Birthday Temple Excursion

Jones Family in front of our home temple on April 11, 2010.I feel strongly about having a picture of a temple in bedrooms but I realized with all our pictures we had very few to no pictures of the Provo temple. Miriam has gotten interested in the temple lately also, so I wanted to show her the temple. We've told her mommy and or daddy are going or are at the temple but I don't think she had any idea what we were referring to. i wanted her to see where we go. We went on my birthday for a nice Sunday activity after dropping my dad off at the bus stop. We sure love Grandma! It is always nice to have mom come visit and help out!What I didn't realize is that the fountains in front of the temple are a major missionary hangout on Sunday. I never did it when I was at the MTC but Jennifer said she did. Miriam loved seeing all the water. She loved putting her hand in the pool and walking around the fountain. She got filthy, oh well.Miriam for awhile (shes getting the difference now) when saw temple every time she saw a church. Though she has a different sound on the front of the word so it can be a little tricky understanding what she's talking about. I love love that she is identifying with the temple and getting excited to see it because it is one of my favorite places in all the world. Sometimes at dinner out of the blue she will point to our wedding picture and say excitedly, "temple!"In all the time I've spent going to the temple (particularly the last 6 years) I have never gone to the back of the temple. I didn't know there were benches and the depiction of the temple. Who knew? A sister companionship approached mom and I while we were back there to 'street contact' us. When we said yes we were members they asked if they could bear their testimony. It was a perfect addition to our excursion. When I mentioned I served a mission they wanted to know if I had any advice.

Aaron walked most of the way to the back and also enjoyed the excursion. He is getting so big, and will be waking any day now!

For my birthday we went to Joe Bandito because it had been too long since I had their scrumptious aloha enchilada, mmmm! The kids fell asleep on the way and slept the entire time we were at the restaurant, made for a much more peaceful eating experience.I was a lucky girl to have my parents come down for the weekend to celebrate with me. Mom made me a beautiful cake with flowers and strawberries (going with our strawberry obsession :) Thanks for all my presents and everything!

Miriam's Dance Moves

I finally convinced Eric to watch Girls Just Want to Have Fun. I suggested it was one of the those girly classic 80's movies everyone should watch at least once (though I didn't remember all the sexually innuendos). Miriam was in and out during the movie. we saw how much she paid attention when at the end of the movie she got up on the arm of the couch and stated dancing like they were. She danced for a long time though as can tell in the movie it was interspersed with falling on the couch laughing hysterically.

Two Year Target Pictures

We got Miriam in for her pictures on April 10 when my parents came down for my birthday. I think from here on out I may do a dressy and casual outfit and call it good. It works well with Miriam's birthday because she will always have a cute Easter dress by her birthday. I loved all the poses this time and I got all of them in one size or another. I think she looks lie a little southern belle in her Easter dress, purse, and hat.

I love this one where she looks like the rabbit is going to eat her. We hadn't planned on these props, but Miriam spied them in the studio and kept pointing at them so we said what the heck.

Unfortunately we lost her hat at Target. We took a picture by the door and then realized when we got home we didn't have it any more. It was upsetting after Deb help me customize it to her dress.

I love the light effect from the side, she looks as if she can see a heavenly messenger.

The strawberry jumper is from my mom for her birthday. Neither of us can resist in any strawberry clothes so she has quite a collection.

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!