Kite Flying and Photo Challenge #3

The other day the kids were given some kites and Claire wanted to take them outside right away. Even though it's been raining off and on lately, we saw a break in the clouds Monday afternoon and went kite flying. Everett quickly lost interest in his and found other things to keep him occupied while Claire thoroughly enjoyed her time running around and keeping the kite afloat while yelling, "Fun!" over and over again. I took the opportunity to take pictures for my photo challenge this week...

"Diptych or Triptych"

Glasses

In June, after a couple of my sisters asked about it, we started noticing occasionally that Everett's eye would turn in. We noticed it happening more and more since then, but weren't too concerned since he seemed to be able to see fine. During his 2 year checkup, we asked about it and were told to take him to a pediatric ophthalmologist.

When we took him in to see the ophthalmologist, they did a couple tests and we were told that he was extremely farsighted, more so in the one eye. He has been straining his eyes to focus which is causing the one eye to curve inward. He prescribed him the glasses and we left. A week later the glasses came and this last week we've been trying to adjust to them.

I have to say it's been a pretty emotional and difficult week. Everett will wear his glasses for a good amount of time, but takes them off when he's "done". I usually have to bribe him to put them back on again or tell him he can't do something he wants to do unless he puts his glasses on. I feel like such a meanie mom. He's been tilting his head up and down to look either above or below them. He doesn't like to look through them. I know it takes getting used to, but I kinda expected him to like them at least a little because they're supposed to help him see better... I called and voiced my concerns to the doctor but they told me to keep trying a little longer and stick with it until his appointment next month so we'll see how it goes... 

Creative Photo Challenge #2

Simplicity

sim·plic·i·ty

noun 

-the quality or condition of being easy to understand or do. 

 

I had a bunch of ideas for this one at first, but they didn't exactly play out well when I tried to capture them. So here's what I got. :)

Creative Photo Challenge #1

So I've always kinda wanted to do one of those 52-week photo projects or a photo-a-day for a month or (even scarier) a 365-day photo project. However, I've never tried because they've always intimidated me. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to keep it up with how busy life gets sometimes.  I found this list of themes on Pinterest though and decided to give it a shot (by myself, not with the website). I just liked that it said no timeline, no pressure, no failure. This is just a personal challenge I want to try to hopefully strengthen my photo taking skills and creativity. I will be trying to get these done once a week, and posting them so I know people will see them and therefore I'll try harder. :)

"Morning"
So originally I saw morning and thought, that should be pretty easy... However we live in a basement and I realized how dark it is, especially early morning when my kids wake up. I kept trying different things though and didn't like how they were turning out. Claire woke up a little later this morning though and since Scott was at football, we played in our bed this morning. I opened our blinds and hiked up my ISO super high and got this shot, which I loved. :)  

Our Little Buddy Is Two

Everett had a birthday a few weeks ago. We had a fun, but not too crazy celebration. We made a cake earlier in the day. Everett and Claire were very "helpful"... I'm glad I had enough batter after their help to still make a cake with. :) It was Claire's idea to make a monster cake and Everett was pretty happy about it. We had hot dogs for dinner (Everett's favorite) and then opened presents. I love how Claire was totally hovering over him as he opened his presents. She wanted to open them all for him. The kids (and Daddy) all enjoyed playing with the presents for a little while before we had cake. I think it was pretty successful. He went to bed happy that night. :)

Now some facts about Everett...

1. Everett is now 35.5" tall. He's getting taller, but sadly not quite tall enough to ride the ferris wheel at Scheels like we found out the other day.

2. He still has a funny fascination with his belly button. He loves drinking from his bottle with one hand while his other hand is playing with his belly button. It was hard when taking his 2-year pictures to get any with his hand not on his tummy. :) 

3. Like I mentioned earlier, one of his favorite foods is hot dogs. He's thrown plenty of tantrums because we didn't have hot dogs for lunch. :)

4. He always wants to be like Claire and do whatever she does. If that means putting on dresses and necklaces, that's what he wants to do. If she plays little baby doll games on the ipad, he wants to also, etc.

5. Since Claire got a bike for her birthday, we decided Everett needed one too or we'd have issues with them fighting over the same bike. We got him a smaller little tricycle which he loves to push himself around on. He hasn't gotten the pedaling down at all, but he still has fun and is pretty fast just pushing himself around with his feet.

6. He loves to tease Claire. He really knows what bothers her and I see him doing things specifically to see her reaction. I wonder sometimes where kids learn these things or if they just come naturally, but he's a big tease.

7. He can be a little comedian. He's so silly sometimes and he loves to make us laugh.

8. In an attempt to see if we could get him interested in more boy-related things, we got him some cars and a dinosaur for his birthday. He really likes playing with his cars on ramps and things and he always points out airplanes and loud trucks he sees when we're out. He likes roaring for his dinosaur and he has a black stuffed monkey named "Bounce" that he likes to sleep with. I like seeing him get interested in more boyish things or just not the same things that Claire likes. :)

9. I can't remember how much Claire talked at this point, but it seems like Everett's talking more than she did at this point. He's pretty much talking in full sentences and I love that he can communicate with me. I may be biased, but I just love when he talks and tells me something. It's so cute. :)

10. With Claire being home and me trying to teach her a little here instead of sending her to preschool, Everett joins us for all our activities. I don't know how much he understands but he's picking up stuff I'm sure. He can almost count to ten... it usually goes something like this though: 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 7, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10.

Our 4 Year Old Princess

Since we were traveling home on Claire's birthday, we didn't get to celebrate it until that Saturday evening... 5 days later. All week long I would ask her how old she was, and while we tried to tell her she was already 4, she refused to accept the fact. She told us she wasn't 4 until she ate her cake. So Saturday morning we finally made her cake and we let her have complete creative control of it. She wanted pink (strawberry) cake with purple frosting and pink icing and the little princess candies. She also told me exactly what to write on her cake.

That evening we got together with family. Claire's cousins were so nice and decorated their place with a bunch of princess decorations. The kids had fun blowing bubbles and jumping on the trampoline. Then we opened presents and Claire finally ate her cake. We played more games and spent time with family. Claire was happy and finally willing to admit to everyone that she was now 4. :)

Now some fun facts about Claire...

1. Claire's favorite colors are pink and purple. She will occasionally change her favorite color when we ask, but if she has a choice she will usually pick pink, so I'm pretty sure that is her absolute favorite. Her favorite stuffed animal is also her pink elephant that she's named "Rainbow".

2. Like her mom and dad, Claire has a sweet tooth and loves chocolate. She also loves peanut butter & honey sandwiches. Breakfast is her favorite meal of the day (probably cuz that's when the sweetest food options are available to her). She's a pretty picky eater and I have a hard time getting her to try new things, but she does love pasta, apples, string cheese, fruit snacks, breadsticks and bananas.

3. Claire loves to dance and put on shows for us. She loves to wear her princess dress-ups and dance with her daddy (or Everett if he'll let her). She always wants to dance with the boys or else she doesn't want to dance. :)

4. Speaking of Everett, she has a pretty good relationship with him. Being the oldest, I think it comes naturally, but she tends to be a little bossy with him. She always wants to tell him what to do exactly when they are playing. Sometimes she tries to be the mom and tells him what he needs to do (like during prayers she'll tell him to be quiet and fold his arms). They also like to wrestle a bit (especially when they're supposed to be sleeping) and they are constantly making each other laugh or being silly.
 
5. I'm pretty sure Claire has a little OCDness from her daddy, or maybe it's just a natural kid thing. She's very picky about who helps her and where she sits in Primary. Little things, if not done the right way, seem to bother her a lot.  She's thrown some of her biggest fits because of small silly things like daddy unbuckled her car seat and she wanted mommy to do it. :p

6. Claire loves to draw pictures. I don't know when it happened, but all of a sudden it seems like her pictures really tell stories and aren't just scribbles. I love seeing them and she'll tell us all about them. After we flew on the airplane, she drew pictures of us doing that and I think she's really good, but then I might be a little biased. ;)

7. She got a bike for her birthday and (I think) she's enjoying it. She's still getting the hang of pedaling and steering, and she was starting to get faster until she fell off the other day. She got right back on, but seems to be taking it slower since then.

8. We aren't putting her in any preschool classes this school year, but I'm going to try and teach her at home a little and we'll maybe try another little dance class or other little recreation classes occasionally. She's smart though. She knows her numbers really well and she can write her name. She recognizes many letters, we'll be working on them all this year though. :)

9. She loves swimming and really enjoyed her swimming class. She's always had such a bad gag reflex and so when she got a little water in her mouth during her first swim lesson I was afraid she would keep gagging, but she's learning. We got those puddle jumper floaties and took the kids to Seven Peaks a few times this summer and she loved it. She was pretty independent and liked to swim all by herself if she could.

10. And last, but one of the biggest things (I think) that makes her so fun is her huge imagination. She loves to play pretend and play house. She loves to be the mommy and take care of her babies. She always wants us to play with her, but I still catch her late at night, sometimes after Everett's fallen asleep, still talking to herself, make believing something in her head. :)

nauvoo, part deux

welcome back! last we saw our heroes they were heading to bed after a wonderful nauvoo pageant. the next day was sunday so we were off to church in the morning. after sacrament meeting the entire family of 45 headed over to the temple for pictures. it's a good-looking group. :)

after pictures, we let claire and everett take a quick tour of the outside of the temple. claire was a little upset that she couldn't go inside, but all the pretty flowers on the temple grounds kept her satisfied. we spent the rest of the afternoon hanging around the campground socializing and playing games.

that evening we circled the tables around the campfire and had a big family talent show. there was some wonderful music, brilliant kids were put on display, cool things were made, and many other fantastic talents. the video may be a bit long, but there was just too many fun talents to leave out. after the talent show, we all enjoyed some yummy smores.

the next morning the kids all got their last chance to play together for a long while while the adults broke camp. we said our sad goodbyes as group after group left. right after lunch we said our final goodbyes and hit the road back to st. louis. we made it to denver for our stopover before finding out our last flight was delayed two hours. it made for a fun experience as we all sat around talking and playing in the airport. we finally got to salt lake at 2 am, my awesome brother picked us all up again, and we were finally back in our own beds at 3 am.

it's sad to think that it'll be so long before all of amber's family is together again. this was a big one. family came from all over the world for this one. it really was special. and while amber and i have come to the conclusion that camping is not for us (we hate bugs! - see amber's poor leg in the last picture), it was worth it to make some great memories with those whom we love so dearly.