Puzzlemania...

I gave Savvy three puzzles and a bag of puzzle pieces. She picks one out and finds where it goes, if it doesn't belong to one of these puzzles she sets it behind her. I love this little girl!!

She knows all of her ABC's and is currently learning the phonic sounds. She knows her numbers 1-12. She knows all basic shapes plus some crazy ones like cone, arch, cube, cylinder, octagon, and hexagon. She needs a little work on her colors, yellow is the only one she gets right every time but she knows blue and red and brown and pink too. She says full sentences like "I love you so much!" and "There it is!" She loves to sing Book of Mormon Stories and 3 Little Monkeys. She puts herself in timeout on the stairs when she is upset. She loves her brother and gets so excited when it is time for him to wake up. She loves to jump...into pools...from the stairs into my arms...and up and down on the floor.

Judah has learned to say "Hi" and "eyes". He will eat anything! In Grammy Gavin's room there was an air mattress in the bedroom by her old t.v. I went upstairs to check on the kids because they love to jump on the air mattress. I got there just in time to see Judah fly off the t.v. onto the air mattress with his arms stretched out like superman. I wish I had got it on camera. He is one brave 18 month old! Judah loves his momma! If he is hurt I will pick him up and Glenn will come over to check on him but he pushed Glenn away because he doesn't want him to take him from me. Right now Judah has two puzzle pieces and is banging them together like symbols. Savannah is laying on the ground because she is mad that he took her puzzle pieces...we are still learning to share ; )

Arts and Crafts

 I saw this on Pinterest and thought it was such a cute way to personalize your pens.

 I decided to draw something today...so I chose to draw a barn. I guess it is really not that impressive but considering I am not an artist and this was a completely amateur drawing, I was happy with how it turned out. It is hard to capture the detail in the photo though...

 I don't know why but I really wanted to try drawing some wheat...I know, I am weird.

 Decorating notebooks...

 the scrapbook paper on the left pages are pockets...

Fun cheap ways to be creative!

Lions and Tigers and...Doggies...Oh My!

 Glenn's Aunt Jean went to California and saw these adorable backpacks for Judah and Savannah that have little animals with them. The kids LOVE them!

 This is Savvy trying too hard to smile, haha

 She started laying them out and counting them

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 Lately Savvy always says "Awe, so sweet" whenever she does something really nice or really cute!

A Good Mother

Elder M. Russell Ballard "Daughters of God," Ensign, May 2008, 108 

What a great talk by Elder Ballard. It is okay if we all parent differently, our kids are different! We are different!

Sometimes I think we beat ourselves up, or others, because we are not good at every aspect of raising our children, or keeping our home. 

A friend and I were talking about the show hoarders. It was funny because after she watched it, she did a huge deep cleaning in her house because she never wanted her house to be like that. After I watched it I gave myself a break that night because I thought, "I am doing okay, my house is good enough for today". The thing is....neither of these reactions were wrong. They are just different!

We all have different strengths...

maybe yours is keeping an organized house

maybe it is teaching your kids to read at a young age 

maybe it is playing outside with your kids instead of watching them play

 maybe it is encouraging them to be their best self

 maybe it is cooking healthy-natural meals

 or maybe it is finding creative things for them to do

 maybe it is teaching them the gospel

maybe it is to help your kids be independent

The point is that none of us are going to be perfect at all of the things a mother could be...not every kid needs all of the things a mother could do...hopefully we can enjoy being mothers and not feel the need to compare or look down at one another. 

I am grateful to all the great examples of mothers out there and hope I can be the best mom for my kids! I love my children and I am so thankful for the happiness they bring to me!

Blueberry Nose

 How does Judah get so messy, all I can think of is that he is a boy :  )

Savvy was in her high chair eating pizza rolls and bananas(yes, quite the balanced meal haha) She was talking to me and she pointed to her eyes and said "eyes." she lowers her hands and said "hands." then she pulls her hands to the side and said "pizzaaa." I guess you had to be there, but it was really funny

My Daughter and a Baby to a Boy

Savannah is definitely my daughter. About everyday she walks around the house saying, "Pizza. Pizza". I always want some pizza too kiddo. :  )

 

Fishy crackers are my kids favorite snack.

 Judah is starting to be a boy instead of a baby...do you love how the book is upside down?! and even 
more so do you love his outfit? That would because he had other shorts on and peed through his diaper onto them and I had to grab any other shorts to put on him because like I said in the post before otherwise he pulls his diaper off and pees on the floor. (sorry Grammy Gavin)

Refrigerator Magnets

 I love the idea of using clothes pins to hold up heavier papers on the fridge. I was feeling crafty last night so I made matching clothes pin and marble magnets. I like how they turned out. Now I just need my own fridge again...hahaha.

Stories..

Hercules is one of my kids favorite movies. Now every time we watch it, Savannah just sings her little heart out! 

Savannah loves learning! She does really well on her letters and shapes and is working on her numbers now. When we go over her shapes she knows hexagon(which she used to call "whats-a-gon"), square(which she always calls "square it" I don't know why.), circle, oval, rectangle, triangle, heart, star, arch, cube. We are still working on cylinder. If we don't say it first she just calls it, "wha-wha-wha". at least she has down that it is 3 syllables. : )

Glenn got called to be in the nursery, so he gets to play with Savannah and Judah in nursery every week! It is nice to make the transition for Judah because he doesn't like it as much as Savannah did. 

 We were singing Book of Mormon Stories with Savvy and I wanted to get it on video, we kept trying to get a good version and by this last video Savannah told us she had had enough. : )

Judah's new favorite thing is to take his diaper off and pee on the floor. So he is not allowed to go without pants anymore. 

Judah has become our little climber I have to watch him like a hawk whenever he is coloring at the table because every few seconds he tries to get onto the kitchen table. I see a leg go up and if I don't call his name and say no, he thinks it is a green light and jumps right on.

When we go to the park, Savannah is in heaven. She climbs on everything, goes down every slide, climbs heights that make her mom sick : ) She is so brave and NEVER wants to go home : ) Judah is content running around a little but mostly he just loves to sit in the baby swing and go really high. 

Glenn and I have been focused on working out lately. Glenn has even been having me run hill sprints. Which are exactly how they sound...you run up a grass hill as fast as you can. It is harder than you think. Glenn and I tag team it, so one person runs around the track and the other stays with the kids, and then we switch. We do this for jogging, hill sprints, and quick sprints. Let me tell you, our kids do not make the experience better...half the time we are chasing them because they decide to run in the opposite direction that we are going and I will tell you, it is so hard to chase them when you are recovering from the exercises you have just done! : )We also have a weight lifting plan that we are doing. I really like it! I am already seeing results! If we can keep it up(which is our hardest thing to do...then we are going to be one "in super shape" couple! : )

This summer we have been waiting to hear back from Goldman Sachs. Glenn has had 12 interviews and 2 written tests for this job. We have been waiting over a month to hear whether Glenn has the job or not, and it is the worst! : ) Waiting stinks. He also submitted a resume to a law firm here in Vegas(to be a paralegal or secretary or something) (the named partner happens to be our Stake Pres) and they said they have a place for us. We heard from GS last week finally, and they said they will "most likely" let us know this week. We just heard that it took one guy 3 months to get hired and he was the first one they called back. ugh... 

We will keep ya updated!

When I get Savannah ready for church or somewhere nice, she loves when Glenn tells her how beautiful she looks, and this last Sunday she LOVED hearing from daddy that she looked just like mommy!

I was doing an ab exercise on the floor about an hour ago, Savannah just laid down on the floor and looked really focused like she was doing some exercise too, haha cute girl

We were trying to get Savannah to come say prayers with us, Glenn decides to make up a song..."come and pray, come and pray, come and pray." and that was it and if you heard the tune you would be laughing. We had a hard time composing ourselves to say the prayer after that.