Catch up

Let's play catch up, shall we?

Jonas

Jonas started preschool! And he (and I) LOVE it! He comes home from preschool and he acts like a big boy. He talks in complete sentences. He doesn't whine almost all day and he just wants to play. He doesn't seem to get bored at home and he doesn't want to watch tv. He'll use his imagination and keep himself busy for quite a while. It's so nice! Normally, he's acts bored and whines and wants to watch tv all day and it's just not fun. So ya, I love preschool. Plus, he doesn't like writing or learning from me, so at least he'll get it from someone else and hopefully seeing other kids writing and learning will encourage him to try. He can almost write his name by himself now.

We have also moved Jonas and Alexis into the same room, and we made Alexis's room a toy room. Best. Idea. Ever!  We only have 3 rooms in our house, and I've always wanted a toy room, so in they moved. I thought it would be hard because Jonas has never shared a room or slept in the same room with anyone, and Alexis isn't the best sleeper, but it has been great! And there was nothing hard about it. Jonas is usually so tired at night that he falls asleep within 10 minutes of laying down, and if Alexis has a hard time going to sleep and starts to whine, Jonas sleeps right through it. If she wakes up in the night, Jonas sleeps right through it. And the best part is the morning. If they wake up early, which usually happens, I hear them laughing together. Alexis thinks Jonas is so funny. They talk to each other and it's just so cute! That is probably one of my favorite things to wake up to - my kids talking and laughing together.

Jonas is so curious right now. He asks questions about everything and I can tell he's thinking hard about how things work, where he was at a certain time, etc. For a while, he was asking where he was when mom and dad were babies. He's trying to figure things out. I love talking to him. I feel like we can have almost real conversations together.

Jonas has 11 articles of faith memorized. He may not write very well or color well, but he can memorize anything! This is just a fun video of Jonas and Clint. Clint got into magic for a bit and tried some on Jonas. Jonas thought it was so cool!

Alexis

Remember how Alexis used to be in the 9th percentile for her weight? Well, at her 18 month check up she was in the 50th percentile. So she is just fine. I don't know how one kid can go from being in the 90th percentile (as a baby) to the 9th, and then back up to the 50th. She's all over the place. Jonas has always been consistent. Weird. 

I also think it's weird that she will be 2 in December! Crazy. I found out I was pregnant with Alexis when Jonas turned 2. I have no desire to be pregnant again. I had a dream that I was pregnant and I was bawling. Ya, not ready for another one. Ha ha!

But I still think age 1 is my favorite so far. I love watching her learn to talk and understand things. I love that she understands probably 80% (maybe more) of what I say to her. I can ask her to do things, and she does them! I love watching her personality grow.

Alexis LOVES to color. If it's quiet in our house, Alexis is usually coloring. She'll find paper and a pen (her favorite) and just color for a half hour. I love it. It's so nice in church to have a kid that will color. Jonas hates it. She'll be entertained most of sacrament by coloring. 

She can talk pretty well. She knows tons of words, I don't know how many. But she doesn't articulate them well, so only Clint or I can understand most of what she is saying. But I can tell she's thinking about the words. When I'm doing laundry I'll talk about how these are "mommy's shirts, pants, etc", and she'll repeat me saying "mommy's.......shirts" with a pause in between like she's really thinking about the words. It's too cute. She'll also say "mommy" or "daddy" over and over until we say "yes?" and then she'll just smile and do something else. And then she'll do it again. When we are in the car, that's what our conversation is - listening to her ask for mommy and daddy repeatedly and say nothing in response. Silly girl. 

She loves our dog, Arty. She'll go around the house yelling "Arty" (and it actually sounds like his name) and give him hugs and bend down and give him kisses, or let him kiss her. And she hugs him (squeezes the living daylights out of him). 

 

She can match colors now, and she loves doing puzzles. She's pretty good at them. It took Jonas quite a while to do puzzles because he didn't care to do them. Still doesn't. It's so interesting to see the difference between one child and the next and a boy and a girl. These two are completely opposite in everything.  Sorry the video is a bit shaky, Arty was climbing all over Jonas and I had to get him to stop.

I've been really into videos the past few months. I love photos, but sometimes a video can show more than a photo can. It can capture the excitement, the movement, the talking, etc. :) She loves this song. She sings it with me almost every night.

Clint and I

Clint rides his bike to work about 3 times a week, the days that Jonas goes to preschool. Pretty  much the same ol stuff with him. I don't know if I mentioned this, but he really likes comics. And he also really likes giving himself projects to work on - creative projects. His hobby. He actually wrote a comic, and he got an artist to draw and he colored it and submitted it to Image. I think it's been about a month since he submitted it, and they say if you don't hear anything in a month then you won't get published, but I think it's cool that he did it. 

I love being married to him. He's ambitious, he's sweet, he loves spending time with our kids, and our kids LOVE him. All they want is daddy when he comes home. Who cares about mommy. :) He's sweet to me and takes care of us. I just really love him and everything he is. 

We went to Bear Lake for our first ever family vacation. We've done things with my family and his family, but we've never done a vacation with just us. So we picked something easy, relaxing and somewhere where we could take our dog. Bear Lake. It was so fun, the kids loved it and we loved it. It was nice to get away. Even though it was cold weather and we didn't really want to swim, just put our legs in the water, we all had a ton of fun. 

It was cold outside so we hung around in the hotel for a while.

I have finally reached a weight loss of 20 pounds. It took me forever to get to that. Probably because I don't eat well all the time. Oh well, you gotta live. At least I'm still progressing and losing weight, even if it is extremely slow. It's a lifestyle change and not a quick diet. I keep telling myself that. 

I still take tons of pictures. I had to pick and choose carefully the ones to share, or else this would be a really long post of pictures. Ha ha! I have done 2 weddings this year and I really like doing weddings. I have a total of 3 lenses that I love and I'm completely happy with all the gear I have regarding photography. 

Our dog, he's so cute! I know he might look bug-eyed and it takes getting used to the look of these dogs, but he's got such a fun personality that he has become the cutest dog to me. He loves to cuddle at night before we go to bed and it's adorable. This was taken with my 85mm lens and I love this lens!

I've also been working with a lady that makes boutique style clothing. We made a deal where she gives me the clothes for my kids and I take pictures of them modeling it. So we both win. I get cute pictures of my kids in adorable clothes and she gets professional pictures. It's cool. 

I've also recently had a hernia surgery. :( It was an umbilical hernia, so I've had it since birth. The hole where the umbilical cord was, never completely closed. So over time and mostly being pregnant, it got stretched out and after Alexis I had a hole in my abdominal wall right behind the belly button. I didn't know this at the time, I just thought my belly button was deformed looking from being pregnant because pregnancy does weird things to your body, but it has been there since I had Alexis. Then I had a horrible cough several weeks ago and that cough made intestines (gross, right?) get stuck in the hole. Which made it necessary to have surgery. No fun. But at least it's taken care of and maybe my belly button will look normal now. Ha ha! But because of that I've had to stop exercising. NO!!!!! But I started again yesterday, doing super low impact, really modified stuff that is about 10-15 minutes long. I was doing an hour each day, lifting weights and doing HIIT workouts and all this cool stuff. Now, I can't even do downward dog. It hurts to do that, so I slowly have to get into it again. 

We went to peach days recently and Jonas went on the rides and this was his first kiddie coaster. This look sums it up. He looked terrified the whole time, which cracked me up. He said it was fun, but never went back on that ride.

I love my cute kids, I love being a mom. Life is good, I don't really have anything to complain about. 

I love watching them play together.

We recently did family pictures for my side of the family and she caught this sweet gem. I love it! I never get pictures of us playing because I'm usually the one setting it up and it seems more posed when I do it I guess. I just love my family.