Thursday, February 19, 2009

Valentine's Day Sledding

We had a wonderful Valentine's Day this year. It was the first Saturday in a while that Spence has been home all day to hang out with me and the babies. That morning we took it easy just hanging out and playing with the kids. During nap time, Spence wrote his High Council talk for the next day and I got some work done. When the kids woke up, we went sledding. Afterward, we came home to a great Valentine's dinner- heart shaped pizza. Yum.

Sledding with the kids was so much fun. Grandpa and Grandma Davis gave them a sled for Christmas and we hadn't really used it, so we took it for a spin. The kids absolutely loved it. I wish I had a picture of their faces as they went down- grins from ear to ear. Not only did they love sledding, but they loved it when we just sat them down in the snow to play. They thought it was great. Spence taught Blair to eat the snow and she thought that was so fun. They don't have snow boots, so they just wore their tennis shoes. The bottoms of their jeans were a little wet from snow going up their snow pants, but they didn't seem to mind one bit. We weren't there for very long because it started to get dark, but the kids could have gone for more which really surprised me. I thought they'd only like it for a few minutes. Beacuse they loved it so much, we're looking forward to more sledding days. Good thing Dad won't have to work for a few more Saturdays. We look forward to hanging out with him whenever possible in busy season.























Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Welcome Home Elder Davis

Morgan returned from his mission to London, England on February 12th. It was so good to see him and it is so fun to have him home and hang out with him.

Dad, Davis, and Austin waiting for Morgan
Dad and Davis on the many escalator rides

Cruising the airport

Morgan and Mom

Morg and Breezy

Morgan and Dad

Morg and Austin

Davis meeting Uncle Morgan

Blair meeting Uncle Morgan

Morgan and Sue

Blair and Grandpa enjoying a ride around the airport
We went to dinner after we picked Morgan up and he went home to get released. We went to Grandma's and Grandpa's house the next day to hang out some more. We are so happy to have Morgan home and it's been fun to hear about all of his experiences in England.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Play Time

Here a just a few random picture of the kids playing tonight. Don't pay attention to the crazy hair or dirty clothes - those things happen when you have a fun day.






This last picture is worth a million words for sure! This is a typical scene at our house. Davis is happy sitting still and playing with his toys while Blair is going non-stop. It always makes us laugh to observe the differences in their little personalities.

Davis

New things in the life of Davis:

Tooth number three has come through and number four is on it's way soon.

As of January 18th he walks all the time now- We weren't sure how long this would take because he didn't seem interested in walking one bit. One Sunday morning, he stood up in the middle of his room and started walking and hasn't stopped since.

MORE!- Davis learned a little sign language. A while ago, I thought I was going to teach the babies some sign language, but stopped shortly afterward. The book said to teach them the sign for "more" first, but every time I was trying to teach this to one kid, the other one was yelling for more food and it seemed to cause more frustration at meal time. I know I wasn't very dedicated, but I didn't care. Both kids had learned to sign "more" when I asked if they wanted more, but they didn't really understand that if they did the sign, I'd give them more of what they were eating.

The other night we went to dinner and Spence started trying to teach Davis "more" again. Finally Davis caught on and would point to the drink and sign "more". He was thrilled when he got what he wanted. What a wonderful communication tool. Davis continued saying more to the drink all night. At the end of dinner, I commented to Spence about how I thought it would take something better than water to get Davis to learn the trick and Spence casually said it did. He had let Davis drink the whole glass of Sprite. What?!

Since then, Davis has continued with the sign language. "More" is his favorite, but he does "eat" too and is working on "drink". Blair still prefers to point and scream. The other day I fed them scrambled eggs for breakfast and when I started feeding them a banana, Davis pointed to the plate that had the eggs and signed "more". He was disappointed when his attempt to communicate his wants didn't result in getting it. This disappointment occurred again when Grandma Erickson gave him the water in sacrament and couldn't produce more when he asked for it.

It's fun to be able to understand them a little better and learn more about each child's personality.


Blair

Blair's hair is growing and it is getting more fun everyday. She is pretty good about sitting while I do it, so we've been trying new things lately. This new flipped out look is one of my new favorites and she's getting better about not trying to grab the flat-iron. I still love the curly hair, but this makes her look so grown up.

Blair's new thing is to roar every time she sees Dad. She gets so excited when Dad comes home and runs to meet him while yelling "Dad!" with a huge grin. Those rare times that she doesn't hear the garage door, Dad likes to sneak up on the kids and roar. They both get excited and run to see where the noise is coming from. After Dad did this a few times, Blair greets him with a "ROAR" as he picks her up for a kiss. We're grateful for a Dad that loves being "Dad" and does a perfect job.

Hogle Zoo

The other day we took the afternoon and went to Hogle Zoo. It was great weather for the end of January and we had a fun trip with our little family. The kids loved seeing the animals and getting out to check things out, but they didn't love getting back into the wagon when we had to go to the next exhibit. Other than two kids trying (and almost succeeding) to jump out of the wagon head first onto the asphalt, we had a great day.