Utah/Idaho Vacation

We took are annual summer Utah/Idaho trip this year in July. We started off in Burley with the Bartons.    Grandma and Grandpa rented some blow-ups and we had a BLAST!  Lots of water.  The kids played in the water literally all weekend long!  The boys got some good fun on the water slide too! Oh, and did I mention the girls squeezed in a night at Wicked!  One of my favorite shows of all time.  We also squeezed in some family pictures.  Man, we crammed a lot of fun into one weekend!

All the babies in diapers.  The garbage was soooo full of diapers after the weekend!

The second half of our vacation was in Lake Powell with my family and a whole crowd of Dyrengs!  I just love my cousins and it was great to spend a few days with some of them.  Lake Powell is honestly one of my favorite places on earth, and I especially love being there with my family!

Chatterbox

Jordyn talks all. the. time.  And it is non-sense.  It really takes an effort for me to piece together her crazy stories.  Dinnertime is the worst.  She talks so much she doesn't eat.  We bribe her by saying "3 bites and then you can tell more of your story."  This video is at one such dinner.  Translation follows below. 

Let me preface...she is super confused about the word "father".  She cannot get that father is the same thing as dad, and that Chad is her father.  No, we do not have any friends named Michael.  And Wednesday is not only a date, but also a place.

Me:  Jordyn, who is your father?

Jordyn:  Well, he jumped over, and…. I had a dog.  And he had a huge big dog.  And he had a big bracelet, and he was nice, and he didn’t have teeth.  He was a little, like this little big. 

Chad:  How big was his dog?  What color was his dog?

Jordyn:  Well, kind of white.  And my dog was kind of brown.  So I like purple, so my father painted my dog. 

Chad:  What did you have for breakfast?

Jordyn:  I told you, waffles! Yeah, I told you.  And he had cheese with my waffles.  And then told my father we don’t have cheese with waffles you silly.  And he (mumble something I don’t know……)  I wasn’t a goose.  I just, I just go do that at my father’s house. 

Chad:  Where does your father live again?

Jordyn:  At this much big of house.  Yeah.  And I can fit in it.

Chad:  What color is his house?

Jordyn: Um, black. Yeah.

Chad:  Does he have a TV?

Jordyn:  Huh?

Chad:  Does he have a TV?

Jordyn:  Yeah, yeah.  Kind of.  He has a little TV and a big, huge TV.  It was kind of big, huge.

Chad:  Does your father live with someone else?

Jordyn:  Well, he lives with a friend named Michael.  Yeah.  Michael is his funny dang friend.  He looks like he has a black shirt like my father.  He has a white shirt.  And he put on a white shirt and Michael put on a shirt, white, when he was going to bed, and he had white jammies, with lots of different colors like pink, and green, and yellow, and lots of colors.  And even blue and purple.  And he had some bib bibs, some medium bib bibs for me.  (She has always called bibs “bib bibs”.)  And he had a baby named Addy Paddy.  Yeah, like we have an Addy Paddy.

Chad:  Who had a baby named Addy Paddy?  Your father or Michael?

Jordyn:  Um, kind of Michael has a friend, a sister named cheese.  And he, and Michael was, and my brother and we are going to his big Michael house. 

Chad:  Does Michael go to church?

Jordyn:  Well, he has a boy one.  He has a boy church.  Yeah, he has a fridge (looks at the fridge).  He has kind of a playhouse church.  It’s not real.  Yeah.

Chad:  Oh, it’s not real?  But Michael is real?

Jordyn:  Yeah, he is. Well, well, well, my father went to his big Michael house.  And, and his mommy taked his baby, and walked, and had a car.  Yeah, and my father went to his friend Michael’s house.

Chad:  I thought your father and Michael lived together?

Jordyn:  (Chuckles) No, they take turns.  My father take me all to Michael’s house, and then they went on an airplane, and then we went on an airplane and I was big, and I was being brave. 

Chad:  Where did you go on the airplane? 

Jordyn:  On his, and he told me, do you want to see my grandma?  She was here.  She was saying, and….

Me:  So Jordyn, tell me one more time.  Where does your father live? 

Jordyn:  At a house.

Me:  Where is his house? 

Jordyn:  On Wednesday. 

 

 

 

 

4th of July

The 4th is the hardest holiday for me to be away from my family and my hometown.  Chad knows this, and listens!  We always make sure to stay busy!  We had a pancake breakfast at the park with out ward.  Then we headed to the pool for hotdogs and swimming.  I love having a neighborhood pool!  The pool party was rained out, so we retreated back home and Chad taught Jordyn to play Mario Brothers.  She is better than me, not surprising. 

That evening, Jordyn got to do fireworks for the first time!  Every year, there have been fire restrictions and so, no fireworks.  The city also had an amazing fireworks so that we watched from the Target parking lot.  God Bless America!

 

 

Adalynn's Birthday Pictures

How many different pictures can I take in our tiny back yard?  I have to keep coming up with stuff to keep it interesting!  I found this little chair at a thrift store for $5.  Some sanding and painting, and Adalynn loves it!  It matches her room and brought lots of smiles for pictures. 

These pictures were quite the ordeal.  We have had rain every day for the past 2 weeks, and as far as the forecast goes, rain every day still.  So we had to sneak them in one evening between downpours.  I am still learning how to work this new lens I got, and I am pretty clueless so I was anything but quick.  Chad was on stand by with a bib to keep the drool under control.  I would shout wipe, and he would attack before it got to her dress.  Jordyn stood behind me and was on smiling duty.  Although it doesn't take much to get a smile out of Addy!

Happy Birthday Adalynn!

What a sweet little girl we have!  It seems like it has been such a quick year.  As I put her down for her nap on her birthday, I threw her blankie over my shoulder and she snuggled up to me and laid her head down.  I looked at the clock and it was 12:45 and thought how at that exact time one year ago, she was wheeled into my room, and I got to snuggle her for the first time.  Even then, she was snuggly and wanted to be held.  Not much has changed.  I will openly admit that it has not been the easiest year.  Coming from Jordyn who was as mellow as could be to Addy, who has much more extreme ups and downs, it has been hard for me to figure her out.  But through it all, she has wanted to be held and snuggled.

Adalynn at 1 year old:

• Has taken several steps, but is in no hurry to walk.  She can go from crawling to siting to standing in the blink of an eye, but then slowly lowers herself back to her knees to get from A to B.
• She LOVES Jordyn.  And Jordyn loves her too.  They play so cute together.  She puts up with a lot from her big sister.  She is always her pet, or prince, or baby lion.  And she takes it all in stride, just happy to be involved.
• She can get pretty feisty.  She is not afraid to take a swing at Jordyn if she is not getting her way.  She is pretty territorial when it comes to toys and gets down right mad if you take her stuff away.
• She is on the go!  She can climb up and down the stairs with ease.  She is a wiggle worm and her little temper shines through when you try to restrain her or keep her still.  I used be a snob and I could not figure out why parents could not just keep their kids in the chapel during sacrament meeting.  I am now eating my words, and I totally get it.  I am exhausted by the time we go home.
• We went to a new pediatrician for her 1 year appointment to get some different opinions on her speech and communication skills (our previous dr wanted her to start therapy).  I really like this new dr and he didn't seem at all concerned about her communication.  The only word she says is "momma" and she says it all day long!
• She weighed in at 17 lbs 12 oz.  I was so nervous about the dr giving me a hard time about our skinny minnie, but he was satisfied and said she was healthy as could be.  She was 28.5 inches long.
• Addy loves to play patty cake and catch.  She is also really into the game where she hands me stuff, and then I give it back to her. 
• She is off her bottle and on the sippy.  She is off formula and onto whole milk.  She eats most table food and is not very picky.  Thank goodness!
• She has two little bottom teeth and her top right one has poked through this week.  Which makes her a little extra whiney!
• She is sooooo drooly!  Oh my word!  She wears a bib every day and by the end of the day her shirt is drenched.  Notice in the pictures below.  I wish I could say it was a teething thing, but it has been a consistent problem since she was about 6 months. 

We had a quiet little birthday celebration for her.  We blew up balloons and literally played with those all morning long.  That afternoon, we splashed in our little back yard pool and played on the new slide her grandma Dyreng sent her.  That evening we skyped with both her grandparents while she opened presents.  And of course, the cake!

 

The cake!  She was so funny about it.  I love the video and how she is stretching with everything she has to get to the cake!

 

It should also be noted that my cake baking and decorating skills are zero.  I see cute little smash cakes on pinterest and wish I had that talent.  I just don't.

She was soooo tired.  Look at those big sleepy eyes!

Water Babies

During the month of June, Jordyn went to swimming lessons twice a week.  I am not sure she learned much, but she loves the water and really enjoyed it.  The first few days, I tried to contain Adalynn in her stroller.  Then I gave up and put on my swimming suit and got in the water with her.  She loved it!  We spent the next few weeks wading in the water and soaking up the sun!

Traveling

I have become one of those Utah natives who goes back every month!  The girls and I went back in May.  My mom gave me a plane ticket for my birthday.  While we were there we went to an adorable Peter Pan musical at the Hale Theater in Orem.  It was so cute!  Afterward, we met Peter Pan in the parking lot.  He sprinkled pixie dust on the kids and then held Jordyn up so she could fly over the parking lot.  Adorable!  Thanks mom for such a fun weekend!

On the flight home, we were delayed and ended up waiting in the airport for over 3 hours!  Not fun alone with two little kids.  But we made it through and because the flight was delayed, so many people were re-routed, which meant I got to take the car seat on the plane!  The result....two sleeping girls before we hit 1,000 feet.  Tender mercies!

In June, I took a friend back to Utah for a complete "Mormon" experience.  We went to temple square and did tours of the conference center and the church history museum.  We watched the Joseph Smith movie in the memorial building.  We found an afternoon to go to the zoo.  Chad's grandparents were kind enough to let us stay with them and Jordyn enjoyed their attention and talked their ears off!  Then we headed down to Sanpete for a temple session, some boat time on Yuba, and the pageant.  Another big thanks to my mom for watching my kids all day while I played!

With the May trip and the June trip behind us, we are headed back in two weeks with stops in Idaho and Utah!