Rainy Days

Rainy days can be pretty fun too. Especially when you love to build forts. And read books in forts. And watch movies in forts. We sure love forts! But we also love sunny days, and would love to have them continue! We are looking forward to summer days, with an occasional (very occasional) rainy day to build some forts and stay in our pajamas all day!

New Things

New Books- This past weekend Matt's dad spent a night at our house because he was in town. We picked him up from the airport on Friday night, went out to dinner together, and then came home and spent a little bit of time together. He brought the kids some new books, which they loved! If there is one thing that Sydney loves, and has always loved, it is books! I remember her as a baby sitting and looking through books, so new ones are always fun to have. The kids sure enjoyed spending some time with Grandpa and didn't want to go to bed. Unfortunately they couldn't stay up late because we all had to get up super early to drive to Idaho Falls for a wedding.

New Experiences- While we were at the church for the wedding, we were walking around the halls, when Sydney walked right into the corner of a table. It gave her a small gash in her head that just kept bleeding. It was her first "big" injury (that actually required a band aid) and was the first time that the word "stitches" actually entered my mind. Luckily it wasn't deep enough for stitches. Chris and Lisa had a first aid kit in their car, so we put a regular band aid on it, and headed to Wal Mart to buy some butterfly bandages to pull her skin together so it wouldn't scar. We ended up buying a first aid kit for our car as well- something I would suggest to everyone! Something about an injury to one of my kids, even a small one, just melts my heart. I sure wish I could protect them from everything, but we all know that is not possible. It makes me appreciate our Heavenly Father giving us the opportunity to come to this Earth and learn. I am sure that it is not easy for Him to watch what we go through. On the positive side, it is so neat to watch your child overcome something that is hard for them, or to heal from an injury, and Sydney sure was darling with her little band aid on her head...

New Blog- My mom has been working at Weight Watchers for 17 years now. We put a blog together for her members. I try to update it for her once a week. It has some yummy, low-fat recipes on it. Feel free to check it out! Just so you know, my favorite recipes are: Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies, Lemon Chicken Pasta, and Shepherd's Pie. I would have never known they were low fat, because they are yummy! (Which I can't say about all of them because I haven't actually tasted them all, but hey, I'm sure they are all pretty good if you are on a diet!) http://wwkris.blogspot.com (or Dreams Becoming Reality in my blogroll)

mmmmm...mush!

A few days ago we started giving Cooper rice cereal for breakfast. Here are a few play-by-play pictures of his first meal. My favorites are of him scowling, like what on Earth is this? and his mouth wide open with mush on his face. He is getting more used to it with every feeding.

In other news, we finally had Cooper's 6 month appointment today. He is doing great! The doctor says he sure knows how to eat! (We already knew that) He also said we have pretty much missed our chance at getting him to take a bottle. So it looks like Cooper will be my side kick till we wean him in 6 more months. Truthfully, I don't mind too much. Matt was in a drawing at work to win a cruise around the Hawaiian Islands, so we had been working feverishly on giving him bottles in order to go on it because it was a sure thing that he would win. Unfortunately, they changed the rules of the drawing, and his chances were slim to none (long story) but we didn't win it, so now Cooper can be one happy baby without us bugging him to take bottles all of the time. I guess we'll wean him straight to sippy cups and plan any dates we try to go on around feeding times... there could be worse things :)

Sunny St. George

Sydney, Cooper, and I took a quick trip to St. George this past weekend with my mom and brothers and sister. We also met my Aunt Diane, Grandma McEwan, and Kourtney there. Matt and my dad had to work, and were both at home. Brett had a baseball tournament in Mesquite on Friday and Saturday, so we went down for that. We left early Friday morning in order to make it to his tournament on time and drove straight to Mesquite. He played two games on Friday, with a break in between, so we got to St. George pretty late, after watching his games. Then we got up early on Saturday to go to two more games. Because Brett's team won 3 of the 4 games they made it to the playoffs. They had a longer break this time, so we drove back to St. George to go swimming in between games. After swimming we drove back to Mesquite for one more game.

We loved watching Brett play! Sydney loved playing around on the grass and enjoyed finding and playing with sticks. Cooper was as happy as can be to play on the blanket outside in the nice weather. As for me it was so nice to watch some baseball in the nice warm sun! There aren't many things that are better than that! Except maybe hanging out at the pool in the nice warm sun! I could spend all day at the pool! And, I think Sydney is taking after me in that department. She LOVED swimming! She would jump in, swim back to the stairs, climb out, jump in again, swim back to the stairs, jump in... over and over and over again. She would swim all the way across the pool by herself. She would float on her back, blow bubbles, jump, and have other's throw her in the water. Sydney also found a noodle at the pool that was left there. She called it a "rainbow" and loved playing with it. By the end of our time there the water got pretty cold and combined with the wind, it just wasn't warm anymore. Sydney's cheeks and lips were purple, but she still didn't want to go inside. Cooper loved the water as well. He just hung out in his floatie with his arms out and enjoyed the water. Swimming sure wore the kids out. Cooper got out of the water early, and fell asleep pool-side, so Michael took him inside. Later we took Sydney inside and gave her a bath. Then she was sitting on the counter and my mom and Allie were helping do her hair, and she fell asleep sitting up on the counter, right there! She really wore herself out! When we were leaving the pool, a man asked me which Olympics Sydney would be swimming in, because he wanted to watch out for her!

On Sunday, we hung around the condo, went on a walk outside, drove by the temple, and enjoyed each other's company. Sydney loved the temple- of course- and she loved seeing the "D" on the hill. She kept saying, "D for Daddy!" Sunday night Brett and Michael drove home, so the girls enjoyed several rounds of NERTZ! We were up late every night, and sleep deprived, but it was a blast! I LOVE St. George! We went there a lot growing up, and I haven't been there for years- before Matt and I were even engaged, so it sure was nice to be back there. Hopefully we will have more trips there in the future!

Alphabet and Temples

I have been working on teaching Sydney the alphabet lately. We play some games I learned from teaching on the computer together, we have letters on our fridge, read alphabet books, and of course sing the alphabet too. It is fun to see her learning so many new things. She has been able to sing the alphabet for a few months now, getting all the letters right, except she always says s for x. Sydney is very good at associating letters with things she knows. For example, if you show her an A she'll say Allie, D-Daddy, B-Brett, C-Cooper, M-Mommy, G-Grandma/Grandpa, and S-Sydney... you get the point. She also remembers some of the sounds they make- her best letters for that are a, b, c, d, m, and s. Anyway, the other day we were driving, and Sydney said, "Look! There's Timmy!" Well, Tim is on a mission, so of course we said, "Where?" Sydney proceeded to point and say, "right there!" Again, we responded with a questioning, "where?" "Right there in the star!" Sydney had spotted the letter T in the Texaco star at the gas station! So now, we will have to play the alphabet game when we drive! It's always nice to know that what you are teaching your kids is getting through to them... :)

We drive a lot... probably more than most people, because if I want to get out of the house, or have a car, I have to take Matt to work, and pick him up, which results in a lot of driving. This has been the case for all of Sydney's life. But I think it has given me the opportunity to teach her a lot. We have always talked a lot in the car, to keep her entertained. Practicing animal noises when she was younger, pointing out things we pass, singing songs together, etc. Anyway, we pass temples often. If we have a typical driving day, we pass 3 different temples within our view, at least four times, (to work, home, to work again, home again) more times if we run errands or visit my family that day. Plus we can see all three of those temples from our house, not to mention our wedding pictures and pictures of the temple around our apartment. So, Sydney has taken a real interest in temples. We usually sing I Love to See the Temple when we pass the Oquirrh Mountain Temple, so Sydney knows that song. She also knows that Jesus visits the temple, and that Mommy and Daddy got married there. I will often find Sydney with a washrag, small blanket, dish towel, or the like on her head, saying, "I get married! In the temple!" The other day when we passed the temple, she said, "Mommy and Daddy get married in the temple. Mommy wears a pretty dress, pretty shoes, and a pretty ponytail... and they go golfing!" ha ha ha! I had to laugh at that! In our wedding video, there is footage of us playing mini golf... Hopefully Sydney doesn't always associate the temple with golf, since there really is no correlation... Here are some pictures of Mommy and Sydney getting married-

One last funny thing... This is one of Sydney's favorite dresses to wear. It has ties in the back, that are not long enough to tie in a bow. One time when Matt was putting this dress on her, I told him to tie the ties in a square knot. The next time I put the dress on Sydney, and every time since, she said/says, "Not a square Mommy!" At first I had no idea what she was talking about, until she pulled on the ties and said, "a bow!" I couldn't believe she remembered that! Ha ha! Gotta love it!

6 Months

It is so weird to think that Cooper has been here with us for 1/2 a year! Time sure flies! He is starting to look so much older to me... Here are 6 things about Cooper at 6 months

1. He loves his feet... he is always playing with them and pulling his socks off... which are then wet from him sucking on them!

2. I think I am starting to see more "Holmes" in him. I see a lot of my dad and brother Michael in his eye/forehead area, especially with his blue eyes and light blond hair starting to come in...

3. He loves to grab anything within reach. He loves to play with toys and rattles, and paper, but we try to keep that away from him, because everything ends up in his mouth, and he doesn't need little pieces of paper stuck in there :)

4. He loves to laugh! He laughs when we tickle him, or play peek-a-boo, or when Sydney plays with him.

5. He is starting to be able to sit up on his own, for maybe a minute tops...

6. He is good natured, happy, loving, smiley, takes good long naps, still sleeps through the night, and of course is chubby! At our WIC appointment a few weeks ago he weighed almost 18 lbs. They said he was about 80% for weight and about 40% for height. I don't know if their info is as reliable as the doctor, but with those measurements, he sure is a chunk. This past month we had to change him into size 3 diapers, that is the size Sydney was wearing when we started potty training her. It was kind of an emotional thing for me to think that he was in that size of diapers- weird, I know. In fact, when we ran out of pull ups last week, Sydney was wearing Cooper's diapers to bed! I wish the size 3's still looked babyish. Somehow they look like they are for older kids... I guess he is getting older though. To go along with the chubby idea, Cooper has earned the nickname "tank." And all this chubbiness is all without ever having a bite of food... we are probably starting him with mush next week, which I'm sure he'll love!

He sure melts my heart! It's funny how you can develop a different relationship with different kids... and I love how my relationship with him is already different than it is with Sydney. He's my little guy and we all love him so much! Happy 1/2 birthday Coops!

Happy Spring!

To those of you who live outside of Utah... HAPPY SPRING! To those of you who live in Utah... Happy Still-Winter. We hope you enjoy the 8 inches of snow forecasted for tonight. Luckily it stopped snowing long enough for us to take this picture outside on Sunday.

Easter

Easter is such a great holiday! I especially love it when it falls on Conference weekend because it is a great spiritual boost and helps us remember the real reason why we celebrate Easter. We had a great weekend! Highlights include: Matt having Saturday off~ watching Conference~ Priesthood Session/girls night~ coloring eggs~ egg hunt for Sydney~ finding Easter baskets~ watching more conference~ enjoying time together as a family~ a Holmes family party celebrating another missionary leaving~ yummy candy and treats~ ham/patio potato dinner~ and the opening game of baseball season... Yankees/Red Sox!