It's Been Awhile...

I realized tonight that the last time I uploaded pictures from our camera to our computer was a month and a half ago! I pulled out the camera and found out we only had 34 pictures on there anyway...though I did have another 40ish on my phone. I definitely need to start pulling out the camera more!

It's been a long while since I've done an update on us, so here's a little of what's been going on with each of us...

Ellie:
-is 16 months now. As of about a month ago, she weighed 20 lbs 9 oz and was about 28".
- talking up a storm! Her vocabulary includes (but is certainly not limited) to- hi and bye (hi-you, bye-you), thank you, bath, ball, shoes, Audrey (her bff), see you later (see ooh ater), mom, dad, doggy, chickie, cheese, and choo choo. She understands much much more than this. It still catches me off guard when I say something complicated and she responds appropriately.
- is off the bottle!!! Quite by accident and definitely without trying, Ellie has been bottle free for over a week now. We just happened to reach nap time and bed time one day when she was exhausted so we didn't even bother with the bottle. She went to sleep fine both times and hasn't even asked for a bottle since. Yay!
- thinks she's one of the big kids. She LOVES doing anything and everything with Emma and Matthew, and any older kid for that matter. She is quite the little daredevil!
- Loves shoes. If she sees shoes, she will put them on. And if she doesn't see shoes, she'll go in her room and pick the first two shoes she sees and put them on by herself.
- has some seriously awesome dance moves. Any time she hears music, she immediately starts dancing, head banging, and/or spinning. It's hilarious.
-  loves jumping. She can actually jump and get both feet off the ground. It's hilarious to watch. She also has a thing for trampolines.
- also loves reading. She is perfectly content to plop down anywhere with a big stack of books and flip through the pages while she babbles and occasionally forces out a very cheesy laugh. 
- is obsessed with my phone. She loves pretending to talk on it (and anything else that even slightly resembles a phone), and scroll through the pictures and videos. One day recently, she picked it up, held it in front of her and said cheese like she was taking a picture. Then she immediately put it up to her ear and started talking. She's got it all figured out!
- refuses to sit in her high chair or booster at the table. It's a real chair like the rest of us, or she refuses to eat. 

Ellie, her bff Audrey, and Emma

Matthew:

- is still loving preschool. He is getting better at recognizing letters, and writing and spelling his name.

 1st day of preschool

 

- has several bff's....Eva, Nico, Keller, Brady, Tommy, and his cousin Owen.
- has some seriously crazy mood swings. He can be super sweet and affectionate one minute, and then the next he's yelling and crying and "mean" at everybody. I can't remember if Emma was like this at this age, but I hope it's something he grows out of!
- is definitely my most sweet, sensitive, and cuddly child...always has been. He loves to give hugs and kisses to everybody and always gets sad when people leave, even if it was someone that just came to our door for a minute. He often tells people in a very sad voice that he's going to miss them so so much when they leave.
- is adventurous. He loves playing all sorts of games and make believe...usually they involve making mud in the backyard. Sigh....  I love his imagination though.
- is slowly but steadily growing. At almost 4 1/2 he's up to a whopping 28 lbs (fully dressed) and is 36 1/2" tall. Our most effective way to get him to eat is to remind him that if he doesn't eat, he won't grow, and if he doesn't grow he won't be tall enough to go in the Ikea play place. You have to be 37" to get in, and he's been dying to go in with Emma for the last 2 years. He's SO SO close now!

Emma:

- is a super reader. She recently discovered the Judy Moody books and loves those. She will read anything and everything she can get her hands on...magazines, signs, cereal boxes...everything. She also reads several chapters a night from the scriptures. The girl loves reading...it reminds me a lot of myself as child, which secretly makes me happy.
- is doing awesome in gymnastics and loves showing off everything she can do.
- loves playing games. Her two favorites are Uno and Monopoly.
- has become much more helpful lately. She is usually happy to help and clean up and especially loves helping take care of Ellie.
- loves singing, dancing, and drawing...and is very good at all three. And she's not shy about admitting it.  :) 

Sarah:

-teaching the 10-11 year old Primary class at church.
-loving the routine of school and the fact that Ellie is down to one nap a day.
- fighting with our chickens over our garden space. After cleaning out the summer garden and planting our fall garden (broccoli, carrots, onions, lettuce, and spinach), the chickens figured out how to get out of their yard and into my carefully planted garden. A long battle ensued...we'd secure their yard and replant, they'd get out again, we'd secure it even more, they'd get out again. But we finally won after putting netting over their yard...and my garden is growing nicely again. Turns out one of them was flying over the 6+ foot  fence. Sheesh!
- and that's about it.  :) 

Jon:

- still the Assistant Scout Master at church
- working on Peabody and Sherman at work. It comes out in a year, so it'll keep him busy for awhile.
- taking good care of the chickens and his lizards, making Halloween pinatas, mountain biking, and landscaping our yard in his spare time.

Sunday afternoon trip to walk around the temple

Emma and Brady, the boy she insists she is going to marry.

Breakfast movie pajama party on a no-school day!

Official candy inspector....it's a tough job, but somebody's gotta do it.

Our church park group took a tour of the fire station, which was a lot of fun.

Matthew and Eva...can you believe they're the same age?!

Swimming at Owen's birthday party last weekend.

Memories

My very first memory was from when I was 3 years old. I was at joy school (preschool) and they were having all of the kids make their hand and foot prints in paint to put in a memory book. I did my hand prints, but for some reason I did not want to take off my shoes and socks to do my foot prints. I was always very painfully shy as a child, so I don't know if I was embarrassed to take off my shoes (sounds silly I know, but it's entirely possible) or if I was worried that my mom would be mad if I got paint on my feet, but whatever the reason, I did NOT want to do my foot prints. I very vividly remember the way I felt, and I remember a few little details about the room we were in. After some coaxing, the teacher finally realized, much to my relief, that I really did not want to do my foot prints in the paint, so she offered to trace my foot on the paper instead. I still have that page with those prints on it.

I got thinking about this memory the other day, and then let my mind wander to other childhood memories. I remember moving into our second house in Texas. I remember a lot of things from Kindergarten...listening to Brown Bear, Brown Bear on a record with those massive headphones they used to have, circle time on the ABC mat, the time I peed my pants in front of the whole class because Missy wouldn't unlock the bathroom door in our classroom..., I remember random little details about our house and the games I played with my siblings. The more I reflect on my childhood, the more I remember.

And then it hit me the other day that all these memories happened when I was the same age or younger than my kids are now. Twenty years from now, my kids could look back and remember things that are happening in their life right now! That was a really strange realization for me. And it made me want to try harder to be better, to be more aware of the way I talk and the spirit that is in our home. I don't know if it's this way for everyone, but for me the most vivid part of my memories is the way I felt. I do have happy memories from my childhood, but a huge majority of my memories are times that I felt really embarrassed or shy. I want my kids to feel happy and confident about who they are. I want them to remember the good times, to have happy memories of our family together- talking, playing, working. I want them to be able to look back and feel joy.

So tonight, I'm grateful for this new perspective and the chance to re-examine my priorities.