Brynn gave her first talk in primary. She did a great job. She spoke very clearly and wasn't scared at all. She talked about how listening to the prophet keeps us safe. When I listed a few prophets from the scriptures, she picked Noah to talk about.
Talia gives us the best hugs. She put her head down into our shoulder and pats us. The first video she was too distracted to do it. But on the second one here I got it!
I made these two dresses. I just love chevron print so it was fun to have a matching Sunday
Because Caleb won the reading contest for all of kindergarten, he got a free small pizza from Papa Johns. It was just enough to feed us all dinner!
Then Caleb had a geography bee in school. They gave each child a blank map of the state of Utah and the kids had to fill it in. Caleb's was the most detailed and he got 1st place in his class. He received a $5 Walmart gift card, a Twix (which without hesitation gave Brynn one of the sticks), a (plastic) metal and a $5 coupon for a fun center. He worked really hard and we are so proud of him!
Caleb made a North American Eagle jet car out of Legos with Derrick. It looks so close to the actual thing. I was impressed.
Brynn made this little car out of a shoebox in preschool. She has loved using it with her Barbies. Who needs fancy and expensive Barbie accessories?
I took Brynn to see Cinderella. It was so fun. On the way to the theater I told Brynn, "We're having a girls night out!" She responded, "Yeah, and boys stay home!" I wish they made more movies like Cinderella so I could go out with Brynn again. She was so sweet and even had her little enjoying yet embarrassed face when Cinderella and the prince met for the first time.
Here's just a little more cuteness:
Stories:
When Caleb gets out of the truck for school in the morning, he waves at me through the front passenger window. Brynn always gets upset that he doesn't wave at her. I kept forgetting to tell Caleb until recently. The next day, after me telling him, he waved to Brynn and then to me. He is such a sweet brother.
Talia has sweet hand signs and sounds. When she wants food she turns her palms up and says, "Mmm. Mmm" in a high pitch. Once Derrick gave her a girl scout cookie. I took Talia then she gave me that sign and sound and pointed to the pantry. I opened the pantry door and she pointed right to the Girl Scout cookie box. I got her near it and she grabbed the box. Smart thing.
At church during sacrament meeting the woman behind us waved at Talia. Talia immediately waved back. That happened about 3 times. I love when babies are sweet with adults and put a smile on the adult's face.
The kids told us they were searching for buried treasure. Caleb was telling Brynn, "When you find treasure, you don't just find a little, you find a lot!" He said to me later, "If we find treasure, we could buy an airplane huh?" *Sigh.
The night before Valentine's Day I left this note for the kids to find in the morning:
The next morning I heard the kids downstairs. I went down and Caleb excitedly showed me his note:
How sweet that he copied my note (notice the "and" symbol I used, and his copy of it between Mommy and Daddy). He also took the word "valentine" and added in the sol, la, ti, do like he does in his music class with a song about Valentines.
Brynn also had a Valentine note ready for me. She told me it says, "I hope you have fun on your date tonight when you leave me here." Brynn always scribbles on paper like this, except she will do it until there is no room left. She concentrates when she does it. Derrick says it reminds him of "A Beautiful Mind."
For our date that night Derrick and I went on a bike ride, to Panda Express for dinner then out for a movie. We loved doing the bike ride and want to do that again sometime.
The kids love daddy time. They can't get enough of it.
The big pink pony here has earrings. Brynn is so creative!
Talia loves her brother:
She also loves seeing animals. Here's where she was watching a kitty.
Stories:
Brynn said to me a few nights ago, "I'm cool and you're cool Mommy. You're cool right now because you're being nice to me."
There was a pancake dinner fundraiser at Caleb's school. They served the syrup in little condiment cups. Brynn started to drink hers and I had to tell her to stop. At bedtime, Brynn asked me sweetly, "Mommy, why didn't you let me drink the syrup?" I explained there was too much sugar in it.
Before the pancake dinner Caleb told me it was going to take place in the Café Rio. I knew it was going to be in the cafeteria so knew what he meant. So funny.
When we finally got our ceiling fixed Brynn was happy to no longer see the insulation. When she tried to pray about this it didn't quite come out that way though. Brynn prayed, "We're thankful that we have no more inspiration."
Another thing Brynn said in one of her prayers was, "Please help my hair that it won't be crazy today."
The kids recently started saying "butt" instead of the usual "bum". I've told them I want them to say "bum" instead because it's a nicer word. One night Brynn used the word "bum". She looked at me and said, "Bum is a good word." She then looked up at the ceiling and thoughtfully said, "What's another good word that's a bad word? Hmmm." She sat there thinking about it for 10 seconds or so until I moved us to a different subject.
Kent gave the kids kinetic sand for Christmas. Brynn played with nothing else for about 2 days. They still like it.
When I saw Talia find a paper clip on the floor I had to take a picture of her and send Derrick The Office quote, "Oh, it's ok. I have tons."
Caleb's involved with a Jazz Reading contest at school. The top five kids (who read the most minutes per week) in each class get to pick a prize. Caleb was the top reading person and picked a water bottle he could bring to school.
When I took the above picture, Brynn said, "I want to be in a picture." So she got next to Caleb and said, "Make a funny face."
Talia, like all babies who crawl, loves to get into the trash. This is the funniest thing I caught her with:
Caleb always runs to the truck after kindergarten. I happened to have the camera with me and I thought I'd take a picture to remember how excited he gets to run to mom. Kindergartners are adorable in their enthusiasm.
There's a new equipment at our park. The kids liked it even though Brynn fell off it 3 times, getting a good scratch on her chin. They have a zip swing too that is a big hit with the kids.
On Sunday morning all three kids were playing together! It was the cutest thing. I had to start filming. I love the part when Caleb tells Brynn to be careful of Talia's fingers because the toy could pinch her. He's always looking out for her, and I love that this video shows that.
I had Brynn explain her show and tell bag to me:
Talia loves our Beta fish
Stories:
For fun, Derrick and Caleb like to look at planes for sale. Caleb gets really into it and the rest of the night he can't think about anything else. In general, he comes up with thoughtful questions about how things work. With the plane he asked, "How does it take off?" Derrick answered his question literally. He said, "How will it not run into anything?" He thought that if you bought a plane it stayed at your house. He was worried about taking off from the street. He also asked about if the plane is sold, what would happen if someone else saw the pictures online and bought it. We had to explain they take the pictures down when someone buys it.
We went out to eat at Chili's as a family. We were giving Talia pieces of french fries and I noticed the piece in her mouth was a little too big and I told Derrick to pull it out. When he tried to pull it out Talia got a death grip with her teeth.
Brynn wasn't eating her dinner but she snuck a piece of candy under the table. Derrick later found the wrapper and asked her, "Who ate this?" Brynn looked him right in the eye and said, "I didn't eat it." Unlike Caleb, she has no conscience when it comes to lying to save her own skin. This often ends up being a very frustrating thing for Caleb.
We had some flooding between floors. When we opened up the roof, we had the workers add insulation to prevent the problem of freezing pipes. When Caleb came home from school and saw pink insulation, he said, "It's pink. I hate pink." Good thing we won't be seeing it.
Christmas in San Diego was a lot of fun. We went to the Mormon Batallion on Sunday night. Caleb got to dress up like a soldier. Both Caleb and Brynn loved panning for "gold" at the end.
We went up to Huntington Beach on Tuesday. We hung out with family and did the traditional Christmas light visit and Wendy's stop for dinner.
Christmas
The kids love decorating Christmas sugar cookies:
We also went to the Air and Space Museum. We found this small plane for the kids to play in. The cool thing about it is that we have the exact toy airplane at home.
A funny potty story from the museum was this: Caleb had to go potty. I took him to the women's room with me. After two minutes I ask if he's almost done. He answers, "I don't know! I'm going poop." (He does take a while when he goes #2--how would he know how long he's going to take?). A minute later the 3 stalls were all full and one mom with her 12 year old were waiting for a stall. Then Caleb started singing loudly "Happy birthday to you..." The mom, her daughter and I were all laughing. He sings pretty much every time he goes #2 and it's always a different song. Oh funny children.
Brynn had her preschool performance. Even though Ms. Nicole told Brynn her line, Brynn really did have it memorized. She is saying, "Y is for yule log whose bright sparks fly high."
Caleb's school had a performance where each grade did a song. Kindergarten did Ruldolph the Red Nose Reindeer. They looked so cute.
When Talia first learned to crawl her favorite place to go was under our dining room table and stand up.
Caleb lost his first tooth on December 18th in the truck on our way to Petco.
Derrick's work has season tickets to Jazz basketball games. When it was Derrick's turn to get the tickets he took Caleb with him. Caleb had a blast and even got filmed and broadcasted on the big screen.
Luke, Julie and Pearl came to visit for the month of December. Pearl loves Caleb and Brynn. Brynn is turning out to be her favorite. Pearl will ask for her everyday and gives her hugs all the time. They are so sweet together.
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