Sunday, September 9, 2012

Lucky Day

Several years ago I read an article that suggested giving junk mail to your children to play with.  At the time this one was just a baby, and it was nice to give her something to tear up that I didn't worry about. Still to this day, it is her treasure.  Whenever there is a large pile of junk mail she gets so excited! "Oooh," she says, "Can I keep this one?" "Do you need that?"....
On this particular day I spent hours cleaning up and organizing the office, filling a garbage can in the process.  She was quietly playing behind me while I paid bills.  When I turned around, she had completely surrounded herself in everything that I had thrown away and exclaimed,
"Mom, it's my lucky day!"  

Everyday Little things

A friend recently told me about her goal to write one thing that her children did each day in a journal that could be given to the child later.  While I don't expect to do the same, I would like to get down some of the things my children have been doing, so that I don't miss the chance.

A-7/4/12 First parade.  At the local festivities everyone lined up for races and she knew what to do, she just had a winding path of getting there.  She won the heat for her age, and she probably would have won even if the other kid had left the starting line.:)  She was quick with her bear crawl.

A- 7/10/12 Does all the actions to pat-a-cake when I just sing (no actions).

A-7/19/12 Says "woooohl i, woooooohl i" for "roll it, roll it" in pat-a-cake as she rolls her hands in pat-a-cake.  She love to say it to get me to play with her early in the morning after daddy goes to work.

A-7/20/12 Walks about 6-7 steps before falling.

A-7/24/12 First family reunion.  Loved rolling a ball away from her by flicking it with the back of her hand and then crawling after it.

A-7/25/12 Crawls til she's about 6-7 steps from someone, stands up and then walks the rest of the way.

A-8/4/12 Dug into her cake feet first--of course those little feet!

A- 8/8/12 Said "I love you" over and over on the phone to me.  I needed it; missing my baby.

A-8/10/12 Walked from the kitchen to the front door to me after I had been out of town for a few days (about 20 steps). I can't help but feel that I missed it.

A-8/18/12 Played drop the pacifier through the teething ring for about 30 minutes with me and said, "dop" for drop.

A- 8/19/12 Completely emptied a glass of water by dipping her hand and flicking the water on me--squealing and laughing in glee the whole time!

A 8/22/12 fed herself baby cereal with a spoon, and did a pretty good job.

A-8/29/12 Asks (through clear gestures) for the radio to be turned on so that she can dance...and isn't satisfied until the tune has a good beat.

A- 8/31/12 Scribbled spontaneously on a book.

A-9/1/12 blew kisses to mom on her way to work.

A- 9/5/12 Said "apa" for water. Found pockets in her jeans.

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S-7/20/12 Successfully completed level 1 swimming lessons.

S-7/24/12 Got put in time out at the family reunion for being mean to one of her distant cousins.  Before her 5 minutes was up, I looked down to see the whole bunch of kids her age (5-6) all sitting in a row on her time-out.  Misery likes company?

S-8-4-12 Had Special time with Mom and went school shopping.

S- 8-10-12 Successfully beat Mom and Heidi at Just Dance Abba

S-8/13/12 Got to touch a sting ray and ride the bumper boats, tried the giant beach ball, (but got clausterphobic) at the county fair.

S-8/22/12 Declared, "I love school! Ms. N is so nice!"

S-8/24/12 Declared, "I love doing homework! Homework is fun!"

S-9/4/12 Made up her first jokes.  "Why did the chicken eat the lizard? Because he thought it would taste good!"

S-9/5/12- Daddy took her to the library and she checked out 2 Barbie books and 2 Barbie movies. (She even found some we haven't read before)

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G 6/2012 Got to go inside a giant clear beach ball on water at a local festival in the park. It was awesome!

G 6-21-12 Went to a lake and met some Armenian's that my uncle talked to.  They let me catch a fish.

G- 6-30-12 Daddy took me fishing all day, and mom taught me how to clean a fish.

G 7-20-12 Successfully completed level 4 Swimming lessons.

G-7-27-12 Caught the first fish, Casted, hooked and reeled in by himself.  Also helped catch and eat some crawfish.

G-7-29-12 While our family was camping at a small lake,  he woke up early, got dressed, grabbed a fishing pole, the kayak and went off on a fishing trip before anyone else in the trailer woke up.

G- 8/14/12 Had a fever all day, but had enough energy to go with Daddy to the county fair and ride the rides for "special time"

G 8/15/12 After seeing parts of the 2012 Olympics, declared a renewed interest in swimming.

G 8/17/12 Was in heaven at a Jonathan's pool birthday party that had a slide, and a plateau/waterfall
diving area.

G-8/22/12 Jumped off the diving board at the pool for nearly an hour in the run, jump, canonball form. Successfully beat his dad in a swim across the pool race. 

G 8/29/12 Asked for a sling-shot and some marbles to shoot.

G- 8/31/12 Chose a rubberband pistol from the vendor booth at local festival, declared it is kind of like a sling-shot.

 
G-9-9-12  Changed a dirty diaper for the first time (for $2).

Monday, July 2, 2012

Summer 2012

We have had such a fun summer camping and visiting places.  This little girl has been going to the lake since she was tiny, but this summer we've been going camping about every weekend we can.  Here are a few pictures...

This is what I call "Sweet" dreams



She loves playing in the sand, and tasting it of course.

I can't believe we're ready for K already!

Pozing on one of our hikes to Emerald Pools

We're so glad that Brucey came back!

When it's hot outside camping, this is our makeshift kiddy pool/bath tub, and she can stay happy in it for a long time!

Notice....sitting

Standing-
It's her latest trick, actually she's been doing it for a while, she just stands up from squatting, then stands there for quite a while

Daddy helping her figure out what to do once she's standing :)


I bet you can't guess this one was pozed. 
She asked me to take it, but isn't she beautiful?

Sunday, February 19, 2012

My Baby Girl

I can't believe how time flies! My little one has such a fun personality, I just want to get it down before I forget.  She absolutely loves her feet!  She gets so excited whenever they are uncovered.  I think that in the womb her feet were up by her face.  I rarely felt kicks the way I did with my other pregnancies, and when she was just a few days old I incidentally put her feet on my belly and she easily folded in half and instantly calmed and fell asleep. For the past 2 months at least she gets so excited to see her feet, grab them and eat them, that we really had a task at our recent photo shoot to keep them out of her mouth to get a picture.  She acts like they are her long lost friends! 
She is so good with her little hands she is quick to grab anything and loves to hold a spoon and feed herself.  I put food on the spoon, hand it to her, she puts it in her mouth, and when it is empty I hand her a new spoon loaded and refill the first. 
 She is so talkative too!  Since she was 2 1/2 months she says what sounds like "Hi".  She says "dada, bababababa, papa," blows raspberries, and sniffs in imitation. "Mama" only comes out occasionally when she's sad. She still has an internal clock that says 6:30 pm is bedtime, and 4-5 am is playtime, and boy can she squeal!--especially when she gets a hold of her feet!
She loves to cuddle nose to nose or bury her face in the bend of your arm to go to sleep. She likes to have her stretch out down time too.  For a little while she would stretch whenever I would say "Stretch". She is getting around by pivoting, rolling scooting on back and on tummy with knees tucked up under her.  She can use her legs and feet to get something almost as well as her hands.  She gives open mouth slobber kisses--sometimes holding your face in both hands--it melts me!  If you can't tell, this mommy adores her!

5 year old view of death

"Mommy, Did I die yet?  I can't remember"
"Will you tell me when I die?"
"When I die you will plant me so that I can go up to heaven"

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Letters to Santa

Clearing off my desk, I found some small rolled up pieces of paper that were removed from our Christmas tree: this year's letters to Santa--or prayers?
"I wont a we"
"I wont my babe to git betr" (baby got croup right after big brother had it)
"I wont a doombuge" 
"I wont Leyim to git betr"  (cousin with Leukemia)
"I wish the orfins can be safe" (he's had a sudden concern for orphans- one day he told me that he wanted to give something to the orphans, like toys or something.)

Another precious moment I don't want to forget:  Sometimes I drop my son off at school on my way to work.  The first couple of times, as I drove away I happened to glance back to see him blowing me a kiss.  I'm so glad I caught them!

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Thankful ABC's

We drove to my brother's house for Thanksgiving this past year, and on the way to help time pass we made a list of things that our family is thankful for.
 Here is the list we came up with:
Annelise, Apples, Aunts, Airplanes, A/C, Alphabet 
BMW, Brakes, Birds, Bruce & Bryce, Bed, BYU
Church, Computers, Crystal, Cars
Dad, Damon Atkinson, Driving, Dolls, Disposable Diapers!
Elevators, Eggs, Elephants, Escalators, Eyes
Four wheelers, Flags, Family, Friends
God, Grapes, Gary, Giggles, Grandpa, Gondolas
Honey, Home, Hitch, Hamburgers
Ionut, Internet, Ice, Icicles
Jesus, Jumpin' Jacks, Julia, Job, Juicer
Kyle, Kitty, Knives, Karate, King size bed!
Lorna, Love, Layettes, life
Mountains, Mail, McDonald's, Mothers
Nature, Nuts, Naps, Natural Gas,
Operations, Owners manuals, Oxygen, Ochi (eyes) Oranges,
Pencils, Pumpkin Pie, Paypal
Quiet, Q&A's, Quanine
Rain, Reading, Redbox, Rootbeer
Sara, Scriptures, Stars, Stores, Sprinklers
Tent Trailer, Trees, Tumbling, Trampoline, Tonic Water
Umbrellas, Underwear, Unlimited Internet access
Violins, Violet
Water, Wyatt, Wainwrights, Writing
X-tra clothes, Xylophone and X-box
You, Yellow, Yo-yo
Zippers, Zebra, Z-pack