Ronan's 2nd Birthday

Ronan turned 2 whole years old on June 5th!  He had a fun day.  We had monster cupcakes and a small party over at Aunt Bekah's house.  When we got home, Ronan's nursery teacher brought him this crown and a balloon scepter.  He LOVED the crown so much and started running around the house with it on.  He wouldn't hold still.  This is the best picture I could get.

 Ronan is the cutest 2-year-old in the world!  He's so fun.  Ronan is beginning to talk and communicate more and more each day.  He loves cars and balls.  He also loves to 'read' books.  He loves to dig in the sand and play in the water.  He loves his brother and sister very much.  His favorite thing to watch on TV is Dora.  He also likes Spongebob (he gets that from me...).

We love Ronan so much.  We're so happy he is a part of our little family.  

WE LOVE YOU RONAN!!!

Easter Outfits

I like to get Easter clothes for the kids every year.  I do this mostly because it's a good time to buy church clothes for them to wear for the rest of the year.  I also do it because it's fun. The pictures didn't turn out so well... the sun was in their eyes and we were late for church and the boys were being hyper.

Gareth turned FOUR!

Our little bear-boy is growing up way too fast! Gareth turned 4 last Wednesday (March 2nd). He had a great day. In fact, he told me it was his best birthday ever. We started out with our new tradition of giving the birthday boy breakfast in bed. He chose to have Cookie Crisp Cereal. For lunch Jonesy and I took him to Pirate Island Pizza. That evening, we had a little pirate party. During the pirate party, the kids dressed up like pirates and ran around saying "Arrrrrrrrrrrrrr." We also played in the living room with legos and did a piñata. I'm glad he had a great day.  We love you, Gareth!

A lego-building contest to see who can build the best robot.

Gareth at Pirate Island Pizza

Free birthday sundae!

Captain PizzaFace

Jonesy shooting pirate skeletons.

Geronimo!!

We've always known Ruth was smart.  She has always had a large vocabulary and has been LOVING math. But I was starting to get a bit concerned about her reading.  In Kindergarten, Ruth hated reading.  She considered her 20 mins/day reading as one of her chores.  I tried to make it fun, but I was not successful.  When first grade started she somehow got some motivation and began doing well with reading.  She's tested off the charts with reading and comprehension.  She's even doing well with spelling (100% on EVER spelling test so far this year).  But her teacher brought up a concern (and I had noticed too) that Ruth still had trouble reading for a long period of time.  She would read a couple pages and then want to move on to the next book or the next activity. If she even looked at a Magic Tree House page or another page with more than a paragraph, she would feel overwhelmed.  Mrs. Peterson asked us to work with her on her sustained reading.  

I was at a loss as to how to go about doing that until I discovered the Geronimo Stilton series.  These are real chapter books with some pictures throughout.  The pictures are colorful and fun.  The stories are so fun and educational.  Now she can sit and read 30 pages and be sad that we're telling her to stop.  These books have given Ruth the confidence she needed and I think she's ready to venture on to more chapter books.  (Not that she wants to... she's perfectly content with Geronimo...and so am I).  If you have a young reader I HIGHLY recommend these books! 

 

More of Gareth

Gareth has been so funny lately.  Jonesy and I have a recurring conversation with our kids where we express our amazement and distress over how quickly they are growing up.  Then we follow up with a very stern order telling them to "STOP GROWING!".  Tonight I was having a similar type of conversation with Gareth when he noticed that Ronan was wearing some of his old pajamas. 

Gareth: Why are my jammies too small for me now?
Me: Gareth, if you'd just stop growing, you'd be able to keep wearing your pajamas.  STOP GROWING!
Gareth: Mom.  Don't you want to be a grandma?
Me: Well, yeah.
Gareth: Then I need to grow up so you can be a grandma some day.

Best argument so far.... but I'm still not convinced.

Walking on Utah Lake

 I have very fond memories of walking on the frozen waters of Utah Lake when I was a kid.  Today, I decided to take the kids there so they could create their own fond memories.  There were a few groups of people ice fishing so I was sure it'd be safe for us to walk on it.  Gareth was a little nervous at first but he got up the courage when I told him he could pee in an ice hole (there were quite a few old fishing holes drilled into the ice....and he had to pee).  Ronan wanted to run around, but he kept slipping.  Ruth thought it was fun to do some break dancing on the ice.  And I was happy to find that walking on a frozen lake IS just as fun as I remember it. :)

You can see the ice fishers out in the distance.

Ruth thought it was the COOLEST thing to be out on the ice.

We are all on the ice, Gareth is not.  He was a little nervous about the idea.

Here he is showing us the ice hole he got to pee in!

Here they are, out on the ice!

We went back to shore to throw rocks on the ice.  Ruth and Gareth were trying to break the ice.

Ronan was trying to break it too.

Gareth got cold! (We all did)

She just doesn't stop....

Ruth keeps surprising us with the things she says. Tonight we were driving home from my parents' house just minding our own business when she said this:

"I think that the Earth spins slowly because if it spinned faster the days and nights would be shorter."

Are 5 year-olds really supposed to be figuring stuff like that out on their own? We're not prepared to deal with her brain. Right now we are doing research about why exactly the days and nights are shorter in the winter time (something to do with the tilt of the Earth?) because she wants to know. I really should have applied myself more in my High School science class.

Gareth's sense of humor...

I don't know where Gareth gets it. Sometimes he can be hilarious. Today he went over to a chair and banged his hands on it about 5 times then he said: "Mom, do you hear that? That means I'm hungry." So I smiled and offered him some cheese. Then he hit the chair again and said: "Mom, do you hear this again? This means I don't want cheese." So I asked him what he wanted and he hit the chair again and said: "Mom, do you hear this? This means I want popcorn." And we went on and on like this for about 5 minutes. His final statement was this: "Mom, do you hear that? That means I want cheese." So I got him some cheese and we went about the rest of our day.

Weird, I know.

Lost nose and bloody tooth....or is it lost tooth and bloody nose?

Ruth lost her 2nd front tooth last week. Hopefully she'll stop losing teeth for a while. The tooth fairy needs time to save up some more quarters!

Gareth did a face plant right into the sidewalk. His nose was bloody and he was very sad. Here he is the next day with scabs. Poor kid.

State Fair

We went to the State Fair a couple weeks ago to see the animals. We had fun but were reminded that Fairs are only WAY fun when you have enough money to ride the rides and eat the yummy fair food. Oh well.. maybe we'll start saving up for next year. Here's some pics:

Ruth and Gareth petting goats with Aunt Audra

Ruth had no fear of petting the cows.

This was a HUGE bull. If I remember right he weighed over 3,300 pounds. Ruth didn't care. She literally grabbed that bull by the horns.

Gareth was pretty timid around the cows. He didn't want to pet them. He was totally fine with petting the toy cow though.

Follow the Leader

Ruth decided she wanted to build a very large tower of sand. It started out with just her but within 10 minutes she had about 10 of the neighborhood children helping her. She kept them motivated by saying things like "good job" and "keep up the good work!" She'll make a great leader someday.

Already?!?!

Ruth is too young to be doing things like losing teeth. But alas, she did. She is (according to her) "very advanced."

We grew some butterflies....

Ruth got this butterfly house for her birthday. We finally ordered the caterpillars in the mail. After a tragedy that involved some poor caterpillars and a misunderstanding with the mail man and which mailbox to put them in and the passing of a month, our non-baked caterpillars arrived. We watched them eat and grow to 3 times their size before they crawled to the top of their container and formed chrysalises. Then we transferred them into the butterfly house and waited. Our house was filled with excitement the morning we discovered the first butterfly had hatched (is that the right term??). A few days later we had all but one--which was a dud. We let them go in the backyard the next day.


Here you can see two of the butterflies on the side and two more still in their chrysalises.

About to let them go.

"Go on butterflies! Be free!!"

One didn't get very far...I think he wanted to stay with us forever. After some prompting, he finally flew away. He probably misses us.

Gareth Hearts Tools

Gareth found a screwdriver the other day and at the same time discovered that some of his toys have batteries. (I promise I didn't help him discover this...I was dozing on the couch).




Once he realized that he could open the battery compartment, he ran upstairs and grabbed his race car (the REALLY annoying one that died). He then opened the battery compartment and took out the batteries. Then he spent the next three days pestering me to buy new batteries. I finally gave in and he was able to put the batteries in and now the race car is alive again and now we are going insane again.

Fun Times

Ruth loves to play in the fountain at the Gateway Mall in Salt Lake City.





Gareth HATES to play in the fountain. He prefers to build trains out of the chairs surrounding the fountain.


Ruth stole the camera one day and did portraits...



Ronan loves his chair. It helps him to sit up.


He also loves his swing. (please ignore the purple blanket....we only use it when he's puked on all his other ones).


Gareth has impressed us with his ability to ride a bike. He just picked it up one day.


Ruth has a new friend. She lives next-door. I forget her name.


Gareth likes to wear his sister's shoes... On the wrong feet.


These kids keep life interesting.

Oh, and just so I don't forget, here's a story:

Gareth wanted to tell his grandma that he was wearing Thomas the Train underwear so this is what he said: "I have Thomas on my butt!" Grandmas was slightly confused.