Momma......Buddy up?

Oh the funny little things that two year olds begin to do. When Bryce takes his morning nap I have to often quarantine Hope in my room with me or she will prematurely wake him up. She gets so excited for him to be awake that she throws open his door and says, "Hey Buddy!". The quarantine began when she started to quietly disappear, a minute later I heard baby crying, and a few seconds later she would reappear yelling, "Momma, Buddy up!!! Momma! Buddy UP!!!!!" That is usually when I sigh and quietly say, "thank you Hope". Now she constantly asks me in the morning or during nap time, "Momma, Buddy up?" I try to let her help me in little ways with him because she loves anything that has to do with Bryce. This particular morning I heard Bryce crying and let Hope out of my room with the instructions to go comfort Bryce because I needed two more minutes to finish something. She smiled and ran in saying, "its ok, buddy, its ok". She dumped out as many toys into the crib as she could manage and proceeded to climb in and play with him until I arrived. It warms my heart to see Hope and Bryce playing together and loving each other.

Big Girl......

It always is interesting to me that Hope prefers the food on my plate to the food on her plate. (Even if we are eating the same thing!) So today to save time and dishes I just had her share lunch with me. How else could you get a two year old to eat taco salad? Yum! Yum!

The real treat for our big girl was that I let her feed Bryce his food. I took these pictures on my cell phone so you can't see really well, but there is pear all over him. She was so excited when she was able to get it in his mouth! She then tasted it and decided that she wanted the pears for herself. I laughed and laughed as Bryce was swatting for the bowl and Hope was dodging his swinging arms. He hit the bowl a few times which sent pear all over Hope. It was hard to see a mess being made. But the kids enjoyed themselves and their bath afterwards. I have a feeling that Hope will be a big help as are family grows.

My little monkey.....

What do you do with a two year old that never stops? Really.....what do you do? Jared went to a Stake meeting on Saturday afternoon. I am embarrassed to admit that I was not thrilled about him having to go. At the end of a challenging and exhausting week I felt I really needed his help. I prayed for help and felt that we should get out of the house while he was gone. We took an uneventful trip to the store for a few items and all was well until little Hope decided that she didn't want to get back in the car. It is not easy to chase her around a parking lot with cars passing by and a 20 pound baby in arms. My patience endured and we stopped at the park on the way home. After endless trips across the monkey bars and down the slide we decided to take a walk around the school. While doing so Hope noticed another playground that was fenced in. Without hesitation she quickly began climbing the chain link fence to get to the playground. She is barely two years old and just whips right up this fence in seconds! Later that evening she did twirls and ran laps downstairs. I just can't keep up with this little monkey!

Hope Reading A Book

Hope just loves books! She will bring us book after book to read to her. She now likes to read to us. This is a video of her reading her first book!

Happy Birthday Mary- the project

I read in the Parent Magazine about a Mom who takes pictures of her kids holding a homemade birthday sign for their family members and then emails it to the special birthday girl or boy. My sister Mary is turning 21 on Monday and I wanted to try to do this for her. It didn't work at all. The following is what happened........

First Hope held the sign and Bryce took a massive hold of her hair.

The sign then was smashed onto Bryce's head by an angry little girl.

I tried to take a picture of just Bryce with the sign but he wouldn't smile and the sign was difficult to read.

He then decided to eat it as I will admit it was a nice looking sign.....scrumptious.........

This is Hope after I bribed her with a Jelly Bean to come and hold the sign and take a picture with Bryce. She said, "No!" and shut the door on me. The end. No one holds the sign. It has a bite taken out of it by Bryce and he was going for it again as I took this picture. We still love Mary forever and hope she has a very happy birthday! As for making more signs and sending them by email to our family for their birthdays?????? I have two kids crying and all over me......a decent headache........have not started dinner.......and unfortunately Daddy is coming home late tonight.

As hard as it was we love our family so much and I think we'll try it again. I am sorry that it didn't work this time, but we'll keep trying. Happy 21rst Birthday Mary!

Bryce's Hair

Who would have thought that Bryce's hair would be more difficult to do something with than Hope's hair. Maybe it is difficult because he has baby hair. I don't know. Do I just let it go all-natural? Do I comb it over to the side like a missionary? Do I put some gel in it and spike it? I guess it does not matter. He always looks handsome and adorable to me!

Every day Occurences

We have had a rough week. The condensed version of what has been happening includes (but is not limited to): lack of sleep, crying, humidifiers, coughing, lack of smiles, sore throats, and a mommy who would have gone over the edge had Daddy not been Superman and helped in every way possible. Despite the difficulties I still caught some pictures of funny every day occurrences.
Hope spilled breakfast on her PJ's so I took them off downstairs in the kitchen. She kept saying, "I want shirt. I want shirt." Since I was in the middle of cleaning up breakfast I told her to go upstairs and get a shirt. She went upstairs and came down with 2 pairs of pants, socks, shoes and a bow. Everything but a shirt! I put them on anyway and told her that she did a great job.

The second part to Hope's clothing choice is that when we went upstairs to her room I noticed this pile of clothes she created while upstairs........there are probably 10 shirts in that pile........I guess just not the one she wanted........ =)
This is one of Jared's favorite photos. We keep putting Hope on the potty and she loves to sit on it. She never goes to the bathroom but loves to sit on it. This was Hope trying on my reading glasses. What a big girl. What followed next was a phone call to Daddy and Hope jibber-jabbered while sitting on her potty. I then saw her grab a book and flip through it on her potty. I couldn't get her off of it for probably 30 minutes.

Hope likes to play in my bathroom cabinet while I get ready in the morning. This day she was thrilled (and very quiet) to find stickers.........

Sweet Bryce..........He has been pretty sick and I am so glad that he is getting better. We have missed his giggling, cooing, and smiles. He has just started to jibber jabb "dada, dada, dada" and although he is still battling a runny nose and coughs he is back to being his gentle mannered little self.

Hope......I don't understand her. She battles me almost every day for both naptime and bedtime. She seems to loathe bedtime, but give her a empty laundry basket and what does she want to do with it? Make a bed........