Water!

We found a cool splash pad with a small river (only a few inches deep). Brynn loved walking in it and Caleb loved running around and squirting his water toy. It was so perfect, not to mention free! Grandma went with us!

Potty and Misc

First off, potty training. Caleb picked it up quickly and effortlessly. Ever since he realized he could do it, he took all the initiative. He goes to the bathroom all on his own without telling me he needs to. He goes in public bathrooms and he doesn't go when he sleeps. He will even get up at night or in the morning, use the potty, then go back in his room and close the door. Angel, I know.
In our nursery room at church they have a bathroom with a tiny toliet. When I picked up Caleb from nursery today the leaders told me he went in the bathroom 3 times on his own, they peeked to make sure he was ok, and sure enough, he was doing his business.
His one slip up was when we were watching an america's funniest home videos on youtube about cats. He was sitting on my lap and he laughed so hard he peed his pants. Haha!
Non potty related, yesterday Derrick and I were measuring the side of our yard. Derrick runs in the house to grab paper and pen to write measurements down. Caleb picked up the measuring tape, pulled it out to his arms length and said, "55. Is that good?" I told him it was good.
Yesterday we deep cleaned our kitchen while the kids napped. We were still finishing up when they woke up. They had fun with it:

The Farm

We went to the farm at Thanksgiving Point (I bought a year pass to all the venues so I'm sure we'll be going a lot. In fact since them we've gone to the dinosaur museum, gardens and farm again!).
It was a really neat place the kids both loved it. Caleb smiled the whole time he was riding the horse.

It was nice that Brynn has been practicing her animal noises because she used them a lot while we were there. The funny story is that Brynn loved all the animals except the bunnies in their cages. When Derrick tried to bring her close to them she shook, whimpered, and turned away, deathly afraid. It was the strangest thing.

Father's Day

This video is from the day after Father's Day because I forgot to record it but this is exactly what Caleb did when he woke Derrick up Sunday morning. We practiced a lot!
Caleb traced his hands all by himself and I cut it out. He loved practicing.

What Caleb Wants

I have told this Caleb story to a few people but had to get it down in writing. We got a book at the library called "All About Graders." While driving in the car we passed two tractors. Caleb: I want to see a grader next Me: I don't know if we will. You don't see those often. Caleb: I want a toy grader. Me: I don't know if they make toy graders. Caleb: Santa has one.

Kiddos

Brynn is learning new words like crazy. Derrick and I left this last week to be leaders at youth conference and I was missing hearing Brynn's voice since she was just starting to use it so much. Her favorite words are animal noises, she knows: ba, neigh, oink, moo, cheep, quack. She also says: keys, oops, bro bro (brother),yellow. And she pretty much can repeat most sounds we say. Here are a few:


 Caleb is learning to use the potty. He has accidents but he usually knows when he needs to go or he will want to go just so he can get a treat. Anyways, when we first started teaching him to go on the potty we had a Lego fire station set as a reward for when he went on the potty 10 times. One night when he was going to bed he had gone 9 times. The next morning he woke up and was yelling, "Mommy and Daddy, Mommy and Daddy." I went in and he said, "I need to go potty." I put him down and I think he went everything from the whole night. He knew he wanted that prize and held it in until he could go on the potty.
Caleb and I built a little house with the Legos, then he kept on stacking the Legos up high. When he was done he told me it was the temple. He even pointed to the fire hydrant and said that was Angel Moroni. So sweet!

A story from this week is this: On Sunday Derrick was feeding Caleb his dinner. Caleb didn't like it so he spit it out, on Derrick suit pants. We dropped it off on Monday at the dry cleaners. Today when we went to pick it up Caleb said to me, "Daddy's suit is all clean so he can wear it to church?" I told him it was. He said, "I won't spit my food on it again." That melted my heart. We never scolded him but I did tell him we had to get it cleaned because he spit his food on it. He totally understood what was going on and I think he really did feel sorry.
Another story from last week: Derrick was starting to do patch-work on our grass. Caleb saw that Derrick was pulling out dead grass and all on his own he found a bucket and started putting the dead grass in it. We think that was the first time Caleb actually helped when he tried to help us.

Kiss Predictor

Monday morning I was holding Brynn right before Derrick was heading off to work. Derrick came over to kiss me goodbye. As he was leaning in Brynn smacked her lips. It was so funny that she knew we were going to kiss! I had to write this story down because it was so cute!

St. George Trip

We did a Paul and Lynne Isaacson family reunion last week--everyone made it! We rented a house in St. George. The house included a heated pool, hot tub, 73" tv, ping pong table, a kitchen, family room upstairs and down, and 5 bedrooms.Here's the video I posted on YouTube for the family:

Here are a few pictures and videos I didn't include:

We also enjoyed playing games, walking on main street (which included a toy store that both kids loved and an antique store where Derrick bought a 1926 abridged version of Ivanhoe), Zion's National Park, eating out and hanging out.
At Zions, we got there after 6pm, hopped on the bus and did one 50 yard hike and went back. I definitely want to go back again, I had never been there before and had no idea it was so beautiful. Kind of reminded me of the grandure of Yosemite. Caleb's favorite part was the bus and he would say hi to everyone as he got on.
Brynn's new word is "ashes" (from Ring Around the Rosies) and she said that all week long.
Lynne and I went to the temple while Paul took Caleb to a place with man-made waterfalls and a few inch deep river for kids to wade in, a carousel ride and McDonalds for ice cream.
Caleb learned two funny phrases. 1. Caleb asked Scott which shoes were his. Scott pointed out, "those bad boys," Caleb repeated the phrase. 2. The family calls Kent fatty. Caleb picked up saying, "Go fatty, go" only to Kent when he was jumping off the diving board.
Caleb would also say, "On your mark, get set, go" before anyone jumped off the diving board.
Caleb really enjoyed himself, he was sad to leave and is asking to go back.