Beckett the Toddler

Beckett is getting big so fast and the older he gets the more opinionated and busy he is. He is still a super sweet cutie, but he has his moments of frustration when he doesn't get what he wants. He has learned how to throw fits (thanks for teaching him that Tal!) and has a pretty impressive set of lungs on him. Mostly though he just loves getting into things that he shouldn't. My closet is his favorite place. He runs in there and steals my black flats to wear around the house almost every day. He plays on the scale and pulls clothes off their hangers and shoes off the rack. Oh the joys.

He also loves brushing his teeth. Every time we go upstairs he will just stand on the stool in the kids bathroom screaming until I come in and give him his toothbrush. He wanders all over the house with it. I try to keep it upstairs, but occasionally he gets by me with it still in his mouth.

Beckett loves watching TV. I'm not super proud of this. It does come in handy though when I need him to stay busy while I shower or clean a bathroom. His favorite shows are Little Einsteins, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and Super Why. He is extra happy if he can watch his shows while snuggling his blanket.
This kid LOVES his blanket. He finds the corners and then rubs the soft edge. He also will suck on the edges a lot, which is pretty gross. I have to sneak that blanket into the laundry at least once a week, but it has to be timed so he can still have it for his nap or there is a lot of screaming and tears.

Beckett likes to push his high chair and the kitchen stool all over the kitchen and living room. It's not uncommon to find his high chair sitting in the middle of the living room or to trip over the stool on your way to the sink in the kitchen.

This is going to be a fun summer because Beckett is big enough to play on the playground equipment all by himself. He loves going down the slides and ringing the bell at our little park. He also just likes to walk. He does not want to be held or ride in a stroller. He wants to wander. He loved our trip to Farm Country last week because I let him walk the whole time.

Another favorite game right now is rolly ball. Luckily he will play this with anyone, including Talia. It's pretty cute how happy it makes him when the ball comes to him. :) I like it because it's something to distract him when he's whining for more TV and it's easy and fun.

Working out at home has become a little more difficult these days because Beckett is fascinated by my elliptical. It's dangerous though! A couple weeks ago he was wandering around the basement pushing Talia's doll stroller and I was working out on the elliptical and watching a show on the ipad. I didn't see him come too close and I crashed into the stroller. That thing crunched! After that I was so freaked out that it could have been Beckett's head that I built a little barricade to keep him on the other side of the room.  It didn't go over well, but it got me through the last 15 minutes of my workout. Sigh.

It's weird to think that Beckett is almost the same age Talia was when he was born. I remember Talia doing a lot of the same screaming for things she wanted because she didn't have very many words too. It's a rough stage for me. I'm hoping his language skills will start up sooner rather than later. As of now (20 months) he only has a few words. He says mama, dada, go, uh oh, wow, makes duck/pig noises, roars like a dinosaur, and that's about it. I just love my Beckett toddler. It's so fun to see his little personality coming out!

Gardening for Dummies

A couple of weeks ago our Relief Society had an awesome additional meeting all about gardening. The official title of the activity was Seeds of Self Reliance. It started off with a nice talk about how we each are growing in our faith and testimony just like seeds. We were given a bag of mustard seeds and a small pot to plant them in along with the scripture in Matthew 20:17 about being able to do all things if we have faith like a mustard seed. And those things are tiny! I saved the seeds and pot and used it for last week's FHE lesson on faith. 

After that there were three stations that we rotated through. The first one I went to was all about square foot gardening. My neighbor, Amanda, taught it. She has done square foot gardening for a few years now and had a lot of good information. There were also a couple of recipes we could sample including this baked veggie casserole that was good.

Next was a station about herbs and what you can do with them. There were examples of foods to make (um hello delicious herb butter!), ways to use herbs in healing, and even a recipe and example of herbed body scrub. It smelled amazing. At that station we also got to pick two herb seed packets and plant one if we wanted to. I went outside and planted some forget-me-not seeds and saved my herbs for my actual garden planters.

The last station was about container gardening and good plant pairings. This was helpful since I was planting an container garden! There were also more recipes to sample (love me some cucumber cream cheese sandwiches) and chalkboard stickers to label planters with. I snagged a few of those. I also was able to ask a few of my questions about planting.

It was a really fun night and I couldn't believe how many people helped bring things and teach. The tables all looked like they could have come straight off Pinterest. There was a whole extra table that wasn't it's own station that displayed all the fun things you could involve your kids in with gardening. My meager contribution was sharing my plant markers. :) I came home really excited to plant my garden for the first time ever!

This last Saturday we had beautiful weather. It was in the 80's and sunny and warm. I got up early and got all of my stuff planted (except my zucchini because I need one more container). It was kind of fun to put all the seeds in. Hopefully I planted things together that will work and hopefully the nice weather will stay so my plants won't freeze! I really hope my garden produces at least a little bit of stuff we can use. I'm growing broccoli, spinach, tomatoes, onions, green onions, parsley, basil, red cayenne peppers, dill, cilantro, and zucchini. I'm sure I'll be posting gardening updates as my stuff starts to sprout!

Tulip Festival

Every year we go to the Tulip Festival at Thanksgiving Point Garden. It's my favorite. I love the tulips. I love that it's Spring. We went for family home evening last week. It was a pretty nice evening for it. Warm and breezy. The kids had a blast running around and rolling down every hill we passed. Poor Talia couldn't quite get the hang of rolling down the hills. She also was wearing a dress with no shorts underneath. It was actually hilarious to watch her try. I got it on video.

Highlights of the trip were playing by the waterfall, the fountain in the secret garden, watching the hundreds of koi fish (with much whining because we didn't have any quarters to buy fish food), and being "bullets" while we walked back to the car. Beckett was in heaven just getting to walk most of the time. He loves wandering on his own. It was a very fun family outing. I'm planning on going back with the kids and their quarters soon.

Beck enjoying the warm weatherwith his wheelbarrow

Running through the butterfly garden

Talia's favorite blue flowers

Easter

Easter weekend was a wonderful! We had beautiful warm weather on Saturday for our annual Bowles/Bayles Easter Lunch and Egg Hunt. It was fun to celebrate with the Bayles' again this year! We had a yummy lunch of egg salad (or PBJ) sandwiches, chips and fruit. Then the kids all played together in the basement for a bit while the men did their hiding work. 

The kids all were pretty good at egg hunting this year. Talia kept wanting to stop and open every egg when she found it. She also freaked out and cried the first time she saw someone else pick up a blue egg and put it in their basket. She was sure all the blue eggs belonged to her. She got over it pretty quickly though. Weston was her egg hunting buddy since he filled his basket in the first 10 minutes. Beckett wanted nothing to do with finding eggs. I pointed one out and handed it to him and he looked at it for a second then threw it at me. Oh well. He was really happy to get to wander around outside! :) I did save him one egg and opened it for him to show him the candy and he was very excited about that part.

After the kids found all of the eggs (we hope!) they opened them up and checked out their haul. Then they got busy playing outside until it was time to go. It was a little bit of a short party since we had to leave to take Weston to his first soccer game, but we had a great time catching up with our friends.

That night before bed Weston was unloading the dishwasher and suddenly said "I caught you Mom! You're the one who hides our Easter baskets huh?!? Am I right?" I kind of just gave him a look and ignored him. Then I sent Davin upstairs to brush his teeth and had a quiet conversation with Weston. I told him that yes, Dad and I hide the Easter baskets. He asked if it was the same with Santa. If we put out the presents. I told him yes. I also explained that believing in Santa and the Easter bunny is magical and since his brothers and sister still believed I needed him to keep it to himself and act like he still believed too. He understood that and agreed.

Later, while he was brushing his teeth I reminded him that some of his friends still believed too and that he shouldn't talk about what he knew with his friends either. Weston commented that I was right and that it was more fun to believe. I asked him if he was sad that he knew the truth. He said he wasn't sad, that it made him feel grown up. I let him know it made me sad because it meant he was all grown up! Then he told me "no way Mom! Maybe when I'm like ten I'll be all grown up." It kind of broke my heart that he's old enough to know the truth and that we've had our last Christmas with all of our kids believing in Santa. Sigh. At the same time it's kind of liberating to have him know. I really hope he can keep his mouth shut so that Davin can believe for a few more years!

Saturday night I put together Easter baskets, which I felt really unprepared for. Luckily between the stuff I had and stuff grandparents and Auntie Joy had given me for their baskets they turned out perfect. Ian and I had fun hiding them too. We thought we had found the hardest spot ever for Weston's basket. It was under the red Kitchen Aid cover and I didn't think he would find it without significant hints, but he found it pretty quickly! Davin took forever finding his in the cupboard under the sink in the half bathroom. Talia's was on top of the hutch and she found it after about 10 minutes. I think Davin might have seen it first and told her. Beckett's was in plain sight.

Easter morning the kids had a lot of fun exploring their baskets and eating candy for breakfast. I made them have some toast and milk too. :) Beckett was the most excited about his bag of M&M's. He was pretty sad when I cut him off, but I think he would have been sick if he ate the whole bag in one sitting! Talia liked her Frozen coloring book and her new princesses for her castle. She was also really happy about the Minnie notebook from Grandma Denny and Papa. She took it with her to church. The boys probably liked their Poke balls the best (Thanks Auntie Joy! You're so fun!), but they also had fun with their Chima books and minifigures. It was a nice, relaxing morning. After we played for awhile and ate breakfast it was time to get ready for church.

I wanted to take a picture before church of the kids in their cute Easter things. The boys had matching ties and Tal had a new dress. Beckett was having none of it though. He screamed and writhed all through pictures and in the car and down the hall into church. I was pretty bummed thinking there was no way we were going to make it through the full block with him. About halfway through Sacrament meeting though he settled in on my lap and I was scratching his legs. I was just enjoying the five minutes of peace and snuggle time with him when he went limp and fell asleep on my lap. He never does that! It was an Easter miracle! He slept through the rest of the meeting and was happy to go to nursery. Hooray! So church was very nice.

When we got home from church Beckett really wanted to play with his wheelbarrow outside, so Ian stayed out with him while I went inside to help Talia change. Ian ended up taking Beckett on a little walk. He pushed his wheelbarrow the whole time. Ian said he every hauled it up on the playground with him at the little park by our house. That Beckett is so funny. He loved his Easter afternoon walk. When he came home he happily ate lunch and went to bed for a nap.

Mel came over for Easter dinner. It was so fun to have her here. We cooked up a delicious Easter feast and enjoyed a low key dinner together. We had ham, cheesy potatoes, shredded carrots (thanks Mel!), and deviled eggs. So yummy!

We just chilled and let our food digest after dinner. It was still sunny outside (but the wind was cold) so Mel and I went out on the front porch and watched the kids play in the front yard until she headed home to see Bradley. He had to work so he couldn't come to dinner. We missed him! It was a really nice holiday though. I enjoyed spending the weekend playing with my family and thinking of my Savior and the hope He offers each of us.

Good Friday

The Friday before Easter was a fun one. Weston had a Spring hat parade and he was supposed to decorate a Spring hat to wear. He came up with a clever concept that Ian helped engineer. He was so excited about it and told me his hat was voted the best Spring hat in his class but not in the whole 2nd grade. :)

That morning I took Talia and Beckett with me to Crossfit. They had fun playing with toys as usual and I got my butt kicked as usual. Talia looked extra cute in another new summer top. I tried to take a picture of her, but this is what I got instead. She's such a goober.

Friday night we decided we'd better get ready for Easter! I gave the kids their chocolate bunny treats from Grandma B and Grandpa Bob. They tore into them and then had fun dying some eggs. Talia would only color her eggs blue and wouldn't let anyone else use the blue dye. She can be a stinker about that kind of stuff and she's definitely obsessed with the color blue. I thought the eggs turned out really pretty and bright (especially for using a dollar store egg dying kit)!

Such good lookin' guys right?!?

The New Aquarium

The week after we got back from our trip we got to take a trip to the new Loveland Living Planet Aquarium courtesy of Ian's work. They paid for the field trip and invited families as well. So nice! 

The new aquarium has been under construction for awhile now and just opened in March. It has a lot of the same exhibits that were at our old aquarium in Sandy (which we went to often when we had passes to it) plus lots more. All of the habitats are a little bigger now too. The penguins and otters especially benefited from the bigger space. It also has a cool shark tunnel and a 4D theater. They will be adding a lot more to it over the next couple of years, but it was fun to go and see what is there. The other nice thing is that our tickets are good for a bounce back visit before August 31st so we can go back when more of the animals have been moved into their new homes. Yay!

I think the kids' favorites were the penguins and the shark tunnel. The penguins were so fun to watch. Beckett was fascinated by them and probably could have stayed and watched them for an hour. He made all kinds of excited noises when they swam by him too. So cute. Davin liked the shark tunnel the best. He liked seeing the big sting ray in the shark tunnel too.

Beckett checking out the ducks in the Utah exhibit.

Ian got this shot of me with the kids watching the sharks and I just love it. It captures my joy of being a mom and watching my kids experience something new and interesting about the world. You may notice that we are missing a kid in that picture. Weston wasn't with us for this field trip. He was in school still. I didn't feel too bad about not bringing him though because he had already been to the new aquarium for a birthday party. :)

Other highlights of the aquarium were the seahorses, toucans, poison arrow frogs, otters, and tropical fish tanks. I'm excited to get to go back in a few months and see even more of the animals and maybe go when the newness has worn off a bit and it's less crowded.

The Daily Grind

It was nice to have the weekend to recover from our trip. It was a busy, productive Saturday while Ian got the tire fixed and I did laundry and unpacked and cleaned up the house. That night Ian and I got a sitter and went out on a date. We needed a break from family time. :) We had fun going out to dinner and doing a little shopping. We went to Home Depot and bought all the stuff for our first ever gardening attempt. We are planting a container garden. We're planting a tomato plant, broccoli, spinach, zucchini, onion, green onion, and some herbs (cilantro, parsley, dill, cayenne red pepper, and basil). I'm really nervous because I'm completely clueless when it comes to gardening, but several of my neighbors know what they are doing so I will be asking lots of questions. We also hit up Kohl's to do some Spring clothes shopping for Ian. 

Sunday was pretty low key. We had some friends over for dinner and to play Settlers. We also played Guillotine, which we hadn't played in a long time. It was very fun.

Monday was back to school and work. I got back to my exercise routine and keeping Talia and Beckett entertained. Unfortunately Beckett is much too curious about how my elliptical machine works and I had to put up a roadblock so he wouldn't get hurt while I was exercising. He was NOT happy about it. Poor baby. Luckily I only work out at home on the elliptical 1-2 days a week. You know what does make Beckett happy? Watching Little Einsteins. He gets so excited every time we turn it on. It's so cute that he watches way too much Little Einsteins.

I took Tal and Beck to the dinosaur museum Monday before Davin got home from school. They had fun running around and playing in the sand. On the way out I realized a couple of my friends were there, but we had to get home to get Davin off the bus, but luckily they were available to come over for lunch. It was such a fun, impromptu lunch playdate! We will have to do it again soon!

Tuesday Davin had gymnastics and the weather was nice enough to play outside during his class.  Beckett loves this long sidewalk he can run up and down and playing in the rocks. It definitely helps the time pass quicker when we can wander outside. I'm having fun dressing Talia up in her cute new Spring clothes. I feel like I'm finally figuring out how to buy clothes for her. I'm also getting better at picking out things she likes. :) Those blue hair clips were the best $3 I've ever spent on her!