Sethy, Sethy Superman

Seth is crying in this picture, but one of my favorite things is to watch

Seth (and Anika) as he watches Anika do silly dances and such for him.

He gets the biggest, cutest smile on his face.

Nathaniel likes to lay on his back and hold Seth above him and move/fly

Seth all around while singing, "Sethy, Sethy Superman.  Can he fly?  Oh yes he can.  Sethy, Sethy Superman.  Flies away across the land."  It is really cute to hear

Anika singing it occasionally while she is playing.

Seth at 3 Months

He is just over 18lbs and 26.6" long (both 75-90%).
He has doubled his weight since birth.

His head is 16.6" around (25-50%).

Seth at 4 Months watching me clean the tub.  This was his 4th outfit for the day.
Maybe he was trying to commemorate his being 4 months old.

We love Seth's adorable laugh.  Yesterday he mastered rolling over from back to front.  Seth always wants to sit up and be a part of the goings on.

Would you call these milestones?

Anika FINALLY let me put pigtails in her hair.  I've only ever gotten close

to getting one pigtail in with a lot of resistance.  They are a bit lopsided,

but I figured that was as good as it would get for the first time.

Too often now she uses stools and chairs to get things.

"Making lunch" for her animals.

Our Fireman Easter Egg Hunter

Bubble hair and beard.

First-ever pigtails pictured again.

Choosing her own clothes.  Actually she has done this for a long time.

Here she is sporting a pale pink skirt with a long sleeve bright green fleece hooded shirt with large bright blue dots.  Not long before this picture was taken she was wearing her pajama pants inside out and backwards at about 5:30pm (no shirt).

Photography by Anika

In order to get her pigtails in, I bribed Anika by letting her take pictures...

The top bright shape is part of Anika's face.  Her lips are in the middle-top of the picture.

Feet & Phone

Little Monkey

New Van & Pictures

Seth is growing so fast. He is about 3 months and 16lbs!

You can't tell by the look on her face, but Anika loves Barney. So do I. Because she says things like,

"I'm exercising (as she does some silly move). It is good for me!" after she watches it.

Yes that is a pull-up on her head.

Our new van!! 2006 Toyota Sienna.

I can get the kids in and out more easily. I don't bonk Anika's head so much.

Automatic locks. What more can you ask for? (We do have a few more features than that...)

Good-bye 1998 Chevy Prism. "Little Red." It's been fun. We officially bought and picked up our van just shortly before we sold our car. Despite being tired of our old car and excited for our van, I was a little more sad than happy for awhile. I would have had the Prism 9 years next month. I bought it just before I graduated high school, had it through college and it has been our only car since we've been married.

Some of "Little Red's" eccentricities:

The key doesn't work in the driver's side door so you have to unlock the car from the passenger side (and unlock all of the doors manually).

But the passenger door's handle is broken off. It is still possible to open it,

although we didn't think so when it first broke off.

We have to put 1 quart+ of oil in every time we fill up the gas tank.

The two car seats don't actually fit in it appropriately.

Even with the front seats scooted forward more than we would like.

I sure do like driving my new van around! (And Anika can't reach Seth!)

City Creek

For the past 4-5 years my dad has been working on the finance team for the downtown SLC City Creek project. It is amazing! I took Anika and Seth to meet him, Ben and Emily there for a tour.

I forgot my camera so I don't have any cool pictures :(

Some of the highlights:

Anika loved the dinosaur play area. The dinosaurs look hard but they are not, and they are

especially made for fun climbing. The floor in that area is also very padded.

We ate dinner at Kneaders.

The fountains were very cool. I hope I can see a fire show on the main one sometime.

Anika was afraid of the non-existent troll under the skywalk.

We got 2 free Hogle Zoo tickets.

Anika and Grandpa looked for the trout in the city creek.

We saw Nathaniel's mission president who now serves as the area president in Chile (Lawrence Corbridge).

Anika played in the castle tower, colored a picture and watched Lion King on the huge TV in the Disney Store.

There is a Mother's Room.

We saw the fish in Nordstroms (but while we were in there we missed seeing the roof close!)

We got to visit my dad's office in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. We colored on the big white board and got to see the incredible view from his office window. The temple is right there out his window!

Here are a few of the fun facts he shared with us:

The roof was recently featured on an engineering magazine.

There are over 200 trout in the city creek.

There are heaters under the ground to melt snow.

There are thin lines of drains all around the ground level that are narrow enough that a

stiletto heel won't get stuck in them.

There are more fancy drains on the upper level, but they don't pass the stiletto-heel

test and are off to the side of the main walkway.

As you cross the skywalk, there is a perfect view of Ensign Peak. The skywalk has

windows as sides intentionally for that purpose.

There are 90+ stores.

There are statues/monuments with Olympic figures, seagulls, and I forget what else.

The large water fountain is pressure-sensitive. If a kid climbs up on it during

a fire show it will automatically turn off.

The garbage cans are cool but expensive.

Photo credits: http://maps.google.com/maps/place?rlz=1C1CHFX_enUS404US404&ix=sea&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=city+creek&fb=1&gl=us&hq=city+creek&cid=1429749320349744761&ei=ueB_T5GyO-TfiAKZtoH0Ag&sa=X&oi=local_result&ct=placepage-link&resnum=1&ved=0CE4Q4gkwAA

Sweet, Sweet Seth

Our adorable kids

Our friends the Bennetts came for a visit during

spring break.

It was so fun to see them and their cute little boy! He and Seth are more than 2 months

but less than 2lbs apart. Their dads have been good friends for a long time now.

As Nathaniel would say, "J-Dawg and Seth. BFF."

We are always telling Seth what a good kid he is, and every single day we give thanks that he

is so much easier than Anika was. Several times a day, we'll be doing something, and we'll hear

Seth cooing, and we'll remember, "Oh yeah, Seth is over there!" and there he is, waving his arms and legs

and just looking around at stuff, content as can be. Seth cries when we put him in his car seat,

but then he calms down once we start driving, and sometimes he even falls asleep!

When he's tired, we can usually swaddle him, give him a binkie, and walk with him for a minute

or just lay him down, and he'll fall asleep. He sleeps for hours at a time, and he isn't woken up

by most movements or noises. And perhaps best of all, if he's crying, it's for a reason that we can figure out! We just go through the little checklist - Is he hungry? Does he need a diaper change?

Is he tired? - and voila! he stops crying. It's absolutely miraculous. And I'm not

exaggerating when I say we give thanks every single day.

Not the best picture, but Seth at 9 weeks.

At his 2 month appointment he weighed 14lbs 5oz and was 24 1/4" long

(both in the 75th-90th percentile range).

February 23rd, about 6 1/2 weeks.

February 22nd

February 5th, about 4 weeks

And a cute big sister.

Some fun

We went to the zoo with some cute friends.

Here is Seth in the stroller :) I was going to put him in the carrier after awhile but I never did.

One reason was because he was sleeping so well and seemed pretty protected like this.

It was fun but I think not having Anika in the stroller made it hard on her even though I carried her a lot :(

Anika got her cast off!!! Here is the before picture with the last link from our countdown chain.

And the after picture. Her arm wasn't as bad as I had feared.

It was itchy for awhile, but it didn't look very atrophied.

She was crying and tantruming as the nurse tried to weigh her, but she was perfect while the

doctor actually sawed her cast off. I took her swimming that night to celebrate!

We went to the Children's Museum in the Gateway Mall on President's Day. It was such a neat place.

I could only dream of having so many cool areas for pretend play and discovery when I

was teaching (and as a mother!). Thanks, Grandpa!

This picture is a good representation of how Anika looks when Daddy gets her dressed to go out and play :)

Boots (likely without socks), leg warmers, shorts, and a coat. She asked to wear the helmet.

Than helped Anika build a snowman (even with her cast wrapped in a bag).

Someone made this huge fish. Anika loved to go sit on it and called it a whale.

Anika filled up her sticker chart so she got to go to Chuck-E-Cheese for a few rides.

I won't put the picture here but Anika has continued to occasionally take off her jammies and

sometimes her diaper at night before she goes to sleep. We usually find her awake, but we have

now found her naked and asleep two times. Silly girl.