15 Month Appointment

The babies had their 15 month well baby check yesterday. Everything looked great! The doctor seemed pleased with how they are doing.

Emmy 20.5 lbs, 29 inches, 15th percentile
Ben 23.7 lbs, 30.5 inches, 50th percentile

Emmy loves, LOVES to wear jewelry. She got a couple of necklaces for her birthday and she loves them! She will put them on by herself and if she can't she will get me to help her. She still dances anytime music is on and even sings sometimes too.She also loves to have her hair combed. I have her sit in the bathroom sink and she just sits there loving every minute of getting her hair ready for the day. Emmy has always loved looking at herself in the mirror. She likes playing with combs to comb her hair. Also, she is really good about keeping her bows and headbands in. The other day, she had taken her bow out of her hair and brought it to me so I could put it back in.
Emmy also loves to read books; especially about babies. She will sit for a very long time and just read books. Emmy says five words now: dad, mom, hi, bye, uh-oh and yes. She said her first word back in the second week of December and it was dad. I think she tries to say other words like Hyrum and baby, but they don't sound at all like what she is trying to say.

Also, last week she took three steps by herself. She is very close to cruising.
It was so cute the other day. Emmy was with me in Brandon and my room. She heard Ben start to cry and instantly she went to the door and was trying to get to him. It was so tender to see the concern she had for her brother.

Ben's big thing right now is that he is into problem solving or 'puzzles' if you will. He loves playing with his stacking cups and trying to figure out how they go back together. I also got this giraffe toy from a consignment sale recently( for the amazing deal of $1.50 and it looks practically new) and he loves it! He also loves playing with cars and is really good at making the car noise when he plays with them.
Ben also loves looking at books and being read to. He will sit for the longest time in your lap and listen to anyone reading him a book.Ben loves to wrestle! When someone is laying on the ground, Ben will go up to them and stand-up for a minute and then fall on the person laying on the floor. Ben laughs and laughs and stands up to do it again. Hyrum and Ben have so much fun wrestling softly. Ben loves being part of the action when dad and Hyrum wrestle too.
Ben's is also saying a few words. He said his first word when Emmy said her's and it was dad. He can also say Mom, baby,yes, and uh-oh. Also like Emmy, it sounds like he is saying other words like Hyrum and a few others, but the sounds he is making sounds nothing like the word.

Ben took his first steps by himself two Sundays ago. He took five steps.

Both babies are teething right now. I think they both have about ten teeth.

The babies also love to talk to each other instead of taking a nap. They will spend probably close to a forty-five minutes talking before they fall asleep, if they fall asleep. Both of them also really enjoy playing with their toy phones and talking into them.

Another funny thing they do right now is that Emmy will sit in the cozy coupe car we have with her jewelry and Ben will push her around the room. What can I say...she knows how to work the system.

"I'm a Sunbeam and a Child of God"

Those are the words that have been coming from Hyrum's lips since he started attending Sunbeams at the beginning of the month.
In our ward they did a big graduation for the new Sunbeams, they even got a graduation hat. The students also got a CD with the songs that they would be learning this year and a graduation certificate. Hyrum was so excited to have his own "movie" as he called it. I thought he would be disappointed when we got home and there would be no picture when we listened to it, but he was just fine having his "movie" only have sound.During the graduation, each Nursery graduate was asked for questions and here our Hyrum's responses.

What is your favorite food: Yogurt (What he had for breakfast, I would have said Chicken Nuggets)
What is your favorite game: The Chair Game ( What I think he is referring to is crawling underneath chairs and having people chase you)
What is your favorite movie: Thomas the Train ( My guess would have been Cars)
What is your favorite color: White ( The color of shirt he was wearing, I would have said blue)

Hyrum telling his answers to the questions

During sharing time the primary president did a nice lesson on being a child of God. The Primary's theme for this year. It obviously really stuck with Hyrum. After Church was finished on that first Sunday, I told Hyrum that we needed to go find the Bishop (actually Bishop's office, but said Bishop so he knew where we were going). Hyrum found the Bishop and went up to him and said, "Hi Bishop, I am a Sunbeam and a child of God." The Bishop started laughing and responded, "That is right, Hyrum. You are a child of God." From that moment on, he has been telling everyone that he is a child of God and that he is a Sunbeam. He loves going to Sunbeams and why not, some of his best friends are there and he gets to learn about Jesus, who loves him. Also, I wanted to add that he does really well in Sunbeams.

Recently, he has been adding that he is going to go to the temple at the end. That could have been due to another lesson or the fact that his little friend Hailey is always asking him to marry her in the temple( she is the girl who he kept trying to kiss during his first day at Sunbeams) or his comment on going to the temple could be due to the fact that he is fascinated with the temple. He loves singing I Love to See the Temple and loves when we drive to go and see the temple.

Hyrum and the other Sunbeams

Another new love Hyrum has right now is the missionaries. We have had some of the best missionaries in our ward recently. They are so cute with Hyrum. The other day when I Hyrum was put on a time out, he was crying for the missionaries to come and help him. Hyrum also loves when we have the missionaries over for dinner. He gets so excited when they come and love to show them all of his toys. I am so grateful for the opportunity we have had to have the missionaries in our home and for the example that they have set for our kids.Also, yesterday, I told Hyrum that President Hinckley had passed away. When I told him, he got a really concerned look on his face and said, "Oh no! He needs his Hyrum." So cute! We had FHE lesson on the prophet and ever since then, Hyrum has loved President Hinckley.

We Left Our Mark!

Here is my latest creation from digital scrapbooking. I did the snowflakes as embellishments on this page. The kids absolutely loved looking out the window at all the many things they could see. I hope grandma has lots of windex! Double click to make the image bigger.

President Hinckley

Out of respect and admiration, we would like to dedicate this post to our beloved prophet, Gordon B. Hinckley. You have made an unforgettable impression upon the members of the church and upon the world. We love you and will miss you.

Him and his walking stick

Here is a link to a video

Sledding With Papa

My present that I got this year was an Adobe program to use for digital scrapbooking. I am still in the process of figuring out how to use it, but so far it looks like it will be a lot of fun. Below is my first page about Hyrum sledding with is Papa. I would have added some embellishments, but I couldn't find ones that match the paper that I liked. Anyways, I hope to start catching up on the many pictures that I have to scrapbook. You double click on the photo to make it larger. Doesn't Hyrum look like the kid from A Christmas Story?

Happy New Year!

For New Year's we went to my Aunt Mindy's house. There we celebrated with family the year of the Rat. We read different books about rats, guessed the word for 2007 the word was (w00t), wrote down the big events for the past year, made goals, had delicious food and much more. We had such a great time with our family.
Hyrum and his 'Rat' whiskers

The princess didn't like the idea of having whiskers,
so she only has them on one cheek.

All the kids took a turn reading part of the 'rat' story. Hyrum sat up on the stool by me while we did his turn of reading part of the story.
Hyrum singing with "Calman"

After the party, we went back to my parents house and enjoyed a night of playing games and laughter with our good friends the Ames. The picture below is the one that was taken when we went to their house a few days after New Years. They are great friends and we miss them!

Our Trip To Utah

We had such a good time in Utah. One of the fun things we did that we really enjoyed was going to the Living Planet Aquarium in Salt Lake. Dwight, Lorri and their family came with us along with my mom, my sister and her friend. To start our visit off, we went to a the Rainforest Show. The speakers talked about many different animals that live in the Rainforests. Hyrum loved it and was fascinated by all of the different animals. After the show, they invited people to come and look at the different animals and touch some of them. Hyrum decided that he would just look at the snake instead of touch it.

We then went and looked at all the different exhibits. Some of the different exhibits they had were about Utah Wetlands, Open Oceans and Corral Reefs. Hyrum pretending to driving a boat as
part of the Utah Wetlands exhibit

They even had one tank completely dedicated to sharks which was one of Hyrum's favorites. Another one of Hyrum's favorites and Emmy's was the large octopus. It was really amazing to watch the octopus move around the tank. Hyrum also loved all the fish that look like they were from the movie Finding Nemo. Another one of Hyrum's favorites was the Touch Pool. There they had a large group of sting rays that you could put your hand in the pool and feel. Hyrum loved it! Maybe it had to do somewhat with the fact that he was touching water.

The kids all really enjoyed themselves. Once again, our content little babies were really good and loved to just sit and their stroller and enjoy looking at all the incredible things around them.



Another place we went to on our trip in Utah is a place called Jump On It. This place has probably around 30 or so trampolines that are set next to each other and you jump from one to another. They even had some trampolines against the wall. I can't even remember the last time that I jumped on a trampoline, but it was so much fun. I was a little nervous at first about jumping on the wall, but finally got the hang of it. Brandon loved the trampolines and was like a little boy jumping all over the place. As you might imagine, Hyrum loved this place and went nuts being able to jump around. They also had a few blow-up houses that you can jump on and go down a large blow up slide...lets just say he completely enjoyed himself having people he loves and being able to jump all over the place.

The babies were a little nervous at first, but soon came to love the bouncing as well. If they saw you and you were jumping, they instantly tried to get your attention to come and get them so they could join on the fun.