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!

Bye bye Old Beds!

After the crib serving as Miriam's bed since about June 2008 starting back in the food storage/study room in the trailer, Miriam was ready to move on to a big girl bed. I had always intended to get her to at least her 2nd birthday despite 5 or 6 escapes she made from the crib.Hello new beds! On March 27th we started the great room switch.We took down the crib and moved out the rocking chair, cleaned the carpets, and moved in a dresser and set up her new big girl bed. She was able to use her new strawberry sheets and pillow she got for her birthday. She seemed really pleased with her bed, jumping on and getting into the pet net that was above the bed. Up to this point I had rocked and sang her to sleep about every night so I was interested in seeing what would happen. I read her stories in her bed and then sang to her and she fell asleep! Hooray! Now the other hardship was staying there all night, I had recently discovered that she cried every night, but not for long or hard. Yep every night when that happened she would come wandering into our room to get in bed with us. I tried putting her back in her bed as often as I could, but Aaron complicated things.Aaron continued using the co sleeper as much as I could get him to, which was mostly for his morning nap. Though as mentioned he was crawling out of it and standing up. However, I didn't want to move him immediately to the crib in his own room such that Miriam would feel usurped ie Aaron kicking her out of her bed so we waited about a week (also allowing for adjustment on Miriam's part) before setting up the crib.On April 1 Eric took down the co sleeper which was a relief because it was really complicated getting out of my bed to get to Miriam working around the co sleeper. Aaron is being a great help to daddy in taking it down! Aaron celebrated taking down the co sleeper by rolling out of bed that night for the first time and then doing it again the next morning- def time to move him to his own bed.We took down the co sleeper on April 1 but didn't get the crib up till the next night so this was how he spent his morning nap. I thought it was really cute fortress in by pillows.
Hello new bed! Aaron spent his first night on April 2 and I spent it on the floor next to him or constantly putting him back to sleep. Eric spent the night on the floor in Miriam's room so see if it would help her stay all night in her own bed, we also learned that she does roll out of bed, poor girl. When Miriam saw mommy and daddy getting out sleeping bags she had to have hers to sleep in too. Eric not thinking left the bed on the highest level which of course was no good, but ok the first night as he spent as much time out of the bed as in- besides I was right there so not much chance of falling out. The next night I had him move the bed down the next level, but it was still too high. Aaron sort of skipped most of that and the bumper pad stage. So the crib is where it spent the most time with Miriam and Aaron is slowly learning to sleep in the crib. At the end of the month he now will stay asleep when put into bed (before it seemed no matter how asleep we thought he was as soon as he hit the bed he was awake), and sleeping longer and longer stretches.

Where's Aaron?

Now that Aaron is more mobile he is definitely getting into more things so the question comes up more frequently, where is Aaron? There he is in the kitchen playing with the laundry- he sure likes grabbing clothes and shaking them up and down and all around. Also lately he is using the laundry basket to help him walk around.

There he is too- watching movies with sister. This is a constant sight now that he pulls himself up. He always has to be in the thick of things checking them out. It is so cute to see his little face peering over the edge of something.

Watch out someone is chasing me! Not sure why this loaded sideways but he is on the look out.

There I am! He and Miriam are playing more peek-a-boos and chasing more and more around the house. He is also enjoying sisters toys quite a bit, soon it will be time to put away the little baby toys! I already sent back the swing and put the bouncy chair in the basement, boy is he growing up!

Mommy's got him, the handsome little dude in one of his Church outfits. I went from having nothing to having several Sunday outfits, thanks Grandmas!

Caught him at the dishwasher! I love seeing him do the same things Miriam used to. When he sees the dishwasher open he has to go investigate and get out all the silverware just like sister.

where will he turn up next? Who knows wait and see.

Doing Big Girl Things

As usual running a month behind so I decided to do one big post though most of these pictures could be a post in themselves! Enjoy Miriam's growing up antics! Ah the microwave. She is really loving opening and closing the microwave for some reason lately. Whenever I use it she has to help also, by sitting up on one of the bar stools.

On March 6 Grandpa Delta was up and wanted to play with the grand kids so a lot of them got together at Home Depot to do the kids craft. They made a rain catcher to measure rain fall. I sent Eric off with her and enjoyed just being with Aaron for the morning. She came back with a cute apron and pin to represent the craft. Eric said she enjoyed working and did pretty good for the first time with a hammer. The rest of the family continued on for a walk on Provo trail but we had a baptism to go to.

Miriam has definitely continued her love of books though lately shes drifted to bigger books. It seems the bigger the better and they don't have to have pictures either. She looks through cook books and as shown here our Primary lesson manual. Our baby is growing up!Eric wanted to take his favorite treat with him to Front Sight for snacking so the night before he made sugar cookies. Miriam insisted that she help which I found interesting because all the other times I've made cookies she hasn't seemed to care about doing anything. Eric and I wonder all the time how she knows how to do things that we don't think she has ever done much less seen a lot of such as rolling out the dough. I apologize for the fracturedness of the video clip I cut it in half with just the most interesting parts so it would load better. She certainly looks like a master chef (though Eric was a little frustrated as he was in a hurry)! The Easter bunny brought our family some new cookie cutters we need to try out soon and it will be funner for all not being in a hurry.

March 21 I was trying to get her ready for bed when she spied this outfit in the box of clothes I was sorting through and wanted to wear it. Mind you it was bedtime so I wouldn't put it on her. She decided I don't need you and put it on herself with one little help from Daddy. This is the first time she has fully dressed herself (note the shirt sticking up on the side). For awhile now she has helped me in the dressing process she is pretty good at zippers, but she still can't figure out snaps. Also lucky for me she doesn't randomly take off clothes just when ready for baths or something like that. One morning she wanted to play in the bathtub and showed up naked in the living room. With initiative like that of course I let her play in the bath for awhile.

On March 25 for some reason she decided that all of Aaron's toys and many of hers would do better outside on the porch. Many days I don't feel like I can keep up with her. This also represents another problem we have, she can unlock the front door now. She takes the computer chair over to the door, climbs up and unlocks it. Luckily she also likes to take the lawn chair on the porch and ring the doorbell, at least I know shes around! Miriam certainly has her own agenda and what she thinks will work best.

One morning (the 29th) I was sleeping and Miriam came to check on me, I asked if she had breakfast. She said yes or something like it and I asked if she had pancakes, she enthusiastically said "pancakes" and ran off. After I managed to get up I find this in my kitchen (above). Apparently she thought we needed more pancakes so she was making them; she had poured batter (left conveniently by the stove by Eric) in the frying pan and was stirring it. Never mind without heat nothing but a mess was going to happen.
Well we got the pancakes cooked, I prepared for eating sat down to feed Aaron in the high chair. After a bite I thought I needed more syrup (which did not have the lid on as it was waiting to be cleaned). I go back to feeding Aaron then look over to my horror to see that Miriam also thought it needed more syrup and had poured at least half the bottle on the pancake! It had filled the plate overflowed to the table and was dripping on the floor! Ah independence, will we survive?!?