well enough to tell Mindy that she can get on with her life and her move to Vegas. She leaves on Saturday. I miss her already!

Happy Valentine's Day to all!

Christmas in Arizona

I don't have many pictures from the last couple of months. Trust me, the vantage point from my bed, the bathroom floor in front of the toilet, or the couch is just not the great. But the kids had a great time in Arizona for Christmas. I spent most of the time in bed, but I heard stories: lots of stories!

Here are a few pictures from our Christmas break.