Splash Park

There is a park here that has sprinklers on all day for kids to run through.  We decided to check it out last weekend when the high was 106 - yikes!  I forgot to bring my camera so these were taken on my phone and aren't that great, but hopefully you can still see the huge smile on Lucas's face that he had the entire time we were there.

They had this cool climbing structure that looked like a bunch of mini mountains.

And they had a little stream you could play around in.

Lucas had a blast; we will definitely be going back.  

Silly Lucas

Lucas has done some pretty funny stuff lately.  He's always saying funny stuff and I need to start being better about writing it down so I can remember.  The other day I made myself a salad for lunch.  I started eating it and Lucas asked me, "you eating grass, mommy?"  I guess that's what it looks like to a toddler.

He's also been more interested in his baby sister lately.  I had been trying to get him to feel her kicking, but every time he was calm enough to sit and wait for it, she wouldn't budge, so I told him she was sleeping.  She's kinda lazy, she doesn't kick anywhere near as often as Lucas did.  He did finally feel her kick the other day for the first time.  He seemed pretty excited about it at the time, but hasn't been interested in feeling her kick since.  Lucas does ask me now all the time if baby sister is awake or sleeping, though.  The other morning he asked me if she was hungry for breakfast.  He also likes to read book to her, which is just the cutest thing in the world.  I hope he's this nice and attentive to her after she's born.

The other day while we were at the store shopping, Lucas saw a little wooden birdhouse and decided he wanted to get it and paint it.  It was only a dollar so I went ahead and got it.  Here he is painting it.

And here he is with the finished birdhouse.  He was SO proud of himself.

We've gone out to admire the birdhouse 5 times a day since he made it.  He had so much fun painting it, and it took up a good hour.  There's not many activities we've done that have lasted that long, so I was pretty happy about that.  Best dollar I ever spent!

Lucas has started being even more of a dare devil lately than he used to be.  When he rides his tricycle he takes his hands off the handle bars and tries to see how long he can go like that.  He's always climbing up on the couch and trying to jump to stuff.  And the other day I realized that he can climb up onto the counters without a chair.  I took video of it to show you all how much like a monkey he's become.  The first climb is pretty straight forward, but the second one he gets pretty creative.  My rock climbing relatives should be pretty impressed.  I think he's ready to take it to the next level, we might have to make a trip to the rock climbing gym when we visit next.

Joseph is Home!

My brother Joseph got back from his mission last week, and my parents flew my sister Sheri and her family out to visit too!  Lucas was in heaven with all the family to play with.  This was also our first time meeting our nephew Connor.  They all came up to visit us on Thursday.  We spent some time outside in the pool.

Scott dipped his feet in for a bit.

Even Connor joined in on the fun.  I think Dallin was the biggest fan of the pool, and he was the last one to get out.

We went inside to play and watch a movie.  Lucas got attached to Joseph almost from the get go.  Joseph played catch with him and tickled him.  Lucas is now obsessed with Uncle Joseph and asks to play with him every day.

 All the kids saw Lucas climb on Joseph and they wanted to join in.

And here are the 4 cousins.  We had almost all the boy cousins in the family right here, we're just missing Madoc.

 On Saturday we went to the Golden Gate Children's Park.  Lucas still loved the slides.

 And he had to ride down with Joseph a couple times.

Last time we came, Lucas was a little hesitant on some of the toys.  Now almost a year later, he was all over the place and climbing on everything.  We have quite the little monkey on our hands.  After the playground we rode the carousel.

I wasn't as good at getting pictures of everyone at the park, but my dad took a lot more pictures so you'll have to check his blog for pictures of all the kids on the carousel.

The next day we went to church with my parents to hear Joseph's homecoming talk.  Here's Lucas and daddy eating breakfast before we left.  This picture cracks me up!

We went to a luncheon with almost all of my California family after church.  There was yummy food, and good company.  Lucas and Dallin had so much fun playing together.  We're really going to miss them.

 At least Lucas will have Joseph to play with all summer.

Too Much TV

We know we're not supposed to watch too much tv; it's bad for us, it's bad for kids.  The pediatrician tells you no tv before the age of 2 and even after that it should be watched infrequently.  Maybe some of you listened?  I didn't.  And don't get me wrong, it's not like we sit and watch tv all day long, but sometimes we definitely watch more than we should - especially when Lucas is sick, or when I was sick in the first trimester, or early in the morning when we wanted to keep sleeping but Lucas was awake, or when we were packing and unpacking from moving, or on a long car trip ... you get the point.  There was always something that came up and we decided, a little too much tv won't hurt for now.  And then we finished the move, I was out of my first trimester, what ever other excuse we had was no longer relevant, and we were still watching too much tv.

Then a few weeks ago we decided enough was enough and we were going to stop watching too much tv.  Lucas was not a fan at first and he cried for Curious George and Thomas.  But then after a while he stopped asking to watch tv all the time and he started playing with his toys instead.  He's seems to not have as many break downs as before and he plays on his own for longer periods of time.  Obviously we've only been doing this for like 2 weeks and are by no means amazing in any way, and we still watch a few minutes of tv each day.  But I'm happy to say that it's more like 30 minutes a day.  I won't even admit to what we were up to before this.  I've had less free time for surfing the internet, blogging, and crafts.  But I think it's worth it.  Hopefully we'll be able to keep this up after the baby comes.

Anyway, while we were detoxing from tv and trying to come up with stuff to do, I found a blog on Pinterest that had a lot of cool ideas for activities to do with your kids that are also teaching tools at the same time. And they have tabs for different age groups so you can look up by your child's age to find appropriate activities.  Most of you are already on pinterest and have probably seen this before, but for those of you who haven't, now you can look at it.  http://www.icanteachmychild.com/

There were two activities we did that Lucas really loved.  They both involve matching, he really likes matching. The first one was to match toy animals that we already have, to pictures of real animals.  I just went online and googled a bunch of animals and printed off the pictures.  I just did it onto normal paper with our color printer.

The next one was to match emotions on Lucas's face, to the same emotions on other kid's faces.  Lucas had a lot of fun making different faces and posing for the camera.

And then I printed these off too and he got to try to match them.  We've played with these every day since I made them.

25 Weeks

It's time for a belly update.  I am at the end of 25 weeks, I'm almost to my third trimester.  I'm feeling pretty good these days, although my belly is definitely getting bigger.  I've been wearing my regular pants up till now, and can even still button my skinny jeans.  But we decided to go shopping and get me some maternity clothes this week because even though I can button my jeans, it is getting a little uncomfortable to stay in them all day.  All my pants from last time around are still way too big on me, and they're long pants because it was still cool outside for most of the end of my pregnancy, so we decided to go get some cute maternity capris from Old Navy for the warmer temperatures.

I am still smaller than I was last time around, but I think my belly is starting to catch up.  And I thought I was doing better on weight gain this time, but it looks like I've only gained like 3 lbs less than last time so far.  Oh well, I'm not too worried so my doctor is just going to have to get over it.  We don't have a ton to do to get ready for baby cause we pretty much have all the stuff already.  I do still need to do a few things in the nursery, and there's a few crafty things I want to make, but I can't ever find the right fabrics.  Oh well, there's still time.

We also want to get a double stroller, but aren't sure which one.  We really like to take walks together, but I don't ever run or jog so we don't need to spend the money on a really good jogging stroller, we just need something reasonably priced to get us around the neighborhood.  I've been looking on craigslist to see if I can find a nice used one, but people seem to think the stroller they have been using for the past 5+ years is still worth just under what they paid for it.  Anyone have a brand they really like and would recommend?

We went and registered at babies r us the other day.  We didn't really need to, but I got a 10 gift card for doing it, so it was worth it.  Lucas liked helping me scan stuff for his baby sister.  He made sure to register her for a Buzz Lightyear doll.  :)

May was a busy month for us, but now that it's past I really need to get started on all those things I want to do before the baby comes.  The summer will be over before we know it!