Sisters!

These girls all love each other!
Anna has a new favorite saying. It all started one day when she accused Grandma Tolman of taking her bib away (the icky bibs I actually threw in the trash)!

February

In February, Grandma and Grandpa Tolman came for a visit. One day we decided to go check out Fort Vancouver. The weather started out okay, but we were soaking and very cold by the time we were done. I think the kids had fun, though. We loved having them and were sad to see them go. All the kids like to talk about them visiting or us visiting them, but Zane especially gets very sad when we have to say good-bye. He can't wait to see them again.
Everyone loves having Lyla around. They fight over who gets to play with her and smother her with their love. I love to catch them taking care of her. Here Nora and Anna are reading books to her.
We also enjoyed a couple (not many) of fairly decent days so we could go to the park. The sunshine and fresh air was much needed! Again, everyone loves to play with Lyla.We had a family outing to the Train Hobby Show at the convention center. The kids thought it was great and especially like riding the Max. On the way home Zane said, "Mom, sometimes passengers sleep on the train." I said, "That's right." He then promptly 'fell asleep', and so did Nora, but he made sure to tell me to wake him up at our stop.
Lyla has been sitting for a couple of weeks now. The kids love her new tricks.
Whenever I'm in the kitchen someone, in this instance, Nora, has to grab a chair, push it right up where I'm working and then stand on it. They love to "help," but it's usually accompanied by several "Can I taste that?"s

Anna turns 2!

We've been having some interesting weather. It tried very hard to snow a few days early last week, but nothing ever stuck. Zane and Nora were very disappointed. Then late one night, it really started to accumulate. The weather man said it would be rain by morning. I thought it was so sad that the kids wouldn't get to enjoy it, so Kevin and I went out at about midnight and built a snowman for them. They enjoyed him for about a day and a half before the rain completely washed him away.

Zane trying to catch snowflakes.

Lyla get very restless when the rest of us are eating and she's not. She started solids this week and here's what she thought about that:
She's generally pretty happy unless she's tired or hungry. She is LOVED by her siblings and they often fight over who gets to play with her. She is pretty "talkative." She babbles a lot. She is a good sleeper and will usually sleep from about 7:30 until 7:00. However, Friday night she was up ALL night. Happy as could be, just babbling away. If Kevin or I went to try to quiet her, her eyes would light up and she would squeal and babble even more.

Nora is just a happy girl most of the time. She's easy to please. She loves to take care of Lyla and is a big help when mom is busy (until she's too much help). She likes to clown around. She is very thoughtful and generous. She likes to wear her clothes backward. Sometimes it's just her shirt, sometimes her shirt and pants. Sometimes it's everything. She is enjoying Joy School. Her best friend is Blythe. She loves being a Sunbeam.

Zane is also enjoying Joy School. He is the only boy in his primary class so he really enjoys interacting with the other boys in Joy School. He is really growing up and getting pretty independent around here. He is learning to read and LOVES it. He's always ask, "What does that say?" and reading words everywhere in his environment. He also loves to take care of Lyla.

Anna just turned two. She is a girl of many personalities. She can be super sweet and kind and generous. But, she is also very headstrong and can throw quite the tantrum. She also likes to be a clown and get a laugh out of Zane and Nora. She will often do whatever they do, but also likes to just go off by herself. She can spend a long, long time by herself just looking at books. She also really likes stuffed animals and every week seems to add another one to her growing pile of "stuff" that she has to sleep with. At bedtime I will put her in bed and she will get all "my stuff" and try to get her arms all around them and lay on top of them. As of now she has a hippo, bear, bunny, sheep, kitty and two blankets.

We just celebrated her birthday! All day, she sang "Happy Birthday to Anna." She spent the morning with daddy, then after nap we went swimming. She had a blast. She got to
Skype with Grandma & Grandpa Tolman. Grandpa & Grandma Pickup came over for pizza, presents and cupcakes. She had a great day and we're so glad she's part of our family.

Now, don't keel over!

Yes, we're back, and hopefully for good. One of my New Year's resolutions is to blog at least once a month. I can handle that, right? So hold me accountable. My other resolutions are: run the Hippie Chick Half-Marathon in May in 2 hours or less, 100% visiting teaching, read the Book of Mormon before Easter, learn to play the organ.

I'm not going to attempt to catch up on the last, oh seven months, except maybe a post about Lyla's arrival and maybe a Christmas post.

In the meantime, we started off the new year right with a quick family hike around Powell Butte on New Year's Day.


And for your viewing pleasure, here's one of the world's cutest, happiest babies:

May update

May was a pretty exciting month for us--especially Nora. She has become quite the big girl! She is now officially potty trained and it only took about a week, and quite a bit of bribery. We still have a few accidents, but she is very proud of herself. She is even sleeping through the night and waking up dry. She can also buckle her car seat by herself (if I'm willing to wait about 10 minutes) and usually insists on it. One evening as I was putting her down to bed I couldn't find her blankie--the blankie that she has slept with EVERY SINGLE NIGHT for the last two-and-a-half years! She confidently declared "I don't need it," and went to sleep just fine without it. She didn't even seem to miss it. A couple of weeks went by and this mommy was a little sad about it. First of all, how can she just be so grown-up so fast, and secondly, if she doesn't need it, I do! I would like to put it in my cedar chest. After almost two weeks I decided to move some things to vacuum and I found her blankie behind the kids toy kitchen. Zane suddenly remembered that he hid it there and Nora suddenly decided she did need it after all!

Anna has become quite the little jokester. She is always trying to make people laugh and to get a reaction out of people. She is not yet talking, but she seems to really be taking in the world and understanding how things work.

The most memorable thing we did in May was to go to "Dozer Day" at the quarry in Vancouver. It is a huge event with dozens of big machines that the kids can help drive, plenty of food vendors, free "hard hats", lots of dirt, and you get to ride in the back of an articulated dump truck. As Zane would say, it's a "huge, huge, huge, huge dump truck." Nora didn't think the ride was so great, but Zane thought it was awesome. They didn't want a turn to drive any of the machines, but they sure enjoyed watching. Grandpa Pickup joined us for the day, which made Mom really happy. As we were leaving Zane said "What a great day! I like it when Grandpa can play with us." I'm sure it helps that Grandpa buys pizza, pop, and popcorn, but I think they really enjoy being with him.

We had a string of nice days and we took advantage of every one of them, spending hours at the park, playing and eating lunch. Anna has gotten too brave for my liking, she climbs as high as she can and isn't afraid to do whatever Zane and Nora.
We enjoyed having the Peacock's in town for few days for Collette's wedding. Zane thought it was pretty fun to go to "Joey's party" and they enjoyed blowing bubbles they got there.
Zane was most excited to take swim lessons again. He was much more confident this time and sometimes I had to fight the pool-side urge to tell him to settle down. His teacher seemed to like him though and I think he made the class a lot of fun. He liked to come home and practice his skills in the tub. He passed the first level, "Goldfish" and is now on to "Penguin." However, he informed me he does not want to be a penguin he wants to be a goldfish, so I guess when I register him for his next session we'll just have to wait a few classes to tell him he's a penguin.

Now we're just anticipating a fun trip in July to see family and then the arrival of this baby! We're down to just a couple of months. We still haven't picked a name and we're really limiting ourselves. Kevin insists that it has to be four letters and Zane says she has to have an 'a' and an 'n' because all the other kids do. I am totally open to suggestions!

Happy Birthday, Kevin

Saturday was a BEAUTIFUL day and we had a lot of fun celebrating Kevin's birthday. We let him sleep in a bit and then made him breakfast--"roll-up pancake" as Zane and Nora call them. Then the kids and Kevin played outside and worked in the garage while Holly baked a cake and got some things ready. Grandma P., Jennifer and Jessica came swimming with us. Then we came home and had pizza and presents. Grandma and Grandpa got him a hitch for his truck so Grandpa and Dad decided to make a project out of it, then and there. Probably the best thing Kevin could do on his birthday. We girls and kids hung around for a while, then walked to the park and played, then came back to see if they were ready for cake yet! Finally, after about another 45 minutes, they were ready for cake and we ate it quickly as Jennifer and Jessica had some things they wanted to do and Holly and Kevin were heading out to the temple. Going to the temple was a perfect way to end a perfect day and to prepare for our Easter Sunday.