Hats and Birds

Noah loves to wear hats. He sure looks cute in them.

We hosted our last day of joy school and learned about the letter "A." To go with the letter "A," we had "Angry Birds" themed activities. It was a blast. This game was "pin the beak on the Angry Bird."

And last are some pictures I took when we previewed Thanksgiving Point's new Museum of Natural Curiosity. It was a hit. The boys loved it, although I was not comfortable letting Noah crawl through the play place alone because of how big and hidden-from-view it was, so I contorted my body and crawled with him. 

Easter 2014

What a beautiful Easter weekend we had--perfect for four different egg hunts. Noah acted like he had been hunting for eggs for years because he knew exactly what to do.

My mom hosted an egg hunt at her house along with a graduation party for Uncle Mitch, who graduated from BYU's law school. We had great food and had a lot of fun hanging out.

Here is my mom teaching the grandkids about the real meaning of Easter:

Uncle Matt was nice and played with the kids on the trampoline:

On Sunday we had Kyle's side of the family over to our house for dinner. Grandma Linda brought stuff for another egg hunt. We introduced the Robbins family to cascarones (confetti eggs) that we all made in advance and hid along with the candy eggs. Whoever found a cascarone got to smash it on someone else's head. It was quite fun. Unfortunately I didn't take very many pictures of it. Noah had fun trying to put the confetti on his head. We also tried to incorporate the real meaning of Easter by showing a church video of Christ's resurrection.

Roommate Reunion

My college roommate Rachel came out to Utah, so we old roommates gathered together for some fun with our kids. It was fun for us to finally meet Rachel's twins. We just wish we could do this more often.

Mary got us into the zoo with her pass:

Dinner at my house. Yes, Noah stayed dressed in only his diaper the whole night (his choice).

04/07/14

After all the updating I've done on Noah, I feel like I should mention a few things about Jason. Jason is working hard on getting ready for kindergarten, including practicing his coloring and drawing. The following pictures by Jason are of his beloved Angry Birds.

On these birds he traced the outline, then filled in the middle while looking at a picture:

These birds were drawn free-hand and by memory:

Once a week we do a neighborhood preschool in addition to his other preschool. In the neighborhood preschool we have six kids (counting Jason). Each mom takes a turn teaching once every six weeks. Jason has loved this "joy school" as I call it, and his favorite is when it is our turn to host and teach. Last time we taught we did the letter D and made these dinosaurs. From left to right, these dinosaurs were made by Kyle, Noah, and Jason:

We also did a field trip to the zoo.

I took the boys on a return outing to tour Salt Lake City with our friends, the Knutsens. We visited the Conference Center and the Visitor's Center. We drove this time instead of taking TRAX, and we had a great time.

Jason is counting down the days until he turns five. I can't believe how fast it is coming up. Four has been a really fun age with Jason. Jason is really looking forward to attending Kindergarten. He gets really motivated to do things when I say, "This is something you should practice so you will be ready for Kindergarten." Currently he is working on catching a ball and writing his name properly so it looks like "Jason" instead of "JASON".

An April Fools Day to Remember

We woke up on April 1st and found this in our window.

We had a good laugh driving around the neighborhood because we found lots of houses with newly sprouted signs that read "For Sale By Owner," "For Sale By Neighbor," "Happy 60th Birthday," "It's a BOY," "It's a Girl," "Welcome to Vacation Bible School," and one house was even decorated with pink flamingoes.

Noah's Statistics at Two

Weight: 27.67 lbs (44 percentile)
Length: 35.43 in (74 percentile)
Head Circumference: 19.72 in (83 percentile)

Dear Noah

Dear Noah,

Or should I say "Dear Mobi?" Sometimes dad and I call you "Mobi" because on my old flip phone that I still use, whenever I type your name for text messaging, it comes up as "Mobi" first, and then I have to change it to Noah. Is Mobi even a word? I don't know why it doesn't pull Noah up first, but it sure gives us a fun nick-name for our now-two-year-old!

You haven't been much of a talker until recently. Now you are trying to say a lot more things, but they all come out sounding the same. So we are working on understanding you, and you are working on your diction. One thing you are getting better at is your ABCs. I say the letters one at a time, and you repeat them back to me. I like to see how long you will go before losing interest in what I am saying and start making up your own version.

You love playing with trains, cars, animals, and puzzles. It is fun to hear you making the appropriate sounds as you play with those toys. You have learned to leave the Angry Birds alone-- Jason doesn't want you to touch those. Although you can play by yourself, you prefer to have a friend, and so you grab my finger and pull me down to the basement quite often throughout the day. It is a good reminder for me that I should pay attention to you.

Jason is a great brother to you. He does a good job looking out for your safety. He also teaches you to be loud! I am trying to get both of you to quiet down when you are running around the house or church screeching. Jason has graciously given you his scooter and green bear because he feels he has grown out of them. You love watching Jason play games on the iPod. When playing in the basement you two do best in parallel play, especially if you leave Jason's Angry Birds alone, but you do enjoy dancing together. Your current favorite song to dance to is "Walkin' Ol' Joe" by Matthew Lewis. Another favorite song is "Old McDonald" because you can practice your animal sounds.

For the most part you are a great sleeper. Usually you go down easy (after you have had a LOT of stories) for naps and bedtime. You take one afternoon nap that usually lasts two or three hours. I am such a lucky mom! However, on the nights that you do have a hard time falling asleep, dad and I take pity on you and get you out of your crib to watch a few minutes of a show or movie with us. It is fun for us because you sit so still and cuddly on my lap and enjoy the popcorn with us.

Favorite foods of yours include the following: green beans, mashed potatoes, black beans and rice, peas, grapes, strawberries, eggs, yogurt, gold fish, pirate booty, fruit snacks, plus anything else sweet.

Changing your clothes is a daily battle, both morning and night. On Valentine's Day I discovered it was easy to get you changed if I bribed you with candy. That was a Thursday, and I continued the trick on Friday because it made my life easier. On Saturday, I tried to take your pajamas off and you fought me off while saying, "No! Dandy! Dandy!" At first I thought you were saying "Daddy," but then I realized that you were saying, 'Give me candy first before I let you take off my clothes!' I sure had a laugh over that and gave in, but then we stopped bribing you after that.

We sure love having you in our family, even if the terrible two's are showing themselves (what happened to our easy boy?). I have treasured this time when I can take you and Jason on fun outings to the library, Scheels, Cabella's, Thanksgiving Point, Seven Peaks, Tracy Aviary, the park, or just hanging out with friends. But most of all, we all love when dad comes home from work so we can be an awesome family. Thanks for helping make it awesome, Mobi.

love,

mom