Easter Festivities

Our family in our Easter finery for church the week before when we had our sacrament program (all in blue!) It was real interesting to capture this picture on timer trying to get both kids looking at the same time so here's the best one.
We had to divide our time between Easter and Conference this year. So between sessions on Saturday we colored our family eggs which Miriam had a good time doing and as you can see Aaron even got to color some. (Note- I was videoing on on our camcorder which somehow had the setting on low resolution so none of the videos or pictures turned out well, its very upsetting to me!)Our Easter finery! Though I didn't find as many cute things this year. Miriam had a number of bunny clothes that she wore last year and then I found that blue dress. Aaron pretty much only had his bunny jammies besides the bunny ears of course.In my family the Easter bunny hides our baskets but I though Miriam was yet a little young so the Easter bunny gave her a break and left a trail that you can see if you look close on the floor. Though I don't think Miriam really knows who or what the Easter bunny is supposed to be though he brought Miriam a lot of fun things that her grandmas helped him with also. Candy, flashlights for all, books, etc.
Easter morning during conference they had fun with Aaron's puff treats dumped all over the hallway! After conference we had our passover dinner (Miriam peeled her own broiled egg, pretty good for a 2yr old) although unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of it. I love Easter and the time to reflect on our Saviors ultimate gift to us. May we always think about the Easter message every week at sacrament meeting.

Easter Week

We started off our Easter Celebration on Palm Sunday the week before with Kim and Rusty's family. We had a semi traditional Jerusalem dinner of flat bread, sweet lentil stew, figs/dates, and grape juice. Then we had a family home evening where we talked about the triumphal entry and significance of palm branches. We mad our own palm branches (didn't turn out quite like I hoped) and acted it out. Miriam got to be Jesus with Eric as the donkey. A couple days later I realized we hadn't taken any pictures- drats!
Eric and I have had a tradition for most of our marriage of reading the events of the Saviors life each day prior to Easter. We take the corresponding picture and tape up for visual reminder. The last couple of years our Easter has not gone as planned (2 years ago had something to do with being in the hospital on Easter ;)). We had a great time simplifying the story for children this year. Miriam even got in the act by showing the pictures to "baby" and pointing them out.
On Friday April 2 we got together with the Jones crew for a party at Aunt Nicole's' house. She had a lot planned with yummy food, great combination! First the kids went and found lots of eggs outside. I was nursing Aaron so didn't actually get to see but Kim said Miriam didn't really get it and mostly watched the other kids.

Hence most of her eggs came from generous cousins especially William as you can see him giving her an egg. Thanks William for sharing! Grandma Delta is a two seat high chair! When Aaron decided he was ready for his dinner Grandma kindly held him though she happened to already be holding Max. As I started feeding Aaron Max had his eye on that food, he watched it intently and opened his mouth when it got closed to Aaron's. Luckily his mom took pity on him and decided he could have some too.

Another activity was dying Easter eggs. I brought one of Eric's old Star Wars shirts to keep Miriam clean, Eric thought it made her look a little like Yoda. I am not sure what Miriam thought of the whole process but she did think the dye capsules looked like candy and ate one-luckily no ill effects. I guess the party was a get acquainted with traditions so Miriam would be ready to do it on Easter. Nicole also had the kids make mallets to play croquet, a penguin adventure game that lead to a read aloud choose your own adventure book. Thanks again Nicole for a great party!

Our Little Mother

Miriam has been getting more and more into imaginative play especially with her dolls and tea set. It's interesting to see how much she takes in about how I take care of my baby reflected in how she takes care of her dollies. Here she took her dolly on a walk to get the mail with daddy and Aaron. Eric is not so fond of this process because it takes much longer to get the mail. She loves taking the dolls for walks probably the very best.

Otherwise she puts them to bed. Soon after we put up her bed she was rocking the baby in her rocker than stood up came over to her bed still patting the dolls back to then putting her down in her bed. That is exactly what I do for Aaron.

Then she was singing to her dolly the song "Oh Momma" that I always sing to her. It was quite a moment when I first realized she could sing the song with me because my mom always sang it to me. The song is also special to me because that was when I first realized that my long hoped for dream of having a baby was a reality when I sang it to Miriam in the hospital. She also employs the 'shh' method which is a very successful measure we used with both of them.

Miriam's Two Year Check up

March 30th found us at the dr for a check up. Several interesting things happened that was different from all the last well child check ups. 1) they don't measure head circumference any more, 2) she got to use the regular scale instead of the baby 'bed' with the attached meter stick to measure height, and 3)we had a nurse in training that forgot it was a well child and so took her temp/pulse/oxygen level. Dr mostly talked about her speech development.

For her stats: Miriam is 33 in tall putting her in the 29%, up only .9 inches in the last 6 mon which dropped the percentile drastically (65); and weighing 25.79 lbs putting her in the 39%, up 3.41 lbs in last 6 mon which increased the percentile (22). Miriam for the most part is a very joyful, energetic, precocious little girl. She is becoming more independent everyday and is a really big help to Mommy and brother. She is still wearing 12-18 mon clothes and shoes are somewhere between 5-7. Lucky for me she is a pretty good eater and will eat most things, though can also be notional and not eat something one day. She still loves to be outside and help take care of the yard. She is definitely a two year old and is getting more frustrated more easily and just throws herself on the ground crying or runs off to her room (which is what I did in my early teen years). She is also getting more into movies, and pretend play which is fun to watch. She is talking a lot more though the beginning sound is usually off making it hard to understand. We love you Miriam!