Lydia // 18 Months

[Pictures will be added soon]

This cutie patootie is a full-blown toddler now! She keeps me on my toes and keeps all of us chuckling. She has changed a lot in the past half a year.

Lydia at 18 months:

- Thanks to the Christmas season, one of her favorite words lately has been "tree"

- She also loves to say "HI!" and has a slew of other words and sounds that she says, even though I'm the only one who can understand some of them (for example, pointing at the pantry and saying "Pea!" is her way of asking for a spoonful of peanut butter).

- Babbles all day long

- "Sings" to herself and it's SO cute

- Loves baths

- LOVES books and I spend a respectable chunk of time reading to her each day

- Among her top favorite books are Where Are You, Little Fox; Cookie's Week; Brown Bear Brown Bear; and a small selection books from the Highlights Hello Library series. She also steals the books her siblings bring home from the library.

- Wants to do everything her siblings do

- Shortly after her first birthday she started saying "shoo" and "shoom" a lot, so "Shoom" ended up becoming one of my nicknames for her. She still says "shoom" occasionally.

- She will RUN for her shoes if she gets even the slightest inkling that I'm going outside or out to the car

- However, she will not leave her shoes or socks on in the car

- Too clever and observant for her own good

- Wonderful sleeper!

- Gives the best hugs

- Has a love/hate relationship with bananas. Some days she loves them... and other days she takes two bites and then chucks the rest on the floor.

- I screech her name a lot because she gets into literally EVERYTHING, and it got to the point where she started screeching her own name when she's excited (it's quite hilarious)

- Loves cereal, mandarin oranges, crackers, yogurt, homemade Chex mix, and veggie straws. And all desserts.

- Enjoys grabbing my face and trying to plant her wide-open mouth right on mine

- Won't leave the Christmas ornaments alone

- Waves by opening and closing her hand or bending her whole hand up and down at the wrist

- Gets into cereal all day long

- My little shadow... and I rarely get much done when she's awake because she's always right there to thwart my attempts or complain because I'm not holding her or reading to her

- She can whistle! She just figured it out yesterday. She can only do one "note" right now and it's very quiet, but it's still extremely cute.

She hilarious and sweet and very crazy and a handful and we love her SOOOO MUCH! Happy half birthday Lydi baby!

Nicole // 8 Years

*I realize I still haven't added pictures to my last post, but Christmas break is coming up, so... I'll have time for pictures soon, deal??!

I'm finding it a little hard to swallow that this girl is 8 now. HOW CRAZY?! I remember being 8! She's going to enter the preteen phase before I know it. She's still deep in the magic of childhood right now, though. Unicorns are still cute, Santa is still magical, and climbing on the furniture is still something that happens too frequently for mom's liking. Haha!

Her birthday was on Sunday, and we dragged the celebrations out over 3 days with a party at Hang Time with some of her friends, dinner at my mother-in-law's, and another dinner and dessert of her choosing (taquitos...chocolate peanut butter cheesecake and ice cream). 

Nicole at age 8:

- Sings daily and has a strong voice with a fantastic sense of pitch.

- I finally picked back up on teaching her piano this year (after an almost-1-year hiatus because #babysister) and she's making very quick progress. Music makes sense to her.

- LOVES to read and will easily spend hours a day with books. She stole a nightlight from the hallway a couple nights ago so that she could use it to finish one of the chapter books we gave her for her birthday that she had spent all evening reading. She was so grouchy the next day...

- Loves playing Mario Kart

- Night owl

- A liiiiitle boy-crazy. Her list of "boyfriends" (AKA boys she has a crush on) currently amounts to 7.

- Has an impressive Polly Pocket collection

- Favorite book series include (but are not limited to): Owl Diaries, Unicorn Diaries, The Magic Treehouse, The Princess in Black, and Diary of a Wimpy Kid. I also finished reading the 7th Harry Potter book to her earlier this year.

- Thanks to her acrobatics class, she is very close to perfecting a backbend kickover. She worked VERY hard on her handstands and backbends all summer. It's so cool to see her get stronger and more flexible, especially because acrobatics was very hard for her when she first started.

- In addition to acrobatics and jazz/ballet she has started taking contemporary dance, which she LOVES.

- Obsessed with KitKat bars

- Spends any money she gets on.......books and KitKats. :D

- Does not like soda/lemonade, so water is her drink of choice...unless there's chocolate milk!

- Enjoys swimming at local recreation centers, or her grandpa's pool during the summer

- Regularly lets us know that she wants to go back to Disneyland (Incredicoaster is her favorite ride)

- Had two more teeth pulled this year, bringing the total # of teeth pulled up to 4 (and 2 lost naturally)

- Loves a good card or board game

We're so lucky to have this crazy chicka in our family! Happy birthday, Nicole!

Austin // 6 Years

[*I'll add the pictures this week!]

Look at this handsome little kindergartner! What a kid. My favorite son, you know. And every time I tell him he's my favorite son he responds, "But I'm your only son..." and I respond, "Yep." He was sick yesterday on his birthday, which was a big bummer. (I was sick too, hence publishing this post a day late...) Fortunately, he was able to enjoy some birthday festivities on Saturday. Doug and I took Austin and Nicole to Austin's outing of choice: Getting all-access wristbands at Provo Beach Resort. Lots of laser tag, croquet golf, bowling, playing on the indoor playground, carousel rides, and arcade games. Nicole was even brave enough to do the high ropes course with me, but Doug had to get back off with Austin because Austin was a little too nervous to try crossing any of the planks or ropes.

Let's talk about the birthday boy, shall we?

Austin at 6 years:

- LOVES his baby sister and has dedicated many hours to tumbling around with her, chasing her, and letting her push him around. (Lydia now thinks that walking up to another toddler and steadily pushing them backwards while giggling is the proper way to introduce herself and play.)

- Currently has a paper airplane obsession. I can't keep track of the sheer number of papers he has folded up and flown across our house.

- Still loves Legos

- Enjoys racing his older sister on Mario Kart 8 and creating things in Minecraft

- I read the first Harry Potter book to him earlier this year and he really enjoyed it. He's thrilled to be Harry Potter for Halloween this year.

- This past year has brought a lot of big emotions and transitions for this kid, so he finds himself getting frustrated or upset more easily than in years past. He juts out his lower lip when he's in one of these moods, and I know the emotion is very real and big to him... but I have to admit, the lower lip is funny!

- Energy level = through the roof at times

- His biggest concern when he started kindergarten was making friends. Now he tells me every couple of days about a new friend he has made. He wants to be friends with everyone.

- His belly laugh is still extremely contagious

- Really wants us to get a cat. I know, buddy. I know. Litter box logistics are still the main issue here.

- Has amazing spatial awareness and has the early makings of an engineer. Numbers make sense to him. He already does math in his head.

- He's eager to start learning to play the piano like his big sister, so I suppose that's how we'll be spending some of our time during the cold winter months

- Can't smile "normal" for a picture if his life depended on it! He either squeezes his eyes closed and flashes a big cheeser, or he squints his eyes and does a thin-lipped, toothy grimace. I only got some "normal-looking" smiles for the pictures in this post by getting him to talk about something he likes.

- His birthday dinner of choice is chicken taquitos

- STILL has a banana almost every single day

- Has the makings of a rollercoaster junkie, much to my delight

- Soccer is his sport of choice, although he really enjoys t-ball and his acrobatics class (like tumbling, but more dance-oriented)

- Did karate for most of the past year of his life, but stopped over the summer

- Learned to ride a bike this summer

We love this kid! Happy birthday, Austin!