Adventures in St. George

Mom is anxiously awaiting summer vacation. She has had to fill her time with other things while waiting for school to be out or for homework to be done. It's killing her. She'd like to just go play. In Disneyland. But that's not ACTUALLY an option right now. So instead we have had other adventures!

We of course went for a Sunday hike in Snow Canyon with Grandpa. It ended up providing us with some nice photos of our little crew!

She actually asked Cara what we should do one day and then surprised me by driving us to the Wildlife Museum. We love the dead animal museum and we hardly ever go! Mom loves this picture of the three of us.

Look! A bear!

Iva asked for her picture and tried to say cheese. She looks a little stiff. She loved petting the "meow".

For Mother's Day, Mom got to have a movie night with the two big girls and leave the crazy toddler at home. We ate lots of Milk Duds...before the movie even started!

It feels like it has rained EVERY weekend for the last four weeks. (With the exception of the first one in May.) We were supposed to go on a backpacking trip with Grandpa but didn't want to risk the wind and the cold if it rained too much. We opted to go on a longer hike on Saturday. It was awesome. We went up behind Tuachan and got to see camels and lots of flowers. What? Camels. Yes. Camels. Apparently someone keeps camels on Tuachan property. Random.

So that's what we have been up to. Along with school work and gearing up for SUMMER!!! Break out those swim suits and the sunscreen. We can't wait to live in the pool.

Iva is 18 months old...going on 5.

Guest post by Mom:

I think I might have to claim that three children keeps me WAY too busy to blog. However, that's not the truth. It's clearly not made the top of my priority list. I have never been great at documenting my children's milestones anyway, but I really should be better about trying to remember them at their current ages.

So let's start with Iva. She finally hit 18 months. I love having her as a baby, but she's been a toddler for quite sometime now. She went from not really being that verbal to talking up a storm and that seems to be increasing exponentially.

She is 24 lbs and 31 inches tall. That puts her in the 54% and the 31% respectively. That means in the last 9 months she has dropped 21% on her weight! She's still pretty soft and squishy, but that's what happens when you are heavier than you are tall! It's adorable though and it makes for the cuddliest kid ever.

She loves to give hugs and head bonks. She waves to everyone. If Cara, especially, is crying or upset, Iva will drop everything and try and hug her. She even pats Cara's back. Siena must not cry as often, although, Cara and Iva spend more time together. They play a lot during the day and Siena is kind of the bossy older sister.

Iva loves to dance. If she can here music, she will wiggle her hips and move her head. She also sings. She's still wildly obsessed with Signing Time and so she frequently tries to sing those songs.

Recently, she has gotten very into stuffed animals and tries to carry all of them at the same time. She doesn't respond well when she has reached her physical capacity and will cry and scream that she can't carry them. It's frustrating to watch and try and explain why it's not working!

Iva has ten teeth. You would think that would mean they are evenly distributed, but you would be wrong. She has her four front top teeth and a molar each on the top back, but on bottom she has three front teeth (the left side getting the extra tooth) and the left bottom molar has just broken through. I'm sure her matching teeth aren't too far behind but it does make me giggle.

I don't think I can possibly list the words and phrases that Iva knows. She adores Signing Time so she easily can identify something like 25 animals by name and sign. It's a crack up. My favorite phrases of hers lately though have been "Bless you" which is said each and every time someone sneezes and " Pete". She just discovered her dad's name and tries to use it when she wants his attention. Both of those phrases crack me up. I have no idea how she picked up on bless you. We don't sneeze THAT much.

Physically she's getting better control of what and how she climbs on things. She can play on certain playground equipment all by herself and I don't have to hold my breath each and every moment. She loves to kick balls and pretend she's playing soccer.

She's in the process of figuring out a one nap a day system. Iva has never been a long napper. 45 minutes to an hour was her longest nap which meant she's still been taking two naps a day because she needs the rest! However, we were having an ugly couple of weeks where she wasn't going to bed until almost 10 and it was driving the Mom and Dad CRAZY. Luckily, this week she has started recovering from an ear infection and has started to transition to a more reasonable bed time.

Good grief, she's cute. We still are rocking only the mullet on her. Long hair in the back, but nothing on top. Luckily, piggy tails are really starting to work well!

Oh and how could I forget to mention how much she loves to play in water! We have started to spend more time at Summit's (the gym where I work) pool and it has this lovely kiddy pool that has a sectioned off area that is only 18 inches deep. It's perfect! Iva jumps around and plays and tries to float and is getting very brave. She can still fall over and not get back up on her own so I have to keep close tabs, but it's so much fun to watch her get braver!

Cellos, daredevils, and oh yeah...BUNK BEDS!

There has been a really good reason that we have been behind on the blog. We have been busy. And our computer is aged. So it's not fast enough for Mom these days. Don't worry, we've been editing dates on the blog posts so it's going to LOOK like we were on top of things Hurray!

Dad has been so busy. Cara and I were lucky enough to get to go watch and listen to him perform with his cello for the Art in the Garden series at the DiFiore Center here in St. George. In a total bummer, it actually was quite rainy the one weekend he was performing so we ended up in a cramped little room watching dancers very up close and personal. Dad played excellent though.

The dare devil we mentioned is Iva. She's a walking disaster of bruises and death attempts. She climbs on everything and tries to get stuff she can't have. Here she is trying to climb into her crib to get a binki...notice she already has one in her mouth. What a nut.

As far as I am concerned though, the biggest news comes from our bedroom!

Daddy, with a push and a lot of help from Cara's soccer coach, Nate, built a triple bunk bed for our bedroom! We LOVE it. I squealed, Cara begs to go to bed, and Iva couldn't care less. She has slept very minimally on her bed, but we will get there!

Can you taste summer? Because we can!

As the days heat up, we start to play in the water! April and May are perfect because it's warm enough for water play, but not hot enough to chase you indoors! So we have been spending lots of time with cousins, swim suits, and water!

Iva prefers to splash in 2 inches of water or just go big and have to float with a grown up!

Cara's cuteness was killing Mom this day.

Cara and I are getting to be such good swimmers. Cara still asks for her lifejacket if she's going to be in deep water for too long, but she will go down the tube at the Washington City Rec Center with me just fine! In fact, we both love it

We can't wait until St. George City Pool opens!

Birthday Celebrations

Talk about a difference a year makes! Last year, Mom turned 30. It was a big deal. She did a huge countdown. Aunt Rachel and Uncle Troy came down. We played so hard. She jumped out of a plane. She got huge presents. This year...not so much. It was a more normal birthday celebration. She shared her birthday cake with Grandpa as she usually does. This year it was Uncle Eric who opened the parachute soldier toys and gets to sky dive. That was just fine. It was still a great couple of days.

Isn't it funny that they make the same faces?! 

Lucky enough to have everybody in the same city!

One of the funnest surprises for Mom came from her friend, Sarah, in Wyoming. She crocheted us all Minnie hats! (Okay she did do one Micky for dad!)

We really are kind of getting too big for selfies with Mom's short arms....

Marathons and Talent Shows

Guest post by Mom:

Siena and Cara are great kids. I don't have to worry much about them and they are really obedient. I got REALLY lucky in the kid department. I am so proud of them.

They recently completed a marathon at the gym. They have been running a mile in their Fit Kids class and finally got in 26.2! They earned a free smoothie and certificate!

Siena also signed up to be in her school's talent show at their Spring Carnival. Aunt Becca played "Part of Your World" from the Little Mermaid and Siena sang. It was awesome. She went very first and was so confident! She and Aunt Becca worked on it for a few weeks. In fact, she thought she needed the words, but you'll notice the wind blows her pages and then she never looks at them again.

Easter in SLC

We got a bonus two days off of school for the weekend of Easter (Friday and Monday) so we decided to "Easter" in SLC! Plus it was the only weekend for awhile where we didn't have a soccer game that would have prevented us from a quick trip.

It was Conference Weekend for church and so we had lots of time to play together. The Preslars were on the tail end of their Spring Break and it was a lovely weekend filled with playing at the house and yummy food made by Aunt Rachel.

We, OF COURSE, took Iva to the zoo. She has really gotten good at her animal signs and we wanted to see her use them. She's signing lions.

The highlight was getting to see the new baby orangutan. He's so adorable!!

I swear we have 100 photos of these tigers.

We managed to dye Easter Eggs, finally, Saturday evening. The moms didn't seem enthused.

On Easter, Aunt Margaret came over with the big girl cousins and Kate brought her new bunny! We loved it.

On to the Easter Egg hunt! Iva seemed to get it this year!

We might have snuck off to the zoo one more time on our way out of town....it was fun. The baby orangutan was napping though. We didn't get to see him. Darn it.