Five on Friday

1. Grandpa Phillips was working in Lehi this week, so we got to see a lot of him. We had dinner with him at Taylor and Martha's house Monday night and at our house Wednesday night. He also treated us to breakfast at Kneaders this morning. He's a quiet guy, so it was nice to spend some time with him in a smaller group setting without some of the louder personalities in our family around to dominate the conversation.

2. Peyton's favorite activity of the week was building tall Lego towers with Corbyn. I like that she enjoys the typical girl things, but will also play with Corbyn and his "boy things". 

3. We've had week after week of sunny, but cold weather this January. You'd think that would be nice, but with the inversion we've been praying for snow! We finally got a storm this week to clear the air. It wasn't a huge one, but I think it did its job! 

4. Today was dentist day for the kids. I took Corbyn to his appointment at 9:30 while Rog stayed home with Peyton. While we were there I figured I should schedule an appointment for Peyton because she's getting close to 2. The receptionist surprised me by saying, "Why don't you bring her in at 10:30." Um, ok. So when Corbyn was done, I dropped him off and picked Peyton up. They both did great - especially Peyton for her first time. And best of all, no cavities! Corbyn got a teeny tiny ninja with his token and Peyton took a ride on the horsey.

5. It took me all month, but I finally got around to making this craft for my January decorations - just in time to put it away tomorrow when I decorate for Valentine's Day! I couldn't let it become another project on my started (or purchased), but not finished list. It only took an hour from start to finish including drying time when I was working on other things. At least it's all ready for next year!

21 Months

PJ at 21 months:

*Requests that I sing certain songs. She'll say "sing Jesus" or "sing snowman" or sometimes just "sing song."

*Calls herself Super Peyton on occasion.

*Still likes to be picked up and carried quite a bit although she is getting too big and heavy for it!

*Gets really sad when we have to tell her no. 

*Likes to repeat things she says 3 or 4 times. Sometimes she'll keep saying it until you say it back to her.

*Wants to do everything herself and gets so mad if you try to help her. She sees Corbyn doing things and thinks she should be able to do them too. We hear a lot of "Me do it!"

*Always asks for a different cup of water before bed.

*Likes to take apples out of the fridge, take a bite out of them, and then put them back.

We love this independent little girl! 

The Letter O

Two weeks ago when I taught joy school, we learned about the letter O, the number 14, and the color orange.

The first day was ocean themed. We read My Octopus Arms, Ocean Babies, and Wow! Ocean!. (Checked out from the Provo Library -  as well as all the other books we read this week. I had Jared get a card because they never have the books I want at the Spanish Fork Library. Thanks Jared!)

We did an octopus pom pom magnet page (from this set). I do at least one of these every time I teach because I went to all the effort to make the pom pom magnets - I want them to get used! And they always seem to enjoy them.

We did some sorting with ocean beads. I already had the beads from making this quiet book page. I purchased them at JoAnn last summer. I had 4 sets of sorting that they took turns doing.

Counting with colors.

More counting.

Sorting by kind.

Sorting by color and stringing onto pipe cleaners.

Some took longer than others (the stringing in particular), so I had them do these puzzles (with magnets added to the backs) while they waited.

We had goldfish crackers and Nemo fruit snacks for our snack. (Easiest snack ever.)

We played Ocean Bingo with Swedish Fish. (You can print off custom bingo sheets here. Pretty cool.)

And finally we did an octopus craft.

I had the supplies all ready for this ocean window craft, but we ran out of time. I sent it home, so they could make them later. Corbyn loved making his during Peyton's nap. (I found the foam stickers at Dollar Tree. Much cheaper than the ones I saw at JoAnn for like $8 - even if I had used a coupon.)

The second day we did the number 14, the color orange, owls, Olympics, and outer space.  

We did a pom pom magnet picture of 14 snowflakes.

We had orange jello and orange juice for our snack. Corbyn was the only one who would eat the jello, so they ended up having goldfish crackers again.

I showed them how we make orange by mixing red and yellow and then we used oranges to stamp an O outline.

We read Owl Babies and did this owl letter match game.

We did this O is for Olympics craft.

We watched a bobsled race from the 2010 Olympics and then had our own bobsled race on a track made from wrapping paper rolls cut in half (idea here). 

We also tossed "snowballs" into the Olympic rings (idea here).

The Olympics would not be complete without medals! I just cut circles out of glitter gold foam and stapled them to some ribbon. 

Finally we read Out in Space and sifted rice to find the "planets" (idea here). 

I think it was a successful week of joy school!

1:00 Church

Rog's birthday was our first Sunday having 1:00 church. 1:00 church is nice because I have all morning to get myself and the kids ready. (Sometimes too much time - Peyton ends up getting her dress and tights dirty before we even get to church!) Rog's meetings don't start until 10:00, so I also have some help before he leaves.

But 1:00 church is awful because Peyton normally takes her nap around 1:30. My plan to combat this problem is as follows: I aim to have us ready and in the car by 12:30. We take a scenic route up into Mapleton and then back down to our building in hopes that she will fall asleep. If she does fall asleep, I can carry her into Sacrament Meeting and hold her while she takes a short nap. This has worked 2 out of the 4 Sundays we've had our new schedule. The days she doesn't get a nap, I drop her off at Nursery feeling so bad for her leaders - although I think she is actually pretty good for them even with no nap. It's after church that she really is a joy! As the year goes on, I'm sure my plan will work less and less and I'll probably abandon it at some point, but for now, it's worth the effort because the days she gets even that short nap she is much better!

1:00 church also makes for a busy evening. Half of the Sundays Rog counts tithing and he also has to try to fit in home teaching visits. We have to make time for our home teachers to come and of course there's the all important Sunday Dinner!

11:00 is obviously the best schedule. I'm already dreading 9:00 church next year - getting myself and the kids ready and to church before 9:00 with no help at all! YIKES!

Rog's birthday was also Corbyn's first day of Sunbeams. He did great the first 20 minutes during Singing Time, but by the time Sharing Time hit all the other kids were starting to freak out. I was watching him from a few rows back. One minute he was fine and then he just broke down in tears. Without even thinking about it, I started crying too. It was totally ridiculous - I could not stop crying. I pulled myself together long enough to teach my class, but then broke down again after. I'm blaming it on the lack of food from fasting! 1:00 church makes for long Fast Sundays and Riries don't do well without food!

He had a great time once Rog got him calmed down and in class. It totally helps that he has the BEST teachers (the Soelbergs) and one of his best friends (Rhys) is in his class.

He had a hard time the second week too because he knew I was in there and he wanted to come sit with me and my class. He wouldn't go with his class when Sharing Time was over, so I had to bring him to my class with me. I finally got him to go to his class when he wanted treats from the diaper bag and I wouldn't let him have any. I told him if he wanted treats, he had to go with his class. He went and had a great time again. And since then we haven't had a problem!  

I still can't believe he's old enough to be a Sunbeam!

29

Rog turned 29 on January 5th. It was Fast Sunday which is no fun (speaking from personal experience - I turned 20 on a Fast Sunday), but I think he had a good day nonetheless.

I made Puffed French Toast for brunch the day before since we couldn't do anything special for breakfast on his actual birthday. Corbyn had fun helping me wrap his presents during Peyton's nap. After he went to bed I blew up a few balloons and set out his presents, so he'd have something fun to come down to Sunday morning.

He got a BYU football (want), a 3-hole punch and dividers for his church binder (need), a hat (wear), and Blink (read). As a bonus, Corbyn got him Donatello (the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle) to go with the Leonardo that came with his Shellraiser he got for Christmas. (Rog loved the Ninja Turtles growing up, so this was actually a good gift.)

After church we had Creamy Chicken and Wild Rice Soup with World's Best Dinner Rolls at my parent's house.

He requested a simple white cake with chocolate frosting. I almost baked it in a 9x13 pan, but at the last minute decided to do something a little more special. I'd seen the age with sprinkles idea many times on Pinterest and was very pleased with how it turned out! 

Corbyn was so excited to help him blow out all 29 of his candles!

The Saturday after his birthday we went out on a date to see Catching Fire (We both loved it and thought it was way better than the book!) and then had dinner at 5 Guys Burgers and Fries (with a gift card Diana and Jason got us for Christmas).

Happy birthday Honey Bunches! Here's to living up your last year in the 20's!!

Six on Saturday

1. I made these Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream Sandwiches for Sunday dinner. They were so incredibly good! If you're a cookie dough fan (and even if you're not), you need to try them, like now!

2. For Martin Luther King Jr. Day we decided to go to Farm Country at Thanksgiving Point. I'm extremely allergic to horses, but didn't even think of taking any allergy medicine before we went. We had a great time, but by the time we left I could feel my throat swelling up. We had some children's Benadryl for Corbyn just in case he needed it (he didn't), so I took some of that and spent the rest of the day in a drug-induced fog. 

3. Diana and Jason found out this week they are having a girl in June! I'm glad Peyton will have a girl cousin to play with on both sides. Yay for girls!!

4. Corbyn has been way into legos lately. This week he made these robots completely on his own. They weren't incredibly sturdy, but I was impressed by how much they look like robots. 

5. My parents went to Texas this week to watch Blake for 10 days while Diana goes to Kentucky for school. They usually watch the kids while I go on runs and have dinner with us on the nights that Rog doesn't get home from school until after the kids are in bed. To say that we're missing them would be a huge understatement!

6. Frames were 50% off at JoAnn this week, so I finally got around to framing Corbyn's 3 year collage and Peyton's 1 year collage. While I was at it I designed Peyton's birth announcement to go in the frame I made for her nursery before she was born. It's about time!  

2014 Goals

I decided I prefer to call these goals rather than resolutions, so here are our goals for 2014.

Mine:

1. Read 7 books.

2. Finish projects I've started, but not finished.

3. Run the Ragnar.

4. Serve outside our home at least once a month.

Rog's:

1. Read 8 books.

2. Find more family names.

3. Run the Ragnar and try road biking.

4. Be kinder to those he loves.

Corbyn's:

1. Learn to ride a bike with training wheels.

2. Learn to write all the letters.

3. Learn to recognize numbers.

4. Eat what we eat for dinner and try new foods without a fight. 

Peyton's:

1. Learn to ride her tricycle.

2. Learn shapes.

3. Learn colors.

4. Learn to count to 10.

And our family goals:

1. Go to the temple once a month.

2. Go on a date once a month.

3. Make our wills.

4. Add clothing/supplies to our 72 hours kits and store water.

2013 Resolutions

Here's a review of our 2013 Resolutions.

Mine:

1. Read 7 books. I read 6.7 - so close! I read Matched, Crossed, The Great Gatsby, Reached, Love Life and See Good Days, Dinner: A Love Story, and Little Women. 

2. Run a race longer than a 5K. Done. I ran the Speedy Spaniard 10K on the 24th of July.

3. Conquer my fear of making pies. Done. I made a peach pie using this pie crust tutorial. I'm not a pro by any means, but at least I broke the ice.

4. Finish decorating our downstairs bathroom. Nope. This is the first project I'm going to tackle this year - after I get this blog caught up which should be pretty soon.

Rog's:

1. Read 4 books - 2 fiction and 2 nonfiction. Done. He read The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Ender's Game (listened to that one), The Power of Habit, and To the Rescue: The Biography of Thomas S. Monson.

2. Be able to swim a mile without stopping. Nope. He got a pass to the Springville Pool and was swimming a lot the beginning of the year, but he really doesn't like swimming. So this goal kind of fizzled out.

3. Find the spouses of the names we did in 2012 and do the work for them. Done. Well, he only found one of the spouses, but he found a lot of other names, so we'll call that one good. 

4. Eat more fruits and vegetables instead of junk food for snacks. Done. I started buying more fruit and less chips, so that helped a lot.

Corbyn's: 

1. Learn to ride a tricycle. Done. He's a tricycle riding pro!

2. Learn to go to the bathroom in the toilet. Done! This was much easier than I expected!

3. Learn to count to 10. Done. He can count to 20.

4. Learn his colors. Done. For a while he insisted on saying go for green and stop for red, but now he'll say green and red and he knows all the others too.

Peyton's:

1. Learn to walk. Done. She got an early jump on this goal! 

2. Learn to sleep through the night (again). Done. Sometimes she'll wake up in the night and I have a bad habit of just sticking her in bed with us because she goes right back to sleep that way, but for the most part she sleeps through the night in her own bed.

3. Learn to say a few words. Done. She can say way more than a few!

4. Go to nursery without a fight. Done. She had a hard time the first two times we took her, but ever since then she's loved it. 

And our family resolutions:

1. Attend the temple at least once a month. Done.

2. Go on a date just the two of us once a month. Done. These are both habits now and quite easy to accomplish with my parents so close, but we will continue to make them a yearly goal as I would hate for us to fall out of the habit of either of them!

3. Start storing water. Um, no. I guess I forgot about this one! At the beginning of the year we were buying a gallon of water with our groceries and storing those in the garage, but I heard that might not be the best way. So I stopped doing that and didn't start another way. Oops! 

4. Visit the Brigham City temple. Done. We cut that one a little close, but we got it done!