Visiting Daddy at work

 These guys have really been missing Daddy lately.  He has been a little busier at work and they kids have definitely noticed.  He has to work late tonight so we brought him dinner earlier.  The kids were very excited to see him!  When Jonah ran up to Tom he said "love you."  It was so sweet.

Poor Harper kept asking him to come home with us.  Tom is such a great Daddy!

turn that frown upside down

We were having a rough day today.  I have been trying to keep this saying in mind every day, and especially on the hard ones, so instead of sitting around thinking about the pile of dirty laundry on my bedroom floor we headed over to the temple and visitor's center.

 I was looking to feel some peace.  And, even though my kids were running around like crazy people, I felt a feeling of comfort and reassurance.  And also a feeling of love toward my kids (even though they were driving me crazy).

 They have this little computer coloring table that the kids enjoy.

I love that the people working in the visitor's center are so friendly.  It is such a helpful and welcoming thing to experience when we walk in the building, and it is something that I would like to be better at.

Yum

We love lunch at Cafe Rio with our friends!

20 Months

Jonah is so funny these days.  He is a lot less baby-like and is constantly saying new words.  I tried to start writing down all of his new words that he was learning, but I couldn't keep track.  He has even started to say little sentences.  One of his favorite new words is "mine" which has led to an increase in arguments with Harper.

He loves cars, buses, trucks, trains, etc. and likes to push them around the house.  One of his favorite things to do is to fill up his lis little bus with Sesame Street characters and push it around his room.

He also loves to read books and I find him like this several times a day.

He has been going through a very clingy stage and constantly wants to be in someone's lap.  Here he is leaning on my knee.  

He is very sweet and will walk over to me and give me kisses or hugs.

We love this little guy.  He is pretty easy going and is always laughing about something.

Valentine's day, park, bikes, etc.

What we've been doing . . .

Making cookies at Harper's friends "the Kates."  Kate was nice enough to share her princess dresses.

 Kate's mom Morgan made the girls these cute little aprons.  Harper has worn hers pretty much every day.

 Goofing off in the kids room.  I love that the kids have a fairly big bedroom because we spend a lot of time playing in there and the kids love it.

 Opening Valentine's cards.  Harper was in a pretty bad mood here but she thought they were very special.

 Riding bikes in the church parking lot.  Since we live in an urban-ish area, most people don't have anywhere for their kids to ride bikes so sometimes people will get together in the church parking lot.  Jonah had a good time pushing Harper around on the bike.  Harper enjoyed being chauffeured.

 Tom was able to join us, even though it was Friday afternoon.  Yay!

 Our neighbors have been doing some kind of construction for the last few months.  It is very loud and wakes Jonah up which leads to a very cranky little boy by early evening.

 This morning we were able to have a little picnic at the park.

I am going to try to make more posts so that I don't get behind which makes me not want to post.  I'm working on it.

Utah Trip

I am a little behind on posting, but better late than never.

In December Southwest had some really cheap tickets, but we had to leave on January 24th and come back on January 31st (my birthday) so that's what we did.  I didn't really think about the fact that it is the middle of winter and it would be cold but it wasn't too terribly cold.

Jonah was very excited to be in Utah!

 Harper's hair pretty much looked like this most of the time we were there.  Mine didn't look much better.

 Kelly is going to be so happy that I posted this picture.

 My Grandparents were able to come by for a visit, which I always love.  They are so great.

 We spent lots of time goofing around at Grandma's house.

 On Saturday we went bowling at Fat Cats.  Harper pretty much thought it was the best thing ever.  Here she is in her bowling shoes.

 Here she is bowling:

 And then we had pizza.  These guys love pizza.

 Here is my brother Chase with his girlfriend Makay.  Harper really took to Makay and has been asking about her since we got home.

 The kids had TONS of fun with their cousins.  Hailey is about a year older than Harper and Gavin is about a year older than Jonah.

 We took some more senior photos for Carly since I wasn't happy with how few of them turned out last time.  We got lots of good ones (Carly, I will send them soon).

We got to visit with my Dad for a few hours.  Jonah was not in the best mood since he had fallen asleep in the car on the way there.  

 My Grandparents brought over these computers and Jonah and Harper had a great time playing with them.

Dual monitors.  

The kids reading with Grandma.  

 I left the afternoon of my birthday so I was able to go to lunch with my Mom, Eric, and my kids which was really nice.

I even got to enjoy a 25 hour birthday since I gained an hour when I flew back to LA :)

Cafe Rio + Park

Tom has been pretty busy lately at work and the kids have really been missing him, since he is frequently not home before they go to bed, so we made an effort to get out of the house and do something fun today.  We went down to Manhattan Beach to Cafe Rio and then to a nearby park to play for a little bit.

Notice in the last photo that Jonah is a little short on teeth. Until a couple of days ago he only had six teeth (most of his little friends his age have a mouthful), and we have been amazed at what he can eat without molars.  But last week the top two molars broke through and this week he got two on the bottom.

These guys love Cafe Rio tortillas.

I only got one photo of Harper, oops.

Tom was getting annoyed that I was taking pictures.

Jonah loves to go down the slide.  He will sit at the top and say, "Two, three, wee!"

Jonah saw this, thought it was a ball, and kept trying to pick it up.  He was not successful.

Recent

I haven't been posting much because we haven't been doing much.

Jonah is now 19 months and he is such a little motor mouth.  He is constantly jabbering nonsense, with an occasional word thrown in.  He now says things like I see you, snack, sock, shoe, show, yuck, love you, car, truck, choo choo, up, down, out, etc.  He can probably say 30-40 different words right now and he makes good use of them.

Whenever he sees an open door or something he says "BEEP!" really loud.  At first I couldn't figure out what he was trying to say, but when we close a door and he is in the way we say "beep beep beep" so he will move.  He is constantly saying BEEP and then closing something.

Jonah has taken after his Daddy and loves burritos.

He LOVES Daddy.  In fact he is standing right next to me and when he saw this picture he gasped and yelled "Daddy!"

A couple of weeks ago we went out for Chinese food and discovered that both kids are big fans of orange chicken.  Harper will eat so few foods that it is always exciting to find something new for her to eat, even if it is just a slightly different version of another food she likes.  We told her they were orange chicken nuggets.

Other than that we haven't been doing much.  Tom has been pretty busy at work and the kids and I are headed to Utah next week.

In preparation for the trip I finished this bag the other day.  It involved a lot of bent pins, bloody fingers, and sore shoulders, but it is done and it is huge.  I am excited to take it to Utah, I just hope it doesn't fall apart on the way there!