This One's For My Mom

I finally finished Eli's coordinating bumper pads, just in time for #3 to get some good use out them as well! Now the pale blue sheets are driving me nuts!

For anyone not familiar with my sons' room - my mom gave us my brother's old curtains and comforter and a bunch of leftover fabric. So now we enjoy a little of the wild west in their room.

Hiking in the Superstition "Mountains"

We set off yesterday morning for a fun filled day of hiking. German did such an awesome job hiking up a pretty rough route full of rocks. Eli of course would have loved to hike, but he did a better job just being carried by dad. We love AZ and many of the aspects of the desert, but as far as nature goes - it would have really been beautiful to see some trees and wild grass!

My favorite German sayings of the day:

At the trailhead: "Daddy, I'm tired of walking!"

Along the dusty and rocky desert trail: "Hey, look. I found some dirt."

One of the Golden Moments of Motherhood...

The Tallest Man Alive

Provo, UT

Just a few things I was missing about Provo the other day (in no particular order):

1) The duck pond. The ducks in our canal just don't get it and stay far away from the kids. Maybe it's time to ditch the canal ducks and head to a park.

2) The Conleys and Brick Oven Pizza. Lemonade, Brian?

3) The Louds and Fudruckers.

4) Our old rent payment - man, those days were good!

Eli is Learning to Walk

Eli is our walking-talking boy! (I'd post videos a lot more if they didn't take so long to upload) This Eli-boy loves to express himself. It's rare to not know what he wants, even though he only has a couple of words. Instead of words, Eli has a complicated set of screams that indicate what he needs. When he's not screaming out, he can be heard babbling on and on for a good hour or so, no kidding! As Joshua says, "When Eli talks he talks so seriously and expressively that I can almost understand what he's talking about!" WE LOVE OUR ELI!

Happy Valentine's Day!

We gave the boys coloring books and new crayons for their Valentine's Day gift. After coloring for a while German says he wants to write Eli's name on his paper. So, he did. German knew how to spell 'Eli' and write the letters (though it's difficult to see), even though we haven't really gone over letter writing. Then he says he wants to write his own name. 'German' is a little harder to spell, so we helped him sound it out and spell, but he did all the letters on his own. This boy loves learning and does such a good job listening to the things we teach him. I can see now why they say that children are so eager to learn; their minds are little sponges. WE LOVE GERMAN!

The Big News...

Joshua and I have decided that we should definetly be saving our money and increasing our food storage so that when the time comes we can afford to feed THREE teenage BOYS! We once saw a young guy at In-n-Out Burger eating 4 cheeseburgers and now we imagine ourselves ordering and asking for a dozen burgers! Oh well - these boys give us far more joy and laughs than the money we would save by not having them.

German's Bug Party

German turned 3 years old last Friday and we celebrated with a bug party on Saturday. Thanks to all of German's friends (and their parents) for coming and celebrating with us! One of the great things about AZ is that we were able to have the party at the park and not in my living room! All of the bugs enjoyed bug games, playing on the park equipment, and eating "dirt!"

It's Official...

Probably the biggest news we have to announce is that of the future arrival of baby #3 sometime in early July!

Uncle Dennis and Aunt Annie Get Hitched

Our second week of vacation was spent in Kuna celebrating and preparing for Dennis and Annie's wedding. Everything went nicely at the wedding and reception. We look forward to having Dennis as a part of our family.

German really enjoyed playing with his cousins. He still talks about each of them and frequently tells me that Payton is a silly goose! If any of you cousins want to move to AZ we'll help convince your parents!

Christmas with the Clarks

We had a great Christmas week visiting our Clark family in Utah. We enjoyed a lot of snow and thus a lot of home time! (Side-note: Snow is great for Christmas, but I sure do love AZ. We're back to enjoying our time at the park!)

The boys sure do love all of the gifts they received and thanks go out to all our loved ones for a nice time.

Eli's First Birthday!

Eli turned the big one year old on the 13th, but we celebrated a little later while we were in Utah. We enjoyed a great evening of ice cream cake and playing with family!

Eli is such a joy to have in our family. He loves to laugh and have a good time. Some of Eli's favorite things to do are playing cars with his brother, taking rides in his wagon, and climbing on anything he can - oh, and his blanket and rubbing his hair! What a funny boy!

Fun at the Park

So I hate to rub things in, but on this one I have to. Can you beat playing at the park on a sunny afternoon in December? German loves all of his friends here in AZ and is so glad we've been able to meet them all. This afternoon he was playing by himself and imagined that he was having a party for all of his friends where they were eating gingerbreadmen cookies (thanks Treasure!)!

Annie's Bridal Shower

Congrats to Dennis and Annie!

The day after Thanksgiving, Eli and I flew to Boise and helped throw Annie a bridal shower. It was fun to see all the Hallberg Family and enjoy being a kid at home for a day. In case you're worried that German and Joshua got the short end of the stick, put your fears aside. They went out to breakfast, went to the zoo, built train tracks, and ate a lot of pumpkin pie!

Family Pictures

Here are the two best photos from our family photo shoot a couple of weeks ago. They might have turned out better had we actually had someone there taking the pictures, rather than the timer method, but oh well!

Happy Thanksgiving

We are so grateful for our good friends the Ys and the Ns. We sure enjoyed the laughs, relaxing, and of course the food! We sure missed our families and wished we could have joined in their celebrations. Joshua only mentioned about 20 times how he wished he were able to go to the turkey bowl in Boise.

What Else Have We Been Up To?

Blankie Boys
I swore that I would never let my children become accustomed to a particular blanket and boy have I failed. Even little Eli will crawl into his room, stand up at the crib, and yell until someone comes and gets his blanket for him. Then he snuggles up to it with the biggest smile on his face! By the way, we think Eli has two words: car and dog. We could be crazy of course!


Pop Goes the Weasel
This is German's interpretation of a jack-in-the-box. So, I've never raised another 2 year old, so maybe my perception is off, but German is the most imaginative kid ever. He is constantly coming up with stuff to create or making random connections. And he's officially begun the "why?" stage!


It's Still Warm
We're still hanging out at the park and having a good time (this was taken on Nov. 8th). AZ has some definite perks - it may not feel like fall, but at least we can still take the kids outside anytime we want!

Halloween Fun

We like to encourage a little sibling rivalry by dressing the boys in opposing costumes: German - a cowboy and Eli - an Indian. Aren't they so cute! We went to our ward's Halloween Carnival and it took German a little while to get into the games, but the enticement of candy did the trick! Notice in the collage how much he adores his friend Madison!

Where Have We Been???

We moved! We changed apartments and although our square footage stayed the exact same, our new home is quite the palace thanks to new and smaller furniture and a storage unit! Life is much better being on the bottom floor and enjoying hard wood floors.