Easter

Our Easter came and went pleasantly. The last two years we've hid baskets carrying candy and a small gift and had Claire finding eggs that lead her to her basket. Does that make it a tradition yet? She woke up and Scott first explained the game to her and then she was out of her room and a pro by the third egg.

While Claire's eggs led her through her play house and up the stairs, Everett just looked on in bewilderment. :)

Claire found both baskets hiding behind the couch upstairs and gave Everett his. He didn't seem to like the pink grass in his basket. I'm not sure whether it was the feel of it or the fact that it was pink that he didn't care for. ;)

Claire was excited about her new princess toy and Everett seemed to like his little tiger.

We got ready for church and enjoyed the lessons about the Resurrection. I had prepared an Easter lesson a couple weeks ago for Sharing time in Primary. I had little visual aids to teach the story and I had practiced on Claire. She actually knew the story pretty well and could tell me who the woman outside the tomb was ("Mary") and why she was so sad ("Jesus gone"). And then she'd get all happy when the woman sees Jesus behind her ("There he is!"). It was pretty neat though, hearing her describe the story of the Resurrection. This was the first year she was actually able to somewhat understand the real reason we celebrate Easter and I'm excited to be able to go into more depth each year and help teach her more about Jesus.

After church we went on a short walk and tried to get some pictures of us in our Easter clothes. Claire's getting into a stage of cheesy grins or doing her own thing for pictures which includes dancing. The last picture she is doing a little bow. :)

The boys in their matching ties. So handsome. And our attempt at a family photo. We put the camera on the stroller and set the timer and it took like a dozen pictures, all of which Claire is either picking her nose or looking backwards up at me and Everett is looking the other way in most as well so this is probably the best we got. Oh well. :)

 Happy Easter!

a couple memories made

we've got two quick and humorous stories for you today. aren't you so lucky? :)

our first funny tale takes place as we were preparing our family home evening treat. we wanted warm chocolate chip cookies tonight. we did not want to have to actually do the work and make warm chocolate chip cookies tonight. so we took the easy way out and bought one of those ready to bake batch of cookies that you just have to break up into smaller pieces, place on a baking sheet, and cook. well, after teasing claire just a little about eating all the cookies ourselves, claire ended up getting the last laugh when we looked down and realized one of the clumps of cookie dough had gone missing. yep, while we weren't looking, claire snatched it and took off. luckily we caught her before she had devoured the cookie dough entirely and explained we had to cook it first. :) we had a pretty good laugh.

our second story of jolly happened just a few minutes later. a friend of mine challenged a few of us to do 2500 push ups in the month of march, which (since we began on the 5th of march) averages out to 100 a day. so claire has seen her poor daddy struggling to do push ups randomly throughout the day. claire, being the helpful little girl she is, decided to help daddy and came over and started pushing daddy down every time he tried to push up. while i do appreciate the assistance, i do need to teach her it's the pushing up part that i need help with, not the going down. i got that part down pretty well. :)

Everett at 6 Months

1. Everett is now our little 6 month old!

2. He weighs 18 pounds 11 ounces and is 28 inches tall. This is about the same weight and height Claire was at a year old. He's such a big boy. :)

3. This keeps him in the 70th percentile for weight and back up to the 95th percentile for height.

4. Everett has just recently really mastered sitting up. When I took his last photoshoot right after he turned 6 months, he still couldn't quite stay up for very long. I had to have Scott prop him up a little and then photoshop his arm out. But now he's sitting for longer periods of time and he's able to catch himself most of the time if he starts tipping over. :)

5. A while ago we started with some serious sleep training because his daytime naps were so crazy and short and I realized he was very dependent on nursing to fall asleep. He's gotten a little better, and he's now sleeping in his crib instead of the playpen in our room. He can fall asleep on his own now sometimes which is a lot better, but we have still had a lot of rough days and nights. He doesn't like his paci at all so it's been more difficult than it was with Claire to sleep train. Hopefully he gets it soon.

6. Everett loves his mommy. He throws some big fits when I put him down or leave the room for a minute, even to just go to the bathroom. I do put him down because I know he needs to move around and build his motor skills, and I want him to trust that I will come back every time, but he loves loves loves to be held and walked around.

7. After he finally got the hang of solids, he seems to like everything we've given him so far which has been Bananas, Rice Cereal, Apples, Sweet Potatoes, Peaches, Squash, Green Beans, and Pears.

8. Everett loves making noises. He makes a lot of noises himself experimenting with the different sounds his mouth makes. He also loves to bang his toys down and scratch things with texture, just so he can hear the different noises those things can make. He also loves to jump in his bouncer and make a lot of noise that way.

9. He grabs at things. All the time. He sees something he wants and reaches for it. We think it's pretty cute. At his check up he was reaching for the doctor's clipboard and just looking around and grabbing at anything that came close to his reach. He's grabbed Claire's hair multiple times, and she thinks it's funny. She does get a little upset if he grabs one of her toys though.

10. He still adores Claire. He's usually full of smiles around her and he laughs at things she does. She's so helpful with him and quick to pick up toys or things that he drops. I hope this lasts forever. :) We all love him so much!

memory made

our little claire loves her little people. she is especially fond of her snow white, which she has come to identify as herself. if you'll notice in the first picture, that's her standing atop the ring tower, with everyone else looking up to her. should we be worried a little? all hail claire! :) she's so funny. we love her bunches.

Everett's First Solids

When Everett was just barely 5 months old we fed him some solids for the first time. This was his reaction...

It really didn't go so well. :) We kept trying though and we pretty much got the same reaction up until a few days ago. Now he does this...

 I think he likes it! :)

Valentine's Day

We had a pretty busy, but very fun Valentine's Day this year. Scott and I actually went out to eat the night before because it's tough to get babysitters on Valentines, plus we hate the huge lines the special day creates at the restaurants. Of course Valentines morning Claire and I were spoiled with some roses (I had told Scott that I didn't want flowers, but he found a loophole and got us girls one flower each) and a candy bouquet. He also got Claire a little stuffed red monkey, which she was excited about. Scott also made me breakfast before he headed to bed, having worked the night before, it was wonderful. :)

Claire and I were invited to a little Valentine's Day play date. We did this last year and it was so fun, we decided to do it again! So earlier that day we got together with some of our old singles ward friends and their little girls and had lunch and exchanged valentines. The girls had their own little table. :)

They had fun playing dress up and Claire loved the little crown. We had just put together her little elephant mailbox that morning, she was pretty excited about it.

I put her valentines together the night before. I got the idea off of pinterest and the free printable from here. Claire loved handing them out to her friends. Everett was the only boy there with 6 little girls and 4 moms. I don't think he minded... he was happily blowing bubbles while they passed out their valentines.

Here are all the girls minus the 4 month old. It's hard getting 5 toddlers to sit still and smile long enough for a good picture! :)

We both had so much fun and headed home afterwards for naps. I had a few things to get together for Scott's valentine and then we started making pizzas. These aren't the best pictures, but they were delicious. :)

Claire ended the night a little hyped up on sugar I think, but happy and dancing away (something she LOVES to do). Our little valentine.

Happy Valentine's Day! 

Potty Training

The last two weeks we've spent potty training Claire and I think it's safe to say that she's got it! She is not a baby anymore, no more diapers for her and we are down to buying only one size diapers again, yay! :) 

I was dreading potty training. I had heard so many horror stories, and using diapers was safer and more dependable and easier (in a way). But it was time. She had been showing signs for awhile that she was ready. So finally we started and she has been amazing! She keeps on surprising me with how well she gets it. :)
This was our method. Monday morning she woke up and we took off her diaper and didn't put on another one. We let her play around the house and I tried to keep a close eye on her, and when she had an accident I didn't really say much, just "oops, you made a mess." Then I cleaned it up and pointed to her little potty (which we kept in whatever room she was in) and told her to try to get it in her potty next time. That first day she sat on the potty a lot, but never made any "deposits" in the potty and it was unfortunately all accidents. The second day, we took her diaper off again and left it off. She completely surprised me and went in her potty and had no accidents all day. When she actually went "potty" in her potty, we made a huge deal about it. We cheered for her, gave her high fives, gave her a "potty treat" and told her what a good girl she was. I did start a timer the second day and had her hurry and sit on the potty every twenty minutes or so, but she was sitting on it herself without the timer going off or me reminding her, so I didn't use the timer for very long. The third day we did the same thing and she only had maybe one accident. On Thursday, we put panties on her, and she had a couple accidents, but picked up on that pretty quick and has been doing great since. Her biggest problem has been just learning to pull down her panties quickly. Once she gets that down, she'll be a pro!

We've put pull ups on her for naps and bedtime, but we've left her potty in her room and she's totally surprised me by how well she's doing at the night training too. She'd wake us up in the middle of the night with a little cry to get our attention and when I'd go in her room, I'd find her just sitting there on her potty with a smile on her face, just waiting for us to help her. I was worried about going to church, but we brought her little potty along (and hid it in the kitchen right next to nursery) and she surprised me again. As a sign she had to go, she made it a habit of just pulling down her skirt wherever she was. While this proved effective in letting us know, it was a little awkward when she did it in the middle of nursery and again in the hallway. It made us laugh pretty good though. :)

This week, we've worked on keeping her "little potty" in the bathroom and then transitioning her to the "big potty". She's been doing awesome. We're jumping for joy around here! :)