Please!

Bennett caught onto baby sign language pretty quickly and has been doing several signs for a few months now. One sign he can't seem to get quite right is "Please." You're supposed to rub your hand against your chest.  Addie was a pro at this.  She would pat her hand against her chest even after she could talk in complete sentences.  She 'signed' please every time she said it until she was 3.  But for some reason, Bennett can't seem to get this one.  

Though he doesn't do it right, he's consistent.  He does this for 'please' every single time and it kills me!

I think it is the funniest thing.

Kills me every time!

PS Please don't judge me for letting him drink soda, 

he just asks so nicely I can't help it every once in awhile:)

His Favorite Person

It's no secret that Bennett's favorite person in the world is his Daddy.

He LOVES when Dad comes home.

No one came make Bennett laugh and smile like Scott can.

Though it makes me jealous, I'm so happy he loves his Daddy!

Our Fishies

It's no secret that our kids LOVE the water! They would go to the pool everyday if I took them.

During July Scott was on night float, which meant he slept during the day and he'd leave for work around 4 pm.  Evenings are the hardest time of day for us as it is, but add that that's the time when Dad is leaving instead of coming home and we're in trouble.  To ease the pain of saying bye, when he would leave, we'd head to a nice outdoor pool nearby and swim for a few hours.  It made bedtime glorious, because they were so worn out that they'd go right to sleep when we got home.

With going every single day, the kids got quite good.  Bennett became completely independent in his life jacket and loved jumping from the side of the pool.  He also liked to lay on his back.  Addie is now a completely independent swimmer!  No floaties, life jacket or mom for her!  I definitely stay pretty close to her, since she is 3, but she is good.  At the pools we go to there is a swim test that you have to pass and once you do you get a coveted green wristband.  Addie decided one day that she wanted to do it.  I didn't think she could do 25 yd on her tummy without grabbing onto the edge of the pool, but who am I to stop her from being ambitious, so I let her try!

I couldn't believe the confidence she had!  She hopped right in and took off.  Only problem was that she was doing backstroke.  I forgot to tell her she had to stay on her tummy.  She went halfway before I could stop her.  I was so worried that she would be too tired to do it again on her tummy!  She proved me completely wrong.  She didn't panic once.  She went nice and steady the whole way, never reaching for the edge.  To say I was so proud is a complete understatement!  It made my swimming heart proud!  She earned her green wrist band.

Proudly showing off her new wristband!

The swim test at the outdoor pool is an olympic sized pool, 50 m.  A few weeks after the first swim test, we were at this pool with Scott and Addie said that she wanted to pass this swim test. I'm ashamed to say that, again, I didn't think she could do it, but I definitely wanted to let her try.  She proved us wrong and rocked the 50 m test.  It was fun that Scott was there to see her. I don't have any pics or videos from that day, but trust me, she was awesome:)

These videos are from a few weeks before she passed the swim test.  She has gotten a lot better.  It's really hard for me to video it because I'm always solo at the pool.  Someday we'll get good videos of her skills.  We are so proud of how hard she works.  

When she was younger, she was TERRIFIED of the water and I decided that no child of ours would be afraid of the water, so I would take her swimming almost every day during swim season.  It's been fun to see her as time has gone on and she has developed a real love for the sport.  I sometimes wonder if I'm going to regret this because I don't know that I'd make a good swim mom.  I saw my mom spend countless hours at pools for us growing up.  I don't know if I'm ready for that.  I guess it's too late for that now:) We'll see if Addie wants to keep swimming when she gets big.  For now her ultimate dream is to be on the swim team and that sounds good to us!

Funny Videos

Playing in their fort!

Bennett surprised us by learning how to go down the slide!

Getting Fancy

Poor Bennett.

This boy is surrounded by girls all day long. Which means lot's of pink, frilly things.

He doesn't seem to mind though.

Someday he's going to kill me for taking these pictures, but he was too adorable to not snap a few.

Addie loves to turn on the classical piano music, put on her frilly pink dress and dance while I make dinner.  You better believe that Bennett noticed her old tutu hanging in the closet, not being used.  I tried to not put him into it, but he threw a royal fit until I obliged.  Once he was in, he had the biggest smile on his face!

These pics are all blurry because he was dancing so fast!

Then things got even crazier as he insisted on scattering the recycling throughout the house while Addie insisted he get his bibs on for dinner.  She chased him down until she got those bibs on him.

He was surprisingly good at walking in heels.

Love the frilly tutu with the basketball.

Lego Land with a Visitor!

Back in August I got a text from a Houston friend, Addie's Sunbeam teacher from church saying that she was going to be in town and she wanted to see Addie!

What a surprise!!

We were so excited to see her.  She was the best teacher ever.

We met up at Lego Land with her and had a great time.

Downtown Kansas City built entirely of Legos.
Amazing.

The whole Wizard of Oz scape in Legos.
Again, awesome!

He of course loved the Lego dog.

Addie loved making giant birthday cupcakes and singing Happy Birthday to everyone.

We had such a great day.

I was feeling okay about our move and being gone from all we loved in Houston, but it's amazing how seeing Brianne made our whole Houston experience flood back and I found myself missing Houston more than ever!

More Summertime Catch-Up

Bennett loves wearing his shoes.  He'll bring them to me constantly, no matter the time of day and INSIST I put them on him.  He will not take no for an answer.

And, of course, anything that Bennett does that's funny, Addie definitely follows right along.  My kids can frequently be seen at 7 am in their jammies and gym shoes.

Addie also learned how to write her name.

Nevermind that the letters are out of order. This was back in July.

She now rights them in order.  It's so fun to watch her progress!

Addie loves taking selfies.

She pretty much just loves taking pics with my phone of anything.

Bennett is becoming a bookworm, just like his sister.

I love to hear him jabber to himself.

One day Scott was taking his post-call nap.  Addie decided she wanted a nap too, so she went in and cuddled up next to him and fell asleep.  Talk about melt my heart to look in the room and see this!

Bennett loves to lounge in his car seat like it's a Lay-Z-Boy.

 More of Addie practicing her writing.

This time she attempted our humongous last name!

I think she did pretty good!

Bennett's learning how to swing in the big kid swings, mostly because lot's of parks here don't have baby swings and he won't allow himself to miss out on anything that Addie gets to do.  He's pretty good at hanging on... most of the time!

Then, of course, there's our monthly Costco lunches!

The carbonation was a little shocking to him.

We were able to do a Family Home Evening outside our beautiful new temple.

Addie loves to see the temple.

We feel so blessed to be so close to this brand new temple.

Again, Addie to take pics.  This is her reflection from taking a pic of the TV.

My phone typically has about 100 pics of Addie's on it at all times.

The kids are loving sidewalk chalk, and I'm loving that we don't completely melt when we go outside in the month of August.  It's such a weird thing to me still!

Bennett wouldn't stop eating the chalk!

No matter how close an eye kept on him, he managed to get several bites in.

I was able to can peaches when Scott was on-call.  So fun!

Our lucky girl was invited to a princess birthday party.  What a dream come true for a 3 year old!

There's such a good group of girls her age here.

We built our first fort and the kids loved it!

Many books were read in there and lot's of hiding took place!