Valentine's Day

 This was a great Valentine's Day for us.  

We split it up between Saturday and Tuesday so that we could do what I wanted.  

On Saturday we got someone to babysit the kids and we went to the temple for the first time in a long time, which was amazing.  Then on our way home we stopped and got some Subway for lunch and sat and ate together.  It was the longest I have been away from the kids since Merrick was born.  It was great.  So that was what I wanted to do for our day off on Saturday.

Then on Tuesday we did our normal stuff and I tried to get a cute picture of the kids, but it only worked out ok.  

Then that night we cooked ourselves a nice steak dinner and went to Dairy Queen for ice cream as a family and it was really nice to spend the night with the kids.  

dinner with 2 of my valentines 

His first time eating ice cream

I love him!

We didn't really do much gift wise this year, but I did try to do a 14 days of Valentines for Nate by putting little Valentines in his lunch and by the bed or something.  Nate got me a nice necklace that is some nice stone from New Mexico or something like that.  It's really cool. And, thanks to Nana and Papa, the kids got some great Valentines and treats. 

Hear Attack the bed

Happy Valentines Day everyone!  

And also, Happy 100 year birthday to Arizona!  I don't know where this is from, but I liked it.  

Kayton and Merrick playing

Kayton loves playing with Merrick!

Update

Well, we are here in Show Low now.  We are all settled in and trying to adjust well.  Nate is loving his student teaching and it makes him so happy which has made a big difference for us personally.  He student teaches with Laura Scholten and the do 2 band or orchestra classes in the mornings at the junior high and then they go out to one of the elementary schools in the afternoon to do general music classes.  She has been really great to him and we couldn't have asked for things to go better.  I am just doing the at home stuff right now.  I am trying to do babysitting and I have one kid right now but I don't know if that is going to last much longer just because his mom's schedule is so hard, but if that doesn't work out I will try to find another person to watch.  

We have settled into our new ward and we have already spoken in church and gotten callings.  I play the piano for Relief Society and Nate is the assistant Cub Scout Master, basically just helps out with pack meetings and the monthly stuff.  Everyone in our ward is so friendly and I have already decided that we can't move out of this ward.  

Since it's still cold we pretty much just hang out inside all day and maybe break out to go to the store once in a while.  There is a little kids story/activity time at the library on Wednesday mornings and I really try to make it to that every week and then some days we will go play on the play set at McDonald's.  It's quite an adjustment from going to having friends right next door to see and play with every day.  We are doing good though and hope that this is something permanent for us. 

Cars and tracks

For Christmas, Kayton got this car track from Nate's mom and she said that it was mostly a toy for Kayton but she knew that since Nate loved it as a kid, it was a toy for him too.  She was right.  We have had a lot of fun having it and one of Nate's friends stopped by for a visit a couple weeks ago and they turned into little kids again playing with that.  It's a fun thing for him to play with his friends too.  

Happy Birthday Kayton

Singing and watching Kayton blow out his candles!

Kayton is 2!

Oh man.  It's weird having a 2 year old, but I love it.  He is doing so much and growing up so fast.  

We had a little birthday party for him on Sunday night which was appropriate because it was Super Bowl Sunday which was the day he was actually born.  We got a cute little cake and had some of our friends and family over. The Pratt's, the Whipples, and Grandma Adams.  It was perfect and he loved it.  We got him a little activity center thing where there is a tent and a crawl tunnel and a little ball basket.  He got a fun cd, remote control train, cars, and a puzzle.  I think that between Christmas and his birthday, he is set on gifts for a while. Just like his first birthday he freaked out when he touched his cupcake and got frosting on him so he didn't eat his cupcake but he did eat his ice cream.  I guess I haven't trained him how to be boy enough.  The best part for me was that Kayton blew out one of his own candles and Nate blew out the other one for an example.  I love how he is growing up.

He is talking sssoooo much and will pretty much copy everything I say or tell him to stay.  It's really nice because he can tell me what he wants and needs and I enjoy the interaction with him. He doesn't say yes or no.  He says ok for yes and don't for no. He is working on saying prayers with us and is very good at least just folding his arms when we tell him to.  He loves nursery at church and running around everywhere.  He still loves to be outdoors and I can't wait until it gets warmer again.  He is into all things boy.  He loves trains, cars, airplanes, helicopters, and balls.  He really likes movies and tv.  He still loves Mickey Mouse and now we have moved on to Cars, Little Einstein's, and Toy Story and a few other cartoons.  I like that it's not the same things over and over again.  He is starting to get into musical stuff.  He has been going to Nate sometimes and asks to listen to music and he dances around really cute.  He loves to look at the tuba and can name some of the instruments now.  He is still definitely his fathers child.  He likes to eat funny things that you wouldn't expect someone his age to eat.  He likes bell peppers and oranges but he also hates certain things like sandwiches and hot dogs and macaroni n cheese.  It's so weird and it makes feeding him a little difficult, but at least he does pretty good at eating his dinners.  He loves to hold my hand and take me to what he wants.  It's so cute to see him run up to me with his hand held out so he can grab mine.  He is very good at giving high fives and then we say pound it for a fist bump.  He gives good kisses and hugs.  Although the terrible two's are definitely here, he is still my sweet little boy and we love him.  

Books

Thanks to our awesome family for Christmas, Kayton got a bunch of new books and he loves them.  He tends to get stuck on one or two books and that's all we can read to him until he moves on so right now it is "Go Dog, Go" by P.D. Eastman.  I'm pretty close to having it memorized.  Merrick on the other hand is more interested in eating the paper in the books rather than listening to the book.  We try to get him to look at the books that are more for him like the board books but that doesn't interest him for very long.  I'm glad that Kayton likes his books though, it's so fun.    

Brothers

Merrick just loves Kayton.  His favorite thing is when Kayton is bouncing or jumping.  It's just so sweet and while I love that Merrick is little and he is still my baby, but I can't wait for him to get older so he can play with him more.  They are so cute together.  I love it.

Merrick - 6 months

Holy cow.  My little Merrick is 6 months old.  He just gets cuter and cuter everyday.  The time is definitely going by much faster with him than with Kayton.  We don't have our new doctor established yet for him, so I don't have his growth stuff yet, but I wanted to record some of his milestones right now.

-He is army crawling, he hates trying to sit up so he just crawls around with his arms and leans on one side when he wants to do some kind of sitting up.
-He spits. He does it randomly, but all the sudden he will be crying really hard or be really happy and he will just put his lips together and make spitting noises.  It's cute and I'm trying to get a video of it soon.
-It is very easy to make him laugh when he is tired.  We have the most fun with him right before bedtime.
-He still isn't sleeping through the night.  I don't know why but he will still wake up on average twice.  Lately he has gotten in this bad habit of waking up for like an hour and a half at random times.  It's not cool.
-He is eating solid foods.  He loves it when we let him suck on a breadstick.  He gets so mad when I have to take it away because it's so wet that he might get a big chunk of it off.  When he eats off his spoon, he tries to suck it off the spoon like he sucks milk out of a bottle.  And yay, he is drinking out of a bottle now when I choose to make one for him.
-He loves Kayton.  He gets a good kick when Kayton jumps on our bed and he watches or when he is dancing.  He just loves to watch Kayton and play with him.
-He loves to take baths.
- He loves to use cups as toys and water bottles and stuff.  He is in that phase of everything goes to his mouth.
-We think he is working on his teething but we don't see anything yet.
-His smile is so sweet and we love him to pieces