Plenty to Say and First Haircuts

Lately my kiddos sure have had a lot to say. And they have been shocking me with the things coming out of their mouths. I'm either laughing, or pausing to contain my surprise.

I already talked about some of the crazy deep questions that Lydia has been asking in her birthday post, but she has kept them coming.

Lydia: Mom, did Heavenly Father create Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny?

Lydia: Why did Jesus create holidays?

She sure has had me do some deep thinking in order to properly answer her questions.

Ammon has found a love for the word "thingy-ma-bobber" and says it constantly. Here are some examples:

While riding scooters together outside...
Me: Don't run into the wall with your scooter.
Ammon: It's not a wall, it's a grass thingy-ma-bobber.

Me pulling out the dustpan/mini broom to sweep up a pile,
Ammon: Can I have that broom thingy-ma-bobber?

Me: What's that?
Ammon: My thingy-ma-bobber.

Hahaha, it makes me laugh almost every time to hear that come out of his mouth. It's a curious expression for a three-year-old to pick up. Here's another conversation that made me smile:

Me: Remember when we packed all our stuff in that big moving truck?
Lydia: Yeah, remember when Emmy and Jack packed all their things in their big moving truck?
Me: Yep.
Ammon: Aw phooey, they live far away now.

Phooey? Priceless :) And while Ammon's busy with his exclamations, Lydia's been busy with her own problems. I found Lydia sitting alone on her bed in the dark after coming home from the dentist.

Me: What's going on?
Lydia (Getting all teary-eyed): I just have so much time to play with Ammon and I just need some alone time.
Me: What happened?
Lydia: Nothing. I just need some alone time.
Me: Then why are you crying?
Lydia: I'm not (sniff) my eyes are just watering.
Me: Ooooookay, I'll leave you to your alone time then.

She's growing up into some drama, that's for sure.

Since she is getting so big, we decided that it was finally some time to even the ends of her super long hair so that she had a cleaner cut.  I was so nervous to cut her hair and so sad. She had never ever ever had a hair cut before and I DID NOT want to cut off her baby hair. But it was time.

I missed her hair as soon as I cut it off. Not in a despairing way, but in a small sadness kind of way. I especially missed the pretty sun-bleached ends. It really was a good thing to cut her hair; though it's hard to tell from the pictures, the ends were all split and just looked scraggly and uneven. Now they are even and hopefully her hair will come in a bit thicker now instead of the baby-fine texture it was.

Lydia was excited to get her haircut because she wanted to know what it would feel like and was surprised when "it didn't feel like anything!" She kept having to be reassured that I was just cutting the ends and that it would not be too short. She really wants long hair!

After I was done she looked in the mirror and said, "Mom, it's so short!" I agreed that it was a little shorter than expected, but it was my first time cutting a girl's hair, and to get it even I had to go a bit higher. But it wasn't too bad and she forgot about it in about three seconds.

And that's my kids. Haircuts and plenty to say to keep me on my toes.

Lydia's Fifth Birthday

So something happened that was kind of a big deal. My baby. My baby girl. She turned five. FIVE. Like kindergarten age.

Isn't Lydia's baby shocked face adorable?

:( :( :( That's right, that's a triple frowny face. How did this ever, ever happen? Now that cute baby looks like this:

This girl amazes me everyday. She picks up on so much that just blows my mind. She can read and add. She uses words like "literally" "eventually" and "actually" in context. And she thinks so theoretically about some serious stuff. Here are some the questions I've had to attempt to answer lately.

Why do some people not dress modestly?
Why did Heavenly Father create the earth for us?
Why did Heavenly Father have to give us a body?
How does God hear our prayers?
Why does he want us to pray?
I don't know that Heavenly Father is really listening. Then how does he help us?
Why do we have to fast?
How did Jesus come back to life when he was resurrected?
Why don't girls pass the sacrament? Why do boys do it?

What five year old thinks of these things? And these are just in the last few weeks, unprovoked. We will be eating lunch or getting in our pajamas, and she'll ask these serious questions when we haven't been talking about anything having to do with the subject at all. It shows that she's got some pretty interesting thoughts going through that little mind of hers. My little philosopher.

Today she asked her Uncle Ryan: "What's your favorite color?"
Ryan: Blue
Lydia: That's it?!
Ryan: Yep
Lydia: Well my favorite colors are all the shades of pink, dark blue, gold, silver, and light purple.

And that's just her. She loves hugs and kisses, and belting out tunes in the car. Here is her spotlight from primary:

And she LOVES birthdays. She was pretty excited that hers rolled around...despite Ammon trying to usurp her day. The first thing Ammon said when he woke up on Lydia's birthday was, " I want to open Lydia's presents now." I laughed and explained that it's LYDIA'S birthday, so LYDIA gets to open the presents. To which he replied disappointingly, "Aaawww."

Then after breakfast Ammon said, "I want to make my cookie cake now."  I had to explain once again...it's LYDIA'S birthday. I think Lydia finally got to him and claimed her day, because later he came to me out of the blue and said, "Today is not my birthday because my birthday is January." I laughed and said, "Yes, yes it is."

Even though it was a big birthday, I felt bad because we kept it really low-key. Lydia got to play with her friends at exercise class then we came home and made her cake. She took a nap, played, and had her especially requested dinner of chef salad, chicken nuggets, macaroni and cheese, and muffins. It was actually delicious.

After dinner was presents. She scored.

It was so fun to watch her excitement opening gifts. It makes me so happy as her mom that she's so happy.

After presents we had her "cake" which actually was two giant cookies on top of each other since she really doesn't like cake and requested chocolate chip cookies for her dessert instead.

It was a success. She loved her cookie. And although she doesn't like ice cream, she picked out a flavor for the rest of us to enjoy (cookie dough, of course).

And now this week I have to register her for Kindergarten for the fall. I never, ever thought this day would come. All I can think about was when she was my little, little girl. 

Now she's my big, smart, beautiful girl and will only keep heading that direction. How do I get the time back?? How do I keep her here with me forever?

Happy Birthday Baby. I love you forever! Thanks for being my sweetheart!

Lydia's Five Year Birthday Interview

1. What's your favorite song? I love to see the temple
2. What's your favorite thing to do with Mom? Play games with her
3. What's your favorite thing to do with Dad? Tea party
4. What's your favorite day of the week? Saturday because I get to play after chores and Sunday because I get to go to Primary at church.
5. How old are you? Five
6. Who is your best friend? Kayleen
7. What's your favorite thing to do?  Play games with my family
8. What's your favorite color? All the pinks, light purple, gold, and silver
9. What's your favorite food? macaroni and cheese, bread, strawberries
10. What do you like to do with your family? Play games
11. What's your favorite toy? My princess computer
12. What do you want to be when you grow up? A teacher
13. What makes you happy? When my brother plays with me
14. What makes you sad? When Ammon bites me.
15. What's your favorite show to watch? Daniel Tiger
16. What's your favorite book? My Princess Book
17. What do you like to learn about? What it will be like when I grow up
18. Where do you like to go? To the park
19. What's the best part of your birthday? Opening my presents and blowing out candles
20. What's your favorite treat? Reeses
21. If you could meet someone famous who would it be? My mom
22. What's your favorite movie? Cinderella one and two
23. What's your favorite game to play? Tag
24. What sports do you like? Soccer and Baseball
25. What do you like to wear? Dresses and Tutus and skirts
26. Who's your favorite princess? Cinderella 

Fun In February

February was a pretty good month. The kids worked on their bed-making skills.

Ammon's leaves a little bit to be desired, but he's working on it. Lydia has been crowned around here as the best kid bed-maker there is. Even beating out her eight year old Aunt Kayleen. I mean, she even makes a bed for her Sophia doll on top of her own bed! It makes a mom's chest swell with pride. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it lasts through teenage years.

I have started a renewed effort to teach Ammon his letters, numbers, and shapes. Lydia had it all down at this point and was learning sounds, so I was feeling a little neglectful. However, Ammon is different in that he just has no desire. It's like I'm torturing him every time we pull out the alphabet book. He was that way with learning his colors and I had to turn everything into a game for him to even try, and even then he would say the wrong color just to be funny. He's a giant stinker like that.

So I decided to make a game and have him park his car at the "A store" or the "triangle store" and see if he could park it in the right one. He knows the letter A and the circle shape...and besides that he calls every other letter "D" and every other shape "triangle"...no matter what it is. He lasted about ten minutes with this game, went through three different car models, got mad when I wouldn't let him use Lydia's giant, pink barbie car - even though I explained it wouldn't fit in the parking spots - and finally settled on an airplane. After the ten minutes I just resorted to letting Ammon pretend he was driving to Fred Meyer and the library.

Even though we didn't get much learning done, he loved the one-on-one time while Lydia was at preschool, and I think if we keep at it he'll get it eventually. My boy is sure different than my girl. And that's ok. I love it.

Here in Washington they have a midwinter break where the kids are off school for a week in February. We made the most of the dreary weather and lack of outings that appealed to large age ranges by creating our own stay-cation at home.

First Ryan and I built a giant fort in the living room.

Lots of blankets and clothes pins and safety pins. I have to say making forts does not lose it's appeal with age...or maybe just not for me. I totally got into it and was like, "Let's make the best fort EVER!" :)

Next I ran to the store to get supplies to make movie-snack necklaces and to get a redbox for everyone to watch. Then we planned our indoor picnic and made our snack necklaces.

We popped the movie in, ate our lunches and snacked on our necklaces. It was a blast!

The kids played in the fort the rest of the day until we finally had to take it down.

The rest of the month was spent catching the few days of beautiful weather. February is quite dreary here. It rains and rains and rains, and is pretty gray when it's not raining. However, it's still beautiful.

This is a bridge that I cross when I ride my bike on the Arcadia trail behind our house, and the view from the bridge. I love it.







There was also ONE day that so beautiful. The sun came out and the skies were actually blue!

Do you know how rare that color of sky is during the winter in Washington? So rare. In the summer it's like this every day, but the window is short.

I spent all morning at the park with my bestie, getting a workout in using the stairs and a picnic table while our kids ran around playing. I think I commented 1000 times on how much I loved the weather.









That afternoon while my kids were sleeping I took advantage of my brothers being home and decided to explore some trails in our neighborhood.

I took this picture walking down the street because: what is that peaking through the pine trees? THE SUN! Oh glorious sun! It's amazing what it does for a person. I was SO happy that day. I spent an hour hiking on the trails, listening to music, and happy as a clam. I came home, woke my kids up, helped them learn to ride scooters and bikes, and did a few loops around our circle on my own bike. So basically I spent the entire day out in the sunlight. I could go on and on, but basically I'm excited for summer when this is my everyday. Especially when it's supposed to downpour this entire week.

So I think that we had some pretty good times this month. We looking forward to Lydia's birthday coming up and hopefully more springtime weather!