The Real Story

On the day of Lydia's birthday and Ammon's blessing, we tried to get a cute picture of the two on the couch together. Generally, most parents try to go for the polite picture of the kids smiling at the camera together. With a two-year-old and a two-month-old together, that is a pretty hilarious feat. The pictures we ended up with, I actually love. They show off the true characteristics of my children and the real story of Lydia and Ammon together.

For example, this photo where Lydia is smiling so beautifully, but Ammon is about to have a freak out moment as you can see by his blurry arm and foot, and twitch on his face.                                                                                            

This one shows Lydia's tendency to literally smother Ammon with affection, and Ammon's usual escape attempt of squirming --his arm reaching out and his collar ruffled either by her extreme affection, or purely in self-defense. 

I love this picture! As we fix the ruffled Ammon, Lydia is looking so tenderly at him. She really does love her little brother.

Now both kids are getting tired of sitting still. Lydia's done with looking at the camera, and Ammon is more interested in eating his shirt. What do we expect of them anyways?

However, after some more coaxing, we get a "decent" picture of the two sitting together. Personally, I like a couple of the others better :)

My Tunnel Is So Fun We Call It a Funnel!

 Lydia received a new fun gift for her birthday this year --a long pink and green tunnel she can climb through.

 Oh the glee in her face.

Not only did Lydia love it, but this tunnel seems to attract a few others as well. They gravitated towards this contraption like a moth gravitates towards a lightbulb.

Brigham was thrilled that he could potentially walk around naked inside the tunnel. Of course he would think of that.

It is pretty awesome, and I now know what to get a certain sister-in-law for Christmas this year ;)

A Name, a Blessing, and a Birthday

March 6, 2011 was an eventful day.

First of all, it marked two years of this adorable girl's life.

Second of all, this young man was blessed.

Which led to an epic party, with lots of people and food.

It was a great day! 

To elaborate a little more... We had so many family members to invite for Ammon's blessing it was incredible. Brigham and I counted 71 people, and that was if we invited the bare minimum.  So many came to support us that the entire chapel was filled and the overflow had to be opened. Despite his uncles' best intentions, our boy was named Ammon Samuel Tappana and he was blessed to be strong mentally, physically, and spiritually. He was also blessed to be a great help to those around him, to his current family and future siblings (oh boy!). He was told he would serve a mission and find a worthy girl to take to the temple. Many of my family members bore their beautiful testimonies  during the meeting and the spirit was very strong.

We ended up having about 55 people fit in our basement and it was full but not overcrowded. I made 76 miniature cinnamon rolls (I believe my brother ate 20 of them himself), two plates of deviled eggs, a giant bowl of bean and corn salsa with chips, and provided many varieties of juice. Thanks to the help of everyone we had plenty of food and drinks and Lydia had a delicious Elmo birthday cake (note: I wanted to stick the candles in Elmo's eyes, it would have been hilarious, but I didn't). 

 It was so nice to have the support of so many friends and family and to be able to share this day with them. Most of my immediate family could not travel down from Washington, and the support of everyone else made it much easier. We were showered with gifts and love!

As for this birthday girl, despite being devastated that we dragged her home, depriving her of her reward of nursery after sitting politely through sacrament meeting, she warmed up and had a blast.

Wow, Lydia is two! She is so spunky and smart these days. Despite just turning two, she knows her entire alphabet and associates all her letters with different Sesame Street characters (for example when you point to an "E" and ask her what it is, she says, "E, Elmo."). She also knows her colors, shapes, animals and sounds, and can count to ten. She memorizes other people's names faster than I knew possible. Usually you just have to tell her someone's name once and she remembers from then on, even if she doesn't see them for a long time. 

She is a girl in every way, loving purses, jewelry, pink and purple, shoes, dresses, and getting her hair done. She is obsessed with Sesame Street and Elmo, dancing, books, and swinging. Lydia  is a great help for her age and she loves her little brother :)

We are so blessed with these two and we were blessed to have a day to honor the both of them. Luckily, we were able to have Katrina there to take some family pictures as well.

 Thanks everyone for your help in having such a fun and wonderful day. And for those that couldn't make it, we missed you and love you!

Prayer Rocks

 A few weeks back I was released from Young Womens and put into Primary. Because our Primary is so small, it's divided up into three classes. I teach the Valiants, or children 8-12 years old. My last lesson was on Jesus teaching his disciples how to pray and I had the brilliant idea to make each child a prayer rock. So, I bundled Lydia up and we went out along the canal and picked out suitable rocks. Lydia had a blast, occasionally blurting out "rock" every few feet.

Next, we came home and washed each of the seventeen rocks we picked out (I know I went overboard but I just couldn't choose which one to throw out because I kept thinking, what if one of the kids loves this rock...who am I to deny them?). I think this was Lydia's favorite part because she was able to play in the water. She really didn't care about washing rocks and mostly just held her hand under the water, but the rocks got clean and we got soaked.

 The next step includes setting the rocks out on a paper towel to dry. We were experts at this step! We could be professional rock dryers.

 Here we see Lydia's wind-tossed-rock-collecting hair and the joy on her face of being able to help Mom with a project.

Next came all the tedious work of printing out the word "prayer" on green and orange paper (the only colors I had -luckily gender neutral), cutting it out and modge-podging it onto the rocks. I enlisted Brigham's help with the cutting -as a good wife does- and soon the rocks were drying and ready to go. 

To go with the prayer rocks, I printed out this poem on yellow cardstock:

I'm your little prayer rock, Here is what I'll do; 
I'll remind you that Heavenly Father likes to hear from you.

It isn't always easy to remember saying prayers and so...

Each morning when you make your bed on your pillow I will go.

At night if you forget to pray and climb into your bed,

You'll lay down on your pillow- and WHACK, you'll bump your head!

Then you will remember to kneel and say a prayer,

Then drop me out onto the floor, I promise I'll stay there.

When you wake up in the morning I'll still be on the floor,

CLUNK, you'll stub your toe on me and remember to pray once more.

If you let me be a special friend and use me every day,

Heavenly Father will be happy to know that you're learning to pray.

I sure felt good about my little project. When class started, only four kids were there. Four. Normally I have 7-10. Oh well, I thought, I'll just have lots of extras. Then, at the end of class, after they each excitedly picked out a rock, the children said, "Where's our treat?"... I was ticked I tell you. Ticked. I need to teach a lesson on gratitude.

Well, to help put to good use the remaining prayer rocks, Brigham handed some out at the family dinner that night. However, we still have some left. So if you would like one, you may pick from the pile above and let me know. You can have a prayer rock of your very own! (poem on yellow cardstock included)  Sure, you may be able to go pick up any old rock outside to use, but my bet is that it won't have a green or orange "prayer" on it, or be nearly as cool. Your choice :)

Brasilia, Brazil

Last Wednesday night, we were able to join my brother Scott as he opened his mission call.

It was such a fun night for us. We were able to represent the family in person, as the rest skyped in from Washington as he read his call.

Scott really wanted to go out of the country and to learn another language. When he read Brazil, we were all thrilled for him. What is crazy is that, seriously, about five other boys who are Scott's friends in our town of Maple Valley, were also called to Brazil. 

I'm so proud of Scott, he has grown into such an amazing young man. I can't believe my Scottie is old enough to serve a mission! I have seen him mature in the last little while and it has been impressive. As he read his call it was hard for me to not get choked up because I just was so proud of his willingness and worthiness to serve the Lord.

When I think of Scott I feel so protective because, well, he's my little brother. Whether it was giving him a ride on the back of my banana-seat bike to kindergarten every day, or spending a whole vacation tromping around in the Redwoods, climbing trees, and confronting a bug that descended from a foreign planet together, or helping him out getting started at BYU, I feel like I've looked out for him.

Sure, I may have willingly electrocuted him, and accidentally ran over him with my bike twice, but I did my best :) An older sister can only be so kind.

Despite being so happy for his mission call, I'm going to miss him a lot! I've loved having him in Utah with me. Scott is going to do so great. His awesome sense of humor and ability to get along with almost everyone will be so perfect for his mission. Also, he always wants to help others and has such a tender heart for those in need. The people in Brazil will see this first hand.

Scott, you will be amazing. You have such potential and I see it growing in you more and more lately. You are such a strong man. I love you and I'm going to miss you! Congrats Elder Nelson!

Another One

 Yes, yes I know. All my posts are about my two kids lately. Sorry I have become the fanatical mom that only talks about her kids. I've been thinking of posting an adult blog (whatever that means) lately, but I just keep taking pictures that I have to post. So bear with me, here's another one.

So shout out to Auntie Ash and Auntie Cait. Besides being pretty much the only ones that read our blog, they also gave us the awesome bumbo chair.

I put Ammon in it for the first time and he loves it! It was so funny because he looked around like, "Hey, what's going on...I'm sitting up?" 

He only lasts for a few minutes before his neck gets tired and he kind of slumps forward (which is also funny, however cruel to make him sit like that), and it serves as a great distraction for when he's crabby.

Not only does Ammon love it, but so does Lydia. She actually fits in in and we have to convince her to let Ammon have a turn in his chair because she carries it around the house with her.

So thanks aunts and uncles, and hopefully a post will follow that is about something other than kids. I'm not guaranteeing anything seeing as how they are sort of my whole world right now and Ammon's blessing and Lydia's birthday are just around the corner... but we'll see :).