Cousin's Weekend

I will start off by saying that there is a video on here that is not from this week but from Tayton's birthday party. I think this was a hit for sure! Thanks Gina, Andy, and Jason!

 This weekend we got to have the Lund Girls over for the weekend while their mom and dad went skiing. The kids started out by waking up at 5:30 am. wanting to know when the cousins were coming.  While Tomi was getting Noah ready, she combed his hair and Noah explains, "Don't make my hair look funky Mom, my cousins are coming."  Tomi took them to feed the ducks, and did lots of crafts with them. They each got to decorate their own picture frames! I was not there but apparently the ducks attacked everyone, but things got much better when they fed the ducks from the safety of the gazebo that overhangs the duck pond.

Saturday we took all the kids to a movie on the base. We recently found out that they do a free movie every Saturday so this  Saturday the movie was "Rise of the Guardians". Cute movie and everyone enjoyed watching it while we stuffed ourselves with treats and popcorn.

The kids loved to shovel snow tunnels in the backyard and they all made a HUGE train track for the trains that used almost all of the track. The girls loved playing on the iPads and more then once I found one of them hiding somewhere so they could get their time on an iPad by their selves.

After 2 days of skiing and snowboarding Teri and Kelly showed up looking like zombies. They had an interesting story to tell about Kelly's "out of bounds" skiing experience that he will have to tell
you. Maybe you will read that in their news letter. We invited everyone to stay the night and then had leftovers for dinner. After both Ski bums had a shower/bath and dinner they began to resemble
humans again and we started on the bedtime routine. With 6 kids it takes about an hour or more!
We read stories,brushed teeth,said prayers, and got all the sleeping arrangements set up.  After the herd was put to bed the adults enjoyed and game of "Settlers of Catan" (board game) in which Teri complained the whole game that we were picking on her and then proceeded to beat us all.

This morning Noah did his due diligence and got every kid up at about 6:30. Phrases such as "Shhh you'll wake my mom and dad" and "lets get Sonny" could be heard while the adults feigned sleep. Well that's all from the Crane house.

P.S. did I mention we are all still sick. . . after 8 days??

Attempting Weekly Updates

Jon is back to work full time again.  He worked for about a week or two on the road, then this past week he is working a day time, Monday thru Friday job in Ogden called the The Little Mountain Local where he goes out to GSL Salt every day by the Great Salt Lake and picks up salt cars and drops off empties.  Doesn't sound too big, but it takes him 10-12 hours a day.  We like that it is a set schedule so we have weekends off together.  

We have a new lady in Roy watching the kids.  She has two dogs and the kids love going there, mainly because. Of the dogs.  One's name is Roxy and Noah loves having quiet time with her.  The kids are having a little bit of a hard time adjusting to Jon working full time, so they have been really whiny in the evenings and in the morning before going to daycare.  The other day, Tayton was whining and saying "no doggies, I just want daddy!"  Over and over again.  Noah finally looked at her and said, "Tater, someone has to watch is!"  Almost annoyed like she should know they can't stay home alone.  Very cute!  

Today's laugh is we're all hanging out in the bedroom while Jon is trying on a bunch of clothes someone have him.  Jon holds up one shirt and says, "there a naked chick on this shirt."  Upon my inspection, it is a scantily clad woman and then Noah asked to see and tells Jon, "That's not a  naked chicken!"  We laughed.  

Noah and Tayton love talking on FaceTime with Jon when he's on the road.  Beezer and Dana sent a cute little Valentine to the kids, so when we got it, we called them up on FaceTime.  The kids loved it and we got to teach the Devlin's about some new features on their iPad.  We need to get Grandma hooked up on some video call feature.  If any of you have FaceTime, feel free to call. The kids love it, but you will get a little seasick from the kids jostling the phone around and arguing about who gets to hold it.  

Noah got to go to the Firestation for preschool.  He had a great time and got to bring home a plastic fireman hat.  

Last week, we went to went to Party Essentials for Tayton's birthday.  The kids both got to build an animal.  Way fun.  Noah made a black dog named "Black" and Tayton chose to build a kangaroos named "Roo."  I have also attached a pic from the Valentine get together as well as a video of our favorite after dinner activity.  Whenever we turn on music, they dance and tell me to turn it up loud.  Lots of fun!!

Stay-Cation

I took a few days off in May to have a little mini-stay-cation with the family.  It was really a lot of fun.  First, we got to take advantage of the gift membership to the Treehouse Museum that my mother gave me for Mother's Day.  What a nice treat.  Noah and Tayton both loved going there.  There's something for everyone. . . chess, knights, blocks, trains, music, reading.  It's very educational, yet very fun as well.  A very enjoyable day.  

Then we went for a hike to Waterfall Canyon in Ogden.  We took a wrong turn a couple of times, but eventually we ended up going the right direction.  By then though, Noah was so tired of walking that we just couldn't go any further.  At one point, I even traded and had Jon put Tayton on his shoulders and I put Noah in the backpack. . . oh my goodness.  It's really hard hiking uphill with a 40 pound kid on your back.  It was still fun though.  I haven't been hiking in a long time, sad,  I know.  

In the middle of this little stay-cation, the weather turned bad, so we had to curtail some of our other activities, so Jon took us on a trip to IFA to buy my birthday present. . . 4 chickens.  2 Speckled Susex and 2 Americanas.  I'm not sure why, but I've wanted chickens for the last 6 years and finally we got some!  YEAH!!  They are lots of fun, but don't exactly made snuggly pets.  Finally got the coop and now they have transitioned from their box in the garage to the coop and the extra run Jon built.  Sonny, our dog acts like little mother and hovers over the chickens wherever they go.  He just really hates it when they fly around, so he snaps at them, but other than that, he's very gentle and just likes to be close to them. 

The Airshow was held at Hill AFB over Memorial Day weekend.  We attended a few hours on Saturday morning before it got rained out, but it was so much fun!  Loved every minute of the time we spent there.  I got to see the KC-135, C-130 and C-5 that I work on everyday. We also got to see some amazing acts, including some parajumpers, one of which jumped with the American Flag as they sang the National Anthem, it truly brought tears to my eyes and made me so grateful that I get to play a small role in defending our countries freedoms.  They also had a Mig-17 and some other acts that were amazing.  Too bad it rained us out and we missed the Thunderbirds.  It is definitely something I'll put on the to-do list every year they do it. 

For my birthday, Jon brought the kids to my office with a huge bouquet of balloons.  So much fun!  I hadn't told anyone that I work with that it was my birthday, hoping to fly under the radar, but his entrance ruined it all.  It was so much to have them join me for a few moments.  They are the best thing in my entire life and I'm so blessed and happy to have each one of them.  

My favorite is each of the fun stages they each go through.  Noah now talks my leg off every day and has started telling all sorts of tall tales that I just can't help laugh at.  He graduated from preschool for the first time (we'll have 2 more preschool graduations before he starts Kindergarten).  He was so shy in front of all those people that he just sat there and wouldn't participate in any of the songs.  He doesn't have a problem performing for Jon and I, but he sure does get shy around everyone else.  Tayton is in that Messy Marvin stage where she's always just a mess, but very happy about it. She's definitely not shy like Noah, at least not at this point.  She's happy to talk to and smile at anyone and everyone that passes her by.  We see that everyday when we take her out and random strangers always comment on how happy she is.  Too bad I don't have any pictures showing her teeth.  She's suddenly getting 5 new ones all at the same time.

Here's a little video showing how the kids like to dance.  Tayton's got the moves!!!  You can hear Noah asking over and over again to see the picture he thinks I took when actually I'm filming it all. 

Fun and Happiness

We've been really busy at our new house. In February, we got to go to the Train Expo at Union Station in Ogden. Noah had so much fun. He couldn't take it all in. There were trains everywhere with so much detail that Noah couldn't see it all "Over here Momma! Ohhhh, over here!!!" Trains you could ride on and trains as small as an inch tall. So much fun. It will definitely be a new annual tradition for us.

Jon started back to work full-time, then he got cut back again. . . we're not sure what the status is now, but at least we've found a great lady who watches the kids when Jon's out of town. It breaks my heart to wake them up so early though, especially because there's nothing more angelic than sleeping children. I just like to stand there and watch them sleep as a long as I can. Children are so precious!

Noah is such a little spit fire. He keeps us on our toes and makes us laugh each and every day. A few days ago, he came running inside to tell Jon he had to go to the bathroom. Great. Noah did his deal, but before Jon could get Noah's pants on, he was missing. Jon found him riding his big wheel baring it all to the world. I think that's called free wheeling. Then today we found Noah in his bed with the whole box of corn flakes dumped out on his bed. He said that he and the dog, Sonny, were hungry. Really? Also, I stepped outside to see Noah pulling up his pants and underwear. I told him to hurry, let's go inside and go potty, but he informed me he already had in the privacy of the playhouse under the swing. Grandpa must have taught him to pee outside while he was here and I wasn't looking.

We finally got the swing-set put back together at the new house and the kids are both loving it. They also love eating dinner outside and chasing each other around the patio while periodically stopping to have a bite of dinner. My heart is so full to be surrounded by such sweet spirits that came by miracle and the self-less act of others. I can't even imagine my world without them. Being a parent can definitely be frustrating some times, but you can't be annoyed very long when their dark brown puppy dog eyes look up at you. You know full-well they're here to teach us things that I never knew possible about things in this life, the life before and the life to come.

Kids Say the Darndest Thing

Blogging takes time and dedication that we obviously haven't spent time on lately.

Now that Noah is talking much more and much clearer, I laugh really hard at least once a day at something he said. Here's just a few:

- While sitting with Noah and Sonny (the dog) on my lap, Noah proclaims, "Sonny needs a timeout!" When I asked why, Noah told me it was because Sonny was licking his arm.

- Noah is sitting on the toilet thinking about his business when he states, "Chuck e Cheese is coming out." Wow, not sure about that one. We had just gone to Chuck e Cheese a few days prior for a party.

- Last week, when I asked Noah what he wanted to be when he grows up, he said, "Wear a hat!" as he points to the hard hat. "Oh," I said, "are you going to drive a truck? He put his hands on his hips and said, "No, drive a digger!" This week he says he wants to be a doctor. Probably because he's seen 2 doctors in 2 weeks. (Noah gets to have tube put in his ears in a few weeks. We're not excited about surgery, but I am glad he'll experience fewer ear infections.)

- On a regular basis, Noah walks around asking everyone if they're happy. " Daddy happy? Momma happy? Baby happy? Sonny happy?" When we ask if he's happy, he says, "Hmmmm, YEAH!" My favorite is when he declared to Jon that he had a good day! That always makes me smile.

Jon and I have been working hard to get the two unruly critters to behave a little better and to get on a better routine and schedule. Noah use to go to bed every night with a sippy cup full of milk, but then he always needed to woke up in the night for more milk or to go potty. We cut that off cold turkey, and to my great surprise, Noah has done fantastic. He asks for milk at night, but when we tell him he can't have any now, but in the morning, he says, "Ok!" and off to sleep he goes. He also doesn't get up in the night anymore. YEAH!! We've also found what motivates Noah to be good right now. Money. If he's helped out and done chores and been good, he gets a nickle, dime or quarter in his allowance jar. We tell him if he doesn't stop doing something bad, that we'll take money from his jar and he immediately shapes up. Truly in the last week, Noah's turned into a whole new boy! I'm so proud of him and love spending time with him doing arts and crafts!

Tayton got her first time out tonight. She was sitting in her high chair and kept throwing food off to feed the dog. As a consequence, she lost all the items off her tray and had to have her high chair pushed up to a corner so she couldn't see what was going on. Not the best place. We need to time her out in her bed until she can sit on a chair somewhere, but it worked this time.

Tayton had her 1st birthday. We had a lot of fun and enjoyed a little dinner, cake and fire with the family. The favorite part about one year old birthdays is the smash cake. Tayton really enjoyed digging into hers despite the fact that she didn't have any teeth at the time. She did finally cut her very first tooth on Monday! YEAH! Won't be long before she gets to experience real food and not just mushy stuff.

On Friday, we drove out to Antelope Island. We got to see Buffalo, Coyotes and Antelope. It was fun, but would be more fun when the weather warms up and we can spend some time walking around.

All in all, life is good. We're having fun, staying out of trouble and enjoying every moment with the little people in our lives!

New Beginnings

It's 2012, can you believe it? Time has gone by so quickly. It's hard to believe that 2011 is over, 2012 has begun and my little girl is almost 1 year old. WOW, time flies by so quickly.

2011 was a whirlwind year for us. . .

• Tayton, our 2nd baby, first daughter was born in February. What an amazing experience. At first, two children was overwhelming, but now, it seems we have it all figured out.
• Noah also started speech therapy in February. We had our hands busy with a new baby and bi-weekly speech appointments. Noah was so shy at first, but when the therapist started to bring the Ipad, Noah livened right up and wanted to talk and play.
• We attempted to sell our house in Sandy for exactly 1 year before deciding that was a miserable failure. The housing market is still terrible, so here's to hoping the housing market turns around and home prices start to increase.
• Jon's mom and dad were in a car accident in May. Nothing to serious, but Jon's dad was shortly thereafter placed in a rehab center to recuperate and it still there today. Downside, he's not home. . . upside, he's found new friends and really enjoying the social life with the other rehab center members.
• In August, Noah started preschool. He absolutely loves going to Teri's house to learn. He loves song with lots of actions, going on walks to look for letters and numbers, painting, playing with Sydney and Charlie and having Laine and Ryann help him with his lessons.
• In September, Jon and I decided to buy another house anyway and attempt to rent ours in order to find something closer to work so I could spend more time with my family.
• November and December were extremely busy months.
  

1. We bought a house in Roy, just 10 minutes from Hill AFB. 6 Bedrooms, 4 baths, a huge shop, at the end of a cul-de-sac with horses, sheep, goats and lots of kids in the neighborhood. We all really love it.
2. Thanksgiving was a fabulous holiday spent with lots of family. Noah LOVED playing "kitchen" with Beezer and now asks all the time when she's coming to visit
   
3. On 5 December, we moved into our new house. Have I mentioned how much I hate moving? We are keeping our fingers crossed that this is our forever home because I really don't want to do the moving thing again.
4. Christmas in our new home was so nice. Quiet morning by ourselves, with Noah and Tayton playing with their new toys. Noah absolutely loved the kitchen from Santa and the art stuff from Santa and other family members. We then spent a lovely evening with the Webb's having dinner and enjoying the Christmas spirit.
5. Traveled to Grandma and Grandpa Clark's the day after Christmas and spent a few days relaxing by the fireplace and trying not to freeze to death while riding the 4-wheeler.
6. Bought a new car from Beezer, now we just have to figure out how to get it to Utah. :)

Besides all that, we've kept very busy with trips to the zoo, aquarium, Thanksgiving Point, seeing the new sites in Weber County, like the Layton Park Christmas Lights and Christmas Village in Ogden. Jon has enjoyed staying at home with the kids for the past couple of months and is glad to have a break from the railroad for a while. Tomi is still working at Hill AFB in the Landing Gear Squadron loving it most days, but hating it sometimes too. It's that the case with any job? Noah turned 3 this year and has started to talk a mile-a-minute just like mom and dad. He's mostly potty trained (stilling working out a few kinks) and loves his dog Sonny and painting. Tayton is still the happiest baby on the block and just recently received her 4th haircut at only 10 months old. She's still figuring out how to crawl, so in the mean time, she gets around pretty quickly by dragging her legs behind her. It's definitely been a crazy year, but we've loved every minute of it. We're so blessed to have Noah and Tayton in our lives and all the family and friends that have watched over us this past year. 2011 was a year of new beginnings for us and here's to hoping that 2012 will be filled with just as many new beginnings. . . settling into the new house, new car, new friends and neighbors, new resolutions to become better individuals and a better family and to whatever new beginnings our Heavenly Father see fits to throw our direction. May we continue to have faith that He guides us in the right direction and puts things in our path for our betterment when the time is right.

Boys

Boys and Girls are definitely different, but it always amazes me to see those differences at such a young age.

I guess I'm use to being around all girls. . . me, my mom, my sister, her 4 little girls. . . because little boys, or maybe just Noah, definitely create a different atmosphere and environment. Girls are naturally so small, quite and gentle. Noah on the other hand, ever since he was little, has demonstrated the boy through and through. From the very beginning, he didn't talk quiet, he always hollers and didn't find his inside voice until he was 2.5 and it's still a rarity to hear his inside voice. When playing with trains, his cousins Laine and Sydney like to sit back and watch the trains go by without touching them. Noah on the other hand, likes to lay his head on the track and have the trains collide with his face. He also likes to set the trains on a collision course to run head-on into each other.

Girls want to build castles out of blocks while Noah just wants to throw the blocks and make them come tumbling down. That always frustrates Jon when he's worked so hard to build a tower for Noah and all he wants to do is tear it down.

Then, there is the potty thing. I don't know anyone who's had as many peeing stories as we already do. Noah's doing really well with potty training. He never poops in his pants or diaper now, but peeing is a whole other issue. Most days Noah does great, but then there are days where we have multiple accidents, but that's not the interesting part. What I find interesting is that Noah loves to poop outside. There I am cleaning the house when suddenly I see a bare bum out the window. There goes Noah, running across the yard with no pants or underwear on. "Noah, what are you doing? Where's your clothes?" The response I get, proud as punch, "Momma, I pooped!" and he shows me where every time. Jon caught him squatting to poop in a hole by the fence the other day. I try so hard not to laugh. Really, I promise, we don't encourage outdoor defecating. Today came another story and I laughed and laughed when Jon told me on the phone. Noah was suppose to be napping when Jon hears Noah call from the bedroom, "I'm naked!" Oh, that's never a good sign. Jon goes in and sure as can be, there's Noah with no pants again. I think he dislikes pants as much as Grandpa Clark. Then Noah proceeds to show Jon where he's peed. There on the floor is his diaper of which Noah removed, then stood over and tried to pee into the diaper on the floor. . . then comes my favorite when Noah points out he's peed down the heater vent. Oh brother!!! Someone help me.

A few days ago, Jon and I are downstairs when we hear the pitter patter of little feet upstairs. We go to see what's happening and find Noah and Sunny having a smorgasbord of lucky chairs, almonds and Swedish fish. I'm sure they enjoyed every minute of it. I couldn't even get mad, but instead turned my head to laugh so Noah couldn't see me, then grabbed the camera.

Noah's vocabulary has grown by leaps and bounds over the past few months. When we say we're going to church, he says, "To play with kids?" When we give him milk, he asks, "Is it big? Is it tall?" He's talking all the time and now uses words I never knew he knew. Most recently, Noah wants so much to help us, so he asks if he can pack. Tayton even helped me go through the stuff in my bathroom so we could pack it up.

We're moving to our new house this weekend, so I thought I'd share a few photos of the kids before we leave since I'm not sure how long it will take me to get settled and have time to write again.
Picture of Tayton with her fabulous bed hair, one with pigtails, then after pigtails.











Some great pictures my sister took.

Funny Kids

Kids do the funniest things.

Here is the before picture. Two weeks ago, my sister was babysitting our kids while we were signing the contract on the new house. When we get back to pick them up, Kelly informs me that Noah got a haircut. Teri immediately pipped up and said the Sydney got in big trouble for it. They told of how Kelly went to check on the kids outside and saw that their youngest, Charlie, had little bits of hair on her shoulder. He then went looking for the 3 year old, Sydney, and found her hiding scissors behind her back. Noah was just standing there with the blank look on his face and a huge patch of hair right off the top in front. I couldn't stop laughing. Noah looked so funny. Thank goodness it was Noah she practiced her stylist technique on and not Tayton. At least it's fixable with Noah. Teri then informed Sydney that she needed to go get her purse to pay for Noah to get a new haircut. Sydney got her purse and with the saddest look in her eyes, gave me a nickle. Once again, I laughed hard and told her I didn't think a nickle would cover the cost of the haircut. I told her she didn't have to pay because we'd just get the clippers out at home, but I made her promise she wouldn't attempt to cut hair again. This is a picture after I gave him a short short buzz.

While we were packing up one area of the house I got a little annoyed with Jon over something so he and I were having a discussion. Pretty soon I hear Noah walking around the house saying, "Daddy's naughty. Daddy's naughty." I tried really hard not to laugh.

If I have to tell Noah something he doesn't want to do, he then folds his arms, given me the evil eye and then shakes his finger at me. It's so darn cute, I have to turn my head so he can't see me laugh, then I have to tell him ot to get snippy with Mommy.

He's getting to point where we laugh multiple times a day at things Noah says or does. I need to write them down so I remember them and can post them for Noah to see in the future. . . or so we can show his girlfriends at some point. :)

Here's some cute pictures we recently took.