Pipe Cleaner Bunnies and Friends

I found a cool site that teaches you how to make finger puppet rabbits and chicks out of pipe cleaners. I was really excited to try it out, because they look so cute. Here is the site with the directions on it.

These are how ours turned out:

After I did two bunnies and a chick, I decided to experiment with other animals. The brown one was supposed to be a mouse, but it came out looking kind of like a monkey. But still cute! And the frog looks more like a grasshopper. But I think they are all really fun. Lincoln likes them too. He's been playing with them all afternoon, feeding them and putting them to bed. Especially the monkey. It's his favorite.

Why Do I Even Bother?

I know why the kids have an earlier bed time than the parents, at least around here. Because after they've been in bed an hour or so, I can reflect on the day without getting a pounding headache. I can (usually) tell Aaron about the fun things we did and leave out all the things that caused me stress or anger or lack of patience. And then I can go to sleep (and hopefully sleep through the night) and wake up the next morning, having had enough seperation (again this is hopefully) from my children to be refreshed and ready to go again.

It's funny how a good night's sleep will do that. Some days I think that I cannot possibly spend one more second with my kids or I will go nuts, and that bedtime couldn't possible come soon enough. And then after bed time, a few hours of peace and quiet, and a night's worth of sleep, I get up and do it all over again every day.

I've been thinking about this concept lately. Especially as I look back over my blog and see the activities that we've done. Someone who reads my blog said to me a little while ago, that my kids must be so good, and I must be such a good mom because we do so many fun activities. I wanted to laugh right in their face. Because this is simply NOT the case.

Last night, for example, when we made the chicks. It was close to bed time, the kids were out of control cranky, and not wanting to listen at all. We were all sitting on the living room floor. Aaron was trying to cut out shapes for eyes, beaks, etc. I was trying to trace the boys' hands. Lincoln was crying because I wasn't at that moment tracing his hand, Ivan was crying because I was tracing his. While I was cutting out our hands, Lincoln kept grabbing markers out of the bucket and taking the caps off and handing them to Ivan, who was trying to color everything but the paper. When I took the markers away Ivan would scream hysterically. Once all the shapes were cut out, it was a nightmare to keep the kids from ripping the pieces before we could get them glued. Then I gave Lincoln the glue bottle, which he usually does ok with, but he didn't want to listen to me and wanted to pour glue on everything and way too much of it. When I took the glue away, he threw a fit, and while I was trying to calm him down, Ivan grabbed the glue and tried to eat it, and then threw a fit when I took it away from him. And on and on. Like I said in the other post, I am amazed that we even finished our chicks. (And in fact, Aaron and I glued ours together after we put the kids down to bed.)

Not all of my projects are quite this in sane, but most of them are not what you'd call the picture of calm. And keep in mind that I never post pictures of the mess. Maybe I should :) It seems I always have at least one cranky child to deal with, and on top of that, Lincoln is very particular about when and what directions of mine he chooses to listen to. So ya. I just wanted to get that out there for my friend who reads my blog and thinks somehow, that I must be super mom. It's not true. By the time I finish most of our projects, I wonder why I even bother, because they make me so frustrated.

But now I am going to tell you why I bother. I'll stick with the chick example. This morning, after the boys and I got up and ready for the day (well, almost ready, I stayed in my pj pants, and didn't wear any makeup, but as ready as we were going to get), we hung the chicks up in our window. Lincoln was so proud of the chicks, we wanted to go outside and see how they looked from out there. He probably would have stayed out there for an hour if I would have let him. He just kept saying, "There's Lincoln's chick! There's I-mahn's chick! And Mommy's, and Daddy's!" And whenever anyone came to our door today (it's the end of the month and rent is due, so we have quite a few people coming to our door) Lincoln would show them our chicks in the window. Then, if the door was still open, he'd run out there to look at them again. When Aaron got home, Lincoln told him a very long and mostly incoherent story all the while pointing to the chicks in the window. I think he wanted to make sure Aaron knew that we'd hung them up.

And that is why I bother. Because after the frusteration wears off, and the mess is all cleaned up (which never seems to happen in ALL the rooms of my house at the same time, btw), and I've had a night's sleep to get over the fact that my two very energetic and curious boys do not have even an ounce of the ability to sit down and calmly quietly complete a project and follow all instructions...I wake up in the morning and Lincoln (and I'm sure Ivan will once he has the ability to express it) is still excited about the project. He loves to see it displayed, and he loves to tell everyone about it.

FHE: Jesus Gives Us New Life

Well, for FHE this week I really wanted to try and do something to explain to Lincoln why we celebrate Easter; however, explaining the resurrection to a two year old seemed like a daunting task. What did I do? I delegated :) (that Jethro, what a genius!) and told Aaron if he would teach the lesson on Easter and try to tie in why we use baby lambs and chicks, and eggs and all that as symbols of Easter, that I would do an activity to go with.

Aaron did a fantastic job. He has a lot easier time relating things to Lincoln in a simple way, or at least in a way that Lincoln pays attention to. Probably their engineering minds think alike, who knows. Anyways, he started out by having Linc sit underneath our laundry basket. He explained that if we didn't have Jesus we would be trapped, kind of like Lincoln was trapped under the laundry basket, we wouldn't be able to get out. But since Jesus is our big brother and loves us, he helped to make us free. At that point Aaron took the laundry basket off of Lincoln. Next Aaron had made two paper flowers. He took one of them and he and Lincoln played with it until it ripped into a couple pieces. Then Aaron asked Lincoln to fix the flower. Linc tried for awhile, and then came to the conclusion that he couldn't fix it. Aaron explained that sometimes things get broken that only Jesus can fix, but because we have Jesus we can be whole again. Then Aaron pulled out the second flower that was still in one piece.

Then Aaron explained that because of Jesus's ressurection, He is able to make us free and whole and to give us a new life. The resurrection happened in the spring time. Also in the spring time is when baby animals are born. They start a new life. When we celebrate the resurrection it is called Easter. We use baby chicks, lambs, eggs, and other things because they remind us of new life, which is what Jesus did for us.

I'm not really sure how much of that Lincoln will actually retain, but he liked the lesson and we didn't have to remind him one time to sit still or pay attention. So that's a plus. I really thought Aaron did such a good job with the lesson.

For our activity, we made chicks out of construction paper. We traced each of our hands, and used those for wings. We let the kids (sort of, it was very chaotic and close to bedtime, I'm actually surprised the chicks turned out at all) pick where to glue the pieces on, and then we hung them up in the window by our eggs.

As you can see, this art project was most definitely made for children sized hands. Mine and Aaron's chicks look like they were taking wing steroids. But it's all good. :)

Our Goal This Week: Be Festive

It's been awhile since the kids and I did a project just for the fun of it. (As opposed to something for a letter day or because we needed to make an announcement or something.) My sister-in-law Sydni shared this really cool website with me called abcand123learning.blogspot.com where they have fun activities for kids. So I went exploring. I only looked at the holiday craft stuff, but there was a ton of other things I can't wait to go back and look at in the future. As it is, I got some really fun ideas for Easter activities, and am determined to try and do at least one with the boys each day next week so we can be festive. :)

Today we did tin foil eggs. You cut egg shapes out of cardstock, then wrap the cardstock in tin foil. Next you paint over the tin foil with acrylic paint (the website said other kinds of paint will work, but won't dry as nice looking). Then, while the paint is drying you take the back of the paint brush and scratch little designs into the egg to decorate it.  

While doing the project we learned that the thinner the layer of paint, the better the designs will show up. And also that you can't scratch the designs out once the paint is completely dry, so you kind of have to catch it at just the right time. Another thing, I didn't realize how long it would take to wrap all the eggs in tin foil. I was trying to do it as Lincoln painted, but he kept right up with me. If I ever to it again, I'll get the eggs wrapped before I let them start painting.

Both my boys had a good time. I didn't know if the acrylic paint would wash out of clothes, so I stiped them down and made them paint in their underwear/diaper. Ivan had to stop about half way through his first egg because he kept trying to suck on the paint brush (yes, while there was paint on it!) so he got to go take a nap instead. (He was crabby anyway.) Lincoln loves painting, and had fun making the designs too. Don't ask me why he insisted on painting with the bucket on his head, but that's what he wanted. Whatever.

I took 12 of the eggs and taped similar colors back to back, so when I was done I had 6 eggs. Then I tied a string to the top of each one and hung them in our window. For the remaining eggs, I think later this week I'll make a construction paper basket and let Lincoln tape them in there. Should be fun.

Relief Society Birthday Party

Last night our ward did their Relief Society Birthday Party. As a tradition, sisters can sign up to decorate tables. My good friend, and neighbor, Misty and I signed up to do one together. The theme for the night was "The Woman I Am" so Misty and I decided to go off of that idea for our table. The angle we decided to portray, was that they woman you are, is who you are when you aren't fulfilling one of your many roles in life (i.e. mother, wife, employee, student, etc.). We set the table with a variety of things women do for hobbies. Sewing, cooking, sports, drawing, gardening, reading, you get the idea. And we decided that when women explore their hobbies, gifts, and talents, and develope those, then they have so much more to put into their "roles". So ya, I don't know if anyone who sat at our table gathered all that from a few objects sitting in front of them, but I still thought our table looked really nice. And it was the only one with candy on it, so that was a major success.

Dinner was excellent and so was the program that followed. And, as always, it was really nice to be out of the house socializing with other women. :)

It's in His Blood

A New Resource

Today I stumbled across another ABC blog while I was looking for ideas for our upcoming K day. It's called The Alphabet Project. It's basically the same as the ABC Stuff blog I posted about a little while ago, except that the woman who posts on there has a daughter that's 2 (as opposed to the woman who does ABC Stuff who has a 4 year old son) so her projects are a little bit simpler. I also really like the method she uses. Here's how she explains it:

Each week we will focus on one letter. I've divided the Alphabet Project into daily and weekly activities. Daily activities will be shorter, while the weekly activities will be more involved.


Daily:
1. SEE the letter.
2. SAY the letter's sound.
3. READ a book based on the letter. (For example, for the letter A, we'll read a book about apples.)
4. WRITE the letter.


Weekly:
1. COOK something that begins with the letter.
2. MAKE something that begins with the letter. (Yes, "make" could be the same as cook, but for "make" I'm envisioning an art project or something.)
3. DO an activity that begins with the letter.


Lincoln and I aren't doing anything daily yet. We are still just going through the alphabet one letter at a time once a week. It's been more or less a play time with our friends so far, that just happens to have an educational twist. But I have been thinking that maybe in the fall after he turns three, we will boost it up to where he and I at least are doing something on a daily basis, and though I may not copy these exact goals, I like that she has them layed out and goes from there. It seems like it would give a little more structure but still give you lots of freedom to move within it.

Anyways, check out her blog, it has some cool ideas.

J Day: Jumping and Jell-O Jigglers

We had J Day today at Suzy's house. Suzy and family have been in the process of moving into our apartment complex (hooray!) so we haven't had a letter day in awhile. But it was a very short trip today to just walk a few doors down to do some fun J activities with them.

Suzy had the boys start by giving them a paper with a big J and a little j on it and also a lot of words that start with J. The boys counted 12 J's on their page. Then they got to decorate it with stickers. Lincoln was thrilled that the stickers were from the movie Cars, one of his favorites.

Next Suzy brought out a cookie sheet of Jello and some small cookie cutters. The boys cut out Jello Jigglers. They had a good time doing that, and an even better time eating them afterwords. :) The picture isn't of our actual jigglers. I forgot my camera so most of these were taken after the fact. Since the boys ate all the Jello, I got this one online.

After that we played a fun game. Suzy had pre-made Origami jumping frogs. Each boy got several frogs and the game was to make the frogs jump into a tupper ware container.

Book Review: Catching Fire

by Suzanne Collins

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Well, I thought the second book was just as good and just as intense as the first one. I'm still really liking the characters and their developement. I have about a million unanswered questions that are not being very patient while they wait for book three to come out in August.

I'll admit I did not see the ending coming on this one. But I liked it a lot better than the endings I predicted in my own mind. Actually, I didn't really see any of this book coming. It was a nice (nice as in because it was not predictable) surprise. I almost threw my book across the room when they announced the second games and Katniss was going to be in it. That really threw me.

I do think this book is for a little bit more of a mature audience than the first one. It's slightly more violent, but in my mind a lot more intense and on a bit of a deeper level than the first.

Book Review: The Hunger Games

  by Suzanne Collins

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book was intense, and I loved it. Katniss is a strong female main character who provides for and protects her family by doing what she has to do. Which just so happens to be the type of character I'm most drawn to. She reminds me a lot of Sarah Prine in These is My Words by Nancy Turner.

The subject matter is a little violent, but I didn't feel like it was graphic violence. The main characters are fighting for a good cause against a tyranic government, who publically mocks and digrades them for the purpuse of remaining powerful. Lots of times during the book I found myself wondering what I would do if I were put in Katniss's place, and being grateful that I (hopefully) never will be. I thought it brought up a lot of interesting psychological questions about how different people react when they are given power over others.

It's a page turner for sure, and you never quite know what direction the story is going to take next.

Sweethearts You Can Make With a Toddler

On the educational blog I co-author with my sister-in-law, I have started posting recipes that you can make with your toddler. I do this because I have recently come to the realization that cooking is a very educational and interactive activity for kids. Plus, if they are anything like mine, they love to do it.

Tonight we tried a recipe that I came across in the February issue of The Friend magazine that I've been wanting to try for a long time.

The Friend named them Sweethearts, probably for Valentines day, and made them red and heart shaped, but you could probably use about any color of Jell-O you wanted and use any shape of cookie cutter.

Ours didn't turn out as neatly, I don't know if we didn't let them set long enough, or what, but we had a hard time getting them out of the pan in one piece. We tried some star shaped ones, but after a few of those didn't work, we just cut the rest into squares. They were pretty tasty though.

There'll Be No More Hiding It

On Sunday, a friend of mine told me in Relief Society, "Today is the first day you've actually looked pregnant." And it's funny, because just the night before Aaron and I had come to the same conclusion. So I guess there's no more hiding it. Not that I really was hiding it or anything, just when I got dressed you couldn't really tell. And now you can. I'm 20 weeks today. Getting half way on the sly isn't too bad, especially for the third pregnancy, right?

I've been spending a lot of time on a site called nameberry.com and this is what comes up when I search my current favorite name Adelia.

ADELIA

Gender: F
Origin: Variation of ADELAIDE (which is German)
Meaning: "noble, nobility"


Much more accessible and rarely used form, worth consideration.

And best of all, it gives a chart of the name's popularity and Adelia hasn't been in the top 1000 baby names since 1930. Perfect! That means no one is using it.
 
I've already gotten Lincoln to the point where if I say, "Lincoln, what's your sister's name?" Eight times out of ten he will say, "Del-ya". The "l" in "Del" actually comes out sounding more like a "w". It's so cute to hear him say it. So really the only person I have left to convince is Aaron. And every time I ask him about it he says he hasn't heard anything he likes better yet. So the odds are in my favor. I guess we'll see what happens.

Ivan's Late Birthday

One more birthday post for Ivan. Last night he got to celebrate his birthday again because there were still some presents from Gramma Tam and Papa Kerry that hadn't been opened. They were at a baseball tournament in St George with Tanner this weekend, and were hoping to be able to stop on their way back to Hooper to watch Ivan open his presents. Unfortunately the timing didn't work out, so last night we let Ivan open his presents from them. I promised them lots of pics, so it would be like they were there. We'll see how I did.

Lincoln had a really hard time letting Ivan open his presents all by himself. This first one is a Leapfrog barn that sticks on the fridge, there are different pieces of animals that you can put into it and it will say the name of the animal and the noise it makes. You have to match the front half of the animal to the back half. If you do it will tell you a cool fact about the animal, such as, "Did you know that cows make milk?" If you put two different animals together it tells you that you did a horse in front and a cow behind (or whatever animals you did) and then says, "A horse-cow! That's silly." And laughs. It's a cool toy.

The next present is some more Mega Bloks. It's the set to build the fire house, which will go very nicely with the fire truck from Grandma and Grandpa Swan. :)

Ummm, Aaron helped with the tower. Ivan mostly gets credit for knocking it over. :) And there you have it. Do you feel like you were there Mom?

Some Family History

Well, I feel like blogging, and I've been wanting to post some of this family history stuff for awhile, so now seems as good of a time as any.

I don't know if I ever mentioned my new calling or not. I recently got called to teach the Family History Sunday School class. It's exciting, but a little intimidating. Although I have done a little bit of work with the new family search site, I am by no stretch of the imagination an expert, so I feel like my class is having to learn right along with me.

In preparation for a lesson that's coming up in a few weeks called, "Gathering Information From Family" I decided I'd better buck up and start asking some questions. I have decided to primarily focus on the Lemmon side of the family for the time being, because there aren't many of them left, and my dad's family situation is kind of a crazy one anyway. I told my class that my dad's side of the family has to many graftings in and burnings out and all that, that it reminds me of reading Jacob 5. :) Anyways, so I finally emailed my Uncle Tex and my Uncle Scott and asked them about 35 questions about my Grandpa Lemmon (who we always called Papa, growing up) and his family.

Uncle Scott has been answering 3 or 4 of my questions a week, and I have enjoyed every minute of it! It's really cool to hear about my grandpa and his family and the things that they did growing up, and I wanted to put some of it down here so it will be included in the book I make for 2010, and so my children will always have it. Eventually, when I feel like I have enough information, I will write the history of the Lemmon family in it's own book. But for now, it's here.

I should probably start with a little basic geneology, too bad when you are talking about my family it is anything but basic. But let's see what I can do. :) If you click on the pedigree chart above it will get big enough to read. And here's a little more info, since the pedigree looks simple enough. My dad's biological parents are Maxine Harrison and Grover Thompson. Some day I'll have a more detailed explination, but for now we'll just say Maxine and Grover had a falling out, and divorced, when my dad was about 2. When my dad was 12 years old, Maxine married Earl Lemmon, who adopted my father as his own. Earl had two children from a previous marriage, Scott and Tex. So, all though not blood related, because of the adoption and because I grew up with Earl as my Grandpa, I consider the Lemmon side to be my own. Earl's parents are William Lemmon and Sarah Adelia Scott Lemmon. (I LOVE the name Adelia, btw, it's currently on the "very much considering" list, for our little girl.)

William Lemmon, Scott Lemmon, Sarah Adelia Scott Lemmon

So, like I said before, my Uncle Scott is answering my questions a few at a time, and I am learning a lot about the Lemmon side. What I copy from Uncle Scott's emails, I'll put in italics, just so there's no confusion about whether it's me talking or him.

Earl's father's name was William. It was said that at one time he owned all the property from Highland Drive to the east to State Street and between 33rd South to 45th South. Earl was the baby of 8 children, 5 sisters and 2 brothers. Earl was born January 8, 1908.The old homestead is at 3287 South 13th Street. Right across the street from that Cottonwood Complex where you used to play softball in Salt Lake, that's where Tex and I grew up. Everyone graduated from Granite High school.
Earl's mother's name was Sarah Adelia Scott Lemmon. I haven't been able to find out much about her yet, but this is what Uncle Scott remembers:

I remember she was a very hard working woman. But my most vivid memory was when she passed away. I must only have been 5/6 years old. She'd had a heart attack while taking a bath with the bathroom door locked. I guess she'd been in there for a long time and Earl and mom suspected something was wrong when they couldn't get a response out of her. I was playing in the neighborhood with some of my friends when Earl whistled for me. When I got there, Earl had forced the bathroom window open but they were all too large to get through it, so it was my mission to get through the window and over the bathtub and unlock the door. I remember carfully being lowered through the window standing on the edge of the tub seeing her body laying in the water, she looked like she was taking a nap. I jumped accross the tub landed on the floor and unlocked the door thinking everything would be okay when they woke her up, and went back to playing. I later found out the reality of it all. It was a sad day.

His father was William Lemmon, don't know if he had a middle name or not? He was the greatest man I ever met even to this day, I really admired him. When Earl got back from the Army and WWII he lived at home with grandma and grandpa, two of his sisters had gotten married while he was gone and built houses right next door and had some kids by that time. When Earl got married he lived in the basement, it wasn't a lot one bedroom, bath, front room and a kitchen with a walk out basement, so it pretty much had all a family would need at the time. The earliest memories of William was his warmth, I loved to be around the guy. I remember from the time I was old enough to crawl/walk and knew North from South sleeping in my crib I knew when I could smell brewing aroma of coffee that William was up reading the paper at the kitchen table. It was usually around 5:00 AM and our time together. I would quietly sneak out of bed so as not to wake anyone go upstairs in my pj's with the feet in them to be with him. He always had my high chair ready waiting for me, it became a ritual. He'd fix me a cup of coffee so we could enjoy the morning together before everyone else started stirring. My cup was mostly milk with sugar. After the rest of the house was awake he would play the harmonica for me and I'd dance around like a complete fool, it was like being in never never land for me. To this day I really enjoy a good harmonica.



As I became more mobil I would go out with him to do the chores, feeding and watering the rabbits, chickens, cows and horses, I really enjoyed that. Later he started taking me with him to irrigate the crops in the buckboard. He was a good provider, he always grew enough, both vegetables and meat for the whole family, we even had mushrooms they just grew wild but they were edible. I never remember him driving a car, it was always the horses and the buckboard. There used to be pictures of him with other guys at the brick yard with their buckboards hauling bricks mostly made of mud out of the pit at the Chuck Wagon restaurant on Hyland Drive in SLC.

William Lemmon and his team

All good things come to an end however, he eventually was overcome with dementia as has every true blooded Lemmon that I can remember if they live long enough. William and I were best buds though and I would still go see him every morning I could and we would talk and he still played the harmonica for me. I could tell he always enjoyed my visit, and I he never acted strange around me. Before long though I was the only one he recognized. One morning he just wasn't there anymore and I was crushed! I lost my first best friend. Time doesn't stand still though after grandma died we moved upstairs it felt good to live in the house that William built even though he wasn't there anymore. It took me a while to get over our early morning ritual and his harmonica.

 

The Lemmon's were never real big on religion but were still good people. Dementia is the family's plague however. I remember seeing one of Earl's sister for the last time in the fence and she was telling me a story about how the bishop had came to see her the other day and wanted her to be the President of the Relief Society, and I said what did you say? She just shook her head and said the SOB wanted me to do it for free, I told him to take a hike! Earl use to call me late at night from his pasture because he'd lost his ride home and needed me to come get him! I could tell by caller ID that he was in his pasture but he always claimed he was somewhere else. He called me one night and said he was at the Jazz game and his ride left him, I told him I was getting awful tired of coming to pick him up and he should hang out with more reliable friends, but said I'd be there in about 45 minutes and asked him what door to pick him up at, so with that we hung up I thought that would be that. About 45 minutes later he calls me back and says where were you? I said I was there where were you I looked all over, without missing a beat he said there was some construction at the door where we were suppose to meet and I couldn't get out, but I whistled and whistled trying to find you. I finally said look it's 1:00 AM and I have to go to work in the morning your going to have to fend for yourself till I can get back there tomorrow, and without missing a beat he said never mind I'll call Scott he'll come get me! It's a very sad story but it's very funny.

I'm starting to ramble now, this will have to be enough about William. Grandma and grandpa and most of the Lemmon clan were burried at Elutian Gardens in SLC it's between 4500 South and 4800 South just West of 1300 East.

 

There's a lot more, but this is a pretty long post, so I'll continue some other day. But I have really enjoyed getting to know the Lemmon side of the family from my Uncle Scott's perspective. It's helped me to get to know him a little better too. He sent me all the pictures too. They are awesome.

Ivan Boy is One Today

Linc and Ivan looking down on campus from the top of the JFSB

Today my baby turned one year old. Don't worry, he still gets to be my baby for a few more months. :) First birthdays are always hard, because they are more for the parents than the kid. But we did try to make it a day that Ivan would enjoy. Of course, that meant we had to go to campus to eat lunch with Aaron. I don't know if there's anything in this world that kid loves more than his daddy.

We went to Macey's first, to get Lunchables for the kids, and some cookies for a snack afterwords. I just made Aaron and I PB&J's and called it good for us, but I wanted the kids to have something a little bit more fun. While we were at Macey's the kids got balloons, and I thought they'd have fun with them on campus. Plus, if Lincoln runs off, he's way easier to spot with a balloon flying over his head than without. You see there's a method in my madness. ;)

It was a nice day, so we decided to go to the 4th floor of the Joseph Fielding Smith Building and eat lunch on the balcony out there. It has a glass wall all the way around it, so the kids could look down at all the people walking by. They thought that was great fun. We had a hard time convincing them to come eat.

I guess Ivan wanted a nap for his birthday, because he took a three hour one when we got home. Happy Ivan's b-day to me, right? :) I got the house cleaned up and made the cake, and tried to get everything ready for our guests to come. Ryan and Melissa, and Kelly came to have cake and ice cream with us in the evening.

We opened presents first. Ivan got the board book Courderoy, which I've heard really good things about. I accidentally ordered the lap version though, so the book is huge, but it's ok. He also got some new unchewable balls to play with (he's chewed up every nerf ball we own), some little cars, and some new sippy cups. Say goodbye bottles, because tomorrow I'm putting them away.

Then we had cake and ice cream. Here is Ivan's cake. It's a duck with three little ducklings swimming in the pond. I chose the duck because Ivan can say "duck" and "quack, quack, quack" I was just going to do the big duck, but the pattern for the big duck only calls for one 9 inch round cake, and typically there's enough batter to do two, so I turned the other round cake into a pond and added a few of our bath ducks (don't worry we washed them really well before sticking them on the cake). 

This was Ivan's expression when I brought out the cake with the candle lit:

And, as much as I'd like to tell you that Ivan got to blow out his own birthday candle, I'm afraid that Lincoln got to it first, despite our best efforts.

Uncle Ryan and Uncle Kelly took some great shots of the cake-eating on Ryan's super nice camera.

For the longest time Ivan wouldn't touch the ice cream. Then he started poking it with his finger and pulling back quickly, probably because it was cold. Then, he picked the whole scoop up, held it in the air for awhile, and threw it on the floor. Guess he's not a fan. :) But he loved the cake.

Ivan was actually a pretty clean eater. Especially compared to Lincoln on his first b-day. Ivan only really got it on his face, nothing on his arms, chest, or hair.

This is probably my favorite shot of the day, he's trying to figure out what in the world Ryan and Kelly are doing with that lense right in his face.

Then it was baths and off to bed. Happy birthday Ivan, your mommy loves you and is so glad you are part of our family.

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice?

I hope that's what little girls are made of, because that's what we're having!! We went to the ultrasound this morning and everything looks healthy and we're right on track. I was so anxious that they wouldn't be able to tell the gender, because I'm just the kind of person who has to know. Anyways, when the nurse started doing the ultasound, the baby was curled up so tightly in a little ball, it really was hard to see anything. Even the nurse kept says, "this baby is just curled up so tightly, it's hard to get a good look." But the nurse just kept working with it, and soon we had everything we needed. :)

I think this one is my favorite, #1 because you can see how tightly she's curled up in there, and #2 it really is the one that's easiest to tell that it's actually a baby we're looking at. Sometimes in ultrasound pictures it's hard to tell.

Here's the shot that determined she was a girl. Ya, I don't really see it either. But I suppose it's the lack of something to see that tips you off it's a girl, right? ;)

This one is a little tougher for me to see right off, but it's her face, almost like she's looking up at you.

And this one is her little foot, you can see it if you look right underneath the word foot. Heel to the right, toes to the left.

So that's our little girl. We're really excited! On my side she'll be the second granddaughter with two brothers and a boy cousin, and on Aaron's the third, with two brothers and 7 boy cousins. Needless to say, everyone was pretty excited for her to be a girl. Also, Aaron's cousin Whitney, who is my very good friend, is having a little girl about 4 weeks ahead of me. So we are excited that they can be little buddies.

Of course, now I get to go into planning mode. Which makes me happy, because I can feel like I'm getting ready for her to come instead of just sitting around wondering if it's going to be a girl or a boy. My first big plans are to make her some crib bedding and room decor. These are the colors I have in mind:

Navy blue, with light yellow, and white daisies. If you haven't heard by now, I'm not big into pink, and am trying to avoid it at all cost. I think the colors above will be feminine, but not too frilly. I already know I can make a bed skirt, and I don't think it will be too hard to make the bumper pads either. But what I think will be a little more difficult is finding the fabric I want. The picture above is of an outfit I found at Target.

Also of course it's time to start getting serious about naming this kid. I mean we only have 20 week left until she's here. haha! The name currently holding the spot at the top of the list is Adelia Maxine Swan. Adi for short. But only as short as Linc is short for Lincoln, not an all the time short. If that makes any sense. She'll get called Adi, but not 100% of the time, just like we call Lincoln Linc. Other names on our list right now are Hadley, Nora, Avi, and a few "different" ones that I really like that there is no way Aaron will ever like. :) We are pretty sure that we want the middle name to be Maxine, after my Grandma Lemmon, but depending on the first name we choose, that is subject to change without notice. ;) 

Walkin'

Ivan finally got brave enough to walk! It's only a matter of time now, until he's running all over the place. :) My favorite part of this video is when he claps for himself. Love it!

FHE: Follow the Prophet

Last night for FHE we decided to teach Lincoln the song "Follow the Prophet" or at least a couple verses of it since it's like 13 versus long or something. :) He does really well with songs. I'm pretty surprise most of the time how quickly he picks up the lyrics. He can sing most of the words to all three versus of "Book of Mormon Stories" which is a song I thought would be way over his head.

Anyways, this month's Friend has a page (if you click the prophet picture page it will get bigger for printing, FYI) with pictures of the specific prophets the verses talk about and the words on the bottom (which are a big help for Aaron and I). We cut them out and taped them on to some cardstock squares to make them more sturdy, and then used packaging tape to self-laminate them. I think they turned out really well. The only reason we went to that much work is because I think I'm going to start saving things like that in manilla folders so in a couple years we can do that Family Home Evening lesson again, when Ivan and baby #3 are older.

So we read this story by Cecil O Samuelson and then sang the first 4 versus. Next week, I think we'll talk a bit more about what a prophet does and why it's important to follow him, and do the next few, and then the week after that maybe focus on President Monson and do that last couple. We'll see how it goes.

But as a small success, Lincoln did ask to sing Follow the Prophet for his bedtime song. :)

The Potty Project: The Potty Chart

When we first started potty training, I made this chart in a word document and taped it to the fridge high enough that Ivan couldn't reach and low enough that Lincoln could. Every time Linc went in the potty he got to put a sticker on the chart, knowing that when he filled up the chart he'd get an ice cream cone. As you can see, he did not put the stickers on very straight, which made actually keeping track a little bit difficult. But after a quick count yesterday we determined that he only needed 4 more stickers. He reached his goal today! 60 successes in the potty. If that doesn't deserve an ice cream cone, I don't know what does. So we took him to "Macey's house" (Macey's grocery store, I have no idea why he calls it's Macey's house.) to get his reward.

So I'll make a new chart and we'll start over. I've decided that potty training is more of a process and less of an event. It's still going ok, although we got set back quite a bit the week we were all sick. I am having two big challenges with it right now.

#1 Lincoln won't poop in the potty. He's perfectly fine pooping in his underwear or pull-up, but has yet to poop in the potty. Not sure how to convey the message. I've been thinking about buying a few $0.99 Hotwheels cars and offering those as a bribe and seeing what happens. I'll keep you posted.

#2 Now that he's gotten pretty good at holding it, he pees on the carpet every time I send him to time out. Grrr... I've done pretty well at not being upset or frustrated when he has accidents, but this on-purpose peeing on the carpet because he doesn't like being in time out really chaps my hide. I'm not sure what to do about it.

And, this isn't really a problem, more just a measure of where we're at in the process, but he isn't very good at telling me when he needs to go. So, as long as I remember every so often to have him sit down and go, we don't have many accidents, but if I forget, or am not around to see his body language (like if I'm putting Ivan down for a nap) then the result is always a puddle.

But I suppose we should focus on the positive, and the positive is that Lincoln has peed in the potty 60 times. :)

All Turned Around

Ok, so Ivan's still about a week away from the date of "legally" being able to turn around, but he's been over the weight limit for months. We took the car seats out on Saturday so that a bunch of us could ride to the temple together, and when we put them back in we just decided to turn him around. He's much happier this way, probably because he can see.

Bryan Taylor's Wedding

Aaron's cousin Bryan Taylor and his wife Becca, got married in the Mt Timpanogos Temple this morning. Thanks to my brother Kyle being willing to stay with my boys, Aaron and I were able to attend.

I always love to watch couples get married in the temple. It makes me happy seeing the excitement in their eyes when they stare at one another across the alter. It also reminds me of how happy I was almost 4 years ago to be kneeling across the alter from Aaron. I love him. :)

Aaron, Kelly, and Debbie

After the ceremony Debbie treated Aaron and Kelly and I to lunch at Subway. It was delicious. Later in the evening we went to the reception. We forgot to get wedding wrapping paper and cards at the store so we had to stop on our way to the reception. Aaron and Debbie wrapped presents in the back seat.

We did make it to the reception before it got over. :) It was fun to see a lot of family and friends. Bryan and Becca didn't have a formal line, and there was dancing while we were there. It was fun, even though Aaron and I are not great hip hop dancers (and actually I'm sure there's a better term for what the dancing was, I just can't think of it). The food was fantastic. I think I ate about 5 chocolate covered strawberries, but that's ok, I didn't eat any cake. :) Another thing I thought was cool, for their guest book, they had a photo booth, so you went in and got your picture taken and then you taped your pictures into their guest book and wrote them a message. Cute. Here's me with my props getting ready to go in.