We've Been Busy...

Fighting RSV

NO FUN spending Sunday night and Monday in the hospital with Hailey

NO FUN missing Matthew's last 2 days of toddler lab because he's sick too and we don't want to share our germs

NO FUN waking up over and over between my coughing babes

FUN

spending all day with these two cuties with an excuse to go nowhere and do nothing but play games, catch up on projects, and spend plenty of time "recovering" on the couch watching cartoons and reading reading reading!

Our Day

Parts of the snake river are so incredibly low that all that's left are puddles. This particular puddle was home to 30 or so VERY large trout! So my dad and Curt netted them and dumped them in the main river. What big hearts. Actually they just couldn't bear to see such large fish die before they had a chance to hook them on their fly rods :) "Save them for another fishing trip", "Put them in the river so they can reproduce MORE large trout!" they say.

Plus it was super fun to catch them in nets!

Matthew really enjoyed it too.

They put them in buckets to carry them to the river.

Matthew had a ton of fun throwing rocks into the water.

Safe and happy in the fishies' new home back in the river!

It was a really fun outing! And it was really quite warm, just an annoying breeze.

A saturday well spent!

I have fallen behind

The last week or so has been kind of crazy, so I haven't blogged about this stuff like I should. I really like to think of my blog as my journal.

Anyway, we had so much fun with all of the family that came last weekend for Hailey's blessing! Since all of my siblings were here (Cody and Tricia even surprised us with a visit from California!!) we decided to do an early Easter thing. The kids loved the egg hunt, even though there was still snow here and there :)

Adessa and Tanna were gathering so fast we had to keep telling them to let the little boys get some too! So then they came up with the bright idea to still gather fast, but turn some of the goods over! Bright girls!

This was our attempt at getting all the cousins together (minus hailey who was sleeping inside) for a picture. It's the best one I got that had all of them in there (and Cody too!) Grandma Janet and Grandpa Kit padded the candy baskets with fun little toys. This was a cute shot I snuck of matthew playing with his windup dinosaurs all by himself. He loves those things so much, but I think he plays with them too much. A couple of nights ago he woke up crying around 2 am so I went in there (first time waking up at night for MONTHS) and asked what was wrong. He said he had to go potty so I said that's fine. He was climbing off his bed and he stopped and said "No more dinosaurs. No more dinosaurs at grandma's house." So I asked him if he had a bad dream about dinosaurs and he said he had and he just hugged me for a little while. After a minute I told him the dinosaurs were all gone and he was safe. He crawled back up to his pillow and said "Thanks mommy, goodnight! love you!" So I went back to bed. He's so sweet.
I finally got Hailey's hair to lay down for the first day ever!!! If you were wondering why her hair is always so poofy in all of her pictures it's not my fault I swear. In fact, against all my efforts it insisted on sticking straight up! I finally got it to lay down on tuesday with the help of a little "bed head wax"! :) It is also growing in blonde :( I love blonde hair, don't get me wrong. Matthew looks adorable with it. But I was really getting attached to hailey's dark hair. I've always wanted my hair just the color that hers is now. But about 1/2" of roots have grown in blonde. Maybe it will go back dark when she gets older.

I hope no one finds this picture inappropriate...I just wanted to show the great results Curt is getting from lifting at least 3 days a week for the past 7 months or so. He's happy, I'm happy, he's healthier, and look at those muscles!!!

Matthew still regularly gets a treat when he goes potty. It goes like this: he gets to pick a candy out of the closet where we keep it, sets it on the sink counter by the toilet, sits on the toilet, if he goes he gets the candy, if not then it goes back in the closet. Sometimes it's a battle, most of the time it's not. I can always know if Matthew has to go potty if he either asks for candy, or tries to open the closet door we've put a child lock on.

While Cody and Tricia were here we got to take Wesley with us to the nature park to feed the ducks. We feed them popcorn and they love it!

then we hung out at Arctic Circle for a little while.

Trish did a little photo shoot with Hailey the day before they left! This is one of the pictures I took with my camera. It was fun to copy Tricia and learn from her. She taught me a lot about photoshop too! It's going to take me a LONG time to get any good at it though. mostly I just like to mess around. I don't plan on ever trying to make money off of pictures, but it is pretty awesome to know how to make the pictures I take of us look good. I've only tried it on a couple of pics so far.

It helps when your subject is already adorable :)

I can't wait to see what Tricia has done with Hailey's pictures!!!!

Hailey's Blessing Day

This picture was at my parents' house after Hailey's baby blessing in our LDS church. We had a little luncheon thing (and by little I mean the food wasn't very elaborate, not that there weren't many people there. It was croooowwwwded!) I was so surprised by how much family actually came!! Curt and I were talking about how many people were able to make it and how loved and special it made us feel. We really appreciate everyone that was there (and also those that wanted to be there but just couldn't make it)!!! Thanks!!

We've had a really super fun but incredibly busy weekend. So I'll post another one of these days about all of it! The blessing was absolutely beautiful and Hailey was a perfect sleeping angel of course. Kind of a difference compared to Matthew screaming through his entire blessing :) He may have been a Ca RAZY baby, but he sure is an incredible little boy!! Curt and I are just amazed at how blessed we are to be trusted with two of Heavenly Father's very special little children.

On a side note: the dress FIT! and it looked gorgeous on her! phewf! glad we didn't wait much longer though, she was only a couple of weeks away from being too puffy to fit!

Wonderful Sunshine!!

We went to Porter Park for family night this week. It was fairly warm for Rexburg March weather. Matthew is getting so big now. He even went down the biggest slide all by himself. Just once though, and then when I asked him if he wanted to do it again he said "no, not yet. I too little. Maybe when I go big."

Since I've been snapping pictures of him constantly he's gotten better about letting me take a picture of him and he'll even look and say cheese sometimes! Usually he'll just say cheese without looking though, but at least he's kind of complying.

Hailey's first time at Porter Park!!

I got really sad today because I was looking at Matthew and I realized that he is no longer a baby. He is the big brother. He no longer has the baby face, it is such a little boy face.

Matthew spent some quality time out in the freshly dried out sandbox. We were out here almost every day last summer, and Matthew didn't skip a beat coming back. He even asked me to play a couple of games that we used to play there like write the letters in the sand with a stick. I was surprised how well he remembered our games!

In this picture he asked me if I wanted to make a sand snowman like curious george made. :)

Hailey is getting super smiley! She's such a cute, fat, happy soul.

Matthew was helping my mom get out the various things needed for pizza when she noticed how tall Matthew has grown. Seems like just last summer his head could go right into the cupboard. Now he's as tall as her counter! Matthew loves it when we talk about how tall he is and he always wants to get measured.

It was Matthew's lucky day because Grandma patiently let Matthew help in all the steps to make the pizza.

In fact she even left him to do a lot of it himself! I remember the days when I was little and this was my job :) I have an amazing mom, but I think she's even happier being a grandma!!

It wasn't enough for Matthew to just place the olives, he had to cut them just like grandma did.

Some of you know (and like to tease me for) how much I enjoy rearanging my furniture. Well, it's an inherited trait. While we were over there the other night mom said she needed to borrow Curt's muscles to move the couches...again. :)

I have informed Curt that he can either object and complain every time I want to move the furniture, let me do it myself, or lovingly comply and help me out, because either way it will get done. I think my dad is to a point where he accepts that, but still likes to throw in the occasional "but why move it again?!"

I have noticed a lot of similarities I have with my mom as I get older and grow into my parenting and marriage patterns. I have also noticed a lot of traits that Curt has that remind me of my dad. just an interesting observation I thought I'd share.

The past two weeks Matthew and I have been doing TaeBo Amped workouts. After breakfast Matthew shuts off the cartoons (we both enjoy eating our cereal while watching cartoons. I have loved it since I was little too) and says "Time for TaeBo mommy? Want to go exercising?" Then we get on our "exercising clothes" and he helps me decide which workout to do. Exercising is always more fun with a workout buddy!!!

Matthew is my personal trainer. If he weren't telling me to do taebo I just don't know if I'd have the motivation :)

*Shey*[B]

I have this friend (that used to be a neighbor) that has an amazing craft site. I have mentioned "make it and love it" before, and I think some of you have viewed it and been hooked as well. Anyway, there's a great giveaway going on there again. This time it's a SWEET discount for this lady's camera strap site called *Shey*[B] http://sheyb.bigcartel.com/ You can go to the giveaway at www.makeitandloveit.blogspot.com if you want to enter too, or just browse Ashley's site, it's amazing and it's where I get a LOT of my ideas for projects.

Sunday

We really like going to my parents' house on Sunday evenings. It is especially nice now that our church time has moved up to 9 am. It used to be that we'd get out of our 1:30 church, eat dinner, and it would be pretty much dark and almost time for bed! I like the spring time change too. We forgot all about it this morning but thank heavens for cell phones that change automatically.

My parents had just gone a little ways down the road on a walk today (it was a toasty 45 degree day!) when we got there, so while Hailey slept inside, Matthew and I passed time waiting for my parents to come back out drawing with sidewalk chalk and practicing with my camera!

Matthew started drawing his own face, and then turned the job over to me to finish everyone else's face while he munched on a mini reese's :)

I just have to show you the incredible zoom I just discovered my camera has!!!! I've only ever zoomed indoors until today, and I wasn't impressed with what I saw because it never seemed to be abe to focus clearly. Well apparently I just needed to be in the great outdoors in natural light for this baby to show me what it can really do!!

You have to imagine this, I should have taken a picture without zooming and then a closeup so you could really appreciate it, but this is a LONG ways away. Next time I go out there I will take a unzoomed pic to compare. Not that really any of you care....but I am pretty excited!

I love his big dark eyes and lonnnnggg eyelashes...and the traces of chocolate regularly found around his lips.

First Ponytail

My baby had her first ponytail on her five week old birthday!

I took her to the doctor yesterday to get a cream to keep her sensitive face from breaking out.

She weighs 10 lbs 7 oz!

At 2 months matthew was 10 lbs 5 oz and at 4 months he was still only 13 lbs 7 oz. Right now he weighs about 28 lbs. I think Hailey will weigh that around 18 month at this rate!!! I am so glad that she is a healthy girl and a good eater!

The sun was out and it looked great outside, so I thought we'd go out for a walk. Looks can be deceiving! We got out a few block and started FREEZING because the wind picked up and it was cold! I didn't bring the stroller because Matthew wanted to walk. So to hurry my freezing kid home I gave Matthew a piggy back and had Hailey under my jacket in front in the moby with my camera hanging around my neck and I jogged the last two blocks home. It must've been a sight! Unfortunately we all have colds now. I don't know if it's a result of the cold walk or something else, but we've got it!
Hailey is daddy's little study buddy. He likes to take her pretty much wherever he goes in the house. It's so cute!


Just hanging out with daddy watching some t.v. This is when the cold hit us all at the same time! All we wanted to do was sit around, sniff, and sneeze.

Handsome little man!

I had an insight to the world of Matthew yesterday. I was sitting on the couch feeding Hailey for the thousandth time and Matthew climbed up on the couch.

Matthew: I want to hold Hailey

Me: not right now, she's eating

Matthew: NOW!

Me: maybe later bud

He then proceeds to grab my phone

Matthew: I call daddy?

Me: no, daddy is lifting weights and doesn't have his phone with him. Put my phone back please

And then I told him to about 3 more times before he finally did. Then he grabs the remote and wants to watch tv and I say no so he whines some and finally gives the remote to me after a couple of times of asking. Then he grabs one of the couch pillows and starts trying to rip the cover off.

Me: Matthew, don't take that off!

he ignores me and keeps pulling on it

Me: MATTHEW! Stop!

ignores me more

Me: Do you need a time out? Why are you trying to do everything you know you shouldn't?!

And so then Matthew just starts crying and hangs his shoulders in the most dejected way and it hit me.

ALL HE WANTED WAS MY ATTENTION.

and he didn't know how to ask for it

Whether I was just getting mad at him or not it's attention. And that's when I realize that he has not been asking for my exclusive attention in the way I expected, and that's seriously just the explanation for all of his moodiness and trouble seeking lately.

So I reached out and pulled that sweet little guy in for a nice, long hug.

and promised myself that I would play more with my boy.

We have had a great day today.