Playing Catch Up . . . Again

So my life is busy again!  I know that everybody else is busy too, but it just seems a little crazy around here lately!  We all got some nasty flu/strep throat bug that we are still trying to get over as well.  Because of the craziness and sickness, I have neglected my blog so I need to try to do a little catch up!

Audrey is eating so well and will eat almost anything (besides smashed peas) that is put into her mouth.  She loves bananas especially, but so does Jack!  Frequently while I am not looking, he will climb up onto the table and finish off what is left in the baby food container that I am feeding to Audrey.  It isn't really funny at the time, but I figured I would get a shot of it and laugh at it later.

My ever happy Audrey Mae

So I am a firm believer in letting my children make their own cards and projects.  They may not be the prettiest things you will ever see, but they were made with love by their own hands and I think it means more that way!  I also believe that many times when a project is started, children quickly change it into what they want it to be.  I try to go with the flow most of the time.  What started as a Mother's Day card making activity, turned into a fantastic sensory art project!  I wish I could have just given Jack as the project, but we had to go to church in the meantime.  I just try to remember that they are only little for so long and these experiences help them become who they will be!

We started painting the paper and figuring out what we could do there

But after accidently getting some on himself, it quickly changed to painting Jack instead of the paper

The final paper products were good, but Jack was more colorful!

Then the next night it was Audrey's turn.  I accidently left the spoon within reach while I was feeding her.  She flicked some on her tray and loved playing with it.  It isn't that expensive to buy so I let her go at it with the rest of the bananas in the container!  She ate some, but thoroughly enjoyed getting messy!

This morning we went to the 1st annual Walk for Williams out at a park in Draper.  My older sister has Williams Syndrome which is a genetic mutation that causes some specific disorders but also comes with some fun characteristics that all children with this syndrome seem to have!  This morning we met at this park to do a 2K walk in support of research and help for these individuals.  It was fun to be with so many people that feel the same way!

They had a big picture of Lisa up on one of the walls as well as some smaller ones scattered around on advertisements.

Someone had arranged for two blow up houses and slides to be brought in for the kids to play on.

Then after the walk we rushed back to my parents' house to help finish getting ready for the Neighborhood Preparedness Fair that my parents help to organize over at the Stake House.  It was very well attended and made me realize I really need to get more things in order before the "Big One" hits!  They had lots of wonderful resources and the people that came went away with lots of great info.  My mom did a great job organizing it!

Lisa was in charge of the samples station.  There were samples of freeze dried apples, MRE brownies, MRE pound cake, and some freeze dried beef stroganoff.

My mom with the earth quake lady who did a presentation.  This earthquake lady is very knowledable and showed some cool stuff.  I guess she is a missionary too.

Detective Jacobson brought kid's fingerprinting kits and other things for the neighborhood.  I talked to him for a while before it started.  It is fun to have a husband in public service because you always have something to talk about with these people.

UFA came and brought their firetruck and ambulance.  I spent most of my time up here because Jack liked looking at the trucks and I enjoyed talking to the Captain about working for the department.  This is not the captain here, this is the young attractive new guy showing the truck to Nathan.

The engineer on the left and the other medic on the right

Even though they were from UFA, who I am not incredibly fond of, they were fun to talk to and great entertainment!  They didn't get a call the whole time and were able to stay for the whole fair!

Our Adventures

I love to take my children on adventures and do new things with them.  It creates memories and we have a lot of fun when we are doing it (most of the time).  Last week, we went up the canyon with our friends the Wrights.  We went to Storm Mountain and followed different paths that led to nowhere and everywhere.  Jack and Lydia thought it was great to be able to walk on their own along the trail.  It was rocky terrain and I am glad we weren't hiking on a cliff or anything!  Audrey did fantastic in the carrier and didn't mind it one bit!  I carried her part of the way and then Johnny did the rest.  When we got to the bottom, we had a snack and then headed for home.  All in all it was a fun time for everyone.

Then this past Tuesday, I went with my parents, my sister, my sister-in-law and her two kids to the Tracy Aviary for my dad's birthday.  I did the good mom thing and put sunscreen on the kiddos.  Well Jack rubbed it into his eyes and so his eyes puffed up and his face turned red.  He didn't enjoy the place much and his screaming helped others to question if they wanted to be near us too.  I really felt bad for him and tried to rinse around his eyes and nothing seemed to help but time and tears.  We went to the playground afterwards and everybody, but Jack, seemed to have a wonderful time!  Jack did enjoy the chains in the one water area and later enjoyed the swing with Grandpa.

Audrey is always happy!

Hannah is always happy too!  They are six months apart and hopefully will be good friends!

We were walking along looking at some female peacocks (which are not nearly as pretty as the males) and talking about how we wanted to see a male one.  All the adults walked right past this guy sitting in the grass under a tree.  He was within arm's reach, but fit right in.  If the four year old, Nathan, hadn't pointed it out, we all would have missed it!

My last adventure was tonight while my husband went to play Halo with his brother.  I told Jack we were going to make cookies!  He was very excited and came to sit in his big boy chair.  I want him to see that cookies don't just come in a bag all packaged up nicely, like oreos, so techinically I should have made them from scratch but it was already 8:00 and I had this mix to use.  He still seemed very excited and we started with the egg and butter.

We mixed it all up and Jack looked into the bowl.  He kept saying, "cookie, cookie, cookie."  Well there were no cookies in the bowl and he got upset and I got this reaction:

I tried to explain to him that we had to bake them and then we would have cookies.  He didn't believe me and ran into the other room to cry!  He came a few minutes later to check out the oven, but wouldn't look at me because he was mad!

Meanwhile, Audrey sat there just watching and snacking on her crunchies and yogurt.  She started drinking from a sippy which is great!  Maybe we can avoid the bottle all together!

After the cookies came out, Jack definitely wanted to be my friend!!!!  He forgave me and we enjoyed some cookies and milk before bed.  We also read our night night stories and Audrey joined in!

Would I Change?

So I was thinking random thoughts this week as I thought about a friend who had passed away.  I started thinking about my own life and reflecting back on choices I had made or not made and how that probably led me to here.  I have definitely made my share of dumb decisions and have also been the recipient of others dumb choices as well and you know what. . .if I could go back and change it all, I wouldn't.  All the smiles, tears, laughter, frustrations, joys, and heartbreaks brought me to where I am today and made me the person I am.  Ya it would have been great to change some of the things in the moment, but they have past.  The clouds cleared.  Time has healed almost all wounds and will continue on whether we like it or not.  I love my life and even though it can have some not fun times or things that are frustrating, it is so good!  I have a husband who loves me and is kind to me.  He works hard for our family.  I have two very beautiful children who light up my life and keep me young.  I am finding myself everyday in every choice I make and I hope that at the end of my life I can look back and be satisfied knowing I did the best I could and will not regret what could have been.  I know that none of this would be considered wise or that profound but it really helped me figure myself out this week and helped me make another choice in how to live my life.  I AM happy to be me!

My Babies!

I should probably have changed the title to my baby and my big boy, but Jack is still my baby to me!  They are growing up so fast!  It seems like just yesterday I held my little guy for the first time!  And I blinked . . . Now I have a beautiful baby girl too, and truly a very wonderful life!  I know that I don't want to get sad about them getting bigger, and I am trying to enjoy every day with them, but sometimes I wish we could stop time for a while and bask a little longer in the time I have with them!  I went shopping with my mom today and Jack wore his squeaky shoes.  I turned around and I know it is silly, but I got a little teary eyed . . . Jack was running towards me, squeaking away, just saying "mommy,mommy,mommy!" like he hadn't seen me for days!  It warmed my heart!  It is my birthday in a couple days and I am turning 27!  Wow I am getting old! I need to stop blinking!!!

Anyway.  It has been a few weeks since my last post and I have some fun pics of the kids to post!!!  Audrey is almost always happy.  The only time she cries is when it is brother induced, or she is tired!

Grandpa does a trick, with all of the grandkids at some point in their lives, that makes the moms a little nervous.  He hasn't dropped either one of my children doing this, but it does sometimes make me gasp a little!

Jack and Audrey love stories and books!  This is one of the best times to cuddle with them and read to them.  Jack will sit FOREVER, if you have tons of fun books to read!

Audrey is getting big enough now to really start to get on Jack's nerves.  It's almost payback time!

We went to Buca di Beppo for Johnny's grandma's birthday.  Audrey had fun watching everyone, and it was fun to be with the whole Tani clan.

So we had a great Easter!  Jack did three Easter egg hunts in all and got pretty good at them by the end.  On Easter, the bunny had worked very hard to put together a cute basket for him and Audrey!

Jack came into the room and went straight to his fire engine that he has had for about a year now.

Audrey loved her basket and wanted her baby doll so bad!  She currently plays with trucks a lot!  This is something we are working on changing.  Not that I have a problem with her playing with boy toys, its just thats a lot of what we have and I want her to be able to have some girl toys too!

After some coaxing, we were able to get Jack to take a peek at his basket and he loved it!!!  He lives for matchbox and hotwheels cars and trucks!

We then had a wonderful Conference breakfast.  While I was making the pancakes, I turned around and Jack was on the table AGAIN!!!  He finds great joy in this!

After Conference and naps we headed over to Johnny's parents house for dinner and an Easter egg hunt.  Jack was more interested in the cars, the dogs, and Uncle Christopher than to be bothered with collecting eggs.  We got him to pick up a few and he understood the concept, he just plain out didn't care!!!

After that we headed to my parents house for another hunt. This one he really enjoyed.  It was too cold so we did it inside.  He needed to be pointed to a few of them, but he really liked puting them in his basket and later eating the candy in them!  My dad always does such a good job with these things and he did another great hunt this year!

They also had a hunt for the little girls in which they placed a pile of cherrio filled eggs in the middle of the floor and let the girls play with them.  I thought it was cute!

Our last notable event is Audrey is determined to eat solids and skip over baby food.  Because she is likely to choke on it, I have used her mesh baggie thing a lot!  I put all kids of fruit in there and let her go at it!  She LOVES it!  She makes a huge mess, but it sure is fun to watch!