Ophelia's big 4!

I could begin each post about Ophelia's birthday with words: "I can't believe I am a Mom of _-year old!" Because that's how I feel every time she turns a year older! She is just growing up so fast. I feel that especially this summer she has just sprouted! Her 3T clothes that were worn all year long have become too small now. When I see her playing with peers I don't see her as being the most petite one any more, she is up there with all of her friends. She has been loving "running" with me at the gym lately. After my workout, me and the kids go up to the track and she takes off as fast as she can and run a whole lap. She really is fast, too! Emerson tries hard to keep up, flailing his little pudgy arms by his sides as he runs, and yells "fas! fas! fas!", meaning "fast!".

At her well-child visit, Ophelia's stats were: 30th percentile for weight, 40th for height. Our pediatrician, Dr. Spencer loves talking to Ophelia and in turn she loves going to the doctor. She wrote her name for him and drew shapes that he asked her to draw. He asked her to jump like a kangaroo, she did it, then like a frog, she did it. All to check her physical development. Then she started jumping differently and asked the doctor: "Guess, what am I now?!" We giggled about that one :) Totally turned the game around. The nurse was trying to check her vision and showed her a board of letters, pointing at a letter on it, the nurse asked: "What is that?" Ophelia just looked at her questioningly and answered: "Letters!". Love it! Ophelia got two shots this time. She laid on the table super still and squeezed my hand. Her eyes got big and scared as soon as the needle punctured her leg, but she did not cry at all. So brave! She checked out perfectly normal in all aspects. And extremely well in some. I sure feel a proud mama when the doctor compliments me on how bright my child is!

One day randomly in the car Ophelia was talking about who she is going to be when she grows up, thinking out loud, this is what I was hearing: " Mama, when I grow up, I want to be a Mommy...I'm going to have kids and we will drive a car...(thoughtful pause) Mama, where do we buy a car?"  :) Love it! I am growing a mini me: a planner, an organizer, a detail-oriented little individual :)

For her birthday party this year we decided to rent a pavilion at a splash pad. I think it worked out wonderfully. My house was clean, we were able to invite lots of friends (everyone who she put down on her own list), I didn't need to plan and execute games and activities. It got a little hot towards the end, but the cake was still delicious even though the frosting was a little melty. Here are a few pictures from the party:

Oh, the theme that she picked and I made her stay with it once I ordered decorations online was "Rainbow Pony". The napkins and plates matched the theme perfectly (imagine that?) and other things...well, I did my best. Plus, as soon as the party started, really, she did not even ask, say, or pay attention to it. She loved the little unicorn/pony couple off her cake. The day after her party, she started telling me already that next year she want a "rainbow party", a few days later - a "flower party", and here we go again!

This girl loves frosting! Just like her Grandma! She'd rather have a bowl of frosting, hold the cake :)

I love this age of Ophelia, when it is easy to reason with her. In the stores, she'll always want to look at toys, books, candy, etc. and will tell me what she wants for her next birthday. And I usually agree in a nice motherly way: "uh-huh". I am so glad that she did not remember her loooooong list of requests as she got her presents this year. She was excited to get anything:

Our happy little boy joyfully wearing his favorite hat:

He loves wearing it a lot and he pulls it onto his head and keeps it there for sometimes at least 30 minutes! Such a hoot! He makes me smile a lot. I especially enjoy how "huggy" he is with everybody and everything. He randomly comes up to me throughout the day, lays his head on me, thumb in mouth and say: "Mama. Hug." I love it!

Emerson had his 18-month well-child visit this month too. His stats were: 20th for weight, 5th for length, 70th for head. He is growing, he gained a pound since the last appointment, just not as fast as the charts want him to grow. And I'm fine with that. As far as I'm concerned, he can just stay little forever! He showed off his vocabulary for the doctor, so the doctor noted that Emerson is very smart. And he also said that "it is rare that each of the two kids is so good, but both of your children are just great". He mainly meant how well-behaved they were, so, once again, going to the doctor made me feel like a good Mom...I must be doing something right!

The other day Emerson said a three-word sentence for the first time in his life: "Mama. Milk. Please." I just can't ever refuse Emerson, because he is ALWAYS so stinkin' polite! He ALWAYS says "please" and, in addition, he ALWAYS follows it with "ta-koo" (thank you) or "tak, Mama!" (thanks, Mama). It's so amazing to me, because even his greatest example of his big sister is not that good at saying please and thank you all the time. Some other gems out of his mouth: he says "apapap" for lollipop and "ah-peace" for ice cream, and he can say "applesauce" no problem! Most of all I love it when he busts out singing with his head tilted back: "The Preisthood is Restored" is more like "Peace...Resto-ahd". "Ga-ga-ga" = I am a child of God. We are growing a future missionary, no doubt about it. Just a year ago the Prophet has announced the age lowering for missionaries to be 18 for guys and 19 for girls. I get teared up thinking about our kids leaving our home and now it will be even sooner than I though! I know it will all be worth my tears though :)

Ophelia started her new preschool this month "First Foundations Preschool". Here's he first day of school picture:

She looks so grown up! I decided to switch her to this school to help her get used to a more traditional school environment and learn more about classroom rules and dynamics. Although we miss the Butterfly Garden a lot, I feel like she will benefit from this experience in preparation for kindergarten next year.

Tiny Vacation to Utah

To our family of homebodies a second vacation in a month is pretty crazy! But I think after the Colorado experience our kids were more used to things being not normal, vacation-style, no-schedule. This Utah trip went really surprisingly well! We did ensure a couple of things happened for the trip to be smooth: non-stop flight Austin-Salt Lake City, and staying with friends who have kids/grandkids, who's houses are child-proof and full of toys/entertainment. On our flight there, our booked three seats turned into four when a lady next to us moved up a row. It was nice for everyone to have a spot and to not be crammed. The kids are small enough to fit into one seat, but the constant quarreling and fighting about things gets annoying really quickly in a small airplane. Ophelia was pretty easy occupied with watching something and coloring/doodling, but Emerson as usual is hard to please. The fingerplays, songs, and bouncing him on my knees worked best to make the time pass, oh, and food, of course. He also enjoyed patting a sleeping gentleman in front of us on the head and standing on the armrest flirting with ladies sitting behind us...

At first we stayed with our wonderful old friends, the Clark family. They have three beautiful very active children, so needless to say our kids had lot of fun there! We took the kids to Temple Square:

Ophelia was working on her picture-taking skills:

I'm not going to post the dozen pictures of the sidewalk that she took, but here are a few of the flowers that were pretty good:

She came up to a random couple sitting by the sidewalk and asked to take a their picture with our camera!!!! And they said "Sure!". She didn't push the button hard enough, so the picture was never actually taken, but good grief...that girl is not shy! And people just can't say no to her!

The beautiful temple:

Ten years ago it was just the two of us on this pedestal taking our wedding pictures, but look at us now, definitely multiplied:

The kids really liked the Christus statue. Emerson enjoyed the acoustics in this room and kept yelling "ECHO!!" at the top of his lungs, so we had to leave pretty quickly to avoid being escorted out:

In the visitor's center Ophelia enjoying pushing all the different buttons and watching all these beautiful videos:

Before we left, we let the kids splash around in these fountains. Emerson got soaked! He loved it until the one straight shot into his face :) I have a great video of that, but I submitted it to America's Funniest Home Videos, so I had to take it down from any "public" websites.

With the crazy vacation schedule, our whole nap routine was out the door, so the kids slept in the rental car a lot. And with all these places to see and things to do, they were wiped out a lot. Also, late bedtime added to them being extra tired during the day. The Clarks live out in Eagle Mountain, so we had a usual drive of one hour one-way if we wanted to go anywhere. PJ and I appreciated quiet car rides though!

Our friend Mash came out to EM with her hubby James and their kids for a bit. Here is their sweet little baby:

Here is the blue-eyed team of our kids and the Clark kids:
                                          

Good times! It was so fun to spend time with those guys! Olya took our family pictures while we were there too. She is an amazing photographer, so I can't wait to see the results!

We went to visit Provo one of the days. This is a the playgroup at Wymount where we used to live the last 2 years of our BYU career. The place looked the same, beautiful and clean, but the playgrounds seemed awfully small! I guess when we had not kids we really couldn't judge that and had nothing to compare to. So many wonderful memories of Provo and our first married years flowed into my head as we were driving around. Ahhh, nostalgie!

Beautiful temple, gorgeous mountains:

Can you spot the Y in the back?

This is where PJ first laid his eye on me! Jamba Juice!

And this is the bench where PJ proposed to me :) The kids weren't as excited about it as we were:

Saturday was the big event for which we made our family trek out to Utah: Aaron and Ada's wedding. It was a beautiful small ceremony at the International Peace Gardens and the reception followed at a nearby park. It was so perfect to have the reception by the playground, and the sandpit. We look like a family of little people compared to the newlyweds over here:

Emerson was just finished eating a batch of sand, so that's why he is shirtless...I was trying to clean his sandy face up!

After the wedding, we headed to our second stop, the Hegji's home, or, as Ophelia kept calling them, the Hedgehogs. So wonderful to have had our kids meet my other set of parents! They are wonderful and so loving. We had an awesome visit with them!

Ophelia knew for a while that her actual birthday will be spent in Salt Lake City, so we kept telling her that we won't have any big parties then, but that we'd celebrate the following weekend. But in reality it turned out that we celebrated a lot that day. In the morning Aaron's Mom put a candle in a doughnut and everyone sang her a happy birthday. (We were in Orem for Aaron's sister's baby blessing.)

To continue her birth day, the Hegji's got Ophelia a beautiful princess cake, which she was most excited to eat, ever since she saw it the night before.

She sure enjoyed that pink frosting:

Our trip to Utah was only five days long, but seemed much linger because we did so many things, saw so many people, visited so many places. While in Orem is stopped to see my good friend from freshman year, Angie and her cute family. It was a short visit, but was so good to see how wonderfully they are doing. Ah, just not enough time for all of our Utah friends... Oh, well...till next time!