Stuffed Animals

One day, Aria decided to climb into the trunk of stuffed animals:

 Parker decided to join in:

And after playing together, they decided to hide:

P.S.- they're really good at hiding.

Exotic Animals

Thanks to my fabulous grandmother, we have annual passes to the nearby zoo and aquarium 

So we go to the zoo a lot.

Proof that maybe you go to the zoo too often:

Your child's favorite exhibits are when people are cleaning the fish tanks:

Little Miss Aria

We love our little Aria bug and all of her fun, independent, happy crazy little self.

Aria is growing but still petite (except her head)

We are actually starting speech therapy with her. She doesn't speak almost at all (although she signs a ton, I haven't updated the list on the side of the blog lately), and makes almost NO consonant noises... after a few evaluations with a speech therapist we've decided to move ahead and see what we can do.

During the evaluations she was monitored for fine and gross motor skills and social skills as well. She fine with her motor skills, and "very, very advanced" in her social skills, which is no surprise to us.

We love her and wanted to share a little bit of her goofy personality with everyone.

Posing:

And Close-up:

She kept trying to eat the paint while finger-painting:

Did you know that when I would take Parker to the park he would never play without me? And at playgroups and story times he would stay silently on my lap. When Aria got old enough to play and run, she actually set the example for Parker, and he was then willing to play at the park.

I really feel like Parker was exactly the blessing that I needed in my life when he was born and that Aria was exactly what he (and I) needed 19 months later- Heavenly Father sure knows what he's doing.

Playing at the Park:

Sometimes when she sees the camera, she'll bend her little pointer finger up and down (like taking a picture) and then point to herself... and then give me funny faces or poses-- here are 3:

Of course these little blog posts don't do my kids justice- these kids are about 10 million times cuter than you can possibly know, but hopefully you can still enjoy it.

Parker

I can't put into words how funny my son is. He is clever and cute and always making us laugh.

He says the most hilarious and sometimes the most random stuff.

Like when we say it's almost time to clean up and he says "BAH, no fear of that!"

Or that during every hymn at church we have to hold a hymnal open for him so he can look at it and pretend to play the piano on the back of the pew in front of us.

And the fact that he tries to negotiate everything:

ME: "Its late we don't have time to read a lot of books so just pick one"

PARKER: "Well, actually... 3 books is not a lot of books, so I'll choose 3."

Or every time I say we have two minutes (ie, We're going to go home in two minutes) he always comes back with "two big minutes"

The kids took home two balloons from a friends birthday.

Here he is tying them up so they "don't fly away like a cowardly sparrow"**

I love my little Parker

**In case your child is not obsessed with Peter Pan you might not know that this is a line where Hook accuses Peter of always "flying away like a cowardly sparrow"

Beehive Logic

DISCLAIMER:This story may be funnier to members of the church. But if you want to leanr more about Mormon Temples go here.

So I work with the Beehives (12 and 13 year old girls) at church.
For mutual we had a class activity about the Temple. Part of the activity involved a 'Temple trivia Game'
I didn't know many of the answers myself, but I was able to make some educated guesses For example, Which was the first Temple to do a non-English endowment? I thought Mesa was an early temple and there were probably lots of Spanish speakers in the area, so that was my guess (I was right) The girl's logic led them another way, concluding that China, Australia or other countries must have been first (Don't they speak English in Australia?).
Well, I definitely enjoyed some of their answers, and the ummmm... logic they used to form their educated guesses.
I'm sure I was completely lacking in logic when I was 12 too, but still here are a few of my favorites, I hope they make you smile like they did for me.

Q: Whose statue is on top of most of the temples?
A: Most got it right, but one said Jesus.... even though we had already discussed the Angel Moroni statues.

Q: What is the tallest temple? and for a bonus point How tall is it?
A: They all guessed random temples, but then when they guess the height all answers came in over 1000 feet. Most were over 1600 feet. (The Empire State Building is 1250 feet-just for a reference point)

Q: It took the church 120 years to build the first 50 temples, how many years did it take to build the next 50 temples?
A: 250,    300,    310,    214,000.
Yes, that last answer was two-hundred and fourteen THOUSAND!! She was absolutely serious! Also note that all answers must be wrong since the church was formed less than 200 years ago.

Q: Where was the first temple built in a country other than United States?
Answers included: China (where the church is still not very welcome outside of Hong Kong) and Hawaii. Yes, our foreign friends in Hawaii are not part of the US.


Almost all of the answers were wrong but these were just the best ones.

Don't get me wrong--- I love my beehives. They just happen to be silly beyond all belief.

Trouble

Aria is fun.

She is wiggly and active.

She is a busy-body.

Which, since she's 18 months old... also means she's trouble.

 Though we've already stopped the sitting IN the toilet habit, this was definitely her favorite place for a little while.*
I left the kids at my mom's house for about 30 minutes one day. I came back and my mom says in a very confused tone.
"I don't understand... her plant leg was all wet"
Me: "Was your bathroom door open"
Mom: "Umm...ya"

So the reason JUST her leg was wet is that sometimes, she wouldn't get into the toilet she would just brace herself on the seat and then use one foot to kick and splash in the water.

Totally gross, right? But also strangely hilarious. Especially since she no longer does this--they say hindsight is 20/20, I say hindsight makes things funnier.

*Don't judge Jason for leaving the toilet seat up... he always puts it down, she would lift the seat herself to make it easier to get in.

A Random Picture for You

Since I haven't been posting much and my last two posts are picture-less.

Parker and Hunter in a dog kennel

Working Girl

I have some depressing news to share. I got a job. Technically this should be really good news, and it is in a lot of ways, since my fabulous husband got laid-off last January.
Yes, I said last January. As in: over a year ago.
I know I never blogged about it. But is that something you 'announce' on your blog? "Hey guess what?!?!? We're jobless and poor!"
Plus, I was confident that my intelligent, hard-working husband would have a new job in no time.
well, that didn't work out so I applied for and took a job. It doesn't pay a lot, but it will help.
Anyway, the reason this is depressing news is that it means I will have to leave my babies during the day.
With the commute I'll be gone for over 9 hours, 5 days a week. I know that is a perfectly reasonable amount of time to spend at work- but it's killing me to lose that much time with my kids.

P.S. Jason has a job interview tomorrow... pray for him please :)

Sickies

There has been far too much sickness in my house lately. For the most part, I blame church and pregnancy.

Seriously, this pregnancy has been kicking my butt in one major way: it has destroyed my immune system.
I've been constantly sick with something, as soon as I get over my cough, I get a flu, then a cold, next a sinus infection, another cough, then a different kind of stomach flu, etc. I try not to be too much of a whiner, but seriously- I'm so done with being sick!

My kids have been getting it, too. Mostly from church, They'll be perfectly healthy on Sunday and then start showing symptoms on Monday- they'll go through the sickness and be better on the weekend- then we go to church and they start again.

It's all starting to turn me into a germ-o-phobe, wiping down carts and occasional hand-washing is a thing of the past. I scrub down shopping carts, sanitize the kids hands when we get into the car after ANY (and every) errand and then often make them wash their hands again when we get home. After church the kids take off their shoes and go straight to the sink to wash their hands.

It's not working very well.

Saturday Night last week, Parker woke up and he could barely breathe. I really mean barely. I ended up taking him into the Emergency Room. It was croup- and he was doing better almost immediately after the treatment, thought the doctor said his lungs weren't clear- so they did an X-ray. He was fine so we went home. (We were there from 1am to 4:30am)

On Monday we followed up with the pediatrician and had him look at Aria, too. Parker's croup was great, but Aria had bronchiolitis and a double ear infection. She got a breathing treatment and 3 prescriptions and is recovering- she did manage to infect Parker first, though- so he's back to being sick.

So you might feel bad for me having an 18 month old who had bronchiolitis and a double ear infection during the same week that she cut 4 teeth (and has one more coming in)-- but you shouldn't. She was an angel. Other than waking at night to cough and a runny nose, we couldn't even tell she was sick. She would run and play and laugh and smile- all.day.long. I really got lucky with this girl. She's just naturally fun and happy.

Anyway, that's what's been going on in our world, multi-vitamins, probiotics, and hand washing-- and despite it all: illness.

It's a.......

I'm 19 weeks and 1 day pregnant, and today, we had our ultrasound.

This morning Parker was very concerned that the 'baby in my belly' or I would have to get shots, it was so cute. Then we headed to the appointment, and got some good looks at Baby Tieman:

The baby kept sucking its thumb, which is strangely adorable- it's hard to tell but here's a picture of it:

Those two little dots in front of the mouth are the right hand fingers, and the thumb is in the mouth.

Everything looks good and healthy, and baby is just the right size. We also got a good look at the boy/girl parts-- but we're not telling!

I would love for you guys to comment and tell me what you think it is, though.

And then the Baby Belly



19wks 1day

I feel like my belly is smaller than with my previous pregnancies, but there is still definitely something starting to show there.