Tootsie Roll for Sissy!

My darling Mike has still not slowed down. Work is so busy right now. I'm guessing he's been home a total of 2 weeks and maybe a few extra days this year so far. He is non-stop. And "home" meaning still working at the shop. I think he was home one Sunday and didn't have to go into the shop, it was wonderful! Although he did go out and visit families with the Elder's Quorum that day. He is a wonderful person and a hard worker. (I love you Mister!)

He has been gone for 2 weeks. He came home once for about 10 min to pack some clothes and head out again. Of course I was at a girl's night that I organized (15 girls, Chinese, and Just Go With It, blast!) when he came home so we didn't even see each other. It was a bummer, although I did get to drive past him on the freeway on our way to Rock Springs, woot woot! We finally got to see each other last night! Yah! He came home at 4:40am and left at 10am. We were so so happy to play with him for about 30 min and say goodbye again. He is heading up to North Dakota right now. The kids love him so much and had so much fun playing!

I wish me and the kids could travel with him everywhere he goes, but that isn't an option with his job, so we do what we can here. We stay pretty busy. I just started working out again (I know, crazy!). When Mike is in town he goes too. Usually super early in the morning. We go to the Rec Center just up from the house. Its nice because the kids love the daycare area, and a bonus for Mommy! When I get stressed out, time to go workout!

These two are growing up so fast! I love that they are still best friends. They just make my day. I am calling Mike on the phone all the time, "Mike, guess what she just said!" I'm sure he thinks I'm a dork, but I want him to know everything!

Our Sequoia...


She is a copycat. Everything Lincoln does, she has to do. (It drives me absolutely crazy when he is super energetic because she is right along side him full of energy too, especially in church!) She is a talker! She says and knows all. But when she is talking to someone other than us, she whispers softly. When I give her a cup says, "don't spill it" or "don't blow bubbles, just drink it." Or when she is going down the stairs, "Be careful, don't fall..." I wonder who she heard that from??

This little girl is full of attitude and very independent. (I'm the "hovering mother" so that is hard for me.) She has to get in the car and in her car seat all by herself. If I touch her or give her a boost she will get down and do it again or just scream. Yes there are times when we are in a hurry and I have to do it. Not fun for either of us. She has to climb in her highchair and strap herself in. If I touch her, "No! IIIII do it!!"

She loves books and is now loving "shows" just like her big brother. Mickey Mouse, Leapfrog, and Baby Einstein are her top picks. She is wonderful when its time for nap and bedtime. She just plops right down in her crib and snuggles in her blankie and is the happiest ever. (Love!) She still wakes up and screams every other night, but Mommy will live. She loves her friends Grant, Carter and Inara, most of the time. She goes pee pee on the potty about 50% of the day. And of course she insists on dumping it herself and cleaning herself up which gives Mom a heart attack, but she does need to learn to do it herself, right?

Quoi is absolutely beautiful! We love her so much:)

A couple nights ago she wanted to sleep in Lincoln's bed with him. After about 10 min of them playing and laughing in his room, I had to divide them. But they really were so darn cute together!

Our Lincoln...

He is our energizer bunny! He is so full of happiness and just wants to play and do everything all at once. I just think he can't decide what we wants to do more, so he tries to do it all. He is a sweet boy. He loves to give hugs and smooches to his little Sissy and Mommy and Daddy all the time. When he gets in trouble for anything he says, "I need my hug..." He loves to snuggle with Daddy for bed time until he falls asleep. He loves to play with Sissy and says to her, "We are friends." (So cute!) He is so excited to go to school every time and is making new friends.

He is a super boy at going potty on his own. No problems since he decided. He did great at Wal-mart today and stayed close to Mommy the whole time, huge step! He likes to exercise with Mommy and Sissy. He can count to 50. He can spell his own name (as of yesterday)! According to him, he is a boy, Quoi is a girl, I am a Mommy and Daddy is a Daddy. He is a very good sleeper. He pretends (a lot) there is a dinosaur coming and stops his feet just like Daddy. Mickey Mouse is number one for him. He still likes Baby Einstein and loves Peep and the Big Wide World (Quoi loves it too). He hasn't watched Disney movies recently; he says they're "too scary." Love this guy!!

I've been talking to his teacher and an Occupational Therapist from his school and they say that he is still pretty busy. Usually kids start catching on to the routine within a few weeks but he isn't quite there yet. They've suggested a few times now that they want to put a "weighted vest" (a vest with weights in the pockets) on him for 20 or so minutes at a time. It is supposed to calm him down and be a "comfort" for him. We said no but they keep asking so we are going to have a meeting and figure out what we can do. Vest? Weird? Are we just old school and missing out on all the cool new things for hyper kids? We'll see...

Just hanging out in the van.

She just woke up from her nap, awesome hair Quoi.

Grandma Phister sent them some clothes in the mail. You would have thought it was Christmas morning the way put the clothes on. They were so happy! Thanks Grandma!

Nope, they wont look away when it is their show time.

Cute Baby Carter. Lincoln just tonight told me, "I have Grant, you have Toni, and Sissy has Carter." So cute.

Lincoln playing at Grant's house.
(Me, Toni, and Amanda went to Toni's, put the kids to bed, and stayed up chatting till almost 1am. I only get to talk to Mike a couple minutes each day, so I need my chat time!:)

:)

I came into Sequoia's room one morning to these two darlings together:)

I'm pretty sure bath time is their favorite time of the whole day.

And I've decided meal time is my least favorite times of the day. She is so messy and it makes me so stressed! It's a bummer its three times a day:(

But I can't stay mad at her too long, she's way too cute!

Hi!!

Ok they are both messy:)

He was dressing himself and was so confused why his upside down shirt wasn't fitting.

We got to watch Nara while Lincoln was at school. The girls don't get to play just with each other too often. They were having such a fun time giggling and laughing. But of course by lunchtime, they were done. I heard a scream and walked into the living room and saw Quoi jump on Inara and grab her face with both hands screaming. Lovely. Inara used to be the bully, but I'm thinking Sequoia has had enough. Oh my! Quoia is something else!!

You would never know she was mean by looking at her:)

Lincoln's "cheese" smile:)

And Quoia's

During nap time I heard a noise and found this. Love him!

Quoi got her first Tootsie Roll!! She went poo poo in the potty for the first time all on her own! She was so happy to finally get her treat!

Yah, so happy eating their Tootsie Rolls! We've got some big kids!

Lincoln was so excited to spell out his name for Daddy today! He taught himself!

The girls giggling away

"I am awesome!"

Hi Daddy! Do you love how well he holds still?? :)

Another quick Hi to Daddy!!

Potty Trained Boy!!

Daddy got some darn cute pics of our girl in boots:)

Life wont stop long enough to write it down! I'm sure I'll miss a lot of fun facts, but I'll sure try. Biggest news to start out.... Lincoln is officially POTTY TRAINED! WAHOO!! It was coming home from the baby shower in Ut when he told me he needed to go a couple times. We pulled over every time and he went (whether it was a gas station, grass, parking areas, or wherever!) So from then on for 2 weeks now, no accidents day or night. He wears undies all the time!! Huge accomplishment Lincoln! (He even went poo poo at school!!) And I will be honest, it is a bit of a bummer for night-time because we have to leave the door open now just in case he needs to go potty. Therefore, he wakes up around 6:30am very morning now! Ah!! But I guess I'll live with it if he's going potty...

Mike has been home this whole week, miracle! Of course still at the shop till later M-F, but no jobs. It has been pretty fun to have a somewhat "normal" life. He still came home at times after the kids were in bed, but it was still great to hang with him later. We love having Daddy around.

While I was getting ready for the day, I came out and found a huge fort Daddy and the kids made. Awesome.

We went to Utah for Annica's baby shower on the 5th. We left that morning and came back later that night. We made a stop in Evanston at Walmart for an hour! (It takes so long to do anything with these munchkins) But Lincoln did very well staying dry the whole trip! And it was super fun to hang out with family for a while and for the kids to play with Koban.

This is Quoia on our way back home from Grandma's; she had a fabulous time:)

And Linc...we barely made it to the gas station and he was out.

Darling Koban:)

He had a blast and of course did not hold still at all! I had to put him in here to have some peace for a moment.

Silly Grandpa:)

Love her!!

And love these darling twins.

These 3 were so funny! They wrestled and wrestled forever. The kids just had a blast with Aunt Kiki.

Quoi started copying her.

So cute!

Mommy Tenille and Kob

The kids got to help Annica open her gifts.

So on Ty's birthday party night, Daniel and Annica show up with Annica wearing a super cute shirt they bought at Spencers that day. They were so excited to show us how "cute" it was. Well.... after a while we were all just staring at them and finally Anna says, "Oh, they don't know!" (Don't worry, I wont post the picture;) They had no idea what was exactly on that shirt. From Spencers, need I say more?? She was mortified! Daniel of course loved it even more. Anyways, we finally held her down and I got a picture of it. So....

For an extra baby shower gift I took it upon myself to print out the pictures and frame it just for her, I know, so sweet right?:) She was not too happy about that, but come on, how could I not??

She just decided to lay down on him while they ate their snacks, such nerds!

Tired cute boy with a boo boo

Oh yeah, and I forgot! So the next day after Lincoln hit his head, he was upstairs in his room for "quiet time" and he decided to rip off his expensive piece of glue on his head. Thanks Buddy:) It was kind of funny. When I saw it I asked him what happened and he said, "Oh, I took the bandaid off." Like it was just another bandaid, whatever. Oh well, what do ya do. It's actually a super cute wrinkle on his forehead now. It'll be awesome:) Really, if I would have known I wouldn't have taken him in, but I guess you live and learn.

She had so much fun with Daddy's luggage, that was her toy all day.

Of course everything is digital these days, so Linc had so much fun holding pictures of himself and Sissy!

Cheese!

More Cheesers!

He made a big train of crayons.

Ta-Dah!

I started going to a book club and I love it. I'm going to try to read my books and go each month. I also finished my Personal Progress again! It feels so good and it was a wonderful experience to do it again. I love setting goals and sticking to them. It's just the setting of the goals that I need to work on:) Now I'm going to work on getting my "Bee" (read the Book of Mormon again and give 40 hrs of service) I want to get it before I get released from Young Womens, so I better get working!

These past weeks have been busy (and I don't like to be "busy") They've been full of extra Young Womens things going on, a new play group we go to, library's story time, tanning, working out (rare!) and just a bunch of extra things. I went to Lincoln's first Parent Teacher Conference. They said he's still pretty "busy" and quite energetic, but really smart. He is good with other kids and isn't mean, and if someone does mess with him, he just runs and gets an adult. Good boy! They can tell we read a lot of books at home because he loves them. He is doing great and loves school and his teachers. And its been super fun to be with Quoi by herself.