Mel's Fantastical Insights

Alice has begun sitting up. She can sit for about a minute on her own and then for about five minutes supported. Grass is also her new favorite thing and she will grab the blanket that she sits on and move it so that she can grab the grass. She can currently pull of fist fulls of grass with no hesitation. Although she did face plant in the grass and decided that the grass was not where her head should be. Daniel loves raspberries. He loves to run outside and pick raspberries straight from the bushes. Then he loves to run around the yard at grandma's house screaming. Alvin the dog is actually more afraid of Daniel than the other way around. Our house is coming along and hopefully within the month so we can get more settled. Yellowstone was a successful trip and our kids had a blast. Daniel could not see out the binoculars so eventually we just started pointed out animals that he could see on his own which were: buffalo. Good things seeing four million buffalo was exciting...

As most of my "readers" know we have moved in with my parents for the next six weeks while we wait for our house to be finished. The move did not go as planned. It took three times as long as I thought to sort through all the little stuff that no one likes to pack. And instead of packing to go to one place we were packing stuff for storage, grandma's house and Jason's studio apartment. Cleaning out the apartment I heard was a beast as well. But hopefully this will be our last move for a long time. Daniel has been a monster lately and coming to Grandma's has cured that. He loves to water the garden with grandma in the morning. He helps take care of the two babies. He eats more regularly than he has in months. And he is still sleeping and being really good. He loves playing with his two aunts and uncle that are also living her in this big but ever shrinking house. Everyday he has told me that he doesn't want to go home until today. We were taking a ...

There is a lot to report today so we will start with a funny story. THe other day Daniel hit Jason and Jason picked him up and said "What do you need to say?" Daniel quickly replied "Thank you." It was really funny. Jason, Daniel and I walked our first 5K. It was my sister Tiffany's idea. She has started working at a new running store in Highland called Get Fit. (So if anyone needs new shoes go on in.) So all of us decdied to do it together. Now if you have seen Jason and I lately you can tell that we are not the most fit of people at the moment so our goal was to walk the 5K in under an hour and to not be last. We started off last but reached both of our goals. And since we woke up not quite a half hour before the race began we were just proud of ourselves for getting there and finishing at all. Daniel has a good time once he got in the stroller, it is just the getting him in there that kills him. He thinks he should be able to walk always. We are m...

I of course think my kids are super cute, although Daniel can also be absurdly annoying. But recently I have been more in tuned to my blessings and would like to share why I love my kids. Daniel 1. I love his enthusiasm for life. He wants to see, touch, and feel everything. 2. I love his ability to love the ridiculous things in life. Such as the plane part at the end of Toy Story 2. Or Dad making a silly noise. 3. I love that if we are in the car and Alice starts fussing he says "It's okay Alice, we're almost there. It's okay Alice no need to cry." 4. I love his "squeeze it" hugs. 5. I love that he loves saying prayers and reading scriptures. In fact about two days ago he said his very first prayer on his own. He remembered to say thank you for things and then blessed Alice. It was amazing. 6. I also love how much he loves my mom. He asks to go to grandma's at least every other day. 7. I love how much he loves music. Although he is very par...

Alright so last week we found out that our condo was put up for sale. Jason looked up the sales price, quickly realized that is was pretty low and we feared for the type of people that would be coming through to view our condo, we were right to fear. Usually I am pretty easy going and try to be accommodating but somethings are unbelievable. So these people put in an offer on our home and then the husband wanted to come check it out so their agent and our agent agreed on a time. We thought, okay they'll be here what like a half hour? So Jason and Daniel went to look at homes for us and I stayed here to watch the show. The husband proceeded to test each outlet to see if it was hot, then he was looking in the attic space, then messing with the fuses and air conditioning. He was the first to show up so we thought, ok, this is going to be alright. Ten to fifteen minutes later someone else knocked on the door. There is this lady with three kids and a pizza box. She mumbled some...

This week has been eventful. Alice has started smiling at funny sounds and especially when Daniel talks to her. She loves when Daniel gets down on the floor and "plays" with her. Daniel on the other hand has completely reverted to being a baby. He wants a blanket wrapped around him all the time, he takes "rests" on the couch like Alice, he whimpers and cries instead of talking, and is convinced that tummy time is the best time. The only big problems we have are when Daniel throws his trucks which until recently wasn't a huge problem, today that is all he has been doing. These are cute pics of Alice playing with her toys. As you can see she can already grab them and turn toward them. Alice is growing a lot and quickly. She made it through her very first Sunday at church. Everyone told me how small she is and I kept thinking, you should have seen her at three weeks...she was even smaller. Daniel has become kind of the mob king in nursery which is not as ...

This is Alice smiling. She smiled really early, around two and a half weeks and smiles everyday. She loves smiling at Jason and also loves her toys. That is what she is smiling at here in this picture. This is Alice's usual expression unless she is screaming then she looks much less content and slightly purple. As much as Daniel has been punky around Alice a lot and a perfect terrible two year old in many ways, he still is my sweet little boy. He loves trying to share toys with Alice and tells her about each toy. He also will sing to her, his favorite is "Rock a bye baby" to which he knows all the words perfectly.