Perfecting Our Skills

Demitri is still working on his whistling skills.

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Daphney's Whistling

Daph is so excited that she has improved a great deal on the monkey bars. Why don't parks have more short monkey bars like that?! Love it!

Paisley has been able to crawl since 5 months! At her 6 month check up the doctor the doctor couldn't believe that she was only 6 months, and even asked to know when she was born so she could do her own math. Paisley is a crawling champ so she took a little longer learning to sit because I could never get her to hold still.

Okay I love cheering my kids on... Yes I know they are only able to make it a foot or so. Some day they will get it.

Last two videos are of the kids reading to each other, and this they do often. Demitri loves the book "Smick" and thinks it is hilarious, and Daphney is reading my favorite children's book "Chicken Soup". They are both rather long, but I had to post them at least for the Grandparents.

Can we go to the Zoo AGAIN!!

This is my favorite picture! I just wanted to snap a quick pic here, but some overly helpful lady thought I might actually want to be in a picture with my offspring. I mean look at them!! Clearly I need to be behind the camera. This is just such a flop and yet so clearly real life!

 Paisely- Spitting up on me...

Demitri- Just had a potty training accident that I just realized and we are trying to keep secret till this lady finally gives up on catching the perfect family photo. You can tell he knows he is in trouble and there is no smiles. 

Daphney- Well I see a lot of similarities between her and Curious George!

No really- Her life aspiration I think is to be a monkey that is always causing trouble but always ends up spinning it to save the day. 

Okay I finally got my camera back after that poor lady gave up...

And luckily this turtle shell only has room for three little people!

 Oh my goodness, this is one fun baby and exactly the personality we needed next in our family.
I am not kidding look at that pic of her and Demitri in the stroller. I just look at it and think future laughing chewbaca head!

 Frog Royalty!!

Give Me S'mores!

Two Different Reactions To those S'mores:

Jenny's Example

A little while ago we were home with my sister and I couldn't stop taking pictures of her with my kids. 

She is leaving next month to go on an lds mission, and we are really going to miss her.

The other day I read Daphney a story in the Friend magazine. In this story a small boy told about his uncle who went on a mission and how because of his uncle's example he now wants to serve a mission too. Needless to say I bawled through the whole thing and Daphney was worried about me. 

She already prays that Jenny will come home safely from her mission- that she hasn't left for.. But yes we look forward to that day already!

Flamingo Painting

So my husband made a comment like, "Hey Woman, with your busy crazy life you are never going to chisel out enough time to paint anything again."

It was true, but it motivated me to prove him wrong... Three kids down for a nap at the same time. SCORE!!- Time to PAINT!!

Fun Step by Step painting changes. - thank goodness for picture texts and my sister who never gets tired of helping me critique during the process. 

This is part of my animal parenthood paintings. The paintings are based off my experiences as a mother and also connect me to my father since we worked in his shop making the frames together. In the painted scenes I love thinking about myself as the parent but also inversely as the child to both my Earthly Parents and my Heavenly Parents. 

This is what baby flamingos look like when they are born and it is not til they have eaten enough pink fish that they begin to get their more common pink color.  

Earth Day

My kids love flowers so we celebrated earth day at the nearby botanical gardens. 

Color Matching

Watching the Koi Fish

Luckily they love that happy little head.

See guys the botanical garden was free and I was in a free mood I guess because I heard that there were bike taxis outside and I made a big deal about NEEDING to ride on them as if my life wouldn't be complete without that. Turns out they have ears and totally agreed that I should throw away my money getting a bike ride to where ever I needed to be next. To which I responded, "No, I don't need to go anywhere our car is here; can't we just ride around the block or something?" Needless to say I stuck my foot in my mouth and swallowed the sole before realizing this was not part of the free botanical gardens. However, my husband was gracious and didn't complain and we had a joyous time doing something extravagant.  #Des Bike Pedicab

Yes that is a giant bag of diaper wipes. #Mom of three. #Too old to know why people hashtag!

Eggstravagansa

Easter Egg Hunt at a nearby community center.- Yes we brought Daphney, but when approached with the option of standing by the Easter Bunny she threw her basket and ran towards the road. I chose to lose that battle...

 They had firetrucks that the kids were able to drive/play on.

Tons of baby animals at this event. -The cheek test does not lie!

Family Easter Egg Hunt on Easter after church and naps because we are that kind of parents.... 

General Conference 2016

This conference we made it all about the kids. I figured I can listen to conference whenever and I wanted to make sure the kids had an opportunity to realize what a great blessing it is to have prophets and apostles.

Here are snack bags for the speakers. I think what helped the most is having the kids help in preparation so they were excited for the big "party". Daphney cut out the pictures from a past ensign magazine and that gave us a chance to talk about the speakers. Holland is Shane's favorite apostle (if we have to choose favorites) and No bake cookies Shane loves, so I did let the kids know that those cookies were in Elder Holland's bag. Now the kids always connect the idea of cookies to Holland's name. This is sure to be a continued conference tradition!

The other idea I tried is using these topic pictures (idea is taken from a more elaborate idea on this website but simplifying it worked better for toddlers). While listening Daphney was able to find the picture of the person speaking and several topic pictures to hang up on the wall. She didn't always understand the whole talk, but at least she now knows what a prophet might talk about. 

We have left the pictures of the apostles hanging up and Daphney now knows them all with a preference towards Rasband (kind of like head band) and Christofferson (just like Kristoff on Frozen). Demitri is trying to learn them too. His favorites are Cook and Thomas S. Monson.

Life is so different with kids!

Just Like Dad

My kids creative minds  are always finding ways to pretend that they are being just like dad. Demitri can make a stick into anything! Here the kids are shooting their bow and arrows.

Fishing with dad, but using sticks.