Random Stuff

We've been so busy for the last month or two, I haven't been able to post some of the random stuff that I want to remember for all posterity.

First I'll start with Jack. He's grown up so much in the last couple months, he's officially not a baby anymore, he's a toddler, and a super cute one. He's really starting to communicate. He signs a little and mostly speaks in different tones of grunts and squeaks that I have decoded, but here is his list of words: Mama, Dada, Gramma (sounds like Gamma), Papa, Lily (Yiyee), All done, NO!, candy, diaper (dider), uh-oh, hot, cold, meow, down, let's go, bubble, choo-choo, meatball and shoes and I think I might be forgetting a couple more. He's mostly communicating through actions, body language, signs and stuff like that. He's very upset when we can't understand him, I'm bracing myself for the terrible two's. He loves shoes and will get them out, hand them to me, then when they're on he stands up and shouts "Let's go!" which sounds like "des doe". He still eats a ton of food, loves the cats, and gives cuddles and kisses all day long. He's also quite a dare devil. He's always climbing, jumping, falling and running into solid objects. He gets a bloody lip about twice a week, last time I thought he was going to need stitches. A week ago I had brought our little 4-wheeler inside the house to charge up the battery and while I was brushing Lily's teeth he decided to ride it down the stairs, which did not go well and he ended up with a giant knob square in the middle of his forehead and a bloody mouth. He's OK, he's still learning and growing every day. He's lately learned how to give an especially good stink-eye.

Lily finally started preschool. She loves it and is having a lot of fun and learning a lot. She knows all her letters and the sounds they make, and with help she can put them together to make a word, it's so cool to watch how her brain works. The other day was her turn for show and tell, and she took her camera (our old, semi-broken one) and some pictures that she's taken all by herself, it's fun to see things from her perspective and see what she's interested in. Here are some samples of her work as well as a picture of her wearing her artwork she made in preschool after learning about Native Americans:

She's also going to start going to primary finally, which I'm not sure how that will work out, since she loves Nursery, too, mostly because she's the oldest and is the little teacher's helper. The other day she asked me who lives on the moon, when I said no one, she asked "Does Jesus live on the moon?". This then led into a complicated conversation about where heaven is, a lot to try and explain to a 3 1/2 year old. We also had a very difficult conversation after going to Cabella's (a big hunting/fishing store with tons and tons of dead animals in it). She thought the back half of the animals bodies were inside the wall and I had to explain that no, someone cut the heads off and stuffed them, it was weird and she was sad. She was extra concerned because Jared bought a gun, so we had to reassure here that daddy only shoots garbage, nothing that is alive. Another funny thing was when Lily was asking me to sing the Ollie song (she has a bunny named Ollie). After a lot of struggling to figure it out, and her giving me a lot of mad, frustrated looks, I figured out she was talking about that Families are Forever song, where it goes "through all eternity" which to her sounds like "Ollie-ternity". It was pretty sweet. Today we were watching a woodpecker out the window and she whispered slowly "Amazing", she and Stoney are really bonding.

I had my 29th birthday, I can't believe it, I'm not bummed though, I still love my birthday's and at least I'm still in my 20's. I got some great, thoughtful gifts, but my main present was my new eyes, which are doing great. I'm already 20/20 and still healing, I'm going to have eagle eyes! Jared and Lily made me a beautiful cupcake tower.

Jared and I have been keeping very busy on various big projects. Our Jeep's heater hasn't worked since we bought it, and now that we are in Utah, had to fix it finally. It was going to be about $1000, so Jared fixed it himself! It was a difficult project and required taking off the entire instrument panel and more. He freaked out a little, but then ended up fixing it! He did a great job and saved us some serious money.

The next big project was totally re-doing our main bathroom. It had some really outdated wallpaper and fixtures and we totally pulled it apart and made it nice. New tile, sub floor, toilet, sink, painted the vanity, mirror, new lights, towel bars, curtain rod, baseboards, paint, all that stuff. Jared did most of the manual labor, but it absorbed both of our time for about a week. It was fun, we enjoy this kind of thing and we're super duper happy with the way it turned out.

It's been really chilly for the last week, it even snowed a little. Here is Jamal sitting on the heater vent. We're really looking forward to Christmas, Lily has been singing Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer all day, every day for the last 2 months. Thanksgiving was great, more on that in the next post.