H is for Hockey

Its time for a boy centered post.

Saturday we ventured in to Calgary to go see cousin Holton play Hockey!

So cute watching a bunch of 5 year olds chase the puck play hockey.

Holton is Number 20- he goes in and SCORES. One of his 3 of the morning!

After a hour of watching Hockey we swam with Larsons, Leishmens, and Grandma Moxley. Sorry no photos…. maybe next time- we have been to Southland Leisure Center a couple times now- I will make the extra effort for a couple photos!

Expressions

I have to remember this face and his endless expressions.

Here is the first one, and my favorite.

Its his "I-am-so-not-impressed-with-you" or his "feel-bad-for-me-and-pick-me-up" face

It just cracks me up.

Side View:

This one, here is great too.
His "I-am-trying-not-to-grin"face.

Here is the face that he pulls when his tongue is in need of some serious sucking.

This is his normal expression. We call it his "Winston" face (after Winston Churchill).

Side View:

His smile. Oh its faces like this that light up my day!

Brother has the funniest expressions.

Wedding Helper

Nicole is getting married!
YAY for her and Carter.
She so nicely put me in charge of a few things!

Nicole and Carter Subway Art for a gift

It was stressful cause I wanted it to be perfect, but it was fun too!

In fact I had to make one for Justin and I… 

I kinda got carried away and made another one… 

Pre K Packs

"Mommy can we do a craft or something today?" K

I hear this everyday.

Its cute, bless her heart.

Good thing the craft world and I  like Pintrest, Google and Blogs.

Lately the girls are all about Pre K packs.

A likes the matching, numbers and size sequencing and K likes the practice cutting and writing. 

I wish they liked the Alphabet sheets more….

Beware Iphone Photos

 

 

The girls don't always want to focus for long. So I do what I can to keep them going…

instead of using glue 24/7 we sometime switch to tape. The girls LOVE tape.

Pens or markers instead of always crayons.

When A completes a puzzle or match she would take a photo with my Iphone.

Stickers, when they are done a page, Mommy puts a fancy dorky sticker on top.

And the Best one, the girls save their pictures and work to show Daddy and Grandma and Grandpa and ect….

*See Brother standing beside A? He pulls himself to stand at their table and tries to "help?" At least thats what I tell A he is doing. He goes for those papers and his sisters squeal in protest… oh its gonna be fun watching him grow up with 2 sisters!!

Love you

Its hard being apart.
Somedays harder then others.
We must have been on the same page last weekend.
Justin came home 4 hours early and surprised me with FLOWERS!

Iphone Photo

At the same time I was at home making him a photo collage with the help of Duck Tape (his fav).

Totally on the same page eh? lame ;) but true
Anyway- I loved the flowers and the thought that went into them.
The girls loved them too.
Brother loved them even more- in fact Sunday night he loved them so much he grabbed em, spilled em (on grandpa), and ate em.
He killed them.
So Monday morning the girls did a craft with Mommy's dead flowers from Daddy.

K asked if we could rip more flowers apart.
Opps.
Guess I need to be more clear about flowers and their REAL purpose.
Thank you again Justin for my flowers.
I loved them both ways.
well…. maybe I loved them more the first way.

Blog to Book 1

I got my 2010 Family Blog Book Yesterday!!!
YAY! WOOT WOOT.

I am so excited!! I choose Blog to Print for this Book. I chose them mostly because of price, convince of having them do it and I couldn't get Blurb to work.
Here are my pros and cons….

Pros:
We have a hard copy journal of 2010 for the girls to look at.
Blog to Print did all the work for me. I just entered my blog address.
Blog to Print did all the work for me. I just entered my blog address.
Blog to Print did all the work for me. I just entered my blog address….. get how great that was?*
If Google ever loses my blog, or more likely it gets accidentally erased I have a copy.
They let me do 248 pages for $135

*Have you looked around at software where you do your own layout and photo size, page arrangement ….ect…. its hard! At least personally I found it extremely time consuming and stressful- mind you I just wanted to get it done.
*FYI our 2010 book is a 1 inch thick! :)

Cons:
Photos are all same size. I would have liked them way bigger. Granted this would have drove the price up, but I would rather pay more for bigger photos.
When a Blog Post only took up 2/3 of a page they started another post….even if the title just fit. I would rather have the titles at the top of the page.
AND- this is my own fault- I should have named it Moxley 2010. Oops.

Anyone who has done this before have any advice… what company did you use to do this??

Anyways. I still LOVE it and the girls LOVE it even more. I am sure my love for this book will grow through the years!!

Snapshots

Aunt Laura doing Nails

Playing Princess and Ballerina

Mommy giving loves

Brother learned to go pull himself to standing. He also LOVES the stairs, he can go halfway up then get stuck or fall. Fun times.

Julius Drinks…. Yum!

Went and saw Great Grandma Chipman last weekend. A took like 15 pictures of her with the Iphone. I love Grandma Chipman, and the fact that her house smells like Tide and Sunday Dinner Roast.

Netflix…. was it a good idea??

Puzzles with Auntie.

Routine =Learning

We have a bedtime routine. Snack, usually rice crispy's or a raw hot dog and a cheese string, then pajamas scripture reading, prayers, tuck them in and then drinks and lights out.

Most of the time we struggle to get the girls to listen to a column of scripture, so to get their attention we sing songs before and after reading. A likes to sing the ABC's and K likes to sing Jesus wants me for a sunbeam, but we are also learning The Books of the Book of Mormon.

These videos are the girls showing Daddy how much they are learning. And Yes, A's face is got ketchup all over it, cause she was eating hot dogs, try and see past it… its distracting I know...BUT the funny part of these videos is how much of the girls personality come out.

Here is K. Dancing around as she sings. Very typical of her…. best part she totally wipes out also very typical.

Then heres A singing. I tried to video her twice. The fist time she made me stop because she wanted to do it herself,the second time she starts off by herself THEN she lets me help. Not only that, she also freaks out when K sings with her… typical.

They crack me up.

12 on the 12th …. or 12 on 17th

Baby Whisperer

I am the Baby Whisperer

Actually... I am the exhausted, bags-under-the-eyes, gonna pass out, Baby Whisperer

With both our girls we did Sleep Training, well actually Daddy did the sleep training. With K Mommy would burst into tears and with A Mommy was too busy trying to deal with K. Daddy isn't here to help me sleep train so I kept putting it off. Now waking up every 2 hours is getting to me and Brother is getting worse and worse, so it was time to do some sleep training. I kept putting it off, cause once you start you have to be very consistant. NOT STOPPING until they are trained. It can be very exhausting.

Anyways back to the Baby Whisperer.
Best time to train your Baby in the proper Sleep Patterns is 4-8 months. Brother is going to be 8 months old in a few weeks, so its now or never.

4years ago our good friends Ryan and JuYoung gave us this book.

We had just found out we were expecting our 2 child, our first child was 5 months old. We were chuckling about it, but in reality I was bawling inside. You see at this point we were still rocking K to sleep and the news that another was on his/her way made us realize K would eventually have to sleep on her own.

So I took a deep breath, and this week I started.
Here's how we sleep train.

1. Make sure he is calm

2. Make sure he is feed and not hungry

3. Use a short routine to let him know it is nap time/bedtime. With brother I carry him into the dark room, check his bum, and sing to him for a min.

4. Put him in his crib while he is sleepy but awake.

Justin sleeping on K's floor.. she took FOREVER
to train!!

5. For the first couple days I stay in the room. I sit right beside the crib, so he can see, staying very quiet. When starting to fuss (fuss not cry) I will go "shhh shh shh" in a soft mommy voice, sometimes I will reach in and touch him so he knew I am near. If he starts to cry I pick him up and sooth him, then once he is calm I lay him back down. Now the first couple of times this is the longest step ever. Only work on this step for a hour. If they don't go to sleep, pick them up and do not let them nap until the next nap time. Then do it all over again.

Now in the book they suggest doing this until they go to sleep successfully for a week. Those of you with 3 kids or more, know that is slightly difficult, with other children needing you. So for Brother I did it for 2 days until he knew I wasn't going to rock him to sleep, he learned quick, something to do with being a third Im sure. With K (our first) this step took over a month before she was calm enough for us to leave the room. IT was brutal.

6. After they have mastered step 5 you lay them down and leave the room. Go back in every 3 mins when they are fussing, calm them with a touch or word, then leave. If he CRIES I pick him up and sooth him. This step is repeated until they are able to sleep on their own.

Obviously the Book goes into way more detail. And by no means am I saying let your child cry it out, we do not agree with that. But yes when they are learning to sleep on their own, fussing will happen. If you are a parent you know the difference between fussing and cry/screaming.

Once Brother sleeps on his own and can sooth himself to sleep then we are hoping he will sleep at longer intervals through the night!  Today I laid him down for his morning nap and I only had to go in once and go "sh sh sh" - next thing I know he is out like a light!! And last night he woke up the same number of times, but he was WAY easier to put back to sleep and I didn't have to nurse him as long to put him back to sleep!
YAY now maybe I can get some sleep!!

K Update

Someones playing a trick on me. Time is being stolen right in front of me!!!

Above: August 2011

Below: January 2012

I cant believe I have a FOUR YEAR OLD!

• she is no longer my baby, she is reminding me everyday she's the oldest
• she can pour milk without spilling
• goes to preschool 3 afternoons a week, and is excited to go
• she is such a big help with her brother
• she loves brother and plays with him most of the day. Moving him from where he is playing so that he can play right beside her.
• she can sing songs I didn't know she knew
• she loves candy and sugar. She will say, "Mom I think I need sugar" WHAT? Thats her Daddy form coming out
• she is a horrible eater. She is always the last one done, and even then Mommy usually helps her finish
• she is such a sweetheart. Always protecting her siblings
• she is also a leader, errrr she like to be in charge of play time. Oh anytime really.
• she is SOOO picky about her clothes. She picks her clothing everyday, except when we are doing something and Mommy needs to pick. Then its usually a fight
• she wants her hair down all the time. If Mommy puts something in it, she RIPS it out
• she gives the best hugs, and she will let me hold her for "Mommy face time"
• she loves her sister and plays with her 24/7. They do everything together.
• she can buckle up and answer the phone.
• she loves girlie things, pink and getting her finger nail painted
• her favorite question to ask "Mommy can we do a craft today"
• she thinks we need to be busy all the time. When we go to long without seeing additional friends she complains her cousins are missing her
• BTW she still calls everyone her cousins
• she likes to play dress up- either in a swimsuit or ballet costume
• she is so emotional. Overly excited and happy one min and sobbing the next min
• at 4:30 she becomes hyper… the crazy hyper
• once she sets her mind to something, there is no changing it. All we get usually get is a massive fit when we try.
• sometimes she just needs hugs, so she crawls on my lap and curls into me… I try and hold her as long as I can. Im gonna miss this
• she likes princess her favorite is "all of them"
• when she gets too tired she tell me.

This is way harder the older they get! In all K has grown to be a great big Sister and a Beautiful Daughter inside and out. 

Doing these updates every once in a while is so fun. I love reading back and seeing how they were a year or so ago. 

I wish I could do more…. like bottle my feelings, thoughts and time, and then when I want to remember I can just breath in and transport back to this special time of their lives.

I love my kids so much it hurts, and it hurts to know that everyday that passes they are getting older and I am never getting that day back. 

Thats why I blog. Its my Journal with photos and its our daily family record that Daddy can see and be there with us. This is important to me. To us.

Love to Laugh

I love to Laugh
It come naturally. Handed down through the generations.

Grandma is the best laugher.
AFV is her show.

Growing up I remember watching it as a family every Sunday night.
Justin and I do it with our girls now.

Now that we are with Grandma and Grandpa for a while,
AFV Sunday nights are even funnier.

A Update

A has grown a ton in the last 6 months!

Above: August 2011

Below: January 2012

• she is using sentences. Using the words with, the, it, when, why, what and if.
• she can go to the bathroom without help
• she gets dressed by herself
• can play on the computer
• she still naps, but occasionally will be miss and not be too miserable
• gets her coat and boats on by herself
• loves to help mom with cooking and baking
• loves to snuggle, but only when she is upset about something
• we are learning the books of The Book of Mormon and she LOVES singing the song
• she likes Max and Ruby, Rugrats, but mostly Dora the Explorer
• Honey and Mom is her favorite game
• she loves helping Grandma get ready in the morning
• she says I love you without provocation
• she comes up with the funniest things like "My tummy needs more food!"
• she runs everywhere, with her little arms swinging along
• her fake laugh is hilarious
• she thinks baby talk is when you stick your tongue out and yell- she does this often with Brother
• she misses K terribly when K is at school
• she cannot be left alone with Brother
• TaTa is how she says K
• she could play the ipad/iphone FOREVER
• annoying her sister on purpose is one of her life callings
• she naps like a dream, laying down so good and sleeping for 1.5-2.5 hours
• her favorite foods are granola bars, raw hot dogs, oranges and Mommy's 7 grain bread with butter
• she is scared of everything: Heights, animals, loud noises, etc...
• every answer is no, this accompanied by the head shake
• she is a great eater, there is nothing she wont eat
• she will eat all of Daddy's onions for him, raw or cooked makes no difference
• she wants to do everything without help, she will yell "Me do, Me self"
• one of Grandpa's favorite A saying is "Yes me do too"
• bath time is her favorite time of day
• she loves babies anybody's baby
• Blue is her favorite color. If its not blue, its not happening
• Pajamas are her everyday wardrobe. When she HAS to get dressed, it has to be blue.
• she is so happy 90% of the time
• she says her prayers with and with out help- depending on her mood