Artist in Training

Last week we bid $11 on a 4x8 foot maker board at a local auction, and we won! We installed it in the basement, and the kids are having so much fun with it.
I think this is one of the first drawings of a face that Ethan has ever done. We're so proud of him. This one is a happy face. The one to the right is an angry face.

Ethan has been so interested in letters and spelling. He's always asking how to spell words like "Chick Hicks" and "Lightning McQueen" and "Dinaco McQueen" and "The King" and "Mrs The King" and "Dinaco helicoper" etc. He repeats every letter.

Ethan has been using the new marker board to practice writing too. Yes, Ethan did write this all by himself. Okay, Kyle did have to coax him a lot, and had to erase some of the extra lines that shouldn't have been there, but Ethan did all the writing. (btw, it says "I love dad")

We had an early 3rd birthday party for Ethan tonight - his birthday isn't until tomorrow. Jen spent all day Saturday making his cake, and we're really happy with how it turned out. Stay tuned for pictures and details.

Could it be?!

The warm weather we've been having has really made me anxious to get outside and start thinking about our garden. I've already bought some seeds (peas, spinach, broccoli, lettuces) to plant although it will still be a month before I dare risk it.

The kids and I spent some time outside today digging in the dirt and playing outside. I was surprised at how many weeds I found so soon. But what really surprised me was how many tulips are starting to come up.

Spring must be just around the corner! --At least for everyone NOT living in Cache Valley ;)

Valentine's Weekend

Our family just returned from spending a few days in Cache Valley (sadly we were up there in the snow while it was 51 degrees at home). We had a great visit and we got to go on a few dates without the kids.

Thursday, February 12 marked the first time Jen has ever been skiing. Kyle's parents had a ward ski night, and we went up to Beaver Mountain for the evening. After a rough first run learning what to do, Jen really got the hang of it and by the end of the night was consistently making it down the mountain without falling down. We had a great time and hope to make skiing more of a tradition in our family. We saw some 4 and 5 year olds cruising down the mountain . . . maybe in a year or two we'll have to take Ethan.

Friday night, Kyle took Jen on a surprise date to a fancy dinner and Jazz performance with dancing at the Sky Room at USU. It was a little awkward at first, since the average age in the room was probably 60. We didn't mind though, and met a nice couple around our age. We had a great time dining and dancing and we got to show off our dance move. Yeah, we only have one move (just kidding, of course. But not too far from the truth). We really want to make an effort to go dancing more often, though.

On Saturday, we went to Lowe's "Build and Grow" activity to have Ethan build a jewelry rack to give to Mom on Valentine's day. This is a free service Lowe's does for the community every couple of weeks. As you can see in this picture, he was pretty excited to use real tools. He got to keep the glasses and apron too!

He was very intent on the work he was doing.

He was concentrating so hard on getting that nail into the wood that he forgot to smile. This was pretty much his expression the entire time, but he really did have a good time.

After Lowe's, we went Rob and Christin's house to see their new baby girl, Julie. Take a look at their blog to see a plethora of pictures of their little sweetie. While we were there, Rob took Ethan out in the back yard to give him a ride on his four-wheeler. Kyle drove Ethan around the yard a few times. Ethan had a blast riding Scrambler (those of you who are unfortunate enough to be familiar with "Bob the Builder" know what this means). Thanks, Rob.

Notice how much snow there was in the previous picture. We were shocked at how much snow there still is in Logan. We haven't had snow stick on the ground since Christmas at home. It was such a nice afternoon that Ethan and Kyle decided to walk home from church. We passed by the park on our way home and Ethan had to stop and play for a bit. We sure hope we get to enjoy more of this sunny weather this upcoming week.

"Chicken Nug-nuts"

We sure love our sweet kids. It is so fun to see them grow and they make us laugh so much everyday. We had some roasted Parmesan chicken thighs for dinner which we cut up for Ethan and told him were chicken nuggets, remembering he loved the last time we had homemade chicken nuggets. He was excited and said, "Oh! I love chicken nug-nuts! This is just one of the few things he says wrong that we don't have the heart to correct because it is so darn cute! Others are "Carl's June-yair" (Carl's Jr. with a French sounding accent) and "marsh-marshow" (marshmallow).

Ethan put these glasses on the other day and we just had to snap a photo.
She's cute. What more is there to say.
We have been amazed at how much better Ethan has gotten at coloring over the last few months. He still needs a lot of work at staying in the lines, but he is starting to use more colors on one picture and usually he remembers what colors things are supposed to be.


While coloring the picture of Woody and Bo Peep, Ethan insisted that Brooklyn color Bo Peep. She's not too bad of an artist herself.

The other day Ethan out of the blue proclaimed, "I want to color Super Why." He then ran into the office, got on the computer, navigated to the PBS Kids website, found the picture he wanted, printed it, and colored it all by himself. We find it amusing that he can do all this and isn't even three yet, while we probably couldn't do the same task until we were probably ten or so. What are we in for with this kid?!

Ethan and Brooklyn love dancing to one of the songs from Kyle's childhood. We started singing it to Ethan ever since he was able to walk and he loved it. We couldn't remember exactly how it went, but made it our own. We recently heard the original song, but like our version better. Here is a portion of it. This was the first time Brooklyn joined us in dancing to this song. We continue to be amazed at how much better Brooklyn has been getting at walking each week.

(My new apron makes a cameo in the video above. I made it myself! I sure hope my mom is proud.)

Milestones

It seems like Brooklyn's preferred method of transportation has been walking ever since we posted the video of her walking last week. She's getting pretty good at it.

She's got her third tooth poking through and it looks like tooth number four could be here by the end of the week. All teeth so far are on the top, but the bottom gums look pretty swollen.

Her babbling has recently become full of more complex sounds and she seems to be trying to say more words like, cracker, cookie, candy, and diaper. She seemes to be better at communicating what she wants too. For example, last week Jen was cleaning the kitchen, and Brooklyn came to her walking out on her knees holding a diaper and saying "dae da" (her word for diaper). Jen checked her diaper, and sure enough she had a messy diaper. It seemed like she was asking her to change it. Ethan never cared about about his diaper being messy, ever. Clever girl.

Brooklyn's playing has really evolved as well. She is coloring as well as Ethan did at 24 months. She loves to play with Ethan's toys and drive the cars around the room making a car noise. She also likes to "fly" Ethan's Buzz Lightyear around while making the same car noise. So cute.

Today Kyle decided to copy another one of the YouTube video ideas that Ethan loves to watch. We got some of Ethan's Cars characters and did some stop action animation. Ethan LOVES to watch it. As soon as the video finishes, he begs "again!" Here is one of the movies we've done. You'll notice that these cars have been well-loved.

Tonight Ethan was playing with Brooklyn's shopping cart, and we asked him if we should get a play store with food that he and Brooklyn could use to prentend they were at buying things from the store. Ethan got really excited and starting filling up his shopping cart with random toys and assigning prices to them. "This track is $5.00. This tree is $3.00." We may have found a possible present for next Christmas. (We already have his birthday presents for him, which he sort of found yesterday. Oops!)

We just talked with Jen's parents, and our sister-in-law Christin may have just gone into labor as we speak (...or write...). Go Christin!

Two Little Monkeys

Lately, Ethan and Brooklyn have had a night-time ritual of listening to "Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed" while jumping on Ethan's bed. They love it so much. As soon as Brooklyn hears the song turn on, she gets excited and heads for the bed. It's so fun to see them have so much fun together.

One of Ethan's favorite things to do is get on YouTube and watch what he calls "Cars Music." He'll watch all of the different Cars related clips, including clips from the movies, home-videos, and other kids naming their collection of cars. Lately, he has been lining up all of his cars and naming them, so we thought he'd love it if we recorded him. He had such a fun time doing this.

Brooklyn is getting a lot better at walking. Sometimes she'll walk all the way across the room. She seems to prefer to walk on her knees - we'll have to get that on video too.

Last night we decided to give the kids a special treat after dinner - ice cream cones! Although Brooklyn has had ice cream in the past, this was her first ice cream cone, and she absolutely loved it. It was fun to hear her smack her lips as she tried to suck the ice cream out of the cone.


In other news, it looks like Booklyn is about to pop out at least three more teeth. Poor girl.
Brooklyn's girlyness is starting to shine through as well. The other day Jen was putting on makeup, and Brooklyn was very interested in what she was doing. Jen gave her a makeup brush, and Brooklyn started touching her cheeks with it to make herself beautiful.

Ethan is starting to really enjoy being the mom around Brooklyn. Tonight she had chocolate all over her face after eating a cookie and Ethan went and grabbed a tissue and tried to wipe her face. He often gets involved when Jen tells Brooklyn not to do something - "No, Brooklyn." It makes her cry :(
One of Ethan's favorite things to do to help out around the house is to use the mini-vacuum to clean up the Cheerios and other crumbs off of the floor around Brooklyn's high chair (Brooklyn loves to throw her food lately). It's so great to have the kids start to clean up after themselves.
Jen has been exploring some new talents lately. She's learning to crochet, and is really liking it so far. She also finished some sewing projects lately. It is so great to have the kids at ages where they let her have a few minutes to herself throughout the day to do some crafty things. We'll get some pictures posted soon.
Kyle is enjoying having a little extra spare time now that he's done with school. He's been able to pick up a novel for fun for the first time in a long time.

It's Official!

The results are in and Kyle did pass all of his classes in and will be receiving a Masters of Science in Electrical Engineering (DSP and Communications emphasis) from Arizona State University. Thanks to a friend at work that graduated from the same school in the spring, we procured a set of robes and took some photos in celebration. It would have been nice to escape the cold and spend some time in Tempe, but this was fun too.

Kyle is now looking toward the future! (Yeah, we know this is corny.)

Brooklyn cooperated when we took pictures. Ethan did not. As a result, we got some good pictures of her and didn't much of him.

Grandma Taylor gave Brooklyn a shopping cart for Christmas, and we just got around to putting it together. Whenever Kyle gets his tools out, Ethan has to grab his Bob the Builder hat and tools and "help." It makes the job go a little slower, but it sure is fun.

Brooklyn even got a chance to play with the finished shopping cart before Ethan had what he called a "great idea" that she should share with him, and wouldn't let her play with it for the rest of the night.

Ethan has been practicing his coloring lately, and it has made church much more manageable. We print these Cars coloring pages off of the internet, and he colors them throughout Sacrament meeting. Here is some of his artwork from this afternoon. His coloring skills have improved a lot over the last few months. He always seems to color the cars the correct colors too.

And finally, here are a few thoughts from the mind of Ethan:

• "I've got a great idea! Maybe I should share with Brooklyn." (This sounds good in theory, but has yet to really happen.)


• "That would be so cool!"