Miriam January Moments

Miriam is a study of emotions everyday. She is getting into the roller coaster ride where things are getting more exciting and more traumatic. I never know what she will do next.

For a couple of days she got so tired she would just fall asleep wherever she was. On this day I had been feeding Aaron and heard her go off but then nothing for a long time so I decided I better investigate when we were finished. She had fallen asleep while reading on of her books. I sure wish she would do this more often instead of having to go for a ride most days.

Where is Miriam? There she is! She loves playing amongst our pillows, and is starting to hide and play peek-a-boo with Aaron. The one behind the bar stool is her playing with Aaron and he just laughs and laughs at her. She has also getting into piling things around her and Aaron burying in toys.

Also a master at running and hiding from mommy and daddy when we want her to do something in particular getting pj on. Eric feels that she already knows the putting on jammies is bedtime and is seeking to delay, heaven helps us if that's the case! This has long been her favorite hiding place behind the rocking chair in her room. We had cornered her here.
Aaron is getting more into playing with things and Miriam loves to be right there with him. She loves playing with him though she is also getting upset and taking away things he's playing with.
She is good about letting mommy know when Aaron is getting things he's not suppose to. She is a big helper!

She loves helping everyone! Here she is helping daddy take our new bath tub downstairs. For the most part she is really good at following requests and doing what we ask her. Thanks for being a big helper Miriam!
Helping brother by reading a story to him when he woke up from a nap one day. He loves reading stories with her. We have a hard time keeping her out of brothers bed though. She is the first one to go check on Aaron after his nap.

Miriam is playing more and more with her dollies. She is starting to feed them her pretend food and rock them. It is fun to see her get more and more into playing creatively.
She has been 'sneaking' more and more it is so cute, this is just a small and poor sample of her sneaking. She noticed the camera and stopped sneaking. Usually she holds her hands in front of her and tip toes up to the person she is sneaking on then goes and tickles them in her best ability. She also will say sneak or tsss.

Happy Birthday Eric!

On Jan 19 Eric had his 28th birthday. Mom was nice enough to watch the kids so we could go out for a nice lunch at Los Hermanos where they sang to him and brought fried ice cream. Through our conversation there we talked about our family birthday traditions growing up and somehow they didn't really do a lot in his family which explains a lot. Then I made him enchiladas and rice pudding- his favorites for dinner. He didn't get a lot for his birthday, I gave him Monsters Inc which completes our Pixar collection minus Toy Story. Then on the 24th we had his whole family over for dinner and birthday cake. This is the second time I've hosted (first was Aaron's blessing) and it was interesting to see the dynamics in our house of having 21 people eating. For the most part it was good though the kids were a little bored and crazy, but that should be remedied when we finish our basement and can send them down there to play.
Thanks for sharing your life with us Eric! I really admire you for being a hardworking, righteous priesthood bearer that enjoys playing with the kids! I love you, best wishes for the next year!

Guests

Around January 15 -22 we had my mom, cousin Shaundra and her daughter Jessi come stay with us. Shaundra lives in Nevada, but had a surgery done in Salt Lake and asked if my mom would help take care of her after the surgery and my house was closest. Jessi is 4 and Miriam enjoyed having a playmate. For the most part they got along as Miriam followed along behind and copied all that Jessi did. She would get really frustrated when Jessi would go off and she couldn't express herself to tell her what she wanted to do. I enjoy company so I'm not always alone with the kids. Before Shaundra left she made me some letters, snowflakes, and things on her cricket- Thanks!

Mom always eats later in the morning than we do and usually Miriam helps herself to a second breakfast with her. Her she decided that Grandma couldn't feed herself and needed help. Thanks Miriam!

Miriam Says...

Some may have noticed the side bar of words Miriam says. We were worried/frustrated with lack of words we could understand, but all of a sudden in the last month or so she has taken off and says new things everyday. One trouble with the side bar is the lack of clarification of words. For instance it has been snowing a lot this weekend and when Miriam sees the snow she excitedly says 'no, no' which is snow but somehow important sounds are left off and that is typically for a lot of the things she says. So we often still are wondering if she really said what we think we heard or are just making it up. She is starting to mimic us more and more especially in actions, she tells me she wants to 'brush' which actually mans she wants to floss her teeth. She's starting to get better with directional things. She was eating a yogurt and started acting like she was done, but she still had more. I looked for her spoon and couldn't immediately see it so asked where it was and she pointed, saying 'up there'. She's getting good at saying and identifying the main body parts especially eyes, nose and ears. Aunt Heather gave her a Pixar bedtime stories book that she loves and also introducing words such as Remy from Ratatouille. One day as she was going through the book and pointing out where Remy was on each point she pointed to a picture of him stirring and said 'cook'. Getting good at saying Nemo and Elmo though they sound very similar, also McQueen. Miriam is also very enthusiastic in saying bye bye to everyone and even is getting several names of family done like William and Max- her cousins. Including finally calling for dada instead all adults being mama and kids being Arah. It sure is fun hearing what she will say. Now we are just working on her not crying and using words to tell us what she wants/needs. To that end she is getting the hang of saying please or rather 'pease'.

Aaron's January doings

It's been awhile since we reported on Aaron and he has been growing and progressing.

I believe he has pretty much grown out of the bouncer and swing. Both because how big he is and he can't stand to be reclined- he has to be up looking at the world! This was probably the last time he was in the bouncer and Miriam decided he needed to play w/her doll.

Aaron has morphed into Mr Grabit! He may be even worse than Miriam was because he's so wiggly and bigger than she was. He is always twisting around to see what else he can grab. He seems to particularly like dishes- spoons, Miriam's tea party set, etc. Nothing is safe from him. It is a nightmare to try and eat holding him. It's a good thing we have a bigger table it never would have worked in the trailer because he already can twist himself out of the bumbo.

Grabbing things also applies to his toes as seen to the left. He loves kicking and playing with his feet. He seems to be more 'normal' than Miriam. Toes didn't interest her much and she didn't put many things in her mouth. Everything is always going straight in for him especially hair. He is constantly grabbing mine and Miriam's hair and chewing on it. Poor Miriam has had her hair pulled out and may yet be traumatized by the experience though it doesn't teach her to keep her hair far enough away from him.

I have many adorable pictures of Miriam and Aaron they really enjoy each other. They will just sit and laugh at each other. They like watching movies together and Miriam reading to Aaron. She's been trying to pick Aaron up more and falls over. She also like to lay on top of him. Unfortunately, she can be a little ornery about sharing the toys with him.

All in all they have many great adventures like jumping on the trampoline and riding Miriam's horse. Aaron is getting steadier and steadier and gaining balance.

We're waiting to see if he sits ups or crawls first. He is scooting around a bit as evidenced in the picture to the right. Somehow he finds his way around and is hardly ever where I last left him. Here he found his way under Miriam's bed after getting his diaper changed. He's always rotating around and facing a different direction.

He loves the jumper we borrowed from Rusty & Kim. He is jumping very energetically these days, and of course Miriam somehow has been bouncing around a lot more lately as well. Sometimes he fusses when first put in but usually settles down and enjoys jumping around. We love our happy baby and are glad he is sleeping in his own bed more. He is fun to be around with his huge smiles especially as he is interacting more now.

Sledding Adventures

Miriam got to go sledding for the first time on New Years with her cousins and Uncles in Santaquin. Eric wondered if I was bundling her up for sledding or an Artic expedition as I put many layers on. Eric reported that she had fun and didn't get scared.

Then later on Jan 23 we had our annual Jones 'Christmas' sledding party up at Soldier's Hollow. We have a great potluck dinner at the lodge then rent the slope for our family for 2 hours. It has a tow rope to drag the tubes up. I enjoyed being able to sled and not be pregnant for the first time in 3 years. Wed decided to try Miriam out on it. It was snowing most of the night. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture. She looked so cute in that big tube as it was against rules to have her ride w/us she had her own tube. She loved the ride up except when it dumped you off at the end. She seemed mostly ok on the way down but the snow flying in the face was unnerving and cold to say the least. Next year she'll love it!

Post Christmas

I thought about doing a couple posts about the week or so after Christmas but face it it was almost 2 mon ago so here goes nothing.

As mentioned before I had my whole family here late Christmas through the next week. We hung out together Sat then Sun we went to my cousin Stephanie's baby blessing in Orem. We had a nice luncheon after then moved our my relatives party (as opposed to Stephanie's in-laws) to our house! It so happened that both my Alaskan Aunts had come down to spend Christmas with family here. We had a great time playing games, eating carmel corn and navajo tacos. My Aunt Christine and Uncle Bill stayed with us Sun and Mon night. They also treated us to lunch at Tucanoes- my first experience, yummy! We stopped at Walmart on the way home and Aaron got accidentally locked in the car, very traumatic, but was ok till Eric could rescue us. Tue night we went to my cousin Shelace's for a big Grover party that was great to see everyone who made it in the snowstorm.

Monday night we also had Aunt Christine's oldest son Jared stay the night with his family. He has a just turned 2 year old named Lucas. He and Miriam had a blast together. First thing they did when they got here was play balls on the stairs. The next morning they weren't seen for awhile though I could hear them. Finally, checking my bathroom I found them playing in the bathtub with the toys. Then later they were downstairs jumping on the guest bed. They for the most part got along great. Unfortunately Jared lives in Vegas, hopefully we'll see them again soon! Wed Mom and Ryan watched Miriam and Aaron while Eric and went away for belated anniversary. We had dinner at Olive Garden and hung out at a hotel swimming. Thanks for watching them!! Thursday, mom was packing up to go home and we got professional Afton pics done.Now instead of just missing Afton we are missing Shelace and Autumn. Oh well one of these days we may get everyone together yet. Mom also got pictures with her 3 sisters. We then headed to Eric's brother Rusty's house for New Years Eve party.The party was mostly spent visiting and eating dinner also birthday cake for Katy who was turning 3 the next day. The above picture is Eric's 2 brothers holding Aaron and Max (they are one week apart in age) who are jabbering away at each other! They were so cute! We called it a night around 10:30 and came home. Eric and I stayed up and played games ourselves and watched fireworks on tv at midnight!

May everyone have a happy New Year!