Preschool is over!!!

Emery had such a blast at preschool this year.  Her class had such cute kids and her teachers, Mrs. Heap, was awesome.  Too bad she lives so far away from us now or I'd send her more of my kids!  Emery wanted to play with all of her preschool friends before school was over so we invited them all to the park one day for a goodbye party.  What an adorable group of kids!

Pile of preschoolers on the slide

Emery and Sawyer. 

She also had a final program to show what they'd learned throughout the year!  It was a fun way to celebrate and say goodbye to her friends.

Can you tell how nervous she was?  She sang all of the songs at home all the time, but for some reason performing makes her SO nervous!!  

Her cute class

Em and Mrs. Heap

Emery and some of the girls in her class (Katelyn, Emery, Olivia, Whitney and Addison)

Emery and Sawyer.  The crush.  

Van wanting to be with the big kids.

And the worst part of preschool being over - it means I have a kindergartener!  Ahhh!!  

May

Izzy's fat cheeks

We took my friend Mary's girls to the park to play and have a picnic lunch.  Van and Millie got along famously.  I wish we lived closer!! 

Wrong direction - cute picture! 

Aaron realized one night at dinner that ALL of the kids were wearing helmets while they ate.  We are a safe family, what can we say? 

Fun in the sandbox with Dad

1st time Izzy stood on her own

We got the climbing stuff organized in the garage.  Aaron is obsessed.  I like it too.  

We really need to get the climbing wall built in our garage.  I don't think stucco is meant for this.  

They love their chickens!  They all have names now - Greenie (lays green eggs), Fluffy (the big yellow one), Brownie (she's brown) and Funny (she's brown but is always cocking her head funny).  All named by Emery.

My friend Marissa and her son, Tyler, also came from Missouri for 4 days in May!  We showed them the best Utah Valley has to offer!!

Fun at Trafalga

Bike ride on our trail

Climbing Bridal Veil at Provo Canyon

This little rock eater climbed all over the rocks like she was a big kid.  

Fun at a pond with a beach.  We met Bek, Lu and company there.  It was a major party! 

Okay, seriously.  Why is he so cute?  I can't get over this face.  I love this kid.  

Russell and Emery. 

How cute is Marissa's belly?  She's housing twins in there until October!! 

Izzy turns 1!!

My baby turned 1!!  I tried to ignore it so it wouldn't happen, but it happened anyway, so we partied!  And I cried.  She is the sweetest, most lovey, snuggly baby.  She's so happy almost all the time.  And she's hilarious.  She has the funniest little personality.  We all love her and her mama is still just gaga over her.  Here is a list of some of my favorite things about my 1 year old.   

• Izzy has the happiest feet.  They are constantly moving, rotating in little circles.  When she was littler her hands would flap up and down when she was happy or excited - like she was flying.  She looked so funny flying and rotating her little feet with a huge smile on her face all the time.  So cute.  
• Izzy loves stuffed animals.  I've never had a baby that loved stuffed animals, until now.  She clings on to any number of them, but only for a few days at a time and then she switches.  She tackles them and kisses them and snuggles them.  She seems to especially love any animal Emery or Van gives her to play with.  
• Izzy loves peakaboo.  She's been playing it at bedtime for forever with her blankey, but now she does it with anything.  Anything about the size of a hand towel she puts on her face/head and then crawls around, stops and pulls it off with a big smile on her face, waiting for someone to say peakaboo.  
• Izzy giggles at animals. Dogs, ducks or even our chickens.  She gets a little nervous when they get too close but as long as they keep a safe distance she LOVES them. 
• Izzy loves to climb the stairs.  She gets to the top with this proud little smile on her face.  She loves to go up all by herself and then go play in Emery's room - her favorite place in the house.  She also loves it when we chase her up the stairs.  She laughs so hard she almost can't climb.  
• Izzy loves Emery so much.  She gets so excited whenever she comes around.  Emery can make her laugh harder than anyone.  If I'm holding her and she see Emery coming she starts laughing and buries her head in my shoulder, anticipating the teasing and tickling.  
• Izzy likes Van, but is still a little unsure about him.  And I don't blame her.  He's a bit of a loose cannon.  So fun, but so unpredictable.  
• Izzy loves yoga.  I will randomly find her standing on her head, like in down dog.  In the living room.  At the park.  Wherever.  Just hanging out in down dog.  
• Izzy LOVES books!  She would read all the time, anytime.  She'd read a pile of books before naps and bed.  She loves to turn the pages.  She'll pick between two books.  She loves to read in her crib before she goes to sleep.  She especially loves books with animals. 
• Izzy is my fastest baby with tricks.  She gave big slobbery kisses at 4 months at request.  She clapped at 6 months.  She did "How big is Izzy?" at 9 months.  (That's something my mom taught us and I teach all my kids - we ask that question and they raise both arms above their heads and we say, "So big!"  Van always says, "No, Izzy little" when we do it. He doesn't want her to grow up either.) She waves and points and blows kisses.  
• Izzy is a talker.  For a few months she's been saying "done-done" (while signing all done with her hands) when she's done with her food.  I didn't think she was actually saying it for a while, but she is!  She also says mama (only when she's sad or needs something), dada (only when he's around!), she's said "sizzy" (like her name) a few times.  Mostly when I let her choose a book - "this one or this one?".  She says "pup pup" and "daw" (dog).  She says "meow" for a cat and "this" and "that" when we point.  
• Izzy is a bottle and binky thief.  She's recently discovered a love for other kids' bottles and binkies.  She'll see them clear across the floor and crawl at a sprint to get to them.  Watch out! 
• Izzy is starting to skinny out.  Loosing her chubby cheeks.  And some of her thighs.  I can't talk about it.  I might cry.  
• Izzy knows her body parts - she'll point to her head, mouth, feet, toes, hands, arms (folds her arms like we are going to pray), ears and will stick out her tongue.  She'll also tickle her own tummy.  
• Izzy loves to dance and does it all the time - music or no music! 
• Izzy loves to clean up.  So cute! 
• Izzy stands on her own.  She finds it very amusing and does it constantly.  I'll give her a month before she walks.  
• Izzy has turned out to be an awesome eater.  She eats anything!  Spicy things.  Giant stalks of broccoli.  She still loves cheese.  And she drinks TONS of water.  
• Izzy is the most inconsistent sleeper in the world.  Probably mostly because she is the 3rd child.  Sometimes she wakes up at 5:30.  Sometimes she wakes up at 9.  Sometimes she takes a 3+ hour nap.  Sometimes she sleeps for 45 minutes.  It's a little crazy trying to make sure she has enough sleep without staying home all the time, but she's almost always happy, so we'll just keep on keepin' on! 
• Izzy sticks her bottom teeth out when she smiles.  It's hilarious.  All you have to do is smile at her and you get a giant smile back!  
• Izzy is my hardest teether, speaking of teeth.  She had 7 at 1 year and it definitely affected her happy little self when she got them! 

And here are her stats... just for journaling's sake.  My most petite baby!  

• Weight - 19.5lb - 42%
• Length - 29 1/2 - 56%
• Head - 18" - 70%

Some pictures of this happy little baby around her 1 year mark! 

With daddy up battlecreek canyon!

BIRTHDAY PARTY!!!

She was so tired that night I think this is the closest thing we got to a smile.  :(

Snuggling her new baby from Grandma and Grandpa Wilk! 

here's that down dog I was talking about

Funny baby

Emery

I wrote this post (and the one about Van) almost 2 months ago now... wow I'm having a hard time blogging lately!

Emery is my sweet, sensitive girl.  She has so much emotion and feeling about everything (something I don't understand, though apparently I was the same way as a kid).  She's ultra sensitive and never mean or cruel to anyone.  Showing responsibility comes in spurts - sometimes she'll surprise me by cleaning her bathroom or her bedroom without being asked and be completely shining with pride, and other times she tells me it's too hard and rolls all over the floor whining until finally bringing herself to do it.  She's almost always willing to help if I ask though.  Especially with Van and Izzy.  Or with the chickens and turkeys.  That's still so new she loves to help with them too.

She finished preschool this week.  She loved her preschool class and it was a darling group of kids.  Her teacher was amazing - I wish she lived closer to our new house so I could send my other kids to her!  At her end of year parent/teacher conference, the teacher had nothing but good things to say about Emery.  Her end of year program was adorable, but confirmed something funny and surprising about Emery - she doesn't like performing!  She was visibly nervous to sing songs she belts out all the time at home!  For such an outgoing girl this has been an interesting revelation over the past few years, but I guess it's good for her, right?  :)  She had her first crush in preschool - Sawyer.  She kept talking about him, and then talking about him and giggling, then one day after school giggled and declared, "I think I'm in love with Sawyer!"  Oh no.  We're already there.  So sad.  She's already moved onto another crush and recently told me, "Mom, I just don't know who I'm going to marry!"  She seemed rather distressed about it.  I tried to console her and tell her she has a long time to decide.  

I feel like she's grown up so much lately, learning to do all sorts of big girl things.  She learned to tie her own shoes, ride her bike without training wheels, is learning to play a few songs on the piano, perfected her cartwheel and moved up from "Beginners" to "Level 1" at gymnastics, finally memorized how to write our rather lengthy last name and has made leaps and bounds improvements in her reading.  And almost all of this has happened since we moved into our new house.  I think being settled is good for all of us.

She loves our new neighborhood because she loves having friends.  Five-year-olds have basically taken over our block - barricading the roads with bike parades, climbing the dirt mountains from all of the home construction and bouncing from house to house to play.  It's cute watching her interact with kids and find where she fits.  I love that both boys and girls come knocking, wanting to play with her.  She plays in the dirt just as well as she plays princesses.

She's so mature for her age that I sometimes feel like she doesn't have many of those hilarious kid moments, but she still says funny things now and then.  Last weekend after watching Utah Dance Fest in Logan she said in her prayers, "I thankful that I could see lots of dancing and shiny dance suits tonight."  That's why we call her the squirrel - she loves shiny things!  And a few days ago she turned to me and said, "Mom, what if we had a pet tiger?  And then it scratched and scratched on the metal on the chicken coop and then it got in and ate the chickens?"

Speaking of chickens (and her sensitive little heart), she went to feed them one morning and one of the turkeys got out.  She was completely mortified, just crying and crying, not because she thought she was in trouble or because she was afraid of the turkey or anything, only because she didn't "want her to get loose!". Ha.  Today she was in tears at the park because someone was trying to crush one of the duck eggs and she ran away holding it to protect it.  Cute girl.  I'm trying to learn to be more understanding when she has emotional outbursts, but still teach her to be a tough girl.

She still hates to sleep.  She's just too excited about life and doesn't want to miss a minute of it.  She'll see a movie out or a treat in the garbage and pester me to know what we did without her the night before.

She's still a great eater... but she definitely has a sweet tooth! 

Van

This is the cutest, funniest kid I know.  He is sweet, but firey.  He's tough, but sensitive.  He's disobedient, but then impulsively helpful.  He's exhausted, but won't sleep.  He's goofy and irreverent, but then surprisingly profound and was listening all along.  He's thankful, then suddenly whiny.  He's rough, then sporadically gentle.  He's a mess of contradictions.  And I'm loving every minute of him. (Almost every minute - not the ones where I have to send him to time out - well some of those too, probably!)  Which I guess just means he's a 3-year-old boy, right?

Happy in his undies in freezing cold water.  

Little Mogli man. 

One day he brought the garbage cans in for me without me asking.  Cute boy. 

I walked into the garage one day only to find Van taking my license plate off my car with a screw driver.  Awesome.  

Here are some fun things he's said and done lately.

• He loves to get out a notebook and draw 1s and Vs in them.  And he almost holds the pen right. 
• He knows all of his letters and all of his numbers through 10.  
• One night we were putting his undies on after a bath and he tells me, "I used to be a baby like Izzy, but I turn into a big boy now!"
• I call him buddy and one day a few months ago he started insisting that he isn't buddy - he's a garbage truck. I can't ever call him buddy anymore - he reminds me every time. 
• He's constantly singing now.  He loves to sing songs that his sister sings, but he'll make up his own now too.  I love it when he sings, "Call Me, Maybe" and his favorite, David Archeletta's "Love That Breaks Your Heart"
• There's almost nothing I can do to get this kid inside.  He plays outside from sun up to sundown - most of it in his bike helmet too.  :)  He won't even come inside for lunch - he eats on the driveway.  One day he was so exhausted at the end of the day, he came stumbling up to me at the bottom of the stairs, put his arms around me and said, "I want to go to bed now."  I think that is the 1st time in his life he has asked to go to bed.  My children have too much zest for life and they can't stand to waste time sleeping!  (Which I love, except it drives me crazy because they function in a constant state of exhaustion!)
•  We ended up at the Dinosaur Quarry in Emery County a month or so ago and Van kept asking over and over, "But why did the dinosaurs die?"  I calmly explained each time that they don't really know - it could have been an asteroid, or an earthquake, or a volcano, or they froze to death.  He asked for the 100th time and I finally said, "Why do YOU think they died, Van?"  To which he responded: "There was a big rock and it went in the volcano and the hot lava went all over the dinosaurs and it was an accident."  Well said, my little paleontologist.  
• My kids are really into telling jokes lately.  Van's usually start like this: "Want to hear a funny, funny joke?"  An extra good one was "Why did the monster truck crush the house?  He wanted to crush the ketchup!"  :)
• He calls anything that belongs to girls, "girlies".  That would make the girls bathroom "the girlies bathroom."  Ha.  
• He replaces the "uh" sound with a long "o" sound, which results in some giggling from us.  He wants to eat a "bonana".  He wants to wear the "Lightning MoQueen" undies.  
• He seems to have chosen a future occupation already!  One day I was being silly and called him my baby (which he doesn't like at all), and he calmly told me, "I not a baby, I'm a police officer."
• We went to Target to pick out a present for his friend Luke's birthday.  He was so excited that as we walked in he shouted, "I going to get Lukey a truck and he's going to LOVE it!"
• He was trying to do something in the driveway on his bike and he suddenly threw his hands up in the air and yelled, "Piece of cake!"
• One night I was tucking him in and he had his arms wrapped tightly around my neck.  He looked into my eyes, smiled and said, "Let's do licks!" Then dragged his slimy, cute little tongue up the side of my face.  He says, "Let's do licks" with some frequency now.  If it weren't so hilarious it would be disgusting.  He did it the other day after I had been running.  His face was hilarious when he tasted the salt.  
• One day he asked me, "Where's chubby Izzy?"  Cute nick name for his baby sister.  I don't think she'll like it if it's still stuck when she's 12 though.  :)
• One night while I was putting him to bed he looked out his window and started explaining to me how there is an alligator in the clouds (I think I figured out which one he was looking at, too!) and how it was eating everything in the sky.  I'd kill to be a fly on the wall in his brain.  Creative, funny kid.  
• When he needs to go #2 on the potty and you ask him to hold it he actually puts his hand on his bum and holds it in.  It's hilarious. 
• We went on a Mommy-Van date recently.  It was amazing to have that time just the two of us.  And way overdue.  He told me all about how he chops trees.  With his hand of course.  And told me, "I'm sad Emery's not here, but I'm happy mommy's here!"  And I was telling him all of the reasons I love him and he vigorously jumped into my lap and threw his arms around my neck in a big tight hug.  If you know Van you'll know that that doesn't happen very often, so it was such a cute special moment. 
• I've realized that although mentally and socially he's a normal 3-year-old, he's so physical and has been trying to keep up with Em for so long that he's a 5-year-old physically.  He has a really hard time playing with kids his own age... but does great with older kids.  He wants to ride bikes (fast - on a 2-wheeler), climb stuff and play make-believe.  He swims on his own like a crazy man.  Other "little" kids have a hard time keeping up.  He's such a cool kid.  And seriously coordinated, too.  :)  I'm sure he'd play great with other 3-year-olds - if we could get him to hold still long enough to play!