Dallin loves shoes

Some of things pictures are a little blurry, but I had to include Dallin's obsession with shoes. It doesn't matter who's they are, but he is always putting someone's one. 

He has Reagan's shoes on in the first picture and the one below.

He will run and put them on while he watches TV. 

CDA 2014

Each May on Memorial Day weekend we try to take a trip to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. This will be our third year. We have a blast staying with Aunt Teresa and seeing Jef and his family. We also love so many of the fun activities we have started doing each visit. Shortly after Teresa moved to Coeur d'Alene she gave my kids a book titled, "Mudgy and Millie". It is a story about how the two characters play hide and seek and they explore the city and all the popular landmarks. My kids enjoy it every year. This park just opened in downtown and we saw both Mudgy and Millie in real life. They kids thought it was so much fun. We also loved seeing the sun.

Teresa always has such fun things fun for us, but the perfect amount of relaxing too. The kids had a great time drawing with chalk on her sidewalk. I was impressed with Brayden's chalk skills. We had a great time hiking Tubb's hill, playing at the park, and having a great time in Teresa's play area. 

It was a ton of fun to have Libby and her family join us. My kids loved having Broxson around. Reagan is so nurturing. I hope Broxson loved being mothered, I know Dallin was excited for Reagan to mother someone other than him. Broxson was just starting to stand and taking a few steps while holding his hands. Reagan had a great time helping him practice.

They love visiting Aunt Teresa!

So a few weeks before we went to CDA, Dallin was being difficult while we were out shopping. He wasn't listen and he wouldn't even walk into the store without being carried. So I got an idea to tell him to use the force to open the store doors. Well he walked up to them and put his hand up and said, "Force" and sure enough the door opened. He thought it was the most amazing thing. It does help me get him into stores, but he also does it everywhere. Here is his force arm. You never know when he will use it.

We love hiking around Tubbs Hill. As we started on our walk I mentioned to Jared how big the kids are getting. We have come each May for the past three years and it has been crazy to go from Reagan in a backpack and Dallin in a front carrier to them just cruizing down the trail all by themselves. They are getting so big. It is really fun to go each year and think about how things have changed from the year before.

Dallin loved throwing sticks into the lake. 

Of course, the kids couldn't get enough of the art supplies. We got out the paint at one point and Jared nearly had a panic attack. He doesn't do messy very well, and the paint was putting him over the edge. 

Here are some pictures from us walking around the boardwalk by the hotel. It was really windy.

Valentine's Day 2014

I really love holidays. It is so much fun for me to make it fun for the kids.We started out our day with heart shaped french toast. I don't make french toast very often and I am not sure why, because my children love it. They had a side of heart shaped strawberries too. 

 I packed Brayden a special Valentine's day lunch, and I made a few more for Reagan and Dallin. I thought it would be fun for Reagan to have a friend over too for  a special Valentine's day lunch. This is Reagan's friend Sam. She is in kindergarten, but Reagan and her get along really well. So it was perfect that she has morning Kindergarten and we could spend lunch together. 

Dallin had fun eating his heart shaped lunch too!

Here is Brayden's bag.

Sleep update

Dallin continues to sleep great with his pillow. I decided to make him a pillow case. Almost every night when I go in to check on him he is sleeping on his pillow.  

This night he put Reagan's slippers on before he went to bed and slept with them on the entire night. You can see how big he is getting, he almost takes up the crib. 

Super Bowl 2014

As a family we were so excited to have the Denver Broncos make it to the Super Bowl. Granted it would have been a lot more fun if they weren't playing the Seattle Seahawks. Everyone here is beyond excited that Seahawks made it to the Super Bowl and so it is hard to not feel a little negative towards the home team, cause we LOVE the Broncos so much. We had a great time planning a family party for the game. 

We had lots of blue and orange and football garlands hanging around.

We even ate on our football field!

We had some yummy food that was either blue and orange or in the shape of footballs. 

We even bought a brand new really big TV for the game. Unfortunately, as ready as we were for the game the Broncos were not. I am not sure they even came to the game. We were pretty sad as they got down early, and it got worse and worse as the game went on. Well maybe next year! We still had a great season cheering on the Broncos!

A pillow

Since returning from our fun Christmas break Dallin has not gone to bed very good. He was struggling in Boise and it carried over since we returned. After a few days he was doing better, but even when he would go to bed without crying he would wake up in the night. One night Reagan asked if she could sleep in her new bed.  It is a super cute trundle bed, but it is in Dallin's room. 

Since Dallin hasn't been sleeping well we didn't want to add Reagan into the situation just yet. Jared and I looked at each other when she asked and shrugged our shoulders and said, "why not". I doubted it could get much worse.  I gave Reagan all her instructions. I let her know he was probably going to cry, maybe throw his binkies, and shake his crib railing. I told her to just lay there and ignore him and she could not leave the room. She was still really excited to sleep in her bed.  We did our good night routine, and as soon as I shut the door Dallin started crying. I went downstairs and in less than a minute no more crying. I didn't know what was happening but I was confident that Reagan would be coming down the stairs any minute, and the crying would begin again. I waited for her to emerge from the stairs and she never did. I was amazed when I realized it had been 30 minutes and I hadn't heard a sound from their room. I went up to check on them and found them both fast asleep and Reagan had given Dallin one of her little pillows from her bed. The next morning she told me all about how she helped him go to sleep. She sang him lullabies and then gave him her pillow. We have learned that he loves the pillow. Since that night he has went to bed so good with a pillow. He now has his own pillow, and we recently picked out some fabric to make a new case. They have been sleeping so good together.

Apparently, is doesn't even have to be a pillow just something soft. Like a diaper. On Sunday he was going through the diaper bag and pulled out one of his diapers. He was playing with it and I didn't care because he was doing it quietly and Jared and I were actually able to listen. About 5 minutes later I leaned over to check on him and found him fast asleep on his soft fluffy diaper half way into the aisle. Luckily, the next two hours of church were also held in the Chapel so he spent the next hour on the floor taking a nap.  

I know this picture is blurry, but it shows how far out in the aisle he was sleeping.

Fun stuff in January

Reagan is getting to be such a big girl. Here she is getting ready to go to her friend's birthday party. She had to get in her party dress. 

Dallin did a great job getting ready for church. He was so proud he was getting ready all by himself. Now we just need to work on getting those items on in the right parts of his body.