Friends

We have been spending a bit more time with some of Micah and Noah's friends lately. It has been so fun to watch them learn to interact and enjoy other kids. They remember most of their names and often when we go to the park or a party etc, they will name their friends one by one and ask if they are going to be there. I can easily get them in the car if I just tell them that a few of their friends are going to be wherever we are going.

Just a couple of funny stories:

(1). I got this email a few days ago from the Mom of Micah and Noah's friend Derek (unfortunately for us (but great for them), they just bought a house and moved away):

So I've been teaching Derek the primary song "Follow the Prophet." He gets a kick out of it and incredibly (thanks to the creativity of primary songs) is learning the prophets' names. I do the Adam verse, then Derek always says, "How 'bout Noah?" So we do the Noah verse. Then I try to move on to Enoch or whatever and Derek interrupts, "How 'bout Noah?" I say "Again, we already did Noah." Then he asks, "How 'bout Micah?" I always say, "There is no Micah verse." Anyway, I think you should write a Micah verse so Derek can sing it. :)

(2). We had their friend Bennett over last week to play for a couple of hours while his Mom ran some errands. Within 10 minutes of being here, Micah had thrown a fit about 5 times over Bennett playing with something that Micah didn't want him to touch. Bennett hadn't taken anything from Micah or done anything wrong, Micah just didn't want him touching any of his toys. After about 10-15 min, Micah comes over to me and in his saddest most whiny voice says: "Micah no like Bennett!" It was funny that he was so disturbed...just interesting to see how they interact. We put the toys away for a while and started dancing/playing outside. He warmed up pretty quick and later that morning was playing just fine. Now he even asks for Bennett on a regular basis and he screamed the whole 10 min ride home from his house last night b/c he didn't want to leave Bennett.

And here are just a few fun pictures from when we had their friends Caleb and Davin over a few weeks ago. We love Caleb and Davin and their fun mom, April. Whenever I mention Caleb and Davin, Micah always asks, "And April?":

Happy Birthday to Me...

I had a great birthday. One of the best in a while...

Here is what we did:

We started the day by heading to Disneyland.



It is free on your birthday and all kids under 3 are free, so it didn't cost us a thing! Unfortunately, Cory wasn't able to join us b/c he had to work, but I met my friend Nicki there (who also has twins...they are 3 mo younger than the boys). Her Mom also came with us, so we had three adults and 5 kids....pretty good odds! Much better than 3 to 1! Plus, Nicki has an annual pass and goes often so we were able to hit just the right rides and just the right time.

There was a rain in the forecast so I was a little nervous about that, but it ended up just being a really nice cool day. In fact, the whole day went better than I could have hoped for. No major meltdowns...just a few minor ones! Micah would freak out every time we were about to get on a ride, but once on it he was fine. They never got crazy excited about anything, they pretty much just had this face the entire time:



Complete and utter amazement and awe.

This was by far the favorite ride:



Noah screamed in terror the entire time and as you can tell from the picture he jumped up and out as soon as it was over. But since then, anytime I mention the Mickey park, he talks about how he was spinning "big high" with a big old grin on his face.

It was really fun to just spend the whole day with them and watch their reactions to the magical kingdom. (-: I think they are still a bit young for me to invest in a yearly pass, especially since there are so many great things right here in San Diego, but it was worth the free trip and I'm sure we'll get a pass in a couple years.

The rest of the day's pictures:
Sitting at Nicki's house before we left:


What cute kids:!

On our way in:


More reactions to the rides:


On our way to Mickey's House:


In the House: (I was trying to feed Samantha, and poor Nicki was going crazy tending to all four 2 yr olds)


The boys were so excited to see Mickey until we actually got there. They freaked out as soon as I picked them up and headed toward Mickey. Noah calmed down a bit, but poor Micah has the breastfeeding cover in his face, so he was going crazy...


Micah loved this little tube. He would crawl through it, and jump up and go "ta-da" with his arms. I took this picture just a bit too early.


Noah decided to take a little break:


All done...they were sure wiped out!



When I got home I had a wonderful Happy Birthday email waiting from my husband that made me cry. He wasn't able to be home all day b/c of work/school, but he still made sure to make it a nice day for me.

I also got lots of phone calls and cards. Thanks everyone!

I got this great new dinnerware set from my mom


and this fun dinosaur muffin tin from Cory's mom.



And it didn't end there. I was out shopping with the boys Wednesday afternoon when Cory calls...."When are you going to be home?" he asks. Soon, I say. "By 5:45?" he says....

He had gotten a babysitter and arranged for us to be able to go to Red Lobster for dinner. It was SO SO wonderful to be able to spend 1 1/2 hours with my husband without any interruptions. Thanks so much Cory!

Oh, and he also got me a cheesecake instead of a regular birthday cake (I don't like cake). I sure am lucky!

Thanks everyone for such a great day!

Beach Bums

We have been spending quite a bit of time at the beach lately. We are SO LUCKY to have it so close (2 miles or so). Our ward playgroup is meeting there once a week during the summer and Cory loves taking the boys there as well. So here are some pictures from our last couple of trips.

Ward Playgroup:



Micah has loved the water for a long time. Whenever we go, he wants to run down and put his feet in. He doesn't even seem to mind/notice how cold it is. He poor little feet will turn bright red and I eventually have to drag him back up to the blanket kicking and screaming b/c I am so afraid he is going to freeze to death. That is exactly what happened last week...I took him down and held his hand each time a wave came in to make sure he didn't fall. I was down there with a friend and started talking...no waves had come to where we were for a while. I was still standing right next to him, but no longer had his hand. A big (well, big for Micah...above his waist) wave came in and knocked him right over. I immediately picked him up, but he just signed "more, more." I, however, was sure he was going to get hypothermia, so I took him back up to the blanket. Unfortunately, I had forgotten towels, so we borrowed one, and got him as dried off as I could. He then continued to play around in the sand for the next hour. His shorts dried fine, but his shirt didn't (it was a regular shirt, not a rash guard), so he ended up pretty dirty.



The really sad part is that we have been back to the beach three times since then and he won't go anywhere near the water anymore. It really makes me sad. I feel so guilty. I keep trying, but anytime we get close (even with me carrying him), he just signs/says "all done, all done" over and over again while he wimpers....so sad!

I few days after that incident, we went to the beach with Daddy. The boys had a lot of fun trying to bury his legs. Now they just think that is what you do at the beach...they try to bury my legs, each others legs, their friends...

Bates Nut Farm

There is a fun little farm out here...well about 30 min away. It is called Bates Nut Farm. During the Holiday season you can pick pumpkins, go on hay rides etc. During the off season, you can just go see all the animals for free. They are all caged, but it is still really fun. Micah is crazy about animals, so he had a great time. Noah looked for a while, but then jsut wanted to play with the ball and cars our friends had brought. Micah kept putting his hand through the fence. I was so afraid he was going to get a finger bit off by some chicken, duck or turkey. It was a fun trip. Micah has asked every day to go back in the car to see the animals...I'm not sure if he means the zoo or the farm...maybe both, but he asks multiple times a day "car...animals?" It's cute.

1st Primary Activity

The ward here has a Summer kickoff primary party every year at the park. They invite the nursery kids to the activity too. The boys had a lot of fun playing on the slides and just watching all the older kids get in water fights and have three-legged races etc. Micah got pretty upset once though when he got a big bucket of water in the face (on accident). Pretty funny. Their favorite part by far, though was the popsicles. I don't think they have ever had that much sugar in one sitting. Their faces don't show it in the pictures...I think eating them took too much concentration....but they were in heaven.

Friends

So, I have really been a slacker mom when it comes to creating opportunities for the boys to interact with other kids or even other adults. We typically just hang out at home or go to the park or beach or library as a family. We had the opportunity last week, however, to have some friends over while their mom went to help someone in the ward. Her boys are adorable and they get out all the time. She is my hero when it comes to finding awesome, free/cheap things to do with your kids. Anyway, the boys had a great time and just loved Davin and Caleb. They ran around so much that all four boys were wet with sweat by the time April came to pick them up. It was a really fun afternoon.

Then they actually got to go over to Davin and Caleb's house Thursday while we looked for a car, and they had a GREAT time again. They couldn't stop saying "Davin" and "Caleb" all afternoon. Thanks, April, for watching them!

What's two more?

Our good friends Brady and Nicki just moved down here from Utah (YAY!!) and we went to their place to watch the BYU game on Saturday (GO COUGARS!....way to block that kick!). They actually had twins 3 months after us, so it was quite the scene with the eight of us...the babies actually did really well. Noah started the day off by immediately giving Ella a kiss, and Talmage and Ella were both very nice to share all their toys. No big fights or anything. As Brady said, it's chaos with two, what's two more? They had fun crawling around in this tube...poor Talmage is about to get crushed though!

A really great weekend.

I am a little behind on posting. Things have been pretty crazy around here lately. A couple of days after we moved into this place, Cory called an old friend from high school...actually a really good friend that he knew lived in Carlsbad, but wasn't sure exactly where. To our surprise, they live about 2 min away and are actually in our ward! How great is that!?!? So, they came over and hung out that night. It was fun since we really haven't had anyone to do that with for the last year....they are expecting a little boy in December, so it was a lot of fun to talk to them and remember where we were a year ago.

A couple of nights later another of Cory's really good friends from High School came down from the LA area for a wedding. We actually used to spend every weekend with them when we lived in Utah and have REALLY missed them. It has been months since we've seen them. They spent the night with us and we all hung out on Saturday. Then everyone came back to our place for dinner on Sunday. It was a really great weekend. Hopefully there will be many more such weekends in our future.