January 2012

January found us celebrating a few birthdays, building bunk beds and trying to get Ned to learn how to crawl before walking. 

Gwen's Birthday was January 6th and she turned 3!  We had her favorite- Pizza, for dinner with a special birthday cake that required no skills on my part because it was a simple, undecorated box cake added to a banana split. 

Some things special about Gwen are:

• She is quite the charmer.  She knows how to smile and cuddle up to anyone who will let her.  Her nursery leaders adore her as do many others. 
• She loves stories and movies (like her mom). I'll often find her just looking at books for a while all by herself. 
• She loves princesses and all things girlie, yet is also very willing to play with Lincoln.  I must admit though, I don't think she'll ever be a tomboy. 
• She strives to be very independent. 
• She does the preschool stuff I teach to Lincoln with us most of the time and is actually pretty good at it.  She can identify what letters different words will start with and will often say something like "Hey mom!  P starts with pumpkin!"  ;)
• She loves to sing.
•  She has a great goofy laugh!
• She loves playing/collecting little things like acorns from the park, or coins, etc. 
• She keeps getting prettier and more sweet all the time. 
• We LOVE our Gwenny!

Next came Ned's Birthday.  He turned 1 on January 22nd.  For his first birthday he decided he would walk.  Actually, he started just a little before then, but still hadn't learned how to crawl.  What a funny kid!  For his birthday, because he has an adult's appetite, I made him Beef Stroganoff- which he loves! 

Some things special about Ned are:

• He is still very mellow and sweet.
• I think he didn't want to learn how to crawl because he always wants to hold things when he walks, something he couldn't do with crawling.
• Because he didn't learn to crawl until recently, when he would fall down from walking, he'd be stuck and just cry for me to rescue him, it was kind of exasperating, as well as comical. 
• Now that he can walk everwhere and crawl, he's mellow and happy again. 
• He loves music!  In church, sometimes when the hymns are sung, he'll wave his arms around to copy the chorister.  They think he's waving at them. 
• He often lets me just hold and cuddle him during Relief Society in church because it's his naptime.
• When someone he doesn't know talks to him while I'm holding him, he'll duck his head down and lean up against me--it's really cute for me. 
• We love our sweet Ned!

In the midst of our Birthday celebrations, Zach decided to make some bunk beds for the kids.  We looked and looked for so long to buy some, but since we wanted wood bunk beds, we discovered they would be extremely expensive.  And, it just so happened that one of Zach's coworkers was trying to clean out his garage and decided to give Zach some of his power tools.  With new tools to try out, Zach decided to take on the job and I think he did a great job! He did all from scratch! 

Before the stain-we were very torn on whether to stain or not.

after the stain

 In addition to the birthdays and bunk beds, Zach also got to attend a few beloved UNLV basketball games.  My brother was kind enough to give him a few tickets.  One of the games allowed myself, Lincoln and Zach's dad to accompany us.  Lincoln loved being there with grandpa and dad, but I think he got a little bored and decided to entertain himself thus:

This picture was taken with Zach's phone so you can't see very well what Lincoln was doing, but he brought along his binoculars and discovered the ends of the rope fit perfectly inside his nose!
Funny kid!

And that's what kept us busy in January!