Airplane and Hotel

The kids did well on the plane.  I was sitting in between them and was very busy trying to keep them quiet and happy and entertained.  Nathaniel was across the isle and up one row.  Seth cried some, but hopefully it wasn't too

bothersome to others on the plane.  I was really worried, though,

when had gone through 4 "presents" per kid before we had

even taken off!  We had to wait quite a long time while the

windows were defrosted or something.  At least our flight wasn't cancelled!

Seth watching Jake and the Neverland Pirates while squeezing a new snack I got just for the airplane.

Anika had some fun games and fun movies on this old iPhone.

My brother, Josh, and his wife, Emily, were kind enough to give it to

her/us just before the trip.  They fly a lot with kids :)

Just so we can increase everyone's chance of getting sleep, Anika is in with me and Seth is in a pack-n-play in the room with Nathaniel.  Although I wonder how well I am sleeping with a squirmy girl who makes noises, puts her feet in my back, and needs to be re-positioned so she won't fall off the bed :)  I guess Seth has been waking up during the night lately again too.

Anika always gets to cut so I finally gave in and let Seth have a supervised go of it.

He was so entertained!

For comfort and packing and flying purposes, I made a fleece blanket for Anika and Seth (if I can claim such a thing as making fleece blankets).  For Seth's blanket I cut a slit near the top of the fringe and looped it through.

I did a sort of braid for Anika's.  I gave the kids the plain fleece for Christmas,

and then I had to finish the blankets because I didn't have time before

for some reason.  My kids really enjoy blankets, and I hoped it would be

easier to take on the airplane too.

I made them capes for Christmas too.  Nathaniel made these eye masks.

Seth is wearing the "Thunder Flash" cape, and Anika is "Princess Superhero Anika" or something.  I actually ended up making 5 capes.  I got the fleece for a cheaper price by buying remnants, and I had extra fleece and felt.

Back To Blogging

I'm not the best blogger in so many ways, but that's okay.  We'll see if I can get this blog up and going again so I can document our adventures in Georgia and keep in touch with people.  If nothing else, grandparents can enjoy some email updates :)

While Nathaniel was in Georgia without us, he asked if I could send him a

picture of the kids.   Seth is saying "cheese" through his binky and Anika is

trying to show in her face how much she misses Dad.  Oh, they make me laugh.

Here are pictures of our house after the Monday of packing.

Nathaniel's company paid for our stuff to be packed and shipped.  It was super nice but definitely had it's own difficulties.  I don't think we would have taken the job without the moving benefit.

The movers packed some things they shouldn't have,

but hopefully it isn't anything too serious.

Then these pictures were taken Thursday after closing on the house, 

cleaning and crying.  I cried a lot that day :(

Every time Seth came into the house starting Tuesday night after it was all packed into the moving truck, he would say, "All gone."

Anika is taking pictures with my phone.  She figured it out all by herself.  Honestly I had had the phone for 6 months and had still not figured it out.  

Kamee Zachreson and Emily Beck came to help me clean on Wednesday.  I was seriously amazed and surprised when they said they could stay longer than a couple hours.  And they did!  It was like a burden was lifted and I had hope that we could get it done in time.  We worked from morning until around 4:00, and they were absolutely AMAZING!  So good and fast and AMAZING!

My brother and sister-in-law were out of town all month so they sent their cleaner to help me finish a few things on Thursday afternoon.  It was perfect.  She did the fridge and the oven and a few other hard spots.  I was happy many times when I remembered that I didn't have to clean the oven :)

This was seriously one of the hardest weeks of my life!  It was right up there with the first week or so after having a Anika and Seth (and I have not done well with that!)  It was busy, sad, stressful, and sleepless.  We were packed and moved, shipped the van, closed on the house, and did a million other things while Nathaniel was in Georgia.  I had so much to do and think about that my head was seriously swirling.  I had to coordinate with tons of people to figure out moving our stuff (plus all the pre-moving prep), and arrange babysitting for my kids a million times.  My kids were having a hard time with it all too... regular potty accidents, poor sleep, hard behavior.   

Thankfully I had a lot of help.  My home teacher, Jared Hansen, shoveled my backyard (yes the grass) and the back alley twice because it had to be all clear for the movers.  He and Bishop Belnap came to help do some other random pre-moving prep.  

My family came to help with more pre-moving prep.  I had at least a dozen people help with my kids at one point or another.  I was so relieved to know that 

they were in good hands and could have fun and happy places to go.  There is 

NO WAY I could have done it without all that help and blessings from Heavenly Father (even with all that help I had to stay up until 5am Sunday night to get 

everything ready before the movers came).

"Graduration"

Hooray!  Nathaniel has an MBA!

In this picture Anika wouldn't stand by Nathaniel because she wasn't sure about all his attire.  While we were looking for a parking she noticed graduates walking around everywhere.  She thought they were wearing pirate hats, wondered why, and was "nervous about all those pirate hats."

We sat pretty far away where the kids had rows of seats and other

areas to wander, explore and play in.

Seth seemed a bit mesmerized by the big room, the sounds, and all of the people at first.  He just sat contentedly on my lap for awhile at first.  He would randomly clap, then wave, then whoot/call out, then wave some more.  It was pretty funny.

Then he just wanted to get into mischief of one kind or another.

So I got some nice pictures of the screen.  The guy here mentioned Nathaniel's Capstone Group's Project in his speech because it was, as Nathaniel would humbly say, "A Masterpiece."

This picture is sort of like "Where's Waldo?" but with Nathaniel.

By the time the ceremony was over, Anika had taken out her ponytail and

removed her shoes, but she had finally warmed up to the idea of the pirates

and let Dad sit by her.  Several hours later, Anika randomly told us,

"I was kind of nervous about all of those pirates, but I kind of liked

the graduration. Sometimes boring things can be fun."

 Seth lost one of his shoes (actually I probably did), but we found it.  

Both kids were quite a handful, but mostly as much as I had figured they would be.

We also had a nice eat-rocks-and-roll-down-the-hill break outside while a lot 

of the long list of names were read.

Here is Nathaniel with his parents.

Foreshadowing...

...and again...

Congratulations, Nathaniel!  We are so proud and excited!

P.S.  I took the kids with me to pay Nathaniel's last short semester of tuition while we waited for the convocation.  (Yes, he has one more class but graduated.).

We actually went to the wrong ceremony at first.  I'm glad I figured it

out when I did, though :)  Ha ha.

Love these Kids

Seth

It is so fun to watch Seth toddle around.  He is such a silly boy.  Such a delight.  So fun.  So happy.  

He loves to say, "Uh.........ohhhhhhhhhhh.  Uh..........ohhhhh."  He says it often as he throws his

food on the floor and then looks to us - maybe because he knows we are then going to take him

out of the chair.  Sometimes it seems like this discipline method isn't working right now :)  

Seth has 4 teeth and is getting 4 more in.

Seth found a binkie in the couch while driving his train.
Yeah it's upside down.

Seth loves to play outside.  Swinging, eating snow, and riding in his push car are probably his preferred activities right now.  Yesterday I had barely gotten him out of bed, his diaper was poopy, and he hadn't nursed yet (which is the only thing he wants to do right when he wakes up).  As I was carrying him downstairs he tried to dive out of my arms for the door.  He often brings us his hat or sometimes his shoes with a little grunt that means he wants to go outside.

Seth's other favorite activity is throwing things down the stairs.  At least daily he throws our shoes, hats, gloves, etc. down the lower section of stairs.  He also loves to find random objects from any of our bedrooms (nightlight, socks, toys, etc.), head over to the stairs, and throw it down.  Sometimes I will get out the bouncy balls and we will throw them all down the stairs.  He could do that all day, but I can't leave them out because he puts them in his mouth.

As you can see in the picture Seth likes to put on any necklaces or scarfs he comes across, but especially scarfs.  We have a fluffy green scarf that Grandma Hardman let the kids keep, and he has that on all the time.  The library has some little hooks on the wall by the board books.  They rotate different dress-ups for kids to play with.  A couple of months ago they had capes, but lately it has been scarfs.  He will go and pull one or two down and put them on and wander around contentedly.

Thanks to some inspiration from the Bennetts and Lindstroms we tried elimination communication with Seth. The number of times we put him on the potty each day, his success, and everything else related to this has fluctuated significantly.  At times we were rarely putting him on the potty.  Despite this inconsistency, he has been really consistent at going potty before his bath.  Lately we've remembered to put him on more often at other times during the day.  He has also gotten his potty and will sit on it (sometimes with a diaper or clothes on), or will bring it over to us.  Every time he has brought it to me and I put him on, he has gone potty!  It is crazy.  I'm sure we will have more ups and downs with this, but it is fun to see him understand what is going on and be pleased with himself.

I took this picture after writing this post.
Anika was supposed to go upstairs and get
some underwear...

Anika

Anika has recently gotten into Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.  When any of us encounter a problem she will often suggest, "Maybe a mouseketool could help us."  Sometimes when I am not in a good position to help her (often when she climbs behind the chair in our front room and pretends to be stuck), she is totally satisfied when I throw her some random object and say, "Here's a mouseketool."

Anika loves when we pretend that she is our pillow or our teddy bear.  She still just loves to pretend in general.  She often suggests that we go to the cabin or to Grandma and Grandpa's (both).

Anika prefers to wear pajamas.  Sometimes in the morning she will change from one pair to another.  The other day she came out of her room wearing pajamas and told me, "In quiet time I decided which pajamas to wear."

She often says cute things like, "When I woke up I realized that I had my pony tail in all night!"  I love hearing her sing songs or recite nursery rhymes.  She is figuring out how to count past 20 but still gets confused counting to 20.  Yesterday I started counting down from 10 and was surprised when she joined in.  She loves to say the prayer at meals but has lately also started saying, "Mom/Dad, would you like to say the prayer?"

Anika has an amazing memory.  She is funny, loves to be loved, and is so friendly - even to random people.  She'll say, "Hi.  How are YOU today?" or "Happy Valentine's Day."

Here is Anika emerging from, "The best hiding place in the world."

My kids love to play on the couch and with the cushions.  Good thing we decided to keep our trusty $20 couch when we moved instead of getting something nicer or more expensive.

Snow Fun

Nathaniel made this hill in our tiny front yard.

The kids loved it!  There is something about snow-gear that makes kids so adorable :)

"Ready, set, go!"

Slide down and eat some snow.

Anika struggling to stay/get up.

Aww, what cute kids!

Check out this little progression... picture #1 

#2

#3 (I got Seth down and Than climbed up)

#4 

Once there was a snowman, tall, Tall, TALL!!!

Can you believe this?

Well, it's true!

I don't know who did it (except that they are BYU fans) or how it was done,

but it must have taken men and machines.

The mouth is made from huge gift bows.  

 The scarf is made from fleece.

The arms are rakes.

Amazing!