February Videos

February Round-up

Luke had an irregular result from his eye test during his 4 year old check-up, so lucky him, he got to go to the eye doctor for a more in depth test. They dilated his eyes and everything! It was a pediatric ophthalmologist, so most everything was kid friendly, which is nice. It turns out, everything is just fine. I'm sure false results on eye tests for four year olds aren't uncommon. The kids have beat the genetic odds for eyesight so far-- hopefully that will hold out and they'll all get Kevin's perfect eyesight!

 Cora got braces! They start orthodontics much earlier now than they used to. I think it's great! She'll have a 6-9 month session now and another session when she is 11 or 12. She is a bit earlier than most kids, just because her teeth came in earlier. She's had some pain, but only the first two weeks or so. And she loves that having braces exempts her from the no gum in school rule. 

 Luke is doing another month of preschool sports. This month was gymnastics. He loved it and said it was his favorite one so far. I think a lot of that may have been the variety--  a local gym put it on. They had four stations and rotated often, and had a lot of instruction. Too bad it is so expensive for regular classes!

 

Evelyn has started floating on her back in the bathtub. She does this when we go swimming too! I think she's my first baby to not be freaked out by laying on her back in the water. She loves it!

The kids had Valentine's day parties in school and preschool. Violet and Luke's classes made their own bags at school, but Cora searched pinterest and made this zebra bag herself. Luckily we had a zebra striped gift bag already, so it was fast, easy, and cute! 

 

 All four kiddos!

 Evelyn has been eating by herself for a while now, but I usually don't let her do the messy stuff. Now she insists, which leads to some fun messes. 

 

Cora had a project to do on the night sky or weather. She had to decide on a hypothesis, research, and do a presentation on the results. We all went to the planetarium with Kissie and Pata so she could explore what she wanted to focus on. There are some great exhibits there! The kids all had a lot of fun. We rode the train there and did some dino play afterward, so it was a great day out. 

 

Here is Core with her poster display. She practiced her presentation a lot and did a great job!

 Violet's class had a 100 days of school parade. They each had to decorate a hat with 100 objects (Violet did start stickers) and parents were invited to watch them parade around the school.  

 Violet also had a school project this month. It was on songs and symbols that unite families, and had five requirements. Violet came up with a song that unites our family (I am a Child of God), a community symbol that unites our family (the mountains-- we play, hike, and camp in), a tradition that unites our family (fall drive to see leaves), an object that unites our family (games we play together), and a story from our family's past that unites us (her great-great-grandpa coming to America from Italy). For each symbols she wrote a few sentences about why she chose it and found a picture that related. Her book turned out super cute. What a great idea for a project! Here are some of the pictures she used. 

 

 Violet learned to ride her bike! She's been nervous about it and didn't even want to try since a failed attempt last spring. The last week in February, she begged Kevin to take off her training wheels, and just did it! It was so cool to see her go! 

 We bought a groupon to go tubing at Soldier Hollow way back in November, and never got around to using it. Finally, it was about to expire! Evelyn is too little, and we couldn't figure out arrangements for another adult to come with Kevin or I, and it was too long/wrong timing for a babysitter or friend to help out, so Kevin just took Cora and Violet up. They had fun, but it really was too warm to slid very fast. A good lesson for the future! Luke, Evelyn, and I went to the zoo instead. It was a free day, so it was pretty crowded, but the weather was beautiful and it was really fun. 

 

Violet with her glove she made in school. Each week they studied a new continent and pasted it on their globe. 

 Evelyn tried out the bouncy horse again and finally loves it! She rides hard and shouts yee-haw! 

 

  We had a fun family dinner at Jen and Shad's house. These cute cousins have a lot of fun playing together! 

  

Someone needs to teach her to not play her tablet while she's driving! 

 This month and last has been especially busy as I was asked to play the piano for the stake choir for stake conference. Between practicing on my own, practicing with the choir three hours a week, and keeping up with my practicing and practices for my ward choir calling, it was a lot of time on the piano and quite a commitment. It was fun to be involved though, with all our ward splits, I knew quite a few people in the stake choir, so it was fun to see them. The stake music director is very talented, so it was fun to work with him too. Our stake was divided at the meeting, and Elder L. Tom Perry presided at the meeting. It was great experience-- playing in front of thousands of people and in a meeting with an apostle! 

Luke -- updates

Luke loves to play games. He asks almost every day to play games with me while the girls are at school and Evelyn is napping--and we do! Favorites of his right now are Cariboo Island and Slamwich. Luke loves to play Hedbanz, especially if he can set it up while I'm doing something else and take a peek at his first card. He makes me laugh since he thinks he's so sneaky; I don't think he really understands it is cheating when he goes to check on the fireplace just for a second (and checks his reflection too) when it is his turn. He also loves to play games on his tablet. 

Luke loves to play outside and will play in the sandbox by himself for long periods of time. He also loves to play with our great next-door neighbors, who have girls about Cora and Violet's ages, and a boy a few years older than Luke. Luke zooms around on his balance bike, but wasn't able to make the transition to a pedal bike last summer-- hopefully this summer! 

Luke has a big collection of toilet paper rolls and is delighted to tell me when he gets to add another one to his pile.

Luke gets worried about crossing the street (which is just fine by me-- he has never run in the street, what a relief!). What is funny is that he puts his hand out to the side like a stop sign to make sure the cars stop while he walks across.

Luke has his funny things that he says like: cute as a peanut, you're the best, you're smart (he says these last two to us when we do something he likes). When I ask him to do something, he often responds with "aye, aye, Captain Mommy!". We had a FHE lesson on honesty, and asked him "What do you do if someone says let's take a piece of candy from the store and they give it to you?" Luke said: Thankyou!

Luke is such a handsome boy and loves it when I tell him that. He has a pained-looking forced smile now, so that makes a lot of his pictures kind of funny. 

 Luke is a Sunbeam now at church and loves going to Primary! His teachers have said he does a great job being reverent. He is excited to come home and tell us what he has learned. 

Luke loves gum! He is always disappointed when I tell him no gum at breakfast time. He can usually have one piece a day, and I like it because I think it keeps him from asking for snacks. 

Luke loves pink! It's his favorite color. Kevin took him to a Home Depot workshop and they built a car together. Luke insisted on painting his car pink! He really does love it. He has also adopted one of the girl's older American Girl (knock-off) dolls. He'll be a good dad! It'll be interesting to see how he changes in the next few years as he is around boys at school more. He loves trains, super heroes, and Lightenin' McQueen plenty too! When the girls dress-up in their princess attire, he usually puts on his monster suit to play along. 

Luke has participated in a preschool sports program through our local rec center. It is once a week and they do a new sport each month. He has done 4 months of it, off and on, and really enjoyed it. This month is gymnastics, and I think it is is his favorite month so far. He'll do tennis in April and that will be the last one. 

 Luke has hated haircuts for a long time, and no amount of bribery could stop him from screaming and writhing when I cut his hair. The last few times Kevin has taken Luke so they can get their haircuts together, and he's been much better! 

For while Luke was getting up 3-5 times a night every night, saying he was lonely in his bed. Ack! That made for some pretty grouchy parents. We tried charts, prizes, putting him straight back in bed with no talking (not giving in to him wanting attention), so many things, but it didn't work. Finally we got him a special flashlight and a robot stuffed animal that he picked out specially to keep him company (not that he didn't have special stuffed animals already!). And, talked to the doctor about it with him in the room so he knew it was serious. Thankfully he's been much better lately! He might come down at 6:15 or 6:30, but rarely comes in the middle of the night. 

Luke is having a fantastic time in preschool with Miss Angie. From the beginning he has been really interested in reading (to be like Cora and Violet, I'm sure! He loves to 'read' books while they do their reading time too). Miss Angie said he's wanted so badly to get his alphabet star-- a necklace the kids earn when they know all the letter names and sounds. Miss Angie said that whenever she started reading time, he would always be right by there asking to go first. He got his star last month! And just recently, he started bringing home simple books to read. Miss Angie said 5 kids in her 3/4 year old class have started reading, which is a lot for that class at this time of year. She said he is fascinated by reading, and sits by her while all the other preschool kids read with her too (instead of playing!). It's amazing to see Luke remember the letter sounds, put the words together, see it all click, and be so excited about it. We are so proud of him! Miss Angie is more of a 'no-frills' preschool-- simple craft projects, no fancy location, no field trips, but she is super kind and really focuses on pre-reading and reading skills. She has been terrific! 

We love having Luke in our family! 

Evelyn--updates

Little Evelyn is growing up! Sometimes it is hard to believe she is so big, walking and running with ease and speaking in sentences. (Not that we can always understand the sentences, especially when she starts talking fast, but we can understand most all of what she is trying to say!) She is learning so much and doing new things all the time. It's so fun! 

Evelyn has a crib full of friends-- she rests her head on her dolphin pillow pet, and is surrounded by bunny, horsey, Molly the bubble guppy, and Minnie Mouse. They all have their exact place they are supposed to be, as does her water sippee. Blankie snuggles on top of her, and she is set! Evelyn is finally settling back into her great habits of going to bed easily and sleeping through the night, it took a few weeks after Disneyland to go back to normal. Lucky for me, she is pretty flexible on whether she takes an early or late nap. She generally sleeps 60-90 minutes in the afternoon and 11-12 hours at night. She needs that time to recharge after being on the go all day! 

Evelyn wants so much to be big. She climbs up the stairs holding onto the banister and staying on her feet-- nerve-wracking for me! She is so sad that she can't play out in the front yard with the big kids (unless I am out there too). She hates to be left behind when only part of the family is going on an errand. Evelyn fluctuates between wanting to do things all by herself and wanting help with things she can do all by herself. She's figuring out the world and it's so fun to watch. 

Recently, Evelyn started being interested in saying her prayers. She repeats what Kevin or I say to prompt her, and always adds in 'thankyou for this day' all by herself. Then she ends with Amen in a growly loud voice. I don't know where she got that one from! 

Evelyn has strong opinions and doesn't hesitate to turn up the volume to let us know what she wants. She can be quite bossy! If I want her to do something and she won't, I'll ask one of the other kids to do it and she'll come running. (The fastest way to get her in the stroller is to ask Luke to get in!) She loves to get dressed and have her hair down. She'll stand in the mirror afterward and say 'pretty, pretty'. 

Evelyn gets picky about food sometimes, but generally eats pretty well. She LOVES ranch. She'll ask for it every time we have carrots or cucumbers. We have to remind her to eat the veggie, not just lick the ranch off. When the veggies are gone, she'll dip her fingers (or her whole hand) or just lick the whole plate. I call her my ranch baby! She also loves breakfast shakes, smoothies, broccoli (cooked with yoshida's sauce), chicken nuggets, all kinds of fruit, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. 

Evelyn has a funny smile face now too-- all scrunched up with her eyes almost closed. We've got a lot of pictures of her like that! 

Evelyn will practice something over and over -- like putting my socks on her feet for ten minutes! She likes to put our shoes on too. She loves playing with dollies, and especially loves playing with baby Lucy, a friend's baby who I trade babysitting with so we can volunteer at the school. Whenever Evelyn plays with her dollies, they always have stinky diapers. Every baby, all the time, every time. Evelyn hates having a stinky diaper herself, and always lets us know when it needs to be changed. I could probably potty train her, but I'm reluctant to take her out of her crib and deal with no naps and going to bed difficulties. It'll come soon enough! 

Evelyn also likes playing with Luke's train table, the play kitchen, chunky puzzles, and the magnet dress-up dollies. She loves to be read to, and gets quite a stack of books together to read before bed. She likes to pretend she is a dog and will come up and lick you!

Evelyn still gets shy around new people, and it even takes a while to warm up to people she does know. She just turns her face away and pretends they aren't there. 

Evelyn loves nursery! It was a bit of a rough start, but she switched classes to be with Luke (last fall), and she just loves it now! I think it was the new teachers, who show a lot of love. She sings 'Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam', 'I am a Child of God', 'Popcorn Popping' and several other songs that she has learned there. She is always so proud to show us her coloring page when we pick her up. 

No post about Evelyn would be complete without mentioning her tremendous love for Bubble Guppies, a television cartoon. She begs for it daily and is disappointed when they are 'napping' and she can't watch them (Sunday are especially hard!). When it comes on she dances and sings along with all the songs and beams with joy. She loves her Bubble Guppy toys and books too. I tell her she is going to turn into a Bubble Guppy someday! It's cute to see her so attached to them, and it gives me a chance to get ready or make dinner too. 

We call Evelyn our big boo-boo packet. Just like the cold packs we keep in the freezer, she makes any hurt feel better. She is great at giving the kids hugs when they are sad. She's not often willing to cuddle more than a minute, but I try to take advantage of it when she is in the mood! She is a wonderful part of our family and we love her so much! 

Pictures

Our favorite picture studio did a deal for sessions where photographers in training were polishing their skills. I couldn't pass up a $44 photo session (with all files and copyrights!). So we got shots of the kids in their Easter clothes. So cute! We got some good ones! And the kids did an excellent job (with the bribe of going swimming that afternoon).