This Girl...

(Yes, no diaper in this picture)

...is just too adorable. Sydney just turned 18 months the beginning of this month. I figured I'd better write about some of the fun things about her at this age because they grow and develop so fast, if I wait till she is 2 she'll be past so many of these cute phases and onto others.
* I think SHE thinks we live in a clothing optional home. Probably because she sees her brother and sister running around in their underwear whenever we're home. (I consider it their way of dealing with the Las Vegas summer heat.) She has taken it one step farther though. I can't keep this girls diaper on her. She is constantly taking it off to "be free." The biggest problem with this is that she isn't potty trained, so more than once just last week I got to clean up some yucky messes from her bedroom. Yes, "Yucky." She loves to be naked. I guess I can't get too upset because I remember looking through our family albums and seeing a picture of me naked because my mom said she couldn't keep clothes on me. I always stripped and ran around the house. The other day Rebecca had been playing and came running through the room yelling, "gotta go pees, gotta go pees!" (That's normal for our house) A few minutes later I went upstairs to see where Sydney had wandered off to. I found her stripped diaper sitting in the hallway at the top of the stairs, but no Sydney. I found her in my bathroom sitting on the toilet, pulling on the toilet paper roll. She looked at me and said, "Pees." So now, every time she strips her diaper she says, "pees" and fights getting her diaper on until I let her sit on the toilet for 2 seconds to go "pees." (Am I giving too much information? Sorry if I am. I figure most people reading this are moms, you've been through it.)

* Sydney LOVES to draw with markers. She especially loves to draw all over her arms and face.

(Case and Point)

* Her favorite game is Duck, Duck, Goose. Whenever I'm sitting on the ground she'll get a smirk on her face, stand up, and walk around start patting everyone on the head saying, "Dutt, Dutt." It is too cute. She gets so excited to run around.

* She is my pickiest eater by far at this point. She mainly eats yogurt, dinosaur chicken nuggets (and they have to be the ones from Albertson's, the softer ones.), mac and cheese, and occasionally a nutrigrain bar. Drives me crazy.
* She is talking so much more. She THINKS she is having full conversations. Sometimes she'll say a whole group of words to me, (I have no idea what she's saying) but there is total inflection in her voice like she's having a conversation.

* She's started nursery. Hates the first 2 minutes, but after that she's fine. She loves to show me the papers she draws on during class.

* She loves baths and showers. Without fail, if the tub water goes on she's there within 2 minutes from anywhere in the house. This fits perfectly with her love of being naked.

* She's our biggest tease so far too. Rebecca teases, and has a great sense of humor, and Hayden LOVES to laugh so much, but Sydney teases non stop. And you can see in her face she knows exactly what she's doing.

* She loves music, singing and dancing to music. In church whenever we sing a hymn she looks up at the chorister and waves her hand along with the chorister.

I love this little girl. I'm so happy she's part of our family, and so fun to have around.

Have you had your scare for the day?

The other day I was exercising out in the garage while Sydney was napping and Rebecca was playing upstairs. I got done and enjoyed the peace and quiet of just one child playing happily without fighting. But after about 10 minutes I hadn't heard a thing from upstairs where I figured Rebecca was playing. I sent Hayden up to see if she was ok while I was finishing the dishes, but he came back and said he didn't see her.

I thought she might be hiding in Sydney's room after stealing Syd's binky. I went up there and Sydney's door was shut, but I crept in to see if she was in there and didn't see her anywhere. I checked her bedroom, couldn't see her anywhere. I started to get a little worried. Checked my room, the bathroom, my closet, no Rebecca to be found. Now my heart was really beating hard. I didn't ever hear the house alarm go off while I was exercising, and I leave the door open to the house, I knew she couldn't have left the house without me seeing or hearing, but I couldn't imagine where she could be.

Once again I swept the whole house again. It isn't like my home is THAT big, with tons of hiding places. Finally after running through the house like a crazy woman searching every nook and cranny I got down and looked under Rebecca's bed, where I'd peeked before, but from standing, not getting down on the ground. And there she was.

She had found a binky, hid where I wouldn't find her and dozed off to sleep. I think my heart rate got faster looking for her than it did during my workout!

P.S. Don't judge me because my almost 4 yr old daughter still sucks on a binky! I PROMISE she doesn't have permission.

P.P.S Don't judge the fact that I can't control my almost 4 yr old daughter that has a steel will, and if she is determined to steal a binky she will do it at all costs, even if it means having Barbies thrown in the garbage.

P.P.P.S. Don't judge me for letting my daughter wear a 2 piece swimsuit. We bought it only because it came with a matching life jacket that was cheaper than others, and she always wore the life jacket.

P.P.P.P.S. She only wears it to swim outside at home when her other swimsuits are wet. We tell her it isn't modest, because she shouldn't be showing her belly button.

P.P.P.P.P.S. She has a good solution to not showing her belly button. She pulls the top all the way down so it covers her belly button.

P.P.P.P.P.P.S. She doesn't realize that by pulling it down to cover her belly button it is revealing her little boobies - thus still immodest.

P.P.P.P.P.P.P.S. I also realize I don't have to justify myself to anyone, and that none of you are judging me in the first place, it was just a fun way to tell you that she pulls her top down to be modest, but ends up being more immodest then she was to start with.

Wrapping up the Summer Fun!

It's hard to believe that school starts tomorrow. Here are somr other fun pictures of how we wrapped up our summer.

The kids had a lot of fun swimming in our spacious pool in our humongous backyard. They also had a lot of fun dumping dirt into the pool as well. That's ok though, at least it cooled them down from the eternal Vegas summer heat.

We were also able to go to Bounce U for my nephew's birthday party. We all had so much fun, and it wore everyone out, including me.




Last week a group of friends got together for our 2nd annual (sounds official doesn't it!) Back to school potluck at the water park. We are blessed to have so many great friends. So many kids for mine to play with from the ward, and those that just moved into new wards. I'm glad that even with the ward boundary changes (more on that in another post) we still get together and stay close.


It has been a very good summer, with lots of vacationing fun, and fun at home!

Rebecca's faith

One morning last week Rebecca was upset because she couldn't find her Ariel doll that she had been playing with the night before. She said she looked everywhere but couldn't find it. I told her I hadn't seen it either and didn't know where it was. Then Rebecca got excited and raised her pointer finger in the air like she does when she gets a good idea.

"I bet I know who can help us!" She said.
"Who?" I asked.
"I bet Heavenly Father and Jesus know where my Ariel doll is!"

She suggested we pray to ask for help with finding it. She is so sweet. So we said a prayer, and then I explained that we now needed to do our part and look for it, and they would help us. We started looking, but as usual with Rebecca's 3 yr old attention span she got distracted by other dolls. It wasn't long before I was upstairs changing the laundry and went into the kids' bathroom and there was Ariel.
I took her downstairs to Rebecca and she yelled with all the excitement she could "I KNEW Heavenly Father and Jesus would help us find it!!"
It was such a precious moment. I was praying in my little heart that we would find it too, so she would know our prayers are answered. I'm so glad she has such a pure faith, and that she KNEW we would receive help if we prayed.

Summer Camp Out at Big Lake

The last weekend in July we were able to get away with Jerry's family for a little campout. It was so much fun. We drove to Big Lake in eastern Arizona. It was an 8 hour drive. Long, but the kids did surprisingly well. It is actually quite close to New Mexico. Once we got there I was in paradise. No phone service, no tv, just us, nature, and the rain. Oh, and nice bathroom facilities with running water, flushing toilets and even warm showers. It couldn't be paradise without that. It rained all weekend, and I LOVED it. The mornings were usually clear and beautiful, but by afternoon it started raining off an on for the rest of the day and night. Do you like our make shift ponchos? Garbage bags have several purposes.

The boys getting ready to go do some shooting.

Do these two look like they're up to something or what?

Getting our Grub

Such a doll

This is what it looked like Saturday morning when we woke up. Just beautiful!

Cute Rebecca

I think I'm going to take my nieces on every vacation with me. Rebecca and her cousin, Mikayla were inseparable. Hope she didn't mind being Rebecca's playmate. And they all just loved helping in any way with Rebecca and Sydney.

We enjoyed playing card games and maffia in the pavilion while it rained. Great memories.

Jerry's brothers enjoyed going out fishing early every morning.

Jerry, Hayden and Rebecca had fun fishing too. The thing Hayden was most excited about was that he got a Batman fishing pole.

Big Lake

They also had a lot of fun throwing rocks into the lake.

We made many great memories while we were there, but one of mine was when Jerry took Hayden and Rebecca fishing. Sydney was SO tired and needed a nap. So I put her in the stroller and went for a run. It was beautiful. It took me back to my summers in West Yellowstone when I got to take off after work and go for a bike ride in such beautiful nature. I had a lot of time to think about the path my life took to get from my summers during college working in West Yellowstone, to ending up on a great vacation with wonderful in-laws. Having an amazing husband and 3 darling, fun, beautiful, smart children. I am a lucky woman. There were times in my life I was frustrated, not understanding why my life wasn't going the way I thought it should be. I had righteous desires, it wasn't like what I wanted was bad in any way. But I'm grateful that the Lord took it down the right path for me, and I got everything I wanted and more, and he continues to do so. (Just wish I would learn by now just to go with it, not let my will get in the way:) It was just a good run, and just good thinking time. I am blessed.

My brave nephew was dared to eat a fish eye. YUCK!
He's doing it...

He did it, and if it tasted half as bad as it looked, I'm glad it was him and not me! (Even if it tasted half good, I'm still glad it was him, not me.)

Isn't this a cute boy!

We stayed up late Saturday night playing games and talking around the campfire, and moving under the pavilion when it rained, and back out when it stopped. :) Not really wanted to go to bed because we knew we had to get packed up and home in the morning.
Sunday morning came and we had to go back home.

As the cars were getting packed up we played a little duck, duck, goose to keep the kids entertained.

It started raining again, literally about 5 minutes before we were all ready to go. I couldn't believe all the rain, and I LOVED every minute of it. OK, maybe not while I was sleeping and worried that the water would come in the tent. But other than that LOVED it. The whole trip was so fun and I hope we do this with Jerry's family every summer. We made some great memories and had a wonderful time!