Four Years

Today is our 4-year anniversary. It has gone by so fast; I still feel like I should be in high school; I frequently have to stop and remind myself that I'm married and have 2 kids. Time flies.

Brian is an amazing person. I have loved being able to spend the past 4 years with him. He is a wonderful husband who never says no when I ask him for help with anything, and I ask all the time. Our children love their Daddy; they have so much fun with him. Brian is a hard worker and good at figuring things out. He's been working at USAA for 2 years, promoted once, and has worked on three different "teams," learning new things every day.

Thanks, Hun, for all you do; I love you!

Happy Birthday, Mia!

Today our niece Mia turns 2 years old. She's a cute little smart girl who tries to keep up with her 3 older siblings. I can't believe that she's already potty-trained! Mia was fun to see when we went to Yuma for Christmas (when we got to meet her for the first time!); she loved baby Joshua. I hope we don't have to wait that long before we see her again. Have a happy day, little girl!

Milestone

My baby took his first step on Saturday! He's made some progress in the past 3 days:



And I must say that Joshua is quite the performer. I stood him up then backed away while I turned the camera on. He just stood there, waiting for me to beckon to him. It's like he knew he was being recorded! This was seriously the most he's walked in one go. This was the only footage taken. Then afterwards, when I was watching it on the camera, he came over because he wanted to see himself!

Oh, and Joshua can throw a ball, too (performing nicely for the camera again):

My First Videos on Blogger!

Alright, so here is Joshua playing with his Elmo toy that he got from Grandma and Papa Vance. You have to press a button on the microphone to get it to work, and most of the time Joshua is just lucky and winds up pressing the button just by the way he's holding it. He's pretty good.



Kara dancing with a stuffed bear. She had about 6 more bears sitting on the couch, waiting their turns to dance with her. Kara wanted me to "make a movie" of her dancing with each one, but I convinced her that one was enough.

Happy Birthday, Kymry!

My sister-in-law Kymry's birthday is today. She's a kind person who's lots of fun. She's married to Brian's older brother Dustin, and they have a cute baby girl named Kaylin. We haven't seen their family in about a year and a half, so we're looking forward to the next time we can get together. I hope you have a great day, Kymry!

Goodbye, Grampy!

My grandfather passed away last night. I have fond childhood memories of going to my grandparents' house and being spoiled all day and then getting to spend the night. They served at the Washington, D.C. temple when I was very young and allowed my family to live in their home while they were away. Grampy was a temple sealer and was even able to seal my sister to her husband in 1998. I have always received birthday and Christmas cards from my grandfather, and it was nice to know that he was thinking of me. Now he is reuniting with his wife. I'll miss you, Grampy!

Fun at the Zoo

We went to the zoo a few weeks ago (with our wonderful season passes), and I'm finally getting around to post pictures of it. It was a great day. The weather was just perfect, and the kids were well-behaved the whole time. They loved it!



This hippo was right up against the glass; it was really neat seeing it up close.


Zebras are so pretty.


Joshua had fun with the prairie dogs.



"It's gonna eat me!"


This is what a fish looks like:


They both crashed on the drive home.

Oops!

This is what Joshua dumped out this morning:



I must admit that I did give Joshua the bottle of baby oil to play with, but I swear I screwed the lid on really tight! I turned around for a minute to finish doing something with Kara, and when I turned back around, Joshua was sitting on the floor with the nearly-empty (but not completely!) bottle open and with oil on his lap, on the floor between his legs, and a little bit smeared on his face. He is NOT old enough to know how to twist caps off things yet!!! But I guess I'm wrong. And I'm glad I know for the future. The good things were that it was only a little 1-ounce bottle; the spill was just in a little area on easily-cleanable vinyl; he was just sitting there, waiting for me to clean up the mess, and he wasn't playing in it or crawling around, spreading it everywhere; if he did take a taste, it had to have been just a little; and if he did ingest any, this stuff is probably one of the safest out there.

Children are guaranteed to get into things and make messes unsupervised, but I've been blessed so far with well-behaving Kara. She has colored on a wall once (but it was only in pencil!), and she did eat a little lanolin, but no Vaseline hair (my little sister did that) or Tang on the carpet (see my sister Angela's blog) yet. Joshua's starting the mess-making early apparently. Thanks for keeping me on my toes, Buddy!

Kara's Imaginary Friend

This morning Kara said to me, while pointing, "Look, Mama, that's my friend."
Me: "Oh, really? What's your friend's name?"
Kara: "Um, Caleb because he's a baby." (Caleb is Joshua's middle name.)
Then I guess she changed her mind because next she said, "He's big."
Me: "Is he this tall?" (taller than Kara)
Kara: "Yeah. There's your friend over there."
Me: "What's my friend's name?"
Kara: "Caleb, too."

Do you think they look alike?

Kara and Joshua each at about 9 months: