2013 Kidisms

Once again, the annual round-up of the Bamatamb "Kidisms," or things my kids say that I want to remember.  Almost all of the Kidisms this year were from Bree.  She is quite the little talker.  She picks up on fun sayings and slang words (every night as we are getting her ready for bed she tells us, "I want to say 'peace out' to Miles and Tess.")  Just yesterday I overheard her saying to Bryan, "what up dog?  Hey, doggy Daddy, what up?"  She's a nut.  I think my favorite mispronunciation of hers (which I will be so sad when it's gone) is "ga-lurl" for girl.

January/February 2013

More of Bree's words:

Book= bee

Raisin= hee-nuh

Cheese= eye

Fruit leather= hah-doo

Bread= bup

Her stuffed animal cat is named "Neow Neow"

Color (like with crayons)= culley

Peekaboo= Bee-bah-bah

Orange (fruit)= owie

March 2013

Tess has been asking us a lot lately about getting her ears pierced...we're not so sure if she's ready yet. When we reminded her that her best friend (who is 8 1/2 years old) doesn't even have her ears pierced yet, Tess replied very seriously, "yeah, and do you know WHY she doesn't have her ears pierced? It's because she's not a fashionista, like me!" (ha!)

More of Bree's words:

Muffin= muh-shee

Lotion= oash

April 2013

Still more Bree-isms:

Popsicle= paw-kull-sulls

May 2013

This is turning into all Breeisms, but she's right at that age where she's talking so much and it's all so dang cute!

Strawberry= dobby dobby

Medicine= messadin

Dinosaur= dice-a-nore

Emily= Ellamee

June 2013

Excuse me= cue meez

Eskimo kiss= eckimoiss

July 2013

Tess was going to vacuum for me and she just pulled one loop of cord off of the cord holder and then asked, "If I keep this ravelled, will it just unravel as I vacuum?" :)

August 2013

Bree knows that when her food is hot, we blow on it to cool it down...just this week she has begun generalizing that idea in such cute ways: when her flip-flop fell off and she stepped on the hot sidewalk she said, "hot! Blow on it!" and tried to blow on her foot. Then that same night in the tub, she felt the water and again said, "hot! Blow on it!" and blew toward the faucet! Ha!

When Bree hears us say that something is Miles's, she notices the 2 "z" sounds at the end of it ("MileZ-Z"), but she has taken it farther and does 3 "z" sounds with pauses in between them. So it sounds something like, "this is Miles...iz...iz!"

Bree has a backpack that she loves. It is called either "bat pat" or "skoo" (for "school"). She always asks me to "wear it on," which is a combination of "wear it" and "put it on."

October 2013

More Breeisms:

garage= gazh-razh

girl= ga-lurl

breakfast= bres-kist

December 2013

yesterday= lasterday

upside down= Ups and down!

elephant= effalunt

Christmas Fun

We had a wonderful Christmas as usual.  We enjoyed being with Bryan's family on Christmas Eve for the traditional yummy ham dinner.  That night we did our little tradition of new jammies, and opening gifts from the kids--to each other and to the parents, along with opening a new family game to play (this year we got "Guess Who?" and "Clue.")

I love this face--you can tell he's pretty excited about his glow-in-the-dark bugs for his walls, from Bree.

They all loved their jammies, and Bree would not put down her two gifts from her sibs, a ball and a Minnie Mouse puzzle.  She even slept with them that night, and made sure she had them in the morning before she came out to see if Santa had come.

Tess was excited about her new telescope.

Santa brought Bree a little trampoline, which has had TONS of use--by all three kids (and even occasionally Mom & Dad too!)

 One of Tess's favorite presents was this set of earrings.  She did not have her ears pierced and has been asking now for over a year...when she realized that this gift meant it was time to get them pierced, she was thrilled. :)

Gma & Gpa Terry visited us later that morning, along with our niece Miriya, who is here from Ohio, attending school at USU (Go Aggies!).  Here is Miles, excited about his Angry Birds game.

Then we headed down to Tooele to see my side of the fam at Papa's house, followed by Gma J's house.  It was a busy, fun-filled, food-filled, present-filled day!  The kids (and parents too!) were spoiled as usual with so many generous gifts.  It was a good day.

Friday we decided to have another fun family day.  We visited Gma & Gpa Terry for a little bit and then headed to Salt Lake to play at Hollywood Connection.  The kids enjoyed the bumper cars and the merry-go-round and we all loved playing ski-ball.  But the best part was roller-skating.  The kids had never done it, and Bryan and I haven't been for YEARS (plus I was never any good anyway.)  Needless to say, Bryan had his hands full, helping people not fall down. :)  Bree even had skates too.  I spent my time going super slowly around with her (which was OK by me, since that's about my speed anyway), and Bryan would take turns going around with Miles & Tess.  I found out that we can bring a stroller in, so next time I'll definitely push Bree in the stroller--that would be much easier.

After that we went to City Creek for the big ear-piercing!  Here's Tess before:

 Thankfully they had two workers so she only had the pain one time.  She was really tough; I knew it hurt her and she got a little teary in her eyes, but did not cry.

 And After:  She was so excited!

Then we headed out to see the candy windows at Macy's.  (I'm so happy they are back, and I don't mean to complain, but is it just me, or did they used to be cooler at ZCMI?  I remember they were more extravagant, with a whole scene made of candy--walls, floor, characters, landscape, etc.?  Now they are just one big round ball ornament that rotates.  Still cool for sure, but not quite as neat as I remember.)  Lastly, we were all freezing so we walked quickly through Temple Square and mostly looked at the lights as viewed from the Joseph Smith Memorial Building--much warmer in there!

Happy 6th Birthday to Miles!

Miles had his 6th birthday Saturday, but we got to celebrate a little bit for 4 days.  First we went to dinner and then swimming on Thursday with Miles's buddy Gabe.  Then on Friday we gave Miles his birthday gift a day early, and let him blow out the candles on his robot cake.

Then we dropped the kids off at Gma & Gpa Terry's house so that Bryan & I could attend Bryan's work Christmas party up at Snowbird.  We had a nice time up there, and the kids had a great time playing with their grandparents.

Saturday morning we picked up the kids and then saw a movie.  We surprised them by taking them all back up to Snowbird with us for another night in the hotel.  Little kids always love to stay in hotels, right?  We let them eat popcorn and candy in bed while watching TV!  Also, we wanted to swim in the hotel pool.  Well, unfortunately the pool at Snowbird is an outdoor pool, and the temperature that day happened to be about -1 degree, with a blizzard blowing snow.  But, we're crazy (mostly Bryan is crazy and we all just go along with him) so we all trekked outside in our swimsuits and flip flops in a blizzard to sit in the hot tub.  We ended up staying out there for about an hour, while the snow was pouring down all around us (and on top of our heads--we had to keep wiping inches of snow off our heads!)   It was actually pretty fun!  

After breakfast in bed Sunday morning, we drove home and enjoyed dinner with Papa and Gma J.  It was a wonderful, fun-filled, family-filled weekend.  

Here's Miles's interview.  (I don't have Miles's weight, but he is TALL--the tallest kid in Kindergarten.  He is now, at 6 years old, taller than Tess was at 7 1/2 years old!  He's 48 1/2 inches tall.)  UPDATE:  I just got back from Miles's annual well-child check-up and he is 55 lb. and 48.5 in. officially.

What is a happy memory you have?  Looking at pictures of my family, pretty much.

What is one word to describe you?  Nice.

About 1 1/2 weeks old; Tess wanted us to "burrito" her like we did baby Miles.

Why do you like being a kid?  Because I don't really have to do that much stuff.

What do you like to do for fun?  I like to go to museums.

What's your favorite thing to do with your friends?  Play games.

6 months old

What's your favorite thing to do with your family?  Watch movies downstairs in our fake theater.

What's the nicest thing you did for someone?  Take my friend's toy back to his house.

What's your favorite song?  Book of Mormon Stories

10 months old

What's your favorite movie?  Despicable Me 2

What's your favorite book?  a book about Christmas

What's your favorite TV show?  Ninjago

2 years old

What's your favorite food?  Meatballs & rice

What's your favorite dessert?  chocolate cake

Who's your best friend?  Gabe, but he's moving.

3 years old

What's a talent of yours?  I can read.

What do you want to be when you grow up?  Astronaut.

What's the best thing about being 6?  I get presents!

4 years old

 

We sure love having Miles in our family.  He is outgoing and very friendly, and brave in front of a crowd.  He will get up and sing songs, or read a story in Primary, or say his testimony in Sacrament meeting without being shy at all.  He is super, duper smart and quick to laugh and giggle.  He helps me so much and he plays really well with his sisters (usually!).

Happy Birthday Mr. Miles!!

Sweet Little Helper

Our little Tess is a sweetheart.  First I wanted to mention how proud we are of her for winning an "Award of Merit" medal at the school Reflections contest.  She wrote a song on the piano for this year's contest.  It was a really great little song!  That girl has some serious piano talent.  I can play the piano while looking at sheet music but I've always been very afraid to memorize pieces and even more afraid of composing anything.  But not Tess--she sits down and just makes up songs all the time!  And they're GOOD!  I need to work with her to write some of the down more often.

Here she is showing off her award.  (check out the outfit...she put on Bree's little vest just to see if it would fit, and it did!)

But I mainly wanted to post about something that happened just last night.  Every parent knows that dinnertime can be stressful, what with hungry, tired kids, and the busyness of getting the food on the table, etc.  And it's just compounded when Bryan is out of town (which he was.)  We were having Hamburger Helper because it's quick and easy.  It's not the best food in the world by any means, but I do think that it's edible at least, and we only have it about once every few years, so it's not like I'm giving my kids this disgusting thing night after night...  Well, Bree and especially Miles were having none of it, and complaining loudly about how gross it was.  (Although neither of them had actually taken a bite yet.)  I had had enough of the whiny whiny voices and told Miles (loudly) that he better at least try one bite before he said another word.  He barely put one noodle in his mouth and then the dramatic gagging began (how do kids all know how to be SOOO dramatic!?).  At this point Bree knocked her sippy of red punch on the floor (luckily the lid didn't come off, but it did manage to spray red punch out of the sipper spot).

I just said "I'm done.  I'm going in my room for a while.  Goodbye."  and I left.  To my room, with the door shut and locked.  I was in there for about 15-20 minutes (although now that I think about it, I should have stayed for 36 minutes, right?  They say one minute of time-out for every year of your age, right?)  When I came out I noticed that Tess had cleaned everything up for me!  She put all the dishes in the sink, all the food in the fridge, wiped off the table, and even washed Bree's hands and face for me!  What a sweetheart!  She told me to go back and read the note.  I hadn't even noticed this note she taped on the wall by my door.  It says:  "I love all the things you give me so there's a surprise at the table!  from Tess.  I love you Mom.  I hope you like it!"  Then the cutest part is her little p.s. at the bottom:  "I hope you like this present because it was a lot of work for just one person!  I know how you feel!  from Tess"

I'm pretty lucky to have her as our first-born.  She's a great little helper and she's capable of so much.  I love her independence (she even makes her own lunch most days, which is so helpful on crazy mornings.)  She's my life-saver when Bryan is gone and I'm very grateful for her!

Ogden Nature Center

I really like going to the Ogden Nature Center.  I've been there on 3 different field trips now--one with Tess in the Winter where they learned about how animals adapt for the winter and they all got to have a mug of hot chocolate; one with Miles in the Spring where they learned about seeds and baby animals; and now today I went with Miles to learn about Native American tribes who first lived in Utah.  It was super fun!

First, of course, was the bus ride there.  I think that is the best part for some kids--especially Kindergartners who've never ridden on a bus before.  Here I am with my little buddy:

We first learned about the different types of homes the native tribes lived in.  There were "wikiups" which only were meant to last for 3 months because the tribe would move to a new place every season.  Of course they had teepees which were more sturdy but still transportable, and also adobe brick houses which have stood for a thousand years.  We went outside for 4 rotations: first to a teepee where we learned about some customs within the tribe.  The maternal grandmother was the leader and sat in the place of most importance in the teepee.  She would tell stories and teach the children about the world.  I was interested to learn that the Indians could not shoot buffalo with bows & arrows because their hides were so thick and tough that the arrows couldn't penetrate.  Instead they would lead some buffalo near a cliff and then scare them into stampeding off the edge!  When they fell and died, that's when the Indians would collect the bodies for meat, fur, hides, etc.

We then went to a fire pit to learn about how they would grind the corn for flour.  All the kids got to flick off some corn kernels into a bowl (made out of a hollow gourd), and then mash them with a rock.  She told how they would make corn cakes on a stone over the fire (although she cheated a little and used a cast iron frying pan), and they would use the shoulder blade of a deer as a spatula to flip their food.  Interesting!  All the kids got to have a piece of corn bread too.

Miles is holding a gourd that they might've used as a drinking vessel.

 We also saw the birds that are always at the nature center--owls, pelicans, eagles, ravens, and a funny wild turkey that follows the kids all around.  Here is Miles's whole class standing in an eagle's nest (replica) to show how BIG the nests are.

Another interesting thing was Indian "fruit roll-ups"...an Indian woman would take berries and put some in her mouth, and chew them up to separate the fruit from the seeds.  She would collect the seeds in one cheek and the fruit in the other cheek and then when they were full, she would spit out the seeds, and spit out the chewed-up fruit on a rock and smooth it out, let it dry, and have a fruit roll-up to send out with the men to eat while they were hunting.  Wow.

For diapers, they would use the bark of the juniper tree (I think it was juniper, but definitely tree bark of some sort) because it was absorbent.  They would put strips of it into a little "buffalo fur diaper" and off the baby would go in the papoose!

It was a really fun field trip and I loved going with the kids.  There was this darling little redheaded boy in Miles's class that for some reason took a real liking to me.  He was my buddy and held my hand the whole time and asked to sit with us on the bus and told Miles over and over that he had a cool mom.  It made me feel good!  Kindergartners are pretty cool.

My new friend!

Girls' Weekend

I went to Park City on Friday & Saturday for a fun "girls' weekend" with some friends from my old ward in Riverdale.  They go twice a year, but I've never been available to join them until this time.  It was so much fun!  We went up to the outlet stores first and shopped for a few hours before lunch.  Then we all headed to lunch and pigged out on good food (I did get my finger smashed in the car door on the way in to lunch, which hurt really bad, but thankfully it's OK.)

Then we went back to shop, shop, shop some more!  I am usually not really interested in shopping, and only do it occasionally when I have a gift card to spend.  Bryan doesn't ever enjoy going (what husband does?) and it's definitely not fun to bring the kids, so I just don't really ever do it.  But, being there with a bunch of friends, who actually give their opinions about outfits--instead of the usual husband "I don't care...whatever you think" response--was a lot of fun!  I probably bought more than I should have, but I'm really happy. :)

We shopped 'til we dropped and then we went back to the condo and ate junk food and scrapbooked until late into the night.  I was all jazzed to get a whole bunch of scrapbooking done, but we shopped way longer than I thought we would and I really got very little done.  Oh well, it was worth it.  Saturday morning we did a little bit more shopping, then stopped for lunch and headed home.  It was such a nice little getaway with friends!

On Saturday, I got a picture text from Bryan and the kids...he took them all up to Trappers' Loop to hike to Green Pond.  It was a beautiful day and they had a great time--even when Tess was out walking on the part of the pond that was ice-covered and her foot fell through the ice and down into about a foot of freezing cold mud!

(This is one of my favorite pictures ever.  Oh, how I love these four!)

What a great Daddy!

Halloween 2013

Our Halloween was great this year.  We started off, as usual, by carving pumpkins last night.   

Man, in this picture, our kiddos sure all do look alike, don't they? :)

 Here is Tess with her BFF, Mari, dressed as ninjas.  They love to do everything together and Halloween costumes are no exception!

 We reused this old monkey costume (that Tess wore when she was 2) for Bree.  So cute and squishy!  (And WARM!  Which is great because it was c-c-c-cold this year during trick-or-treating!)

Miles was a cool and scary looking Darth Maul.  I love his pose!

Bryan doesn't usually love to dress up, but this year at his work they were having a costume contest with prizes.  So, he decided to give it a chance.  He has had a beard for the last month or so, for hunting season, but he's sick of it now, so he figured it would be fun to shave it like Captain Jack Sparrow.  We got the rest of the clothes from DI, and the wig from Amazon, and I think he made a great Captain Jack!  (I teased him that he needed to wear his shirt really low-cut to show off his chest like Captain Jack, but he could not be persuaded.)  And guess what?  He did win a prize at work, so it was worth it! :)

 After trick-or-treating we just had to try Bryan's wig on Bree.  I need to take photos of Miles & Tess also, but here's cute Bree as half-Captain Jack and half-monkey.

Bree, Bree, Bree... or "Sleep Shenanigans"

This little gal is giving me a run for my money... but... she is the sweetest, most precious thing.  A few weeks ago, I was sitting here at the computer and Bree was behind me chomping her cereal cutely.  All of a sudden I heard her yell, "I'm show me TWO, Mom!!" and I turned around and she was holding up two fingers perfectly.  It was the first time she could make her hand into that shape all by herself.  She was so proud!

Did I mention she's TWO?  And, boy oh boy, she acts like it!  She is super independent right now and wants to do everything by herself, regardless if it takes triple the time.  Here she is after she put Tess's bike helmet on all by herself...  Ha!

She loves having her picture taken.  I used to be concerned that we wouldn't take as many pictures of her because she's the baby, and  because we're busier than we were with just one or two kids....but with the wonderful invention of smartphone cameras, I'm taking more pictures of her than both of the other kids combined!  It's just so dang easy to reach into my pocket and snap a pic.  She is constantly asking me to take her picture when she does cute/silly things.  And of course I oblige. :)

(She put the Wii remote sleeves on her feet as shoes!)

Mom's big boots!

I had to run into a store when we were all out together, so Bryan and the kids hung out in the car waiting for me.  We like driving our new car a lot, so sometimes we all take that instead of the van.  (The kids like to be close enough to each other to play and touch and tickle, and then inevitably annoy and bug each other.)  In this pic, they are hanging out in the parking lot, being silly with the seatbelts...

.....BUT....it's not all cute faces and sweet pictures.  Ugh, that girl can make a mess!  She is in the phase where she empties everything.  The closet, the box of diapers, containers full of wipes, shelves of books, baskets of toys, puzzles, blankets, 6 drawers of clothes.....and on and on.  During naptime she is a little tornado!

(Yes, she is pulling a "ha ha, I'm a little turd, but I'm cute!" face at me.)

And she has gotten in the bad habit of removing her diaper after she poops.  We walk in her room in the morning, or after a nap, and she'll be standing there naked from the waist down and there is a poo-stained diaper somewhere in the room.  The trick is finding it quickly and not stepping in any landmines that may have fallen or been smeared along the way.  Fun times!

We have resorted to putting zip-up footie-jammies on her (even at naptime) and we stick a safety pin right under the top of the zipper so she cannot unzip it.  (If she figures out how to undo the safety pin, we'll put the jammies on backwards!)  She still makes a royal mess of her room, but that is A-OK with me--I just cannot handle the pooey diaper mess!

She can put pants on and off usually without a problem, but she can't remove shirts.   But, whoa Betty, can she ever put them on!  The record that we've counted is 6 shirts at a time.  The poor girl is constantly sweaty from her layers and layers of shirts, but she's happy as a (sweaty) clam.

(I see 5 layers of shirt and 2 layers of pants in this pic.)

I try to do her hair cute, but with her new little dressing habits she is always puuuuuuullllling shirts on over her head and wrecking her hair-dos.  But, she's happy as a (sweaty, crazy-haired) clam!

(I can't look at this picture and not smile.  This kid...)

The newest goofy thing she did was just this morning when I went to get her out of bed.  I panicked because I couldn't find her.  It was dark in the room but I could tell she was not in the crib.  I looked through her giant pile of clothes on the floor (yep, I've given up on cleaning them up) and still couldn't find her!  As my eyes adjusted, I looked over and this is where I found her...

At some point last night she apparently decided it was a great idea to climb up on her dresser (changing table) and fell asleep halfway on the changing pad.  I guess she slept there all night?  Or else woke up in the middle of the night and decided to change positions....to the top of the dresser??  What?  Who does this??  What a crazy kid.  But I sure love her.