Little Livi, the 3 year old...

We are officially out of the terrible two's... let's hope we are not entering the even-more-terrible three's...

On Saturday we went to Fat Cats to play a game of bowling to celebrate Liv's birthday. The kids had a smashing time. (Like literally smashing... Liv dropped my 11 pound ball on my foot. That does not feel good by the way.)


Jason tried to teach Sam a little technique... wasn't overly successful.

Obviously not our best game... but it was still fun!

I love bowling shoes. I want some.

After bowling, Liv asked if we could get ice cream. It was dinnertime. Aagh, ice cream for dinner sounds delicious to me! So we went to BYU Creamery... yep, delicious as presumed... (and an awesome dinner I might add.)

Sunday morning after Jason returned from his 7 AM meeting, we had present time. I love how kids find more thrill in ripping open all the presents, then after all are open, take the time to actually look at what they got!

Livia got some of her favorite things... bubbles, stickers, chapstick, nail polish, books, and a movie.


As is tradition, the birthday girl got to pick her birthday dinner.

Yep, mini corn dogs. Not as delish as last night, but it works. I'm sure Jason is not sad to have missed it by leaving on his business trip earlier today...


She's been asking for strawberry cake for a while now... I think she may have been inspired by her Strawberry Shortcake undies... since she loves the one pair she has... and has been asking for schtawbewwy cake for weeks now.

Too bad she'll only eat the frosting.

And Sam will only eat the cupcake.
My kids are weird.

Happy Birthday little crazy head!

fire it up!

Last Thursday we used our Christmas present with Jason's parents and went to the circus that came to Salt Lake.

Liv may have been a little too young, she lost interest a lot faster than I expected. She basically just wanted to find snacks and eat the whole time we were there.

But Sam loved it! He loves elephants so was really excited to see so many of them in real life!



Here is a guy getting lit on fire and shooting through the air. That was pretty cool.


And here's the grand finale.

I forgot to pull out my camera until the last little bit, but there were some fun things happening. The tigers were fun to see and the spinning guys that looked like they were in hamster wheels, (obviously I don't know the official name....)

The clowns.... well, let's just say I could've done without them....

But we had lots of fun, so thanks Mom and Dad Cook!

And I still have their little theme song in my head.... fire it up! fire it up! Yeah, that's pretty much the whole song.

'Fantastic' Sam

After school today, I asked Sam if he wanted to finish his cutting and gluing activity that he started yesterday in school but didn't have time to finish. As he started to cut the last few shapes Livia asked if she could help him. So I got out more paper and drew some shapes for her to cut out too.



While they were cutting, Annie got a little fussy, so I took her upstairs, changed her diaper, fed her and laid her down for a nap.



I came back down to start lunch. As I was putting the dino nuggets on the baking sheet, Sam tells me, (all excited and proud of himself as he's speaking,) "Livia told me to cut her hair. So I did!"

I stopped. I looked at him and said, "Are you kidding?" I quickly went over to Livia as he smiled and told me he sure wasn't!

Sure enough...



Well, at least now we know that Sam will not make a fantastic hair stylist any time soon.



PS Since I'm fully aware that this could have been so much worse, I actually had to turn my head several times so they wouldn't see me laughing, since I was trying to show them I was upset so that they don't do it again. I guess we'll see how bad it is in a couple of hours when I need to comb her hair to go to the circus tonight....

Norwegian Babes

Way back in the mid 70s my Grandma and Grandpa Riskedahl took a little trip to Norway. They brought back a little outfit for their first grandchild (who happens to by my oldest sister, Ronda.) It was a quaint little outfit, highly comparable to a baby Santa Claus suit.

Well, my sweet mother, had a picture taken of Ronda in this little outfit. Then she had one for Leesa, then Jill, then me, and of course Andrew.

All growing up we had a line up of 5 babies in this little Norwegian suit. (And I'm still stunned that so many people would ask, "Which baby is this?" when they'd look at all 5. Really? You can't tell that's 5 different babies?)

Shortly before my oldest niece, Addison, was born, the suit was found again... and the tradition continues. And now all of the nieces and nephews get a picture taken in the little red and white suit.

Sorry for Sam's picture, I pulled it from his scrapbook. (The good news: I'm not 5 years behind on all scrapbooking!!)

Sam: (July 2006, 2 mos.)


And Livia: (Jan 2009, 4 mos.)

And now Annalee: (September 2011, 4 mos.)

And if you thought seeing 5 babies in a row dressed in the same funny outfit was an eye-catcher.... you should see grandbaby row... Annie is #13, and #14 is almost ready for his glamour shot too.

Lucky my mom has a really long wall downstairs.


UPDATE:
So my sister saw this post and asked if I wanted a picture she had taken of the kids playing that had all the pictures in the background. This is up to Liv's picture, so there are only 11 instead of 14.

happy little treasure boxes

My kids seem to like random "treasures" like rocks and sticks and random pieces of plastic they find in parking lots... and they always want to keep them, because they are "so special!"

My neighbor told me her kids do the same thing... so I made some cute little boxes for them to put all their special souvenirs in... and once it's full, well, no more special treasures get to be saved....

Here's the one I made for Liv's little friend, Jamison.


His sisters made theirs, but I didn't get pictures of them. And Sam's never actually got finished yet. (I'll get there....)

And here's Livia's:


Liv picked this paper, and I took the liberty to make it presentable for her. (She's not so awesome with scissors, glue and tape yet.)



And I actually had fun doing it! But now I'm worried she'll get my cute little box that I worked so hard on dirty, or break it or something....

Let it go, Sally. Let it go.

I spy. Finally.

I love starting projects.

And even more so... I love when I actually finish them!

In Relief Society (I'm embarrassed to admit this, but probably about 1.5 - 2 years ago) we did an activity to make I spy quilts. It involved 12 women who each brought 12 squares of 12 different fabrics (for a total of 144 squares per person.) Then we each swapped, giving one of each fabric square to all the others.

The night of the activity was spent cutting out the squares, then we were on our own. Oh, 2009, you seem so long ago...

But I sewed them all together shortly after, and even added a couple more rows of extra fabric I had at home. I sewed a back for it. I bought the batting. And I put it all nicely in a bag. Where it has stayed for a long time.

And last night, I did it. I finished it! Why did it take me so long to put it all together? Well, because I'm me. :)


The cool thing about I spy quilts is each square is accompanied by a little card with a piece of the same fabric on it. And you play little games with it. You can separate the cards and each team has to find its match, or you can do games with different colors or pictures. I was given a whole stack of papers with games to play with it. (Now I just need to find where I put the game ideas and the little laminated cards...)


When I was making the back, I was going to have to piece it anyway, so I decided to add an extra game back there. What kid doesn't love tic-tac-toe? I made little cards with Xs and Os as well.

So now I guess I just need to teach my kiddos how to actually play tic-tac-toe....

laborin' away at deer creek

For the last few years on Labor Day we have done a day of boating and jet skiing at Deer Creek with Jason's family. This year we did it the Saturday before, which was good thanks to the weather. (Last year was just down right cold on Labor Day, so it was nice to have lots of sun this time!)

Jason fell in love with the jet ski (different than a wave runner... didn't know these things existed, you kneel or stand instead of sit.) Which I realized I never got a picture of, which is funny since Jason was on it half the time we were there! I went on it for a short trip, and it really is pretty fun! Until my legs fell asleep cuz I'm not adventurous enough to stand...

The kids of course loved it. Even Annie enjoyed the day. Until she got whacked in the head by an AWOL frisbee... And no, she wasn't in her car seat ALL day, just when she napped. And a little bit here and there.



Livia didn't want to go near the water or on the boat or anything since it's "too scawey" and "my don't like it" which she says for EVERYTHING!! So she hung out by the snack table instead....


Sam found his cousin Andrew (who is behind him in the water) and we hardly saw him again. They were inseparable, playing in the sand, playing in the water, he loved it. Andrew did convince him to get in the boat, but that only lasted less than 10 minutes... just enough time to go rescue Aunt Shelly and the gas-less jet ski and bring them back to shore. Then he was done boating....


On the way home, we found a little friend that our nephew, Brigham, apparently put in our towel. This little guy was climbing up Livia's window, and due to her over-exhaustion, she was not a fan.... Then he found her car seat. That's when freaked out progressed to terrified...



You can see the caterpillar a little bit on the side of her carseat. And who knew anyone could lift their legs like that!
I should have been a good mother and rescued her right away, but I thought it was too funny. She was scared he was going to bite her. When I gave it to Sam, all was well in everyone's world again.

4 months later....

My sweet little baby is four months old! I can't believe how fast time flies!


She's still sweet as can be... but it's hard to think of the sweetness with her frequent night time mommy needs. Lately she's been waking up every three hours or less during the night. It's not making me a very pleasant mommy....

We'll be working on that this weekend, since we'll have three straight days of no need to wake up early for work or school. I'm not excited about that. But I am excited to start sleeping most of the night!