New Arrival

The chickens arrived on May 18 by overnight delivery. I was glad Eric got the early morning call from the post office and he dealt with setting them up and got to see the kids reaction. We believe they were born on May 16 in Connecticut. A few days before the chicks arrival date Eric and the kids got their home ready. First they tried a cardboard box with wood shavings, but Eric soon realized that wouldn't work well. So he switched over to a metal washtub. Then Eric struggled getting the heating lamp secured in our little half bath. The bathroom was chosen because I mostly use it to soak laundry and don't go in a lot plus linoleum for easy cleanup and a easy access sink to wash hands after handling them.
The kids have been totally enthralled. Miriam loves to pick them up, but Aaron is content to just watch them. They were such cute fluff balls when they came. The first day as they were adjusting they would cycle through lots of peeps when walking around and then they would face plant for a short nap and go quiet. Overall they weren't too noisy, mostly when Miriam would bother them then they got loud.

Our 4 new pets- Brownie, Rockie, Lacie, and 'the white one' (still not named).

This is Eric's pet project and in his usual fashion researched quite thoroughly everything from which breeds would be best, to how to care for them, to best house. Here he explains which breeds he chose. If wondering about the red glow that is the brooder heat lamp to keep their temp up. At first we just gave them sugar water and then introduced them to baby chick feed and gravel. So far they are working out great for us, more updates to come.

Random September Happenings

This may be a little long of a post but nothing else tied together so here are a few pictures to document our cute kids. Aaron just looked adorable in his 'tractor' outfit and you can see his curly hair. This was on Sept 2, not looking much like a baby any more!

While I bathed with her from a very young age I sang several different songs. This video taken on Sep 12 shows how she can sing with me and do our hand motions. We also have "Twinkle Little Star" as a picture book that Miriam took to 'reading' to Aaron. Whenever she hears the song now she says "its like Aaron's book" and usually has to go find it. Now she is always singing along with her movies and we've been working on learning primary songs.Both of the kids love to be right there helping to cook. Here Miriam is helping put the cinnamon and nutmeg in the pancakes generously on Sept 14.Aaron still falling asleep when wait too long to eat. Sept 21 and it wasn't many months more that he refused to sit in the high chair and had to seat at the table. Poor guy having a big sister to have pink stuff.We love when Grandma Nicee comes to visit! Sept 26 after church. Miriam is wearing the dress Grandma bought her that summer (in purple of course!). Grandma is the only one who can regularly convince Miriam to fix her hair cute with curls.

September 27 shows Aaron not losing interest in tools. He got a hold of the hammer and was carrying it around. I was glad he could wear those overalls because Miriam wore them first and by the time it was Aaron's turn it was winter. Miriam is wearing her "dancing" skirt that Grandma Nicee got her and for awhile she always had to go get it to dance.Some of the many faces of Aaron. He is 13 months and getting into and out of everything from stairs to his high chair. He also is catching up to Miriam in liking to read books. There is no where he can't go.

September Adventures

Some of the fun things we did in September was go down to Delta for Labor Day weekend. While there we went to a fundraiser for the flying club Russ used to belong to with his powered parachute. They had a nice dinner out at the airport.

Then they had a flyover with a candy drop like the famed candy bomber of WWII. Here all the kids are scrambling for the candy. I think they enjoyed looking at the planes and such.

On Sept 19 we attended our second Harvest Moon Hurrah that Spanish Fork puts on every year. We didn't get any good photos and tried to capture Miriam dancing to the band which was really cute, but my timing was off and it was really dark. This year they also had a improve comedy group which was really fun to watch.

Then we were paid a visit from Aunt Heather and Uncle Brian on Sept 25. She always comes bearing gifts as she spoils my kids rotten. We mostly play a few games and just talk up a storm. I love having company. Come again soon Aunt Heather!

New Carseats

The big day arrived for Aaron to graduate to a forward facing car seat, Hooray! We were concerned on how big Miriam's car seat was and looking forward to the day of having 3 car seats we decided to buy Miriam a slimmer older kid model instead of buying Aaron a similar one to Miriam.Here is Miriam modeling her new car seat that has 3 transitions up to the plain booster. They were so excited to get it out of the box and as can see from the video they loved playing with the box. Even though now she is big enough to go to a backed booster without the harness I figure will keep up with it till the baby comes. Hopefully she will be able to put her own seat belt on as she will be in the middle unless we obtain a minivan before then and even then she will be in the back, not as accessible.

After we got it out on Sept 13 we decided to test drive the new car seats. I was worried Miriam wouldn't want Aaron to use her car seat (be really possessive) but luckily once we explained it was Aaron's she was pretty ok switching.

Backyard Fun

We decided to make a tradition of an end of year camp out in the backyard around Labor Day. That way we can have one last camp and get all our gear cleaned really well and put away for the winter properly. So we have fun and check for problems to be taken care of before we put it away for an extended period. We meant to do it labor day weekend but we ended up in Delta instead so we did it Sept 10. The kids loved running around the yard and "helping" Daddy put up the tent. Aaron's got his trusty tools!

We had camp food for dinner and it was easier being in the backyard instead of out in the "wilderness". Here is our usual tent set up-our big queen sleeping bag on an air mattress, Miriam's pillow/sleeping bag (that somehow she never has stayed in long anytime we've camped) and Aaron's pack and play. We dressed as warm as we could but we didn't make it between being cold and Aaron sleeping really restless which doesn't work well when all 4 of us is squished in a sleeping bag so I took the kids in at some middle of the night hour. Eric finished the night alone and much more comfortable.

Sat we scrubbed the tent down good and said good-bye till summer. We thought we should submit this picture of Miriam to the Kodiak company to use as advertisement. :)
The other bit of fun we added to our backyard was this slide on Sept 24. We had been looking for a used one that I liked for a long time and finally found it for apx $20. Hooray, maybe they will stay in the yard better. Just their size, for a little while at least.

3 Year Checkup

Its so nice just to go to the doctor once a year. It was just the usual with the addition of checking her eyes. It was not a detailed check, but figured approximately has 20/40 vision. She also got her blood pressure checked, she didn't like that much at all even though I kept telling her that it was just like Mommy when we go to the baby doctor; it came out 92 over 60. Miriam weighs 29 lbs and 15 oz putting her in the 43% having gained 4.19 lbs in the last year. So this means we could move to booster car seat and I got a child life jacket for her. She is 36 1/4 in tall putting her in the 32% having grown 3 1/4 in over the last year. The doctor office surprised me by giving me a BMI chart as well. It says she is 16.04 and last year was 16.65- though I'm not really sure what that means and it also gives a percentile for that putting her in the 60%. She had a hard time with her immunization shot this time. After the visit we went on an outing with Eric and to lunch. She then fell asleep when she woke up her leg hurt her and she didn't want to walk for a good day after that. I found it odd because we've never had trouble before. In the last year she really hasn't changed sizes much. Up to 7-8 shoe (still wearing same shoes as last year in most cases), 18/2T clothes besides some 3T for dresses and pj's (even that is a fairly recent development), and size 5 diaper. I hated that last change buying 2 sizes and still no closer to potty training. We're really going to work on it now because she has to be out of diapers before the baby comes.

Miriam is chattering constantly now whether it is to us, her toys or nobody as far as I can see. She is starting to tell stories using the pictures as cues and filling in the rest. She will also recite along with me stories and sing with her movies. She is getting to sing quite well. For primary this year they gave a scripture challenge with 7 different goals. We decided to try and do simplified version with Miriam, one of the goals is to learn a new song. At beginning of FHE we've been working on learning "I Know my Father Lives" and now she can sing it herself and we use it as a reverence song before family prayer. Typical family home evening is song, prayer and then using the gospel art to tell a scripture story. One FHE we used "Finding Faith In Christ" to show the story and ever since she wants to watch the stories and is more interested in watching the "Jesus" movie. I'm glad she loves and knows about Jesus and the temple.

Happy Third Birthday!

Miriam's birthday got spread out over a week and she enjoyed every minute. She has grown up so so much, I asked her the other day where my baby Miriam went.On the Friday before the kids helped me make her a strawberry cake which they enjoyed sampling the batter. She also is always right there to help Grandma frost and decorate the cake

My family came down late Friday to spend the weekend celebrating her birthday. So on Saturday we had our traditional strawberry waffles and then mom and I took Miriam to get her 3 yr pictures at Target (it was so much easier without Aaron). Dad took the kids to the park when we came back because she always associates Baca (as she calls him) with parks. They lured her home with promises to open presents. She sure got a lot of fun things and had a great time opening all of them.

Here are a few of the bigger presents- a dress up trunk full f clothes and accessories from Grandma, a trike from us, and princess story books. Aaron really likes her McQueen toys too.

Sunday we sang happy birthday and had her Cinderella cake. I even got special princess plates for this princess' birthday.

Our family with the birthday princess. Thanks for coming everyone!

Grandma eating with the kids at the princess table. Miriam managed to blow her candles out this year after many attempts and loved eating her cake (she hasn't much in the past) and eice cream (as she says).

Then on her actual birthday which when anyone said anything to her about it she just gave them blank looks we made strawberry pancakes, went VT where she got to play with some friends, had Mac n' cheese for lunch (one of her favorites), and finished up her birthday cake.
We let her blow candles out again on her birthday.