So Sweet

This picture was taken last August when we were on a trip to Bear Lake and staying in a hotel. Some days I am so short on patience that I need pictures of my children when they are sleeping to remind me of how sweet they really are, and I especially love this picture with Ruby and Jakers all snuggled up together...they are the best of friends. I have even heard Ruby recently say that Jakers is her best friend. I hope it sticks, but I'm sure there will be times in their lives where they may not think they are friends. My older sister and I were, most of the time, really good friends. I'm sure though, that I was sometimes the annoying little sister who always wanted to tag along, and I remember even being bribed by my sister that she would give me her eraser collection (yes, I really did have an eraser collection...I know...pretty nerdy:)) if I would do her Saturday chores. And I did it...I wonder what Jakers has in store for him coming from HIS older sister. Kids are great!

Miles

Miles as a 1 year old!!

Jakers, Jersie, Miles, Ruby, and Savannah

Getting a taste of the cake

He enjoyed playing in it more than actually eating it!

He requested a monkey cake, so I made him one.

I can't believe my baby is one already!! It seems like the time goes faster with each child, and I feel bad because he has hardly any pictures of himself in the last year. I'm almost a month late posting this, but we did have a little birthday celebration for him. I decided to make him a monkey cake entirely because he requested it. How, you may wonder, does a barely one year old request a monkey birthday cake? Well, this is what happened. It was the morning of his birthday, and Jacob asked me if we were going to bake him a birthday cake. I responded that we would and asked Jacob what kind of cake he thinks Miles would like.

Jacob: "I think he would like another tractor cake." This of course is not because Miles has ever had a tractor cake, but because that was Jacob's last cake. This started our conversation with Miles which went something like this:

Me (to Miles): "Do you want a tractor cake for your birthday?"

Miles: shakes his head no and says "uh-uh"

Me: "Do you want a car cake for your birthday?"

Miles: shakes his head no

Jacob: "Do you want a truck cake for your birthday?"

Miles: shakes his head no and says "uh-uh"

Me: "Do you want an elephant cake for your birthday?"

Miles: shakes his head no and says "uh-uh"

Me: "Do you want a monkey cake for your birthday?"

Miles: shakes his head yes and says "uh-HUH"

So I made him a monkey cake. Could it be possible that my one year old actually knew what in the world he was talking about? Probably not, in fact, I'm quite certain that he had no idea what a monkey cake was, but nonetheless, I was pretty impressed that his head nodding and his words actually matched up.

Miles is at such a fun age. He is getting quite the personality and is at the age where you don't understand ANYTHING, but yet you can have complete conversations with him. He LOVES his siblings, and when I go to get him out of his crib after a nap, as soon as I pick him up he is looking over my shoulder and out the door to see where Ruby and Jacob are. He is still not walking, but I think within the next couple of weeks he will at least be taking steps. At his one year check up he was 19 lbs. 5 oz. and although that is not very big, he is actually coming UP the percentage scale. If I remember right, his height was around 18% and weight was 5 or 6%. His first word was pid-a-bil (peek-a-boo). He loves to put toys inside of other toys, or any opening he can find, and while I am getting ready for the day most mornings, he is busy throwing anything he can find and lift into the bathtub. He likes to sing, and the last couple of weeks especially, as soon as we walk into church, he starts singing along to the music. We are counting down until nursery time at church, because either Jake or I are usually out in the hall wandering with him for the last two hours at church. The two things that I can safely safely say he HATES are diaper changes, and shoes. He starts out almost every day with shoes and socks on, but they literally last maybe twenty seconds. He squirms and screams through every diaper change, but almost every other part of the day, he is the happiest kid you'll ever meet.

We are grateful for Miles in our home, and love him so much!! Happy Birthday buddy!

Ruby's Prayer

"Please bless Japan, and the people in Japan. Please bless all the people who are dead that they will get better."

When Ruby said this in her prayer, it really struck me. Although it's obvious that it is the prayer of a five year old, I thought it was a sincere and sweet prayer. She has asked me lots of questions about Japan since the earthquake/tsunami, and it amazes me how much she picks up on and her genuine concern for these people she doesn't even know. I think it also struck me because I served my mission in Tokyo and the people of Japan mean a lot to me. It sounds like the people who I knew are probably all ok, but it still makes me sad to think of all those hurting people. I pray that things will improve in Japan soon, and that the people will know that God loves them. We have been so blessed and sometimes it takes some big disaster to remember and realize that all the material things in this life don't really matter. Our families and friends are what do matter.

5 YEAR OLD!!!

She probably won't like me putting this picture on here, but I love it...doesn't every girl just need a good cry sometimes?

Ruby at 5 years old

I'm almost a month behind (but what's new???) posting this, but Ruby turned 5 last month...I can't believe it. It seems like just yesterday we brought her home from the hospital, all the while wondering why in the world the nurses just let us leave the hospital without passing some test on how to care for newborns! The last five years with Ruby in our family have been great. It is so fun to look back and see how much she has grown up.

Here are some of her favorites :

Favorite Song: I Love to See the Temple

Favorite Color: Green and Pink

Favorite Food: Philly Steak and Cheese Sandwiches, and celery (kind of weird, but true)

Favorite thing to do: Play dress-up with friends and cousins unless swimming is an option...she would go swimming EVERY day if she could!

Favorite Show: Giselle (Enchanted)

Ruby also loves to ride the horsey (Daddy) and the old pony (Mommy), but mostly the horsey. She loves to help me cook dinner, especially peeling carrots, and stirring anything!

It's really fun to watch Ruby with her brothers...when I was pregnant with Miles and we found out he was a boy, Ruby sobbed, she wanted a sister so bad, but she LOVES her brothers. Most of the time she and Jacob play really well together, and she loves to help me with Miles by talking to him to keep him happy, feeding him, etc.

She is still obviously REALLY into princesses...for her party we made prince/princess crowns, played hot potato with a frog and a poisoned apple, found the missing glass slipper in dragon eggs, slayed the dragon, saved the princess, and ate castle cake... oh, and opened lots of fun presents from all her friends! We feel so blessed to have Ruby in our family, we couldn't have asked for a sweeter daughter. We love you Ruby!

Time For Some Catch-up

January 2009, Part 1

We all know how bad I am at blogging and how far behind I am, so who knows if I will actually follow through with my goal to do a few REALLY old posts so I will have a few things written down in order to remember some of the fun memories we have had before they are gone, but I figure it's at least worth a try. 2009 was a pretty busy year, so I decided to start there. The beginning of January, Jake and I were lucky enough to have the opportunity to go to Costa Rica with his business partners. It was a BLAST!

When we got there, a shuttle bus service was waiting to take us to the resort. They strapped all our luggage on top of the bus, and crammed all of us into the shuttle bus that had a little Toyota engine comparable to the engine my old Mazda3 had. Add eighteen people and all their luggage for a week, and you can imagine it didn't go up the hills too fast. The terrain in Costa Rica is extremely hilly, and we drove on one lane roads which curved back and forth and went up and down the entire way. Literally, when we were on the up hills, I'm CERTAIN I could have jogged faster than the bus could go! We finally made it to the resort, which seemed to be in the middle of nowhere but was the most BEAUTIFUL place ever! Each room was it's own separate building, and our group took up most of the resort, so we had a few good games of pool volleyball while we were there. We saw lots of wildlife, monkeys, toucans and other beautiful birds, the most crazy looking iguana, frogs, crocodiles, beautiful blue butterflies, and many more. We went on a little ATV tour one day, on a zip line tour another day (my favorite!), went to some nice dinners (although the food there was NOT the greatest), did a little shopping in the markets, had a spa day, and relaxed on the beach a lot.

The beach was awesome because there was hardly anyone there, and if you walked out at low tide, you could find sand dollars everywhere! The only other place I remember getting sand dollars was on the beach in California when I was a little girl, so it brought back fun memories.
The thing I loved the most about Costa Rica had to be the people. The people there are SO incredibly nice and very proud of their country. When we would call a taxi driver, he would come to the resort and pick us up, then drive us for 20-30 minutes to the town where shopping/restaurants were, and he would either wait for us or make sure he was back to pick us up at whatever time we wanted to go back. We had the same taxi driver both ways. We learned while there that the country of Costa Rica has chosen to put lots of money into education, and they are very proud of their education. In fact, they don't even have a formal military because they chose to use that money for education. Most of the country's money comes from tourism, and we could tell that being a tour guide was a much wanted job, our tour guides were very knowledgeable of the country and everything around them.

Happy Birthday Jakers!!

I can't believe my once baby boy is three years old already!! We had a fun little tractor party with lots of his little friends and cousins there...thanks to everyone, you made his day!
Jacob is ALL boy with a little feminine influence due to having a princess for a sister :). Although he knows every Disney princess by name, he loves nothing more than his blue bin full of cars, which he carries around with him all day, and his dump truck (which he earned a couple of weeks ago from potty training). He is obsessed with the garbage truck (of course so is Ruby) and both he and his sister can't wait for Thursday to roll around so they can watch it go up and down the street. He also loves puzzles and was doing 25 piece puzzles even before he turned 2. His favorite song (besides the Garbage Truck Song) is The Wise Man and the Foolish Man. He loves to sing and there are many nights when I hear him singing in his room for a LONG time before he finally falls asleep. He LOVES his sister and his little brother too, and he was the first person to make Miles give a really good belly laugh. He can talk almost anyone's ear off and even his cousin Savannah (who can certainly talk anyone's ear off :)) was once heard asking him to stop talking. His favorite colors most days are black and brown and don't you DARE try to give him an orange plate or bowl to eat from...he is NOT a fan of orange!
He says the most random funny things and I'm sad I haven't written more of them down, but a couple of them from recently are: we were driving in the car on the Friday of Fall Break from school. Ruby had asked why she didn't have school the day before and I told her it was because it is fall break. Well as we were driving Jacob says, "Mom, is it fall break?" I replied, "Yep," to which he said "then why isn't anybody fallin' around?" Another thing he is famous for is saying yuh instead of you, and I heard him singing Happy Birthday to yuh a couple of weeks ago...apparently I must use yuh a lot instead of you! When we were on our Banks Lake trip in September, we were sitting in camping chairs around the fire and he did something really funny (I can't even remember what it was) so I laughed, and he said, "Why did you laugh at me, mom?" I said, "because you are so cute." He said, "I'm not cute!" and I said, "then what are you?" to which he replied, "I'm just a man!" Well I guess he told me!!! Anyway, we absolutely love that little boy, and are so grateful for him in our family. Happy Birthday Jakers, we love you!
Jakers at three years old

He may look like he's going to fall asleep in this one...it's hard work being three!

Time to Say Goodbye

It's been almost a month since we said goodbye to the beloved blankie at our house. I desperately wish I had taken a picture of it when I finished making it back in February of 2006. It was a really cute blanket and I was so proud of my first quilt. It was not even close to being a square like it was supposed to be, but I just thought it added character to it and didn't expect my first quilt to be perfect. I had no idea when I made that blanket at just how much it would be loved.

It was probably before Ruby's 3rd birthday that she figured out how to rip the individual strings off, and she would rub them on her bottom lip whenever she was tired. Since she had pretty much ripped it so shreds, I convinced her back in July to turn her blanket into a pillow, and in August we went to the fabric store and she got to pick out whatever fabric she wanted to go with it on the pillow. As you can imagine, the excitement of a 4 year old in a fabric store picking out her own princess material was really high!

Well, as you can see in these pictures, she LOVES her new pillow....or she LOVED her new pillow for the first week after it was made. Then one night, as I was tucking her in bed, the sobbing began. "But mom, I can't rip the strings on the pillow!!" I had wisely sewn the opposite direction all the way across the pillow so it wouldn't be destroyed the first week, but as she cried for her blanket so she could rip the strings, it tore my heart out. Ruby never sucked her thumb or a binkie or anything, she just rubbed the strings from her blanket on her lip, and I had just taken away her soothing mechanism. Sometimes it's hard to be a mom.....BUT.....it WAS time to say goodbye to the blankie, and little does she know I actually have the remainder of the blanket tucked away for her to look at when she is all grown up, which I'm quickly realizing is going to be WAY too soon!! I LOVE that little girl so much!!!