Geting so big!

Sheesh! 

My kids are growing!

12 months ago Cole looked like this:

And now he looks like this!

Amazing what changes a year can bring. Love this kid so much!

The other day we were eating some chicken tomato soup (that my sister Esperanza came up with) for lunch. Cole was eating quietly so I glanced over to see how things were going. He would take a bite look pleased and then make a face as he spit out just a tomato. He would close his eyes and shake his head as he set the tomato to the side of his bowl. Then go for another bite. I couldn't help but laugh! It was such a funny scene. He loves food, but definitely has formed, and continues to develop, strong opinions about which ones he really likes and dislikes. 

I introduced Lucy to cutting a couple of weeks ago, with some beginner scissors (those plastic ones that will bounce back open to help them learn the motion), and she has loved cutting ever since! She spent 15-20 mins cutting up paper during conference this last weekend. 

I saw this super cute idea over at  Little Family Fun, for scissors practice. Usually while Lucy cuts she doesn't want me to tell her how to do it or anything. So I was a little nervous about having a more structured cutting activity. I hoped that cutting up bugs would be more fun!

 The purpose of the activity is to have the child cut along the red line to help them learn to cut straight lines. I was surprised at how focused she was and how hard she tried to get those red lines! You can see in the picture above that she missed it the first time but went back to get the line. It was cute to see her work and care so hard to do it the right way. 

 After a while she decided she was done concentrating so hard...and started getting really goofy!

 She gave up on the red lines and just started cutting the butterflies to bits!

 She thought it was pretty funny! 

The kids LOVE to wear Devin's biking helmet and glasses, I guess lucy was trying stuff on this morning and Devin snapped this picture. 

Love it! 

Painting Pumpkins!!!

Last night for Family Nite we painted our pumpkins. I didn't want them to get all rotten before Halloween so we painted them last night and we'll carve them in a couple of weeks...

(I got pumpkins at Macey's, they are 10 cents a pound right now!! Just FYI)

 We had to wash all the dirt off of them first. Lucy's pants are off because they got soaked :) Uncle Ryan joined in on the fun too!

 Cole playing in the warm water...his soaking wet clothes didn't bother him much :)

When they were all clean we dried them off and got to painting!

 Lucy's first color pick was pink :D Go figure. 

 Cole and Daddy worked together on theirs...

 Lucy was pretty good at getting all sides of the pumpkin!

 After pink and orange she went for the black...she wanted to do a 'spooky face'! haha.

 And then it turned into a spooky Mulan face. Mulan is their favorite movie right now :)

 Cole shaking up his paint! He got a kick out of it every time Devin shook up the bottle before he poured some out. 

Ryan looking all mischevious painting his pumpkin...bet you can't guess what he painted on his!

And here is the line up (don't mind the sideways pics...can't get blogger to recognize that I rotated them in iphoto)

Bottom to top, Lucy's Spooky Mulan face, Ryan's Y pumpkin, and Cole's modern art at the top!

Devin added a stump face to the one he and Cole worked on :) 

It's great!

and a close up of Ryan's pumpkin (notice Lucy's and Cole's addition on the side)

Super fun activity! Can't wait to see what we decide to do when we carve them!

Being sick and learning to be positive

So last week I said I'd be back to give an update on rubbing eucalyptus oil into the kids feet before they sleep at night. Well it has worked WONDERS!!! While they still wake up, it is not from coughing fits. I even tried it two nights ago (because I got this thing just as bad as the kids :( ) and I never coughed once. Not ONCE! The whole night, and if you had heard my voice or even been around me this last week you would know how amazing that is. The kids are almost all the way better, and I'm finally feeling more normal. I still have a little cough, thanks to mucus, but that I can handle. The sinus headaches and inability to function...not so manageable. 

I am so thankful that this weekend was Conference. General conference (if you would like to watch or learn more about it click HERE) in and of itself was wonderful, as always, and motivated me to be a better person. But also it was great because Devin was home without work or school. He was such a blessing to have home this weekend because I was so very under the weather, it was horrible. He is the most wonderful husband. I am so lucky to have him. He works so hard on his studies, and puts in more hours at work than I think he really has time for, so that he can provide for us. He gives US more time than I ever expect. And still he is happy, and kind, and patient with the kids. So much more so than I am. I don't know how he does it, but he is wonderful and I am so grateful my kids get to have him as their dad!

I'm learning, so slowly, how to be a mom. Some days (like today) I wonder if I have learned anything these last three years?? My kids fall to pieces and instead of patience and love, I give them a frustrated and angry Mama. Some days I don't know how to deal with the fits, and the constant whining. I know I need to be more kind, but in the moment (or whenever they start yelling, "mama, mama") I cannot find any kindness, not even an ounce of it in me. I'm not looking for pity or sympathy, I'm just writing my frustrations because the kids are sleeping and this is very fresh on my mind. 

On the positive side, we do still have fun! I tried to get out or at least do something fun while we were sick so that we didn't get cabin fever staying in and watching movies all day. 

I saw a cute idea on a blog I follow about making poplar trees! The lady was doing it for a Monet artist unit with her kids but I just thought the activity would be fun!

Here is Cole trying to figure out the scissors, worked hard with him on it, he is still too young to get the entire concept but he still enjoyed it for a minute.

 Gluing the tree trunks on...he's showing me the glue he got on his fingers.

 Didn't really look like trees i guess?

 Lucy just cut and cut and cut at her trunks :) She really likes cutting.

 Trying to show Cole how to use the 'brushes'

 Now he's got the idea

 After Cole was all done with his Lucy was ready to put her trees together.

 She was pretty careful about where she wanted each one placed

 These brushes were awesome! you take a sheet of foam and cut slits down one or both ends, roll it up, tape it and voila! you've got yourself a fun little paint brush!

 Lucy's finished picture!

It was a fun thing to do and the kids really liked it. I am learning to try to be more positive. Trying to hi-five (figuratively) myself for the times I am patient and kind, and not beat myself up so much about the times I am not so nice. 

I do love my kids. I have wanted to be a mom all my life, and while it is so much more challenging than I ever expected it to be. My kids make me a better person, and I wouldn't trade them for anything!

Sick :(

Aaand today we are sick. Lame. 

Lucy was up every hour or so last night, she wasn't hot and other than needing to use the potty I couldn't figure out why she was so restless. Then this morning she was a snotty sneezing machine! It was gross. I haven't been feeling the best lately but I was attributing it to allergies (I've been sneezing and stuffy since we moved back to Provo.) 

ANYWAYS,

Cole's nose has been non-stop runny as well. Thankfully they were in good spirits today. We got to go to StoryTime at the library -- it's our new favorite activity! They absolutely love it and we get new books every week. Plus, I even walked there today :D It made our morning fun so we didn't focus too much on how we were feeling.

They didn't nap as long as I expected. Lucy started up her nasty sick coughing during her nap and Coles cough started this afternoon. I'm bummed. We've been so healthy for so long. 

But 'TIS THE SEASON!' right?

Since they started coughing I figured I'd try some things I've seen on pinterest :D Good ol' pinterest. I saw this blog post for making honey coughdrop lollipops! I was pretty excited. Give any kid a lollipop and they'll gobble it down. Figured it'd be an easy way to easy their throat pain and hopefully keep them from coughing. 

Well...

first of all, we didn't have lollipop molds, 

or lollipop sticks,

even after a store run I was BEYOND unsuccessful. 

So I cut up straws, put wax paper on some cookie sheets and called it good :)

Here is the result-

 Goopy non-solid mess!

But I can't complain, the kids LOVED it. And I mean LOVED. They ate all the globs you see in that picture.

So I guess it wasn't a complete failure. They got some honey in their system :) 

I also tried THIS tonight....I'll update you tomorrow on how tonight goes!

Moments to share

I walked into Cole and Lucy's room one day to find this!

He really loves to read. He will sit and flip through books all by himself. I love that he will do that, but sometimes I feel bad that he won't bring books to me to get read to. It all started because he didn't like sitting through the books Lucy would choose for her turn. So now he will read whatever he wants while he waits for his pick to get read. 

 Coloring on the itouch / nook. 

Devin and I both have coloring apps on our devices(whatever they are called). And the kids love to color on them. They get frustrated after a while because they click the wrong buttons and get taken to some part of the app they can't get out of. But they enjoy it for a good 10 mins or so. One morning while I was getting ready I came into my room and found Lucy tucked under our sheets with Cole laying on the pillows behind her just watching her color. It was adorable, but I was too slow to catch the moment. So this is the best I got before Cole came for the camera.

Dancing / being animals

Both Lucy and Cole LOVE to dance. They are so creative, I can't help but smile while they dance. And Lucy has taken a liking to being animals lately. Cole still doesn't quite get the whole pretending thing, but he will still have fun following along and copying Lucy.

Watching Movies

 My kids are addicted! We've been decreasing the amount of videos we watch. This summer it got way out of hand, and we've been slowly weaning ourselves from them. Some days are better than others, but we are doing WAY better than before, so for now, I'm happy with it. Cole is a thumb sucker, and LOVES playing with hair. Biggest best comfort for him ever is doing both at the same time. One morning, I came downstairs and saw this. It was adorable. Lucy rarely lets him play with her hair but I guess she was too into the movie to care what he was doing. 

Body Chalk

 That is what our sidewalk chalk has become! More of it gets on our arms and legs and faces than it does on the actual cement. Here are some close-ups of our 'mustaches'

 Lucy had covered her whole mouth and chin, so I just extended it into a beard.

 Lucy did my face (pardon my messy hair and lack of makeup -- it was saturday morning :D )

 Cole got a yellow mustache!

Living room window

 We have little animals we bought from JoAnns whenever we had a 50% off coupon. Best purchases ever because the kids LOVE them.  I won't buy them anymore because they went up in price and we've found some better deals on animal toys. I don't regret my purchases at all, these toys are played with more than any other we have at our house.

 This is our living room window, the kids love to perch up here an play. 

 And I just thought they looked so cute so I took some pictures :)

Trying to be educational

I've been trying to do some little home preschool stuff. I haven't been very organized and feel like I keep doing stuff the kids don't really like. I guess it's more learning for Mama than it is for the kids. So I just try to go with the flow and hopefully I'll get better at planing stuff they enjoy and can do :) 

 Today we did leaf rubbings! We went outside and picked leaves. I told the kids we were going to color leaves. I didn't know how else to explain it. It ended up being mostly me doing the rubbing. They liked the end result but couldn't really do it by themselves. Maybe next year this will be more appropriate!

I ran upstairs to grab the camera and came back to find this. They had more fun coloring around the leaves than they did rubbing over them :D Above is Lucy's

This one is Cole's 

 Showing me his crayon :) 

Pointing out her outlined leaves :)

***Notice those little animals in their hands?? Told you they are played with a lot! ***