California Swim Lessons

Easton was able to enjoy a week of swim lessons for free at Grandma and Grandpa's neighborhood pool.  The first day of lessons was the 4th of July and as luck would have it, Easton was the only kid in his class that showed up (well, actually there was another little girl there, but she basically refused to get in the water).

Working on strokes:

 Superman arms:

 Blowing bubbles:

 Why hello there!

 Kickin' it:

 While Easton had his lesson, the rest of us played on the other side of the pool.

Me and Kendree:

 Cousin Norah and Uncle Alex:

 Ahhh!

 Cousin Love:

 Out of the water with Grandma:

 Easton got to join us for some play when his lesson was over.  He loved riding on Daddy.

 We took more pictures on the last day of lessons.  By this point Easton was a pro at going "ALL the way under."

 But you always have to wipe your eyes.

 Locating his ring under the water...

 Get it!

 Come up sputtering...

 Ta-da!

Get ready to dive...

 And there he goes!

We couldn't be happier with his progress...he is a changed person in the water!

Those kiddos of mine

You probably saw the pictures that my fabulous father in law took while we were in Cali of the kids.  Want to see more?
The entire web album is up here.

Easton at 3 years and 8 months (give or take)

First, some pictures that haven't seemed to make it up here yet.

Silly glasses:

 Swimming outside with his Buzz goggles:

 Silly boy.

 Captain Hook!  I have no idea why this is upside down.  Darn you blogger!

 Spending some time at disneyjunior.com

 Being a ham.

 Easton loves hanging out with friends and some of his favorite buddies are Damian and Bianca.  Here we enjoyed a horse-drawn wagon ride at Super Day in Cheyenne.

 Easton's the only one looking at the camera...but he sure is cute!

 Daddy and Kendree enjoyed the ride as well.

Easton is at a very fun (and slightly frustrating) age.  I can reason with him on most things and he understand so much more than I think he will.  He loves to know what we are doing that day (and will ask multiple times during the day if he feels like the day hasn't been fun enough so far).  He says his prayers on his own and hates to be helped if he tells you he doesn't want any help.  Most times we assume that Heavenly Father knows that we are thankful for the food and would like it to be blessed even if only one of those items is actually said out loud.

He is a great little buddy and loves to help with chores (well, not every single time I ask him).  He is especially good at putting away the silverware and helping to fold clothes.  Cleaning up toys though?  Not his favorite at all.

While he continues to love playing with Toy Story and Cars toys, he doesn't request the movies much at all.  His taste for movies has moved to a different movie every day instead of stretches of the same movie over and over.  He also loves spending some time on disneyjunior.com and playing the wii.  He is great at Mariokart, Wii Sports, Mario and Sonic Olympics and Carnival Games and likes to play several other games with a little bit of assistance.

He takes about 2 naps a week (one always on the drive home from Laramie on Tuesdays and then another random day), but is starting to enjoy quiet time in his room on a daily basis as he finally realized it was mom approved "get away from Kendree" time.  We set the timer and he can only come out when it rings (I make sure he goes to the bathroom and takes water in with him so there are no other excuses).  We're not very good at execution on the weekends, but during the week he is great.

Easton loves church.  He loves his friends in Primary and in his Sunbeam class and while his interpretation of what they learned about it usually quite entertaining, he can't wait to go back every week.

He has had what I consider a breakthrough with swimming.  When we started lessons the beginning of July, he hated getting his face wet and had a lot of fear.  After a two week class here in Cheyenne and a one week class in California at grandma's house, he is quite the little fish.  He revels in going "all the way under" and getting his face wet (although he still comes up sputtering, he will readily do it again).  The rest of the sessions are full this summer, but I'll be putting him in a class this fall and through the winter so we can keep up that love.

He hasn't (knock on wood) gotten to the "why?" stage of things yet, but I'm anticipating it anytime. We love his energy around here...and love every day we get to spend with him.

California Splash Pad

My wonderful mother in law found out about a free splash pad park near their home we all (Grandma, Grandpa, Easton, Kendree, Me, Aunt Kari, Aunt Ali and cousin Norah) headed over early one afternoon.

Much to my surprise, Easton was the shy one and Kendree was the one with no fear.  Easton loved the splash pad in Laramie, but this one was considerably bigger and as such had a lot more kids.  He was content to people watch for the majority of the time.  On the other hand, Kendree didn't care if she knew anyone, she just wanted to get out there and get wet.  It was fun to compare her to the other kids her age who were hovering close to their parents while I had to keep an eye on her every second or I would lose track of her. (It happened once and was a not very fun 30 seconds).  I even had one mother ask me how old she was after watching her march through a gigantic water fight with no fear.

Here's some of the highlights:

 Easton, Kendree, Norah and Aunt Ali:

 Aunt Ali and Norah:

 Kendree and me:

 Grandma and Kendree:

Easton Cuts a Rug

Easton love to dance.  Loves it.

Recently, he does not love when I try to watch him dance, so these next two videos were taken yesterday on the sly.  I'll warn they are a little long, so feel free to stop watching whenev.

Easton and Step in Time (he loves this song forever-more).


Easton Break Dances

Those kiddos of mine

While in Cali, I begged (ahem, asked) my father-in-law to take some updated pics of the kids. The ones I have in frames in my house are when Easton is 2 and Kendree is 7 months. They needed some updating.


Here are just a few of my favorites...I'll be sharing more on the kids blog.

Kendree Walking - July 2011

So I didn't get Kendree walking until she had been doing it for a month and a half. Can you say second child?

Here she is!

Kendree - 17 months

At 17 months, Kendree is really turning on the chatter.  She says the following words consistently and will attempt to copy almost anything you want her to say (except her name and Easton's names--those you have to catch her in the perfect mood):

all aboard - (aw bob)
outside (ow sye)
Kendree (kaw ee)
Easton (ceee)
more (mo)
please (sssssss)
Mama (pawpaw)
Daddy (dada)
out (ow)
uh-oh
Night-Night (nye-nye)
apple (aw-pull)
up
tag (ta)
purple (purr-pah)
banana (dada)
five (fye)
thank you (tay-to)
hot (ha)
hat (ha) (the signing is the only way to tell the difference between these two)
catch (ta)
what's this (wah dis)
what's that (wah da)

She continues to sign constantly and it is such a help when she wants things she can't say (like "drink").  She also is very good at going over to the fridge and attempting to open it whenever she is hungry/thirsty.

As I mentioned last month, she has been quite the screamer.  She would scream really high-pitched if she didn't get her way/you didn't understand, etc.  With the addition of more words and signs, the screaming has diminished SIGNIFICANTLY!  I don't know if I could have handled it much longer, so it has been fantastic.

I find myself beginning to think of her as a toddler instead of a baby (gasp!).  She never stops moving and attempts to do anything that Easton does. (I think the words tag, catch and all aboard illustrate that quite nicely). The one thing that slows her down is the stairs.  She goes up with no problem, but HATES to turn around to go down.  I think that stems from Easton not turning around.  So, she will stand at the top for a minute or two and then, well, I'm not sure what she will do as so far I have always been there to help her down.  As soon as she has a grip on even one of my fingers she steps off with complete faith.  The girl is going to really hurt herself someday. :)

She got two new teeth this month (total teeth =5).  Her top left came in on July 2nd and the one next to that came in July 16th.

Kendree continues to nap one time a day and sleep through the night.  She loves the outside and cries when I won't let her out in the hottest parts of the day.  We love our Kenny girl!

Dressing up as Elmo!

 The closest to an "official" 17 month picture that I got.

 Silly Glasses:

 Wants the camera:

 Wearing goggles while watching everyone else swim (not that I wouldn't let her, the water was just a bit cold for her)

Videos of her walking are currently uploading, so I'll get those up in a separate post very soon!

20 weeks

So if you've been paying any attention to these little updates, you may wonder how I progressed backwards in this pregnancy (I need to update my other posts now).

Here's the scoop:
I went in for my 22 week ultrasound on Monday, July 11th.  I was at that time supposed to be 22 weeks and 3 days.  In all of the measurements (head, femur, etc.) the baby was measuring in the 19-20 week range.  I'd like to say here that I tried to convince the doctors initially that my due date was off, but they said that they had to go off of what they knew (my last monthly visitor) and that was that.  Then, they told me that my due date was 11/11/11 and that was darn cool and I got used to the idea.

So now, my due date is 11/30/11 (19 days seems like an eternity, but it does give me more time to get projects done!).  I hit the 20 week mark yesterday. I think we can safely kiss the 11/11/11 birthday goodbye, but as Ronnie pointed out "Lots of people are born without cool birthdays and they are totally fine."

In other baby news, everything looks great.  No concerns from the ultrasound.  As for the gender, I decided I wanted another surprise and Ronnie was kind enough to humor me.  The baby was also on my side, since he/she had their legs crossed super tight for the entire ultrasound.  The technician said several times, "Even I don't know what this baby is!"

While I was in California I was able to go to a massive fabric store M&L Fabric that just happened to be having a 20% off sale for the 4th.

Fabric for the "everyday" blanket for a girl.

 The girl crib bedding fabric.

 The two fabrics on the very right are my most favorite ones every.  I love them!

And the boy crib bedding.  I have two quilts from when I was pregnant with Kendree just waiting, so I didn't need anything more.

Initially, I planned on using the crib bedding from Easton and Kendree for all of our boys and girls and just making two new quilts for each child (and everyday quilt and a more "special" quilt--the equivalent of a crib bedding quilt).  My sentimental husband (love him!) thought that it would be cool for each child to have all of the bedding and the quilts to take with them someday.  Anytime he okays purchasing fabric, I don't ask questions!

Now I just have to get busy!

18 week update.
16 week update.

Notes from travels or how I love Southwest

First, I should probably tell you that the kids and I returned from a trip to California on Saturday.  Ronnie flew down with all of us the week before, but then work sent him back on the 5th, so I had to travel on a plane with two kids by myself.  It was a bit scary, but we all survived!

Now, onto the bullets!

• when you are pregnant, you can get disability boarding from Southwest and board the plane VERY first.  It was an absolute life-saver.
• I have never been on a completely full Southwest flight with a lap child, so my kids have always gotten their own seats. This was a crucial reason that Kendree and I weren't both crying by the end of our flight.
• When you call Southwest the night before to ask about escort passes and car seat rules (only one per row, in case you are wondering) you will have the option to keep you place in the "holding" line and have them call YOU when it is your turn for a service agent.  Best. Thing. Ever.
• Flying alone with two kids is no picnic.
• Escort passes were created in heaven and have my kiss of approval.  Ronnie even got one for when we landed so all I had to do by myself was actually walk down the tarmac and find our seats/get off the plane and walk back down the tarmac. (kudos to my lovely mother-in-law for being my escort at LAX).
• My secret weapon (sixlets) only had to be pulled out after we had landed and were taxi-ing in Denver.  How we all made it this long, I have no idea.

We had a wonderful time with the Cali side of the family.  Pictures coming VERY soon!

Easton Mows the Lawn

Easton loves to help daddy mow the lawn.  Usually he just follows right behind as Ronnie mows.  It is quite possibly the cutest thing ever.

And now a few videos of him in action:

18 Weeks

And here we are 3 weeks later.

I continue to feel great and continue to love this stage of pregnancy.  Not even any swelling yet (and with the heat we have been having, that is a small miracle).  I'm starting to feel movement a bit more, but still nothing consistent.  The baby continues to do well at my appointments and is definitely a mover, since not a single visit has resulted in a heart rate measurement for as long as the doctor would like because that little baby is moving all over the place.

I'm sleeping great and don't have to yet get up in the middle of the night.  Easton will now remind me that there is a baby in my tummy and asked the other day, "I touch it?  So softly?"  It was very cute.  He thinks the baby is a girl, because Kendree was a girl baby and says that we should name it Kendree (that wouldn't be at all confusing). 

Want to see the 16 week update?  Check it out here.
Pregnancy with Kendree at 20 weeks.
No picture of my pregnancy with Easton at 20 weeks, sorry.