2.5

Today is Parker's half birthday. He's two and a half years old now. I guess he's a big boy now, if I say anything about him being little he corrects me: "I'm Big"
We love Parker so much. He makes us laugh everyday.

I, like every other mother, think my child is amazing. Here is some of his latest and greatest:

He says his own prayers sometimes. Usually something like "Dear Heavenly Father, Thank you for mommy, thank you for daddy, thank you for Parker. Aria. In Jesus Christ, Amen"

Getting a brain freeze eating homemade Popsicles.

He loves to play games. London Bridge, Duck-Duck-Goose, and Hide and Seek. Some days he plays really well, other days he forgets the rules and just runs around. So Cute!

Parker recognizes all of the letters of the alphabet. Except C. Never C. He can name a few words that start with most letters too.

Here he is with an exclamation mark stamp from my alphabet set. He calls it a WOW!

He loves to sing songs. He generally likes when I sing with him, but sometimes he'll stop me and say "not you, mommy"

That's a pretty popular phrase lately: "Not you , Mommy" or "Not you, Daddy" He wants to clean up by himself, get snacks by himself and he doesn't want us to help.

Parker can count to 11. It's a random number, I know, but I assure you I didn't just stop teaching him to count at 11.
He also loves to count backwards he calls it counting to Zero. He can count back from three without a problem, but he prefers to count from much higher numbers. He's not very good at it.

Here is he trying to count backwards from eleven to zero before he jumps

Eleventeen, Thirteen, Oneteen, Zeroteen

See, I told you that he wasn't good at counting down from large numbers

But I promise he does great with 'normal' counting

He still loves to read. This makes me happy.

If Aria is not around when Parker gets up from nap he'll ask "You're daughter's asleep?"

I think we have too many names for Aria. One day Parker couldn't keep them straight anymore and he said "Hi bug, Aria-bug, princess, Aria, baby, honey, Aria, beautiful, baby, girlfriend, Aria"

He is just silly. He does things that crack me up, he does things that leave me confused, and he does things that make me want to squeeze him and kiss him.

He's potty trained. He still wears a pull-up at night and at nap, but hopefully soon we'll be done with that- I hate spending money on diapers.

The best part is that in the last week or so he has decided he wants to do it himself. Sweet Freedom! He can do it all himself, with the exception of effectively wiping his bottom.

How he sometimes looks when he puts on his underwear on his own.

At least 50% of the time he tells me he needs to go potty by saying "penis hurts" or "bottom hurts"

He lives in an almost constant state of imagination lately. He's a dog, he's an elephant, he's in a small room, he's playing balls with Peter Pan, he's at the zoo, he fixes engines on anything that could look like a car, etc. I love this.

My absolute favorite was when he climbed up to the kitchen sink that had a large pot in it 'to be washed' and Parker filled it with water, dropped the washcloth and the scouring pad in and then he would reach in and "touch the stingrays"

One thing he has started to say a lot is "I have people" I'm pretty sure that this means he's imagining someone to be with him.

Have you read Hop on Pop? Well there's a page in there that has a guy named Pat trying to sit on a Cactus, and it says "NO PAT NO, Don't sit on that" Well, Parker wanted to color in the office, and I figured I would mess around on the computer for a minute, but as soon as I sat in the chair at the computer desk Parker says "No Pat No, Don't sit on that!!!- Mommy it's a cactus, don't sit on it" He then pulled me down to sit by him on the floor. So we colored together instead.

Man, is this kid cute or what?

Ummm Oops

So my sister came into town. Last month.
Here are some pictures that I thought were fun from their visit here.

Two Babies

Yes, Ryder is 4.5 months younger and about 2 pounds heavier.

Parker and Donovan reading together

And playing together.

Hunter looking like a crazy person.

Parker inspiring Hunter to look like a crazy person.

Gina- I miss your guts. Thanks for driving all the way to Surprise while you were here.

Better late than never, right?

Dad's Day

First, I should tell eveyone that I love Jason so, so, so, so, much! And that he is an awesome father!

Okay...

On Friday, I tried to explain to Parker that Father's Day would be on Sunday, and I tried to tell him what Father's Day is. And he sort of got it.... He started calling it "Christmas for Daddy's" Do we have the cutest kid or what?

Anyway, on Saturday we went to Michaels and Parker got to make some Father's day cards, and at home he painted pictures for each of his grandpas. When I asked him what he was painting pictures of, he said they were pictures of grandma(s). Of course both pictures looked more like a Rorschach Test than like either of his grandmothers, but it was still adorable they he decided to piant Grandma Murphy for Grandpa Murphy and he painted Grandma Tieman for Grandpa Tieman.

The Sunday morning we made Jason breakfast in bed and gave him some little presents. Parker was way excited for this.

Then off to church where Jason got some Candy for Father's Day.

We went to see his parents for dinner Sunday and my parents came for dinner last night.

Happy Father's Day Ya'll

Fire Station

Our ward playgroup went and toured a local fire station. Since I know my son pretty well, I figured that he would want to go. I thought that he would act like he didn't care while we were there, and then he would talk about it all day long afterwards.

And I was pretty much right. He was so excited to go. When we got there he got nervous, and seemed on the verge of tears for a little while.

He didn't want to go into the fire truck or go sit on the back of the brush(?) truck... until his friend Lincoln did those things. So thanks to Lincoln for being a good example to my son.

Here's Parker trying to climb out of the fire truck ASAP


And Parker sitting by Lincoln

And then, of course, for the rest of the day Parker talked about it. On the way home he hardly stopped to breathe when he was telling me about their beds, and the ambulance, and the jackets, etc.

So we had fun and I'm glad we got to go. And I love my silly Parker and his super-shy-uber-cautious little self.

Dancing and Playing

So first... yes both my kids are in their skivvies in these videos. Parker is usually dressed- this was a unique circumstance for him. But lately, that's the way Aria is like 75% of the time at home. She's a messy eater, and bibs don't work with her so she ends up crawling around in just her diaper most of the time.
Now that that is out of the way you can watch my nearly-naked children and all of their cuteness.
Here is how Aria dances.

It's all in the arms

And then the kiddos playing together.

This must my favorite thing in the whole world. Having a child is magical. Having two is twice the fun. But when your kids love each other and play together- it is something beyond fabulous.

Random Stuff

Parker got a little too excited with the stickers
Peek-a-Boo!

Swinging in the backyard with my babies

Parker tried ribs for the first time..... mmmmmmm

Playing in the balls


Flying like Peter Pan, singing "you can fly, you can fly"

Baby Parker

Parker loves to hear about when he was a baby. Most often he'll say "Talk about me being borned" One day he had me talk about it for like half an hour and I ended up getting a little emotional (surprise, surprise). So the next day he asked me to talk about when he was born, and after a couple of minutes he asked me to "Be crying because Parker was born"

Anyway, he has learned a lot about when he was born, he knows it was in December, near Christmas. He knows it was cold outside, but not cold in the hospital. And he knows who came to visit him, etc, etc, etc. And now he loves to look at pictures of when he was in the hospital and when he was a newborn.

Last week when Parker was in the hospital he got a little confused; he kept saying he didn't want to be born.

But a few times he asked for Kyle to be there. I think that was influenced by this picture:

Cousins together on the day Parker was born. Kyle and Parker were born just 17 days apart.

But the best picture is this one: Parker laying on my lap when he was 3-1/2 months old.

The reason that this is the best picture from Parker's early months is because of how he reacts when he sees it:

He laughs like that every time I bring up that picture.

I love this boy!

In The Hopsital**

What's been going on in our house this week? Well....

On Monday morning Parker would cough a little then he would say "I don't feel good" and then throw in a few more coughs. I thought that most of the coughs were fake. They sounded fake and he has taken to pretending to be sick or hurt in order to get extra attention. So I figured he was fine; but when he complained multiple times I gave him both of his allergy medications, just in case.

Monday evening his cough became a very dry, 'barking' cough. So we pulled out the cough syrup, humidifier and we tried to give him some extra fluids. Overnight he coughed constantly. And he had a temperature of 102-103 all night- even Tylenol and cool rags and cold drinks didn't help.

Tuesday he is struggled to breathe and coughed, and whined and cried a lot.

We went in to the Doctor. He was diagnosed with Croup. He was given a shot of steroids, and a breathing treatment with albuterol. Parker didn't like the shot, and he HATED the nebulizer, and since his breathing didn't improve we used the nebulizer again- this time with epinephrine. The only thing that would keep him calm during the treatments was me singing 'I am a Child of God' I probably sang it a thousand time that day.

Anyway, still no improvement in his breathing, so we were sent to the Emergency Room. Another breathing treatment and a chest X-ray later we were discharged with a prescription for an oral steroid.

So he was much better Tuesday night and Wednesday, then Wednesday night was bad, I mean Horr.i.ble. Thursday morning I called the Doctor again, and they told me to take him back to the hospital. He got a heavier dose of medicine and we were sent on our way.

Now he's doing pretty well, we're just working to keep the kids separate. Croup gets worse and worse as kids get younger, so we really don't want Aria to catch this.

Parker's favorite part... the ID bracelet they put around his ankle each time.

They also gave us a free stuffed duck and a book- I guess they give stuff to kids when they visit the ER to keep them happy.

It's been a rough week though, lots of waking and worrying at night. Lots of whining and tantrums (mostly from Parker, maybe a little from me).

**Hopsital is how Parker says Hospital, it's so cute. He talks about it a lot since he knows he was born there... but that's another post

Bath Time

I happen to think that my two kids are the two cutest kids on the planet. And being in the bath magnifies the cuteness. Oh, and towel pictures too!

Splash Park Time Again

It's that time of year again.
We've been heading out to the Splash Park.

We've already gone a few times and I expect to go many many more times before the heat is gone. (Last year we went at least once a week all summer long)

Kids in swimsuits are adorable, so I have a few pictures that were taken before we even left the house.

This is one reason why it's fun to have a girl. I think Parker is ridiculously adorable, but honestly he NEVER looked this cute in a swimsuit:

Parker put together this outfit himself. (If you couldn't tell) His bright green striped swim shorts, a red and white striped shirt that he calls "Amberica" (since it looks like the American flag) and a camo cowboy hat

Aria has a goofy hat too

Aria climbing the stairs before we go- man I want to devour that yummy looking thigh
Two little bums as the babies go up the stairs.


Eventually I do put the camera down and we leave the house.

Once I got there early, so I showed Parker (and Aria) the big tunnel nearby. He learned about echoes that day.

Parker trying to grab the ladybug he had been watching:

Sometimes Parker will play in the water.He loves to play with these blue spray guns.

But he still spends a lot of time looking like this:

He often ends up avoiding the water, and just watching all the other kids play- I don't get it, but hey, if it makes him happy- then whatever

Aria on the other hand kind of likes the water

And playing with toys

She also enjoys trying to eat rocks and leaves.
For some reason Parker loves to eat at the park or the splash park so I always bring plenty of snacks.

I guess playing at the park makes you hungry...

and thirsty...

and tired.

And who doesn't love a good hooded-towel picture?