Phases

If I have learned anything from my time as a parent it is that children go through about 1000 different phases a year.  Some of them are adorable and hilarious and I dread the day that they will grow out of them.  Others are slightly less adorable and I do everything I can to try and help them grow out of them as soon as possible.  Right now I am dealing with one of the latter for both Emma and Walker.  Emma is going through a little bit of a fibbing phase.  Her vivid imagination is leading to some pretty wild stories and last week she went as far as to tell her primary teacher that she has been to the Sacred Grove in Palmyra...she hasn't.  It was starting to make me a little crazy until I did some research on it and am feeling like I am a little more equipped for dealing with it.  Hopefully, as the research predicts, she will grow out of it sooner rather than later.

Despite her fibbing she is still pretty darn cute.  Last week in celebration of their 100th day of school the kids had to dress up like 100 year olds.  We raided Grandma Larsen's dress up box and came up with this little get up.  And yes Mom that is the dress that you wore in your engagement pictures.

 

Walker, on the other hand, has developed a bit of a phobia of being alone.  Whenever he has to go to the bathroom he insists that we "drop him off".  That means walk him to the bathroom and turn on the light.  He will rarely play in a room alone unless he is so caught up in his own imagination that he doesn't notice and prefers being two feet from me in the kitchen over watching TV.  While I adore my sweet boy the lack of personal space is starting to wear on me.  The other morning Walker was playing  with Play-doh at the kitchen table when I told him that I had to get in the shower.  He begged me to leave Lillian downstairs with him instead of putting her in her crib, which at her age is still a little dangerous, so I told him he would just have to play in the kitchen until I was done.  I put Lillian safely in her crib and went to wash my make up off.  When I walked into the bathroom to get in the shower a few minutes later I found this little set up.

 

Oh well, I guess I will just have to wait this phase out and be patient and understanding in the mean time.

 

These phases certainly keep things interesting and teach me something new every day.  Now if they could just start going through the same phases at the same ages I could really figure things out.

Our Goofy Girl

Looking through my last few blog postings it seems that Lillian in noticeably absent in many of the pictures.  The most logical explanation is that it is not very often that she is still long enough for me to get a good picture of her.  Generally she is either just entering or just leaving the frame as I snap the picture.  This week I made a more deliberate attempt to get some pictures of her.  Here are a few of them.

 

My ever helpful baby loves to "help" me make naan bread, or pie crust, or crescent rolls or anything that allows her to use the rolling pin and play with the dough.

 

 

(As a side note, Walker took this picture.)

 

 

This is typical Lilly Baby lately.  Her older siblings, with some help of a certain older cousin, have taught her "the pout".  She pulls this out at least 100 times a day. 

 

 

This is Lillian's latest habit and it's probably my least favorite of all of her habits.  She loves to eat ice off of our shoes.  This snowball happened to come from the inside of one of the kids' boots which is better than licking their boots which is what she typically does... and that is not an exaggeration.  She is like a vulture waiting by the door for Emma and Walker to come in from outside so that she can consume as much of the cold, wet snow as possible before it melts off of their boots.  We sure get a kick out of our little wild thing.

 

Come What May

Yesterday, while searching through my old music to find a song to practise on the piano, or keyboard, I came across some old songs of my sister's that got mixed up with mine.  Two of them came from the movie and musical Moulin Rouge, one of my very favorites of the more modern musicals.  This morning the first thing I did before I started my long list of chores was dig through my cds to find the soundtracks to all of the musicals that I have.   My first love are the old school musicals...Hello Dolly, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Singing in the Rain, but I do love the newer movie versions and broadway plays.  Today I listened to Moulin Rouge and Phantom of the Opera.  Whenever I have any housework to do I always put music on.  I find that the kids are more willing to play independently when there is music playing in the background.  My theory is that it helps fuel their imagination, but what do I know.  Even better, housework doesn't seem nearly as mundane when I can belt out a ballad with the music blaring.  There is nothing that I love more than a love song from a musical.  These are the ones that I listened to again and again today.

 

 

Sillies and Sledding

 I've been meaning to post these pictures from Christmas holidays for a long time but I was so frustrated with Blogger the last time that I tried that I had to take a bit of a hiatus to avoid launching our laptop across the room at the wall.  My parents got the kids a whole bunch of new dress up clothes for Christmas and they have been very entertaining playing princess and the knight, or princess and the pirate or princess and the fireman and the list goes on.  The knight costume that Walker has on is by far my favorite.

 

Santa brought Emma and Walker new sleds and that has been their favorite past time when the weather is warm enough.  The other day when Allan was out with them he got some great action shots.

 

 

 

They will run up and down this hill two dozen times without a single complaint.

 

 

 

I love the sheer joy on their faces in the top and bottom pictures.

 

 

While I was busy writing this post in the living room the kids were playing dress up and dancing so that I could watch them.  Lillian decided she needed in on the action and brought Allan this costume to put on her.

 

 

Baby Bumblebee

 

I love that you can see her little penguin feeties sticking out.

 

Dennis F. Larsen - Author

  My dad is a husband, father, grandpa, brother, optometrist and just recently added author to his resume.  Just days ago he began sale of his very first full length novel, With Cruel Intent.  We are so excited for him!!  Information on the book is here.

 

www.withcruelintent.com

 

Birthday Boy!!

 

 

 

 

Walker woke up to a heart attack on his door yesterday morning, our usual Birthday tradition.  We can't believe that our sweet baby boy is a big four year old now.  Unfortunately for him Tuesdays are my errand day so we had to spend the majority of his birthday making long shopping trips to Safeway and Costco.  To make up for it I treated him to a nutritional lunch at Costco...a hot dog as big as he is and an ice cream cone that he generously shared with his baby sister.

  

 

He decided it was a fair compromise. 

 

He requested waffles with whipped cream for his birthday dinner and Grandma and Grandpa joined us to celebrate. 

 

 

 

 

 On Sunday we had his big family party complete with a cake that he made all by himself with the help of his big sister.  I have tons of pictures from that fun evening but unfotunately blogger is being outrageously uncooperative and I have no patience left.  Hopefully later this week I'll be able to get the pictures up.

 

Here are the 4 things that I love most about my very own little Power Ranger.

 

1) He is sweet and sensitive.  Even though he can be rough and tumble, in that he is rough and generally has Lillian tumbling all over herself, he is generally gentle and thoughtful and careful with all of us...for the most part.

 

2) He is so imaginative.  I love to watch him play with his toys and costumes, whether with the girls or by himself, and see the different scenarios he comes up with.  My most favorite is when he sits at the table while I make dinner and I can hear his little voice behind me making gun noises and explosion sounds.

 

3)  His cute dimples.  His little smile melts my heart.

 

4)  The way he orders his breakfast at night after I have put him to bed.  Faithfully every night after I've turned the light off and left the room I hear him shout "MOM! Are you going to make me breakfast in the morning?  I want to have ..."  I love how predictable my funny boy is.

 

What a blessing our amazing little boy is.  He makes every day fun and exciting and worth while.

 

And speaking of birthdays.  Happy Birthday to the newest edition to the Shane and Susan Reay crew, Carter Justin!!

It was so fun to meet you today!!

 

Cords and Chords

 

As part of our Christmas gift my parents got us a half a cord of firewood.  The kids were so excited to see the big truck pull up and dump all of the wood on our driveway.  Then they got all of their winter gear on and went outside to help stack it.  We've already been enjoying a fire blazing in our fireplace the last two days.

 

 

I had to include this youtube video that Allan found the other day.  It's a group of young men in a stake in Utah singing "That's what makes you beautiful" by One Direction, a very popular boy's group apparently, for the young women in their stake.  It is so hilarious.  I couldn't help but think of how thrilled the girls from the stake would have been to watch it.