Happy Halloween

Yes, we are a little slow updating.  I forgot that I hadn't put Halloween up yet!  So here they are.  Had to hurry and get them up before Thanksgiving and Christmas!

First Day of School

Ok, so the first day of school was really August 5th.  I am two weeks late.  But here are their smiling faces.  They both love school, even after two weeks.  Canon started 2nd grade and Savana started kindergarten.  Savana loves her teacher, Mrs. Lock, and her class of mostly girls!  She has 6 boys and 14 girls in her class!  Two of her classmates get on the bus at our bus stop.  It is so cute to see the three girls all sitting on the same seat at the front of the bus.

Canon also loves school and can't wait to get his meal worms in second grade.  He asks me about every two days when he is going to get them.  I told him I don't know, and to ask his teacher.  He told me he couldn't, because he didn't want to ask her too much, so he wanted me to ask her.  :)  Funny kid.

So now it is just Lauren and I at home.  I think she kind of likes being the center of attention, but does get excited when it is time for Savana to come home.  "Uh Honey??" she says when she hears my bus alarm go off on my iPod.  Lauren calls Savana "Honey."  And Savana often calls Lauren "Little One."  :)

A faithful prayer

This post is a little more personal than most posts I do.  Just warning you.  I have been trying to decide where I want to write more personal experiences with my kids.  But I decided that right here is just fine.  It's not like I have a huge following, and I know those that do visit our blog are friends and family :)  So here it is. Friday night I could not sleep for some reason.  I didn't even have anything weighing on my mind.  I tried everything I knew to try and fall asleep.  Listening to music, relaxing oils and finally I took some Melatonin.  That was a big mistake.  Mostly because I took it at 4 in the morning, so I didn't have 8 hours for it to work through my system. In the morning when it was time to get up with kids I had a huge headache and felt so groggy.  Almost what I imagine a hangover would feel like.  By 10:30 a.m. I felt like I wanted to give in and just go sleep the rest of the day.  For several obvious and not so obvious reasons, a nap didn't happen.  And I was very grumpy.  My family knew it.  My sweet little Savana came and gave me several hugs and kisses in an effort to help me feel better.  And Canon and Lauren followed suite.  They made me very happy, but I still felt horrible.  After a little while Savana came very confidently walking down the stairs and said and she walked, "Mom, I went and said a prayer and asked Heavenly Father how I could help you be happy, and he told me to just come and smile for you and give you hugs."  Oh my sweet Savana.  Her smiles could make anyone smile.  But the thing that made my heart melt was the fact that she had thought to go say a prayer.  And that she was so confident about her answer.  It just made me think, I wonder what kind of answer she did get.  Little children have so much faith, and can be so close to Heavenly Father, that I have no doubt she received a very special answer.  I hope she remembers her experience and that it builds her testimony of the love her Heavenly Father has for her.

Savana turns 5!!

Our little Savana turned 5 on June 11th.  She has been waiting for this day since she was invited to a birthday party of a friend clear back in December.  She has since had to wait through birthday celebrations for everyone else in our family.  But her day finally came.  And then 5 days later came the day of her birthday party.  We had a swim party with girls in her Primary class from church, one from preschool, and another little friend (not in the picture because she arrived a little late) we have made here in Arizona.  For her birthday she got some princesses, a princess pony, and some princess art supplies.  But her favorite thing by far was a set of airplanes from the new Disney Planes movie coming out in August.  Her love for cars and now planes continues.

Savana is growing up so fast.  Well, not as much in height as in other areas :)  Her language skills are really growing.  She is all of a sudden using such big words.  I'm not sure where she picked them up.  The other day I left the freezer slightly open after getting something out.  From the kitchen table she said "mom, you left the door ajug."  Of course meaning "ajar."  Very cute.  And then just this morning she was telling me about a conflict she and Canon had had last night while a babysitter was here.  She said "me and Canon weren't in agreement" about what book to read.  Really!  Another cute thing she told me on Mother's Day was that "my eyes were the color of pickles."  Probably true, good description!  Savana also loves her siblings.  Even though she is often the target of teasing from both an older brother and a younger sister she likes to play with Canon and Lauren.  She plays airplanes and cars with Canon, and baby dolls with Lauren.  She also is very excited for Lauren to grow up even more.  I think she prays that Lauren will grow up in almost every prayer she says.  Savana is also excited to grow up herself.  She tells me that she is going to grow up to be a mommy with me.  She tells me that she is going to have 4 more children for her and I to raise together.  We obviously have some teaching to do in several areas :)  

We love our Banana!  I love it when I am doing something near the floor in the kitchen and all of a sudden a feel a very tender back tickle.  It freezes me for a minute because it feels so good.  But I also love to turn around and see her cute little smiling face.  

Savana's Birthday Cupcakes.  She said the bears in tubes were the kids . . .

. . . and the bears under the umbrellas on land were the parents. 

Canon requested this picture be taken the morning of Savana's Birthday

Savana's Birthday Party friends.  Canon, Sammie (top), Kate, Savana, Lucy and Audrey

Happy 2nd Birthday to our Baby!

Summer and her "2" cake.  It really is all about the number 2 with her. She often wants her milk in 2 cups, her cereal in 2 bowls and counts everything to the number 2.

Monkey, Babykins, Baby, Sprout, Summer, Lauren.  She has a lot of names.  She answers to most of them.  Mostly Baby, Summer, Monkey and Lauren.  And she has quite the little personality.  She is very loving, very teasing, very independent, very demanding and very cute!  Right now where ever there is a mess, all I have to do is say "OK - who did this?" and she will come running from where ever she is playing and say "Me!"  Half the time, it was her.  But it is so cute anyway.  Another favorite phrase is "What do?"  I answer her and she says "Oh."  When we are at the store and she sees something, usually what the other kids are looking at, she says "oh, cool!" in her cute little munchkin voice.  When we are leaving to go, or she wants me to follow her, she says "cum on" and motions me to follow her with all five little fingers, instead of just one.  She loves the Five Little Monkeys book and likes to do the actions while we read.  She even tries to get the count right on her little fingers.  Even though she loves that book, I will have to say that her all time favorite stories right now are from our Thomas the Train book.  She calls him "choo choo."  She also loves to point out trucks, balloons, bubbles and balls whenever we seen them.  She is a cute little monkey.  She has a very cute, mischievous smile and we all love her to death!

Happy Birthday Canon

Canon's Snake Cake

Yes, that is a real tarantula.

Yes, that is a real scorpion.

Don't know what that was.  

Yes, that is a real snake.

For some reason Lauren thought that this reptile (that had to have his mouth taped shut so he wouldn't bite - which if he does he apparently holds on until it falls off) looked so snuggly that she wanted to lay down next to it.  

The coolest chameleon ever!  This is his natural color - and then he turns six different colors other than this!

So Canon finally had his first Birthday Party with friends ever.  And I guess we decided that if we were going to do a birthday party we were going to do it big.  We found a guy who brings all kinds of reptiles, spiders and cockroaches to your house so the kids can hold them.  I think had about 15 different animals.  It was really fun and I think Canon was pretty surprised when he showed up.  Canon didn't shy away from holding anything!

Now a little about Canon.  He is such a cute kid.  He still loves is morning and night snuggles.  He comes in at 6 a.m. to snuggle us as we are just waking up, and wants to be snuggled in his bed as he falls asleep.  He still loves to "think run".  I've noticed that he does it just after he is done watching a show.  I guess he likes to process it.  And he doesn't like to be interrupted.  Once I tried to practice his spelling words with him while he was running back and forth between the family room and living room.  He wouldn't do it.  He said it was distracting him from whatever he was thinking about.  He really does try hard to do what is right and is a good kid.  We love you Canon. 

Happy Easter!

I know I am actually a week late - but Happy Easter anyway.  Easter is pretty low key for us.  We did a couple of Easter Egg hunts with the mom's group I am a part of and then another one with our ward.  Then on Easter Sunday we did do a special "Family Home Evening" with Resurrection Eggs .  I actually did this with Savana's primary class before we did it at home.  It was cute to see how excited Savana was to open the eggs even though she knew what was in them.  It was also fun and rewarding (as a teacher and mom) to see what she learned.

Daily Life

Since we really have nothing too fancy going on in our life right now - I wanted to still make an addition to our blog and update a little on my cute kids.  I love each of them so much and it is fun as they grow to see their personalities develop.

Canon.  Still does his "think run."  His current path is from one corner of the living room to the other corner of the family room.  And by passing through some door ways and past the stairs - this makes for a straight line, although lately we make him go outside and wear out the grass instead.  It is really funny when Lauren starts to follow him and try to copy his little hop skip and breathing through his teeth.  He did learn to ride a bike this month.  I am actually kind of proud of my technique.  I did very little running behind him holding his bike.  I just made him coast down the slight hill that we live on 5 times a day, working on doing it without putting his feet down.  Then we worked on coasting with one foot on a pedal.  And then all he had to do was learn to push himself fast enough to get started and start pedaling.  He complained almost everyday that I would add this to his list of "To Do's" before he could watch TV.  And then finally yesterday he actually got dressed early before his soccer game so he could go ride his bike.  And then both Savana (who has taken over Canon's push bike) and Canon spent half the day yesterday riding bikes.  MIRACLE!  He still loves science and his show of choice right now is NOVA.  At first I was OK with that, but the more NOVA he has watched - the more I realize how careful I have to be about which NOVA episodes are OK.  He is curious and sometimes his endless questions about everything and everyone are overwhelming for me.  

Savana.  What is funny about Savana is that she doesn't like to do much on her own.  But when she does decide to do something on her own - it is all the way.  She not only wants to get her PJs on by herself, but she wants to do it without being asked.  Sometimes I have to retract my requests for her to do so.  And yes she took a long time to walk, but she now rides the tricycle and push bike faster than Canon ever did.  Her little legs go up and down so fast on the tricycle it is kind of funny to watch.  And when she coasts down the hill on the push bike I can hardly watch because I'm afraid she is going to wipe out from going to fast.  But even when she does fall, after a hug she wants to keep going.  She also loves preschool and can't wait to go to kindergarten.  

She loves to be my helper.  I love having her next to me in the kitchen.  She is also the first to come and give me a hug and a kiss when she knows I have had it with one of my other kids.  She really knows how to put, for lack of a better term, "warm fuzzies" in the bank for when she needs to draw against them.  

Lauren.  What a character is all I can say.  She is always communicating but can only probably say 10 real words.  She is constantly "talking" and is so busy.  Everything is a game to her.  She loves to laugh and is quite the tease.  She is always getting into things and when I tell her "no" she looks at me with a very guilty smile.  The closed lip, raised eyebrow kind of smile.  She loves baby dolls and is almost always holding her baby or pushing it in a stroller,  often ramming me with the stroller as I work in the kitchen.    

Our Tree.
 Ironically we have a better climbing tree here than in Michigan!  If you look closely you can see Canon through the branches in the first picture.  

Crazy Kids!
  Canon decided a Ziploc was a perfect rain hat.  And Lauren was zooming through the house in  Savana's cape and Canon's safety goggles.  Pretty funny. 

Moment in Time.
One night while cooking dinner I decided to grab the camera and  take a picture of whatever the kids were doing right at that time.  Savana and Lauren were for some reason on the table eating cereal

Moment in Time.
And Canon was watching NOVA.  

She is by far my pickiest eater.  Lots things she won't even put in her mouth.  It's like she can taste certain foods with her eyes and once she has decided she doesn't want to eat something, even if I somehow sneak it in her mouth, she will just hold it there until she can spit it out.  But she will eat brown rice and mixed veggies with butter and yogurt (or anything unhealthy) - so I think we will be OK :)