Landon's Buddy

Somehow in the past few months, Landon and Jackson have just hit it off.  We went to the park last week w/ them and they were just having a blast chasing each other around. Last night we had an Elders Quorum Activity and Landon had so much fun playing with Jackson - "come with me!". They're a great little pair! 

And oh hooray for the beautiful Spring time weather!

Latest Projects...

Our cupboards really are (soon were!) that yucky - oh dear! But w/ some new paint and lining, they will be just beautiful! We've been debating for a while about how to improve our kitchen - what sort of new floorplan/appliances/cabinets/counters... Finally, (after some frustration w/ me not being able to make up my mind!) Jordan just got to work with some paint and w/ such a huge improvement from that alone, we decided to stick with it. So hooray for a house under construction again and soon to be beautiful *new* cupboards! :)

We also decided to put down a new floor, so coming soon will be some great before and after pics -- so far we're about half way there. It's looking pretty different - we're both hoping we'll love it when it's done!

The Sweetest Prayer

Landon said his prayers all by himself tonight...

"Heavenly Father. 

Thank thee for Mommy to be our Mommy. 

Thank thee for Daddy to be our Daddy.  

And thank thee for our Ellie. 

And thank thee for our Landon. 

Name of Jesus Christ Amen."

He was proud of himself for folding his arms and closing his eyes, but when he remembered that he'd forgotten to bow his head, he had to sit up and say his prayer one more time. 

Oh what a tender boy!

Landon Quote Wall

Jordan just found this note I'd jotted down on a post it a few months ago -- I'd gotten up to go do some chores after playing with Landon and he ran behind me saying, 

"Come back! I have a duck for you!"

Last week on our date night, we went to the Olive Garden. Landon was getting pretty wild, so we were grateful that they brought out the salad and breadsticks pretty quickly. Especially when Landon grabbed a breadstick and started eating it, saying - 

"The bread is helping my sillys go away!"

After watching Tigger and Pooh...

"Landon, do you want to stretch with me?"

"Um... no. Stretching is not what Landon's do best."

His latest response to my requests to be careful -

 "I will be careful someday Mommy."

Jumping through his maze of boxes, 

"This is very fun - you should try it Mommy!"

This is Landon's new favorite game to play -- every time he does it I cringe the first few times, thinking I really should probably stop him before he breaks his neck...it's hard sometimes to be the mom of a rambunctious boy! This was pretty sweet though - I had to bring Ellie right over by Landon's request and each time he jumped out, he'd run give her a kiss and before he dived  in again, made sure she was watching him-  "You ready Ellie?"

A Success! :)

My first attempt, at last, at homemade bread! I've had a breadmaker from Shauna sitting in the cupboard for about 8 months now and finally decided to give it a try. I knew breadmakers were supposed to make it easier, but I didn't realize that they do the entire job. I think it took 3 minutes to get this ready. Delicious! :)

Two Months Old! :)

How do these kids grow so fast?!? Here's our little Ellie, a little blurry...and a little silly w/ a fresh out of the tub curly do...

I'll have to get some better pictures :)

But, oh this little girl is a sweetheart! Yesterday and today she gave us her first little giggles and she is just full of happiness and smiles. She loves to have little conversations of "ooohs" with us and gives such sweet smiles in return. She's still such a mild and precious little girl! She's getting a little more used to Landon and likes to watch him play (which he just gets a kick out of!) and she'll often be calmed down by his ABC's song or him shaking one of her rattles "I have to shake it to make her feel better..." he says. :)

She's just a sweetheart through and through!

Salt Lake Vacation

Last weekend Jordan had a Ruby conference up in Salt Lake and we decided to make it a fun little vacation. While he was at the conference, Landon Ellie and I played around and then we all hung out after his classes were over on Friday and Saturday. April even came down on Saturday to play with us too! :)

Playing at the hotel...

I didn't get any pictures, but Landons favorite thing was playing in the hotel pool with Jordan -- he was just giggling with happiness even in the freezing cold water. :)

At the library... I love going to the Salt Lake library because it is just such a cool building. In their kids section they have a few little reading rooms that are super cute too. We got there as they opened so Landon found the tree house room with all of the Animals nicely set out -- he quickly took them all from there places and put them all down to nap around the room w/ a sweet "good night Mickey Mouse... good night panda bear..."

At the St. Patrick's Day parade... April discovered this and it was super fun. They had lots of Irish dancers (I never knew so many little girls even did Irish!) and bagpipers and a bunch of kind of random groups that were fun to see. 


At the zoo... you can't see so much with the glare, but this is the monkey exhibit -- Landon fit right in. :) Landon was the most excited to see the elephants. 


We also went to Temple Square (It doesn't look like this yet w/ all the Spring flowers, but soon enough...! :) and we got to  show Landon all of the pictures of Jesus in the visitors center. (We also tried out the Lion House and the Nauvoo Cafe, both very yummy. :)

April  found a fun little British shop and we tried a few new treats -- 

(Not such a fan of the Turkish Delight -- it leaves kind of a soapy after taste...)
Pretty fun - the minty part inside is made up of all these little airy bubbles. Yum! 

This was my first big thing w/ both Ellie and Landon mostly by myself and it turned out to be lots of fun! :)

Cracking us up

This little kiddo is getting such a funny sense of humor. He loves to be silly and make jokes by filling in the blanks of phrases he knows with random words. It started with the ABC's (His favorite song -- we here this all day, every day because every other song he sings is also sung to this tune "I no take a nap I no take a nap I no take a nap nap..." or driving in the car, "cars and mountains, sign , store, big truck, big truck tree-ees")
But he loves to sing something like this " a b c d e f.... V! Veeeee?!? That's silly!" then he laughs and starts again "a b c d e f... car!" etc. :) Lately at night when we say the 'rules of the new bed', he loves to fill in the blanks at the end instead of 'self', it's "Go to sleep all by my big... Wall!!! All by my big... puzzle! All by my big... Mommy!"
Funny kiddo! :)

Yesterday, Landon wanted to go and play outside and I told him that was fine, but he'd have to play all by his big self because Daddy was working. He came in a few minutes later saying "You want to play with me Mommy?" before I could tell him I was still finishing my chores, he asked "You want to be my friend?" You just can't say no to that!! So I went outside and asked if Jordan had sent him in to say that - he hadn't but apparently Landon had been causing more mischief because when I'd sent him out originally, he'd gone right outside and told Jordan "Mommy says stop working!" This boy loves to play with his Mommy and Daddy!

Mormon Messages

I just discovered these "Mormon Messages" on youtube a few weeks ago when there was a really great one by Elder Holland about love (around Valentine's Day). There's also a neat one w/ President Hinckley telling a sweet story from his father and one w/ President Uchtdorf's talk from the last Relief Society Broadcast. Here's one about the temple -->

YouTube - Mormon Messages: Why Mormons Build Temples

Adventuring w/ our new stroller!

Just for Fun

I was finally cleaning out my primary closet on Sunday and found these - I had to put them up because they just cracked me up. :)

I was teaching the song "Home" and had each of the classes draw a picture for one line of the song to help teach the rest of the kids that line.  So, here's the first verse...

Home is where the heart is, where warmth and love abound.

Home is where warm circling arms go all the way around.

Yep, those are arms -- with flames -- circling the house... I bet you can guess which one was the 8-year-old girls and which one was the 10-year-old boys. :) 

Amazing!

We just got this Mother Goose book and Jordan has been reading the poems to Landon for the last few days.  Yesterday and today, Landon wowed us in saying them back to us almost totally memorized! I had taught him the "Hey Diddle Diddle" one a few months ago and he loves to say it, but this time he just heard them a couple of times and knew them - it must be those good old rhymes! :)

And another wow for us -- for the past few days, I started singing "Families can be Together Forever" to Landon for his night time song - today I asked him to sing it to Jordan (knowing that he'd learned the first line) and he went ahead and sang the whole thing! I'd just tell him the first word of each line and he sang all the rest! 

What an amazing little kiddo! :)

(This week, I've been trying to spend more time one-on-one doing fun things w/ Landon. Here he is w/ his shapes picture that we made together yesterday morning. :)

Success!!!

Jordan has been trying to lose some weight for a long time and we've tried lots of different healthy eating plans... but haven't been able to stick with any of them. But, we finally came up with the perfect diet -- Jordan eats exactly what I eat. 

This is great for me, because now that somebody else knows every time I grab a treat for a snack, I'm more motivated to think of something better to snack on than mini-candy bars. And it's been super great for Jordan. We've been doing this for 2 weeks and he's been able to really stick with it and he's already lost 10 pounds! Hooray for my sweetheart! :)

(Just for fun -- this is Jordan's home office. He gave up his fancy L-shaped desk for this set-up w/ our stationary bike a few months ago so that he can get some good exercise while he programs away all day. :)

Spring is in the air!

Just look at those happy spring-time temperatures! :) We've been loving to get outside this past week or so. Jordan even got to go and sit in the backyard to work while enjoying the sunshine for a couple of hours last week (Hooray, yet again, for a telecommuting job!) 

We went out on our first adventure with Ellie this weekend with a rollerblading trip along the river trail and then out for a great walk along there yesterday w/ April too. Tonight Jordan took Landon and Ellie out for a run while I went to my water aerobics class (Hooray for getting to go back at last!) And, we've just gotten to spend more time outside and let Landon get some of his energy out in running around.

Such beautiful days!

First Smiles!

I just got my first smiles from Ellie yesterday and today she was such a happy girl - she let me get lots of cute pics. :) Oh, she's a sweetheart!