Micali's "moo"

 

Here is the friendly neighborhood moose that comes around quite often. Micali loves it and will stare out the window forever when it is close to our house. When it moves out of her sight, on more than one occasion she has put on her boots to go find "moo." We told her it wasn't safe that moose weren't nice and she could get hurt. Now when she sees a moose she will say "moo not nice, moo hurt me?" At least this way she hopefully won't be out in the front yard trying to pet it one day.
Which reminds me of her love for another animal too. The SQUIRRELS in our back yard. She watches them, then knocks on the window and ask them to come here. It hasn't worked for her so far but maybe one day.

Daddy's helper

 

Micali continues to want to be involved in anything her daddy is doing. Lastnight they put together the sliding closet doors for the entryway. It looks really nice. I got the camera out to take a picture when I heard Micali repeat her Daddy saying, "you need to use more pressure" She was holding a track wheel in place for him and it kept sliding. So she kept saying "more pressure, yes, more pressure" It was cute to hear her use those words.
I wanted to make a quick list of things Micali has said lately and what she is doing.
-"don't help k?" Tonight she didn't really need me in the room with her while she was putting Eli down for bed. She sang to him, prayed with him and gave him kisses and hugs. The only thing she "let" me do was put him in bed.
-praying at meal times and bed times
-she is singing songs like crazy. All day long she seems to have some song in her head
-she says PERFECT. When I fill her juice cup, get her something she can't reach, or when she likes anything I do. "ahh Perfect, thank you mama"

I love my sweet girl. A few weeks ago we had a Relief Society Enrichment meeting and one of the mini-classes was on parenting. A guest speaker who is a teacher at BYU-Idaho came and presented. Afterwards a friend and I picked her brain a little on parenting a two year old.
One thing she said was to give them choices. They are striving for independence at this age and need to have some choices. So for example in the morning when she is getting dressed you say pink shirt or purple shirt? If she hasn't answered in 10 seconds or less you repeat the question. If she still hasn't answered you make the choice for her and move on to the next thing.
This has worked so well for Micali. She has started making up her mind really fast and realizing that is she doesn't make a choice than mommy or daddy are going to.
So at nap time now instead of just telling her to go to lay down and go to sleep, I ask her if she wants books or no books. Some days she feels like looking at them some days she is just too tired and wants to go to sleep right away but she seems to realize she made a choice and then is more okay with what is going on.
I LIKE IT!!! It has made my life A LOT easier and Micali a lot happier! I just have to accept her choice when I give her one. Do you want your nice, clean pretty church shoes, or your dirty tennis shoes to wear with your dress to church-----I will take the dirty tennis shoes THANKS mom! oh well--we made it out the door that morning at least!

Disheveled Teacher

 

Luke just finished reading a book about the Holocaust in his Sophomore English class. As part of their culminating activity to finish off the unit he decided to do a small tribute to those people involved. He asked the class to think over Spring Break of some things they could give up for two weeks. Since Holocaust victims were stripped from any freedom or convienences. So this Monday when he went to school they discussed in their classes what things they were going to give up.
Here in the picture you can see my disheveled husband. One of the things he decided to give up was wearing a tie. Although that sounds silly his ties really have become a part of him. He wears one nearly everyday. Now he has decided to go with out one for two weeks. This picture shows pretty much how he feels with out wearing one. He also gave up all snack foods (chips, candy, ice cream) and he is giving up his disorganization in his classroom and is keeping it organized. Although these things he and his students have given up are very minor it helps them to see the freedoms and conveniences they enjoy on a daily basis!

Spring Break 09

We started the Spring Break off with Mom, Micali, and Elijah all getting bad colds. We were able to get better fairly quickly and enjoyed having daddy home to take care of us. Wednesday morning we turned on the radio and Luke called in 8
to win tickets an International All-star Circus. We had talked about going but, since we weren't feeling great we didn't want to spend the money on the tickets. It was a nice free outing and some of the acts were pretty cool. Micali and Elijah seemed to be a little young for it. It didn't really hold their attention to well.
On Friday when I woke up I asked Luke what he wanted to do for his last official day of Spring Break and he decided he wanted to finish off painting in the kitchen. We had started painting it during Thanksgiving break but with all the flooring projects since then we never made it back to it. We painted it a light green color and really like how it turned out.
You can see from the original picture from when we moved into the house that we rearranged it a little. We moved the refrigerator to the other side and got a Pantry to go in the old spot. It is so nice to have that extra storage spot. So all the painting is finished throughout the whole upstairs. Luke worked hard on his break! More pictures to come on our other projects we have been working on.

 

 

All ready for the circus!

Here we are after getting ready for the circus. For all of us being sick the pictures actually look pretty good. This is Eli at 14 months old.

 

 

"SPRING" break starts TODAY!!

Lastnight it was a little warmer so we decided to ENJOY the snow since it is still here. Micali and Eli loved it and didn't seem to be bothered at all.
Daddy and Micali outlasted Eli and I by a good 20 minutes. Here are some pictures of our adventures!



We are excited to have SPRING BREAK this coming week. Lastnight we were talking and realized we have a whole week with out any plans. This is our first Spring Break that has happened. Our first spring break up here we flew to Seattle and drove our Camry back up the ALCAN. The next one we had Arctic Winter Games we volunteered at and added in babysitting for a friend who went to Hawaii. Let's see.....I am forgetting one Spring Break---must not have been too exciting. This last spring break we were busy with a new baby and moving into a new house. Ahhh---It will be nice to relax this next week. I am sure it will fill up fast with plenty of fix up projects to continue.

What I have to work with...

Over the past year, since I got a new camera and even better a new lens for my camera (thanks for the suggestion Leaca), I have very much enjoyed taking pictures of my sweet kiddos. This morning I may have started to go overboard. I only took 60 pictures though---that isn't too bad. Well by the end they didn't care if they were being cute and this is what they gave me. Micali instantly falls asleep or pulls what is close over her head. Eli, well, his face shows how he was feeling when it was clearly LUNCH time not camera time!
 

For your viewing pleasure

 

Looking Back

 

I took some pictures of the kids together this morning before we went to Story Time at the library. They actually had clothes on and not pajamas. I wanted to show Eli that sometimes he did really wear clothes and hasn't lived in his PJs his entire life. The other pictures on the collage were taken just about a year ago. Luke's parents came for Eli's baby blessing and ended up helping us move. Eli in his swing with Micali was the last picture we have of them at our old house. The one with Grandma and Grandpa was taken right before they had to go back home. From looking back I realized Eli was a HUGE two month old and Micali has gotten a lot of teeth this last year. She only had 4 of them at 18 months old and now she has a whole mouth full.

Accomplishments as of late....

 

I didn't have any recent pictures to post so I just went back through and found some that really make me smile! The one of Luke looking so happy with all the treats in the background was the day we potty trained Micali back in July. We gave her all the juice, milk and water she would drink and every 5 minutes when she sat on the potty she got a treat. Good Memories! This smile of his didn't last long.

So, accomplishments:
Eli----SAYS MOMMA!! He said Sasha(the babysitter) first though. He recovered quickly though and the very next day said momma. The first time he said it was getting him out of the bath on Sunday. Since then he has said it when he wanted to sit on my lap and Micali was already there, and today he said it when he was in the other room and was hoping I would come and get him.
----He can pull up onto furniture.
----He crawled yesterday. Clear across the room on two occasions. Once to show off for me and then later to show off for his daddy. He still mostly scoots but tries actual crawling occasionally.
----He figured out that he can sit up in his bed. I don't know how it took him so long to figure it out but Micali got in there the other day and showed him how. Now most of the time when I go in there he is sitting up. If he sits up before he falls asleep he cries until someone comes in and lays him back down.

Micali----OPENS the REFRIGERATOR! I realize this might be late in accomplishing this task but I am glad it took her so long to realize she could do it. Now I can't get her out of the refrigerator. She helps herself to whatever she can reach. Today while I was doing dishes she got the milk out and decided to try and give Eli some milk. Don't worry no mess was made, only a little bit of milk was left in the gallon and she poured it in his cup like a pro.
This morning I was wiping her little bum after she used the bathroom and when I was finished she said, "you did it? all clean? good job momma!---gave me a huge leg hug--- Thank you,love you! AHHH----give me a KISS!!"