Mesa

A little bit ago I got to make my first wedding cake:

It's no prize winner, but I was excited none-the-less.

Well, I had to deliver it in Mesa, and Parker came with.

So, on the way back I decided to stop by the temple and let him walk around the grounds, and since I had my camera handy- I got some cute pictures of him.

He loved sitting in this tree:

We looked at flowers:

And wandered around:

He was super excited to walk up the ramp here:

We walked around in the visitor's center, and he was nervous to see the statue of Christ. He kept asking if it was the real Jesus. One sister missionary overheard and and said "No, sorry- if we could get the real one here, we would" I though it was pretty funny.

Once we got out of the visitors center, Parker was very tempted to go for a swim, but remained on his best behavior. He then told me the pool was like a sandwich.

He elaborated by saying "There's the building one that side (pointing to the Temple to the south of the pool) and the other building on that side (pointing north to the visitors center) and then pool- It's like a sandwich"

Cute huh?

100% Cute

I'm a total sucker for my kids, and I tend to think everything they do is cute.

Even just putting on shoes:

Eating :

And playing with my sewing stuff:

Sunday

** This morning I got a call from a member of the bishopric, and I ended up being released from Young Women's. It was a little depressing but definitely a relief.
I'll miss my super silly beehives, but it will be good to have no more mutual, or presidency meetings, or class presidency meetings, or missionary correlation, or lessons to plan and activities to prepare.
** Also today- Parker gave his very first talk in primary. It was so cute.
I went up to help him and you could tell he was totally nervous and excited. I started to whisper his talk to him, so he could repeat it, and he said the words so quietly that I could barely even hear them (though I was only inches away).
It was sweet and awesome...and I can't believe how big he's gotten- where has my little baby Parker gone?
** We paid tithing today, the first tithing on a REAL paycheck in over a year- hooray for a job.
And speaking of my job- I survived my six weeks of training, I start "on the floor" tomorrow morning. This is my second time working for the bank (first time I was a teller, banker and manager-- now I work in credit card customer service.) Let me tell you- pay attention to your money and your accounts- read your disclosures and anything you sign- your life will be better for it. And... don't be quick to be angry at and blame the bank- chances are YOU are the one that caused the problem- not the bank.
** Aria peed in the potty. This isn't the first time, but it's still exciting each time (because it's still very rare) I really think this girl is going to be much harder to potty train than Parker was, she doesn't focus well, and she is too independent for praise and such to have much of an effect. So we'll see how it goes from here.
** I also got some sewing done today. My pile of to-do projects has been stacking up, so I'm happy to make a little progress. I enjoy sewing a lot- so this was both productive and kind of fun.
** I love my family and the opportunity I had to spend the day with them today and to go to church also. Life isn't perfect- but it really is good.

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