A View of the Hills: July 2013

Friday, July 12, 2013

Nyle is 6 Months Old!

Wow! Six months already! This little boy is such a cutie! The best adjective I have to describe him is smiley. He is so much more social than my other babies were, although I'll admit that's not saying much. He lets others hold him and he seems always up for a smile. He also laughs very easily and is very tickle-ish, something I absolutely love! He is also better about tummy time, he doesn't like it too much, but he's much more tolerant of it than my other kids were. He doesn't have as much hair as the others did, but he has abundant eyelashes. No teeth yet, but plenty of teething. He has the makings of a picky eater as I have tried several different foods and he gags on most of them. I waited longer to start him on solid foods, only recently introducing them to him and he does not seem interested, yet. He's not even interested in sweet potatoes, something that all of his siblings loved! He has been sitting up for about a month now and is pretty stable now. He's not a very good sleeper, about like Gwen, in that he prefers cat naps and tends to wake up about every hour or so in the night. Even with this lack of sleep, he's a pretty happy baby. He loves his soft blankie and loves to grab at anything in sight. His siblings adore him and often fight over him. He is absolutely adorable and I am completely in love with him!

Thursday, July 11, 2013

Fourth of July

This year, we started our Fourth with a little Patriotic ceremony of our own. We had a patriotic red, white and blue breakfast (strawberries, blueberries, whipped cream on pancakes). But before we could dig into our breakfast, we said the pledge of allegiance, sang the national anthem and gave the kids a brief history lesson on July 4th, 1776. It's these types of moments that make parenthood so fun!

After our breakfast, we went over to my parent's house where my brother had brilliantly thought to rent an inflatable water slide for the day. The kids spent so much time out there on it! It was the perfect activity for such a hot day!

That evening, we enjoyed a potluck meal of Bar-b-qued pizzas, then lit sparklers and watched the fireworks before heading home. It was such a full, fun day that we spent nearly the entire day following it, resting and taking it easy to restore our energy.

Swim Lessons and Cute Kids

It was time for swim lessons again. Lincoln has really been improving! He has learned to lengthen his arms as he swims and it's made him a much faster swimmer. He only did level 2, last year he completed Level 1, but because he was a little rusty in his swimming, I was worried he wouldn't qualify for level 2 even. He did and it was amazing how much more confident of a swimmer he was after even just one week! At the end of the first week of swimming, we decided to go swimming as a family and Lincoln was brave enough to go off the low dive for the first time, but he didn't stop there. After trying the low dive a few times, he decided he was ready for the high dive! I was so surprised that he was brave enough to do that as I still get butterflies when I jump from the high dive.

Gwen also started swimming lessons, although she was only old enough for the preschool class. I was concerned she would be a bit shy, but she didn't seem shy at all! She loved her teacher and was a pretty good listener, for a 4-year-old. She loved giving him high-fives as hard as he could and watch as he'd shake his hand as if she'd hit him too hard. She was kind of a tease, actually. It was fun to watch them both!

I just had to throw in these two photos of my cute little boys. Nyle often bounces in my pantry because then he can watch me while I cook. He has discovered he can pull down the food on the lowest shelf and he loves doing it! This time however, he succeeded in making a big mess when he knocked over and opened my can of powder sugar. He was having a blast bouncing in it!

And, this kid is just so fun! He's such a goofy, fun, sweet little 2-year old. I know that seems like an oxymoron, but it's true! He's definitely a 2-year-old, with his occasional grumpy, I-do-it-by-myself , tantrum-throwing ways, but it's all forgivable. I love how he is always trying to speak in complete sentences. He's pretty much potty-trained only because he likes to copy his siblings. He's done it a little differently than the others. He started around Christmas time by telling me whenever he needed to go number 2, so at spring break I decided to try it with him and as long as I remind him to go, he doesn't ever have an accident. If I forget, however, then he won't say anything and will go in his pants. It doesn't happen very often so he's been in underwear for quite a few months, but every once in a while I get busy and forget to take him. He has told me recently a few times if he needs to go, but he's not completely independent yet. That seems to be how he does things. He's still a mama's boy!

Lincoln turns 6!

Lincoln is growing up so fast! Here came and went another birthday! We had our traditional special birthday breakfast- waffles, strawberries and whipped cream (Thanks for the idea Janae-it's become a favorite tradition!) We went to a fun outdoor pool with water slides and other water attractions, just like last year. We had hamburgers for dinner and a birthday cake with purplish-brown frosting (Lincoln helped me add the food-coloring-let's just say it was an informative lesson on color-blends) and rainbow sherbet. It's so great how little things like favorite foods can make the day so exciting!

Then, because his birthday present hadn't arrived in the mail yet (walkie-talkies--real ones), we took them on a field trip over to Walmart to buy a few 28 cent fish- since he had earned them previously. The fish only lasted three weeks, we had been warned that they were only bred to be eaten by other fish, but they were perfect for us because Lincoln learned a little about taking care of a pet. Then, just as he was getting sick of it, their lives were spent anyway.

A week or two later, Lincoln received two exciting gifts from his Aunt Tammi and Grandma and Grandpa; A bow and arrow and a compass. We had to visit the park to try these very cool and fitting gifts out.

Newport Coast, May 2013

Newport Coast snuck up on us this year. We went earlier than usual- May, but it was still a lot of fun! We visited the zoo again, but this time the weather was cooler, it sprinkled a little, so the animals were all so much more active, it was much more exciting!

Ned got a snack to come up and see him.

These peacocks were very active, making lots of noise and basically running free throughout the zoo. One of them even "peacocked" for us. That's kind of an inside joke in our family because of a commercial we saw a few times that had one of the characters peacocking. After seeing the commercial, each member of the family, myself excluded, had to imitate the move. At the zoo, as we watched the peacock show off his feathers and turn slowly in a circle several times, it made the commercial all the more funny.

The brown bear was out and about in the cooler weather.

We also visited a nature preserve in Newport beach that had some beautiful walking trails and a butterfly house. It worked out perfect for Lincoln because he had just been learning about the life cycle of the butterfly the previous week in school. I guess a lot of other kindergartners were doing the same because while we were there, several groups of kindergartners on field trips came through.

Such a cool sandcastle! We can't take credit for it though- I don't have those kind of skills. When I saw it, I immediately thought of Dallas and Tim and wished they were here. I'm sure they could come up with their own impressive sand castle.

Ned really wanted to be buried. It's so fun when these kids get more into the different activities available on these vacations.

Annual family picture. Our family just keeps growing! Every other year we've added a new member to this photo.

Putting, swimming and playing in the sandbox at the resort.

Easter 2013

Sitting "Sermon-on-the-Mount-style" to hear the lesson

This Easter we tried a few new things. First, I decided that I wanted them to learn a little more about the Easter story and with the help of an idea from Pinterest, I spent the entire week before Easter telling them about what Christ was doing the week leading up to "Easter". Then on Saturday, we met at my parents house with all the cousins to have a brief lesson on the Crucifixion and Resurrection, followed by a appetizer of flatbread, olives, goat cheese, honeycomb and fish, just to make it more real. This was one of Jamie's own family traditions and she was generous to include us in the fun.
After all that, there was the traditional easter egg hunt in my parents backyard and a potluck dinner.

The following day we celebrated Easter, just with our little family. There was another Easter Egg hunt, Resurrection reminder and a meal together. We love Holidays!

Mike and Adrianne Come to Visit!

Going to BYU were easily some of the funnest years of my life. Having a roommate like Adrianne made that the case. She was (and is) always so easy to talk to. One summer found the two of us alone in an apartment for the summer, two of our roommates temporarily abandoning us. We spent many, many hours talking, playing pranks on other apartments, and enjoying Provo summers (sigh). Basically we did what normal college students did, BUT, we never argued! We got along so well. Adrianne was so wise and had a deep love for the gospel that I admired, and related with. She met Mike near the end of our senior year and when I moved back to Vegas to work, she married him. Consequently, Mike became one of my "roommates" too, for a while. They were so kind to me, even though they were falling in love, it was never awkward to be around them, and Mike even gave me a blessing once after I passed out in the bathroom, due to a stomach bug.
In March they came to visit and when I got to see them, it was kind of like picking up where we had left off in conversation. They were just the same, if not more wise from some of life's more challenging trials falling to them.

I got to meet their boys and new baby daughter. It was so fun! Her boys are such boys, in all the best ways! But, I noticed and commented to her, they got along so well with each other. They also took Lincoln under their wing and included him in all their fun whenever we were with them. That really impressed me because even though they were such good friends with each other, they were not exclusive of others at all! Gwen and Ned had fun with them, too, of course, but Lincoln was just a little closer in age to them. Gwen did think Eli was pretty funny, and commented to me on that several times.

Redstone

Mandalay Bay Aquarium

While they were here, they came to our ward, we played at a couple parks, we went on a picnic to Redstone, they took Lincoln swimming at their condo, and we visited the Mandalay Bay Aquarium. This was all during our spring break, making it feel like I was on vacation, too!

Tuesday, July 09, 2013

Oh, What Busy Days!

One of my favorite books is titled similarly to this blog post. And, it encapsulates what we've been up to since I last posted. The book is titled Oh, What a Busy Day! It's all about the many different ways a child can play each day and as you can imagine, it's actually a pretty long book as there are so many ways to play!
In order to fit much of it in, I think I'll just post pictures and a little text here and there for posterity;)
While I prefer things in chronological order, Blogger is making it a little difficult and I don't have time to trouble shoot so it's going to be in random order.

Holding sweet baby Nyle

Nyle learns to smile. He learned pretty early, I thought. He was only 2 weeks old when he started smiling at me when I would talk to him. In this picture he may be closer to 1 month old.