Big Girl

Annika is getting to be such a big girl. I can't believe she is almost a year and a half! I've been sitting in nursery with her for the past few weeks. There's a bunch of girls in there. It's so fun. She is so tiny compared to everyone else. But, she does so well! In fact, I decided to leave the last half today. When I was in Relief Society I saw her class going out for a walk. All the little girls in pretty dresses walked along, holding on to a rope. Annika was being held. She can't quite walk as fast as the other big girls.

Ever since she's been thru with the binky it seems like she's especially more grown up. I love how she can fall asleep on her own now. She used to never fall asleep in the car. Nolan would be asleep and she'd be wide awake laughing at him sometimes. But, now that she can fall asleep without the binky, she'll fall asleep in the car when we're driving sometimes. Kinda nice.

Annika is learning more and more about how important it is to pray. I love this age! They recognize every single "amen." My favorite is all the "amens" throughout church. After the Sacrament prayers and such, when everything is quiet, I'll hear a little delayed, "amen." :) She's been saying other new words as well.

Annika loves her time with mom after Nolan goes to sleep. I have to keep her up a little later now that she doesn't get the binky at night. I like her nice and tired before I put her to bed. That way she falls right to sleep. One of our favorite things to do together are reading and washing dishes. Sometimes we are both sopping wet when the job is done, but that's OK!



I love this picture below. I just wish it wasn't so blurry. I love her teethy smiles best!

Spider Web Slide

Yesterday, we went to Roseville and played. Nolan still had a couple of gift certificates from reading all his pages during the school year. Nolan had a train ride, which you'll see in one of the videos. Than we went to Bounce U. Sorry, these pictures are all scattered and there's some videos too. Not too organized, but you'll get the idea.

Nolan and Dad wrestling





Nolan went up this spider web thingy a couple of times. One of the employees helped him, but he's getting really strong.



Basketball





Annika was a little tired, but had fun too. We had to buy these socks for her since we forgot to bring some. She didn't like them very much.





She loved carrying around these little green balls.



Nolan had fun playing t-ball. He's got a good batting arm. I'd love to get him in baseball someday.

Annika and I

For some reason, these things aren't as much fun when you get older. I don't think Annika liked it much either.

Air Cannons

T-Ball

Going Down the Slide

Train Ride

Book Of Mormon Stories

Annika has a few favorite songs. This is one of them. She loves to do the hand motions as I sing it over and over and over and over AGAIN! :)

Annika Walking

Annika has been walking really well lately. I wanted to take a video before she lost that cute toddler walk. It's a little dark, sorry.

Best of the Best

I can't seem to find this online, but Penguin's Catering made it in the Auburn Journal! They won the best of the best again for 2011. I believe this makes 8 out of 9 years that they have won for the best caterer in Auburn. Yay! It's pretty blurry, but you can see Nolan holding up the plaque.

Nolan

Another one of my goals this summer before Nolan started school again was to see if his body could handle regular milk yet. He's been drinking lactose free milk ever since shortly after I weened him off of breast milk and when he had been drinking regular milk for a little while. I guess it was a little hard since it was my first baby, I didn't know what was normal and what wasn't normal. His poopy diapers were always runny, but I thought that would change when he was done with breast milk. Well, it didn't change and we had some tests done and never got a for sure, but tried him on lactose free milk, which immediately made a difference. So, that's what he's been drinking ever since.

I know some kids grow out of this by age 4 or 5 so I tried last year sometime to see if Nolan had. He wouldn't drink it. He didn't like the flavor. I put it off throughout the school year because in case Nolan did still have a problem, I didn't want it to happen at school. :)

For the last couple of weeks, I've slowly mixed more and more regular milk with his lactose free milk. He didn't seem to notice the difference and I didn't notice any problems. So, I asked him today if he's been having any trouble and he said no. So, than I told him he's been drinking the same milk I have. :) Who knows, this might help him not have as many foot cramps or maybe he'll even have a little growth spurt. There's 10% more calcium in regular milk than lactose free milk (at least this brand), maybe that'll make a difference in his bones. He's finally grown out of his church shoes that he's had for the last couple of years. They were a size 7. Annika is almost into a size 5. Hmmm.

We live .6 miles from Placer High School. Every morning we go and walk/run around the track. We walked there one time and if it wasn't for the hill, it wouldn't be so bad. But, I just drive there and we walk/run a mile to a mile and a half. Nolan loves it too! He keeps right up with me. Sometimes Adam comes too. After the 4th or 5th lap, I take Annika out of her stroller and we all walk at her pace for another lap. She walked 1/4 of a mile today. She is taking a good nap right now. These two kids have pretty good endurance. :)

Yesterday we went to the mall and let the kids play in the play area. Nolan is very protective over his sister. I love sitting back and watching. As Annika was playing on the little stepping bugs, Nolan would be her bodyguard. He would hold his arms straight out and not let anyone jump on the same bug she was on, so it wouldn't knock her over. When we're walking around the track with Annika, when someone is running up behind us, Nolan will stand out in front of her/or actually behind her, but in front of the runner. As if to block their way from her. It's actually kind of funny. They of course won't run into her, but I guess he's worried about that.

My Little Princess

I've said before how Annika is at the age where she likes to wear bracelets around her arms, etc. I walked into the room and was greeted by this little princess.

Bye Bye Binky!

My goal was to have the binky disappear this summer, before Nolan went back to school. In case her screaming kept him awake and than he'd be tired at school. I was putting this off until Annika's molars came in, but than her eyeteeth were coming in so I decided to wait a little longer.

Last night I started the bedtime process like normal. She likes to snuggle on top of me for a few minutes before I put her in her own bed to fall asleep. I gave her the binky like normal and she was being goofy with it, trying to stick it in my mouth, etc. I said, "Oh, are you all done with binky?" I decided this would be a good weekend to take it away completely. I said, "Okay, bye bye binky." I finished snuggling with her, than put her in her bed with her favorite snuggle buddies. She was pretty quiet for a few minutes. Than, the screaming started. And it got worse. I went out to the garden to weed. She wouldn't quit screaming. I almost gave up, but new I needed to do this. It was time. Finally, I decided to take her out of her bed and let her play until she passed out. She finally passed out around 10:30. That's 3 1/2 hours passed the time she normally falls asleep. :P Throughout the night wasn't as bad as I was thinking. She woke up crying a couple of times, but nothing too bad. We survived the first night.

She fell asleep for her nap on the way to Adam's work. I was actually not even going to give her a nap today so she'd be REALLY tired by bedtime tonight. She didn't sleep long though, so she was pretty tired by bedtime anyway. I didn't want to hear all the screaming again tonight, so I let Annika snuggle on me until she fell asleep all the way. Which, normally she wouldn't even do that without her binky. So, we are making good progress for only night 2. Tomorrow, I'll try putting her in bed before she's completely asleep. Actually, she might just fall asleep on the way home from Pioneer Day. Than, hopefully by Sunday night, she will be a pro!

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Magic Show

This summer the library has had different people come out once a week to put on shows. We had a reptile show, science show (which we missed, forgot about that one), and today's magic show. This magician did some pretty cool tricks. The kids loved it! I think the trick that had Nolan's head spinning the most was there were a bunch of different cards like what the boy in the picture below is holding, which had the title of a book on each card. The boy chose one card and didn't let the magician see it. The magician tried to guess the name of the title by himself by drawing a picture of a Harry Potter on his little white board that's in the second picture. The boy hadn't chosen the book, Harry Potter, but the Harry Potter that the white board had on it started talking to the magician and told him to look in this envelope the size of a book that had a question mark on it. He pulled out of the envelope the book, Where the Wild Things Are. This was the book on the card that the boy had chosen.

I went to the dollar store later on and found a little magic show kit that had 15 different magic tricks. Nolan was excited to learn some. Stay tuned soon for Nolan's Magic Show!!!

Day #2

Today Nolan wanted to sell more of his cookies and lemonade. During Annika's nap we opened up a lemonade and cookie stand just in front of our house, or maybe I should say the back of our house since that's the side that faces the street. We actually live in the perfect neighborhood to do this. We didn't have as big a quantity as yesterday, but he sold out within an hour. It's amazing how supportive people are when they see kids trying to earn money. I think the first 5 cars in a row that he waved down stopped to buy. Nolan is so excited to save money to go on a mission someday.

"Kids Dream"

Nolan has his very own business! It's called, "Kids Dream." :) Today he started out by selling ice cold lemonade and chocolate chip cookies. He was very successful and it was just his first day! He made $35.50. Nolan was out waving to everyone that passed and lots of people loved it! We even have a sign man who is going to make Nolan a nice sign for free! Nolan had delivered him a free cookie. We want to go about this legally, but were so excited to get started today. It shouldn't be hard since he can do it through the catering business. When Annika gets old enough, she can join in too!

"Up, Please!"

This little girl has been saying a few new words lately. She loves to climb and is not afraid of heights AT ALL! When I'm sitting in the recliner, she'll walk over to me and say, "Up, please!" You can hear her say it in the video below...



Then, once she's in the recliner she'll climb over to the bookcase across from it.



She'll pick out which books she'd like to read and drop them on the floor.
You can also see the orange snap on watch she has on her arm. She loves to wear little bracelets or any circular thing she can put her arm through. She loves little purses to carry around with her. And she LOVES to carry her little stuffed bears and baby dolls as she toddles around the house.

Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July! We sure created a day we can laugh for years down the road. We wanted to do something fun...something we haven't tried before. For the 3rd year in a row, Adam's missed out on the parade and fireworks. Auburn has both in the evening, starting at 7, which is the time he goes to the old man. So, he wanted to do something fun during the day, so we thought we would check out the boat rental shop just down the road. I stayed home while Annika took her nap and Nolan went with Adam. They brought back a nice inflatable boat (weight limit of 600 pounds, we have to think about these things ;) ) and we packed a few things and headed to Lake Clementine. We got the boat blown up and were set to go! I was in front with Annika in my lap, than Nolan and Adam in the back. So, I couldn't see behind me since I was scared to tip us by looking behind me, even though I'm sure I wouldn't have. We must have looked quite a site though. Adam hadn't told me how water was seaping in on his half. It may have been a 600 pound weight limit, but not to where most of the weight is on one end. :) I wish I got a picture of the boat but it didn't happen. It was like a skinny little canoe type of a boat where once we were all in and situated, we better not move. And there weren't seats, you just sat directly on the bottom of the boat. It worked well for me cuz I could sit indian style, but not so well for my long legged husband (he can't bend his knees so well). Anyways, so we start paddling, or trying too...kept turning in circles and veering this way and that. We weren't having much luck. We made it to the end of the house boat docks. :) Got everything out to reposition. While we sat out on the dock for a minute and a man came up to us. He asked us how we were doing and we told him we were kind of having trouble and this was our first time etc. Than he said, "There's a rule for people who (and I kind of forgot the rest, cuz I thought uh oh, he's probably gonna be mad that we're on his dock or something)." But, the rule was that we got otter pops! :) He was a nice man after all. Well, we had a little snack and than got back in the boat. Adam sat in the middle with Nolan in front of him and than me behind with Annika in front of me. We sat off again. :P Or tried. We kept turning in circles or going backwards. We were all laughing hysterically. We had better luck not paddling at all actually and letting the lake move us, except it was moving us back in the direction we came. Oh well. We decided we better go back. This just wasn't our thing. We picked the wrong part of the lake I believe. We were a little scared to not have control and lose the boat since there was a huge water fall just to the left of the boat ramp, we had gone right, but were being pushed in that direction. I didn't feel comfortable doing this anymore. We thought we would just go return the boat, hopefully get a partial refund or something.

We got back home and asked the neighbor lady if we could use the pool. We had the pool to ourselves. It was just right! Other than Nolan getting stung by a bee and almost drowning (he forgot to put his life jacket back on after using the bathroom. He was under the water, luckily Adam was right there. Jumped in and brought him up), it was fun. Than the kids took a nap.

We only had one car at home and Adam needed to get to work. He dropped us off at the parade and we would just walk home after the fireworks. I didn't really want to deal with driving in traffic anyways. The kids really enjoyed both the parade and fireworks. Annika LOVED seeing the pretty lighted sky and didn't seem bothered by the BOOM noises at all. :)

We don't live too far from the fairgrounds, so the walk wasn't bad. It was just that last hill up to our house that wiped me out. Nolan helped me push the stroller and cheered us on the whole way! We made it back home!

There's A Wocket In My Pocket