Watch this Mom

Said literally before every picture.

I think to myself...

What a wonderful world

Miss Gracie

My Dear little girl,
At the beginning of the month you started making this face a saying, "oooo" and you have not stopped. You do it all the time, but it never gets old. You can also click your tongue and you have waved bye a few times but you stop when we get the camera out. You also decided that you want to eat our food when we have dinner. You do very well eating almost anything. In this case it was noodles and you loved it. I love watching your cute little fingeres try to get things into your mouth. Especially if it is slippery, that is fun to watch. I am amazed and what you can gum and chew up.

You have had your two bottom teeth for awhile now but the two top teeth have broken threw (hallelujah). You are not the best teether. Those suckers make you mad. You get a runny nose, a runny bum, a fever, and it you gnaw on everything. You also don't sleep well so we will be happy when all the teeth are in. It is easy to tell if you are not feeling well or tired because you are such a good natured baby. We know that is you are fussy something is wrong. You also put EVERYTHING in your mouth. When you are outside I put a pacifier in your mouth (even though you only use it for sleep) to try and keep you from eating rocks and grass.
You crawl on your hands and knees now rather than pulling yourself across the floor. And you pull up to and get into EVERYTHING. You especially love cords and outlets and things with lights. You will walk all over the place if we hold your fingers. You even stood for a second today by yourself. You have a bath chair, but you know stand up in it, step out, and stand holding on the the edge of the tub and "dance" because you are so proud of yourself. I, however, do not like this so your baths are short.You have discovered other babies and love them even if they are just your reflection in the garbage can. I am pretty sure you would claw tiny babies faces off if I let you get close enough. You will sit with me and look at books and magazines. I will point to the picture and say what it is, then you look at it intently and then get a huge smile on your face. It is very fun to watch.You are just a big sweetie. You LOVE hugs and kisses and you give them all the time. Sometimes you will just be sitting in your high chair and reach your hand out to me and if I am too far to reach you I will just reach my hand towards you and you smile. You love being around friends and cousins. Anyone who loves you and will play with you is your friend. Well almost anyone, there are a few guys you are not sure about, like Uncle Don, but I am sure you will get over that soon.Grandpa C discovered that if he would roll his tongue at you then you would lean in and give him a kiss. It was very sweet. Your dad and I have tried it and had others try it as well and sometimes you will lean in but mostly you just duck your head bashfully into their shoulder. It is very sweet. I will try to get that on video.

You love all kids, but mostly you love William. You love to torture him by taking or touching his toys and you could care less when he gets mad at you. But if you are not trying to mess up each others toys then you love each other so much. You are such a sweet little girl and like your daddy said last night, "it is hard to imagine life without Gracie." You light up my world.
Mom

Dear William

Dear William,

Here you are three years old and counting. You are growing so much all the time and so is your hair! I don't know when we will cut it. Both your dad and I love seeing those deep red curls. I have trimmed up the back once but you don't want us to cut it and we just don't want to either.

You are still the most athletic kid I have ever seen. You can do everything you try. Right now the fun thing is baseball and you do better if we pitch it to you rather than hitting it off the tee. We would love yo get you in gymnastics because you and jumping and swinging all over the place.One thing about your growing up that seems to go backwards is eating. You seem to get messier as you get older. You have always been able to eat very well with utensils from a very young age and I never used to have to wipe your mouth but now everything you take a bite of ends up on your face. You also have become a lot pickier about what you eat. You have learned the good ole' phrase, "I don't like it." You used to eat everything.It used to be that you would never fall asleep unless put in your bed at a correct bed/nap time. The only other exception is in the car. But recently we have witnessed you falling asleep all on your own. This means that you are really tired. And after having you sleep in our room when Gracie wasn't sleeping so good I realized that you grind your teeth like crazy in your sleep. I seriously thought that you were chewing hard candy in the middle of the night. I really need to get you to a dentist and see what to do about that.And even though there are many times when I am driven crazy by your whining, yelling, and disobedience, there are many moments when you are very very sweet. This picture is one of these moments. You were at Grandma and Grandpa C's and you picked up a baby doll in a blanket, sat with it in the rocking chair and sang it a song that you made up on your own. The song (your father and I believe) came from the song that we call your special song - I Will by the Beatles. The lyrics went something like this: How I know I love you - How I know this song - How I love the prophet. You add other things now and then, but this seems to be the core of the song. You even sang it during primary while I was teaching you and all the other children another song. There are also a few movies that you watch that involve apples and when you watch them you ask for an apple. These movies include: Enchanted, Sleeping Beauty, Nephi and the Brass Plates, and Pete's Dragon. You are also getting really good at playing computer games. You rarely need help and are very good about figuring things out on your own.You call Dad "Russ" almost exclusively and will call him dad if reminded. I discovered the reason for this, it is because he doesn't answer you when you call him dad and still doesn't always when you call him Russ. You are just more likely to get a response when you call him Russ. You have found a way to make him laugh and that is by sticking your little hands in his pockets when he isn't expecting it and taking his phone or keys. He calls you his little pick pocket and it drives him crazy.
You are so smart and fun to be around. You have become very friendly and are always saying hi to strangers and asking them their names. You used to talk to people as they walked past you in the store, but they never really responded so now you just talk to the clerks. I hear you when you walk outside our apartment say to anyone who will listen, "hi I'm WeeYum". You love to sing and I tear up almost every time I hear you do it. One of my favorite things that you do is sometimes you wake up in the morning and them come climb in bed with me. I will scratch your back or play with your hair (at your request) and sometimes you fall back asleep and we sleep a little while longer. I like this so very much.

You love to laugh and make others laugh...

And you love your sister and are very good to her. You call her a "good gul-er" (thats a hard word for many kids to say).
I couldn't ask for better. I love you so much.

Mom

Bathing Beauties are...

Mad because the water is too cold,
Quietly cute,
Goofy, Freezing,
Dang cute is the swimming suit, and terribly unsure of the water,

Hot stuff

She loves to pull up on things and then turn around. Now she will let go with her hands and just lean on it. She thinks she is so big. Today she started walking all over the place if we hold her hands. It goes by way too fast.

End of School Days

May 7th was a very busy day. It was the last day of finals for Russ (the last final he will ever take!) and William's last day of preschool. To celebrate the momentous event we met at a favorite park for lunch and cake. William could not have been happier about the cake. We will both miss these preschool buddies that he has made. It has been so fun and he still asks me every morning if he is going to preschool. When I tell him preschool is all done he says, "when it is Thursdays then I will go to preschool." It is sad, he loved it so much.Then Russ went to a kick ball game with the rest of his class and then the kids and I joined him a little later. William even got to kick the ball and run the bases with Russ. Then we took Gracie to a doctors appointment where it was confirmed that her doctor is the coolest doctor out there. He was going through all the things about her age and at the end said, "I have one more question for you, where did you get your shirt?" I was wearing my Travis shirt and then we talked about how much we liked the band. He is German but Russ won't ever speak German with him even though I pester him too. After that appointment we had to hurry home and clean up our house so we could have friends over fro burgers to celebrate the end of classes. Our place was really small and it was packed, but very fun. Thanks all for coming.

Trying to cramp in our small living room. I know it is not nice to take pictures while people are eating, sorry guys.

Trying to cramp all the food on our tiny table. And Carolyn trying to cramp a baby into her tiny body (he is out now :)The kids played outside for a long time, unfortunately it was a pretty chilly evening. See that skip-it? I gave it a try and was not too shabby.
The guys outside, and Gracie.Gracie checking out Mike, she was very good for the whole thing.It is a bitter sweet experience coming to the end f classes. We sooo want to be done with school and on with our lives and making money, but we will miss all these great friends we have made and all the good times that we have had, and the great place we have been able to live (I mean the town, not apartment). So now it's on to clerkship's and in a year we will be done!