Do you love her?

"Do you love her?"  That was the question I was asked today as I walked through the aisles of Macey's case lot sale.  Little Kiera was in the front of my overloaded shopping cart and this cute old man walked by.  He stopped for a moment, commented on how he should take her because there was no room in my cart, then smiled at us and asked me, "Do you love her?"  Of course I do I thought to myself and politely said yes to the man.  He talked with me for few more minutes as Kiera gave him smiles and said "hi" a million times.  He also made the comment that "little ones are sent straight from Heaven, that's for sure.

After he left, I pondered for a moment as his question had taken me off guard--of course I love my little girls.  But his words have left me thinking all day--do I show them I love them enough?  Am I raising them as Heavenly Father would want me to?  I think sometimes I take them for granted and don't enjoy the little things enough.  Today, before that man approached us, I was pretty annoyed with Kiera because she kept eating my shopping list and the sale ad, plus she had just thrown the cans of black beans and bottles of ketchup on the floor for hundredth time!  I think that sweet old man was sent to me today as reminder to be more grateful for my little girls and that no matter how many times they throw the groceries out of the cart, or bug each other when riding so close together in the bus cart :)-- I need to remember they are sent from Heaven and I love them so much.  I can't imagine my life without them!  What a great lesson learned today in a simple grocery store!

                       How could you not love this????


                          and this???

Where Dolls Sleep...

Yep, at our house, they have deluxe bunkbeds..aka window blinds!

First Fruits of our Garden

It is time to begin reaping the benefits of our garden this year!  Ben planted some fun looking squash this year called Early Whitebush Scallop, that grows in a cool shape.  It kind of looks like a flower and Ben made us all model it!

Even Uncle Troy had a go!

Next, we have some tomatoes ready--my favorite!  There is nothing better than a fresh garden tomato! Can you find Jade in that forest of plants?!

She was so proud of her tomatoes, she reached in there and picked them out all by herself.  She is such a great little helper and it is nice to have someone else to help with the harvesting this year!

We also picked quite a few herbs this morning as well.  This is about the 5th time we harvested the parsley this season!  Then we have basil and rosemary.  It was a smelly day in our kitchen!

And last, but not least, Ben picked his first cucumber of the season and promptly ate it!  Kiera even loved it--it was the only real food she would eat that day.

Kiera--15 months!

15 months already--Wow!  Kiera has developed alot in the past 3 months since she turned one.  At one she only had 2 teeth and now she has 6 and is working on two more eye teeth plus her molars!  Needless to say--she is not sleeping or eating very well and we find EVERYTHING in her mouth!

Kiera's Stats at 15 months:

Weight: 26 lbs. 5 oz  (89%)

Height: 32 inches (89%)

 

Some other things about Kiera right now:

• She can now walk on her own!  Started walking on July 1--what a great birthday present for me! I love the Frankenstein walk!

• She climbs on everything no matter how big or small, she will find a way to get to the top of it!  

 

• When she sees a picture or a stuffed monkey, she immediately starts saying "ooh, ooh, ahh, ahh!"
• She will smile and actually say "cheese" when I point the camera at her. It is great and I love this stage--I get the best smiles!

• She can say Mama, Daddy, Jade, cheese, yah, shoe, baby, and then just grunts to get whatever else she wants. But she can fully understand what we tell her to do.  She will bring us our shoes, pick up toys for Jade or come when we ask her to. She is one smart girl!
• Her favorite toy is her polar bear--she carries him around the house all day and then cuddles with him at night.

• She loves to play outside, especially on the swings and in the water.  It does not matter how cold the water is--you will find her splashing in it! She is also thinks she is big stuff when she "rides" her sister's bike--really she just sits on it and goes backwards--but she loves it!
• She is very tenderhearted and will still cuddle with us.  She sleeps with 5 stuffed animals in her crib at night, then will throw them all out in the morning and holler until one of us goes and gets her.  We get her out, she squirms to get down and proceeds to put all of her animals back into her crib--it is super cute!
• Sleeping: Sleeps from 7pm til about 7-8am.  Down to 1 nap a day and that ranges from 1 hour to 2 1/2 hours.  She needs 2 naps but will take two anymore:(

• She still drinks at least 3 bottles of milk a day--sometimes that is all I feel like I get her to eat.  She is not a great eater right now.  But she does enjoy cheese sticks, chips, frozen gogurts, and anything sweet. I am really beginning to wonder if she really is not eating because her teeth hurt, or if she is just waiting to see if we will give her something "good and sweet."  She put up a fight to eat her noodles the other day and spit them all over the floor. I gave up so Daddy gave her a cucumber and Pringles and she devoured them!  Her current favorite thing to do with her food is rub it in her hair or stick it to her forehead!

Enjoy some pictures of our sweet little Kiera bear--I think they tell their own story!

Into the land of Potty Training...

 Another milestone...I have been dreading it but wanting to do it just to be done and have one kiddo out of diapers.  Jade has been showing the signs of readiness for a while now, but with having another baby so close to when she turned 2 and then working last year and having no time--let's just say I put it off.  But this summer, we had some time and Jade was ready, so off we set into the land of potty training! I read about 4 books on the topic, got some pull-ups and real underwear ready to go and jumped in with both feet.  Look how happy Jade looks sitting on the big potty--of course--look who is sitting on her little potty?!!

We started out with pull-ups during the day and when she went pee she got 1 m&m and poop she got 2 m&m's.  She did okay with this if I reminded her all day to go to the bathroom.  I don't think I was fully ready for this process at this point.  She got the idea that these pull-ups were different than her diaper, but it did not register to her that she had to go in the potty all the time, it was more like a game or fun thing to do when she felt like.  So after getting very frustrated because she would tell me she went pee/poo after it happened in her pull-up, I just about gave up.  In fact there was a while there I was content just to change her pull-up and not fight her to use the potty.  On our St. George trip, she had an accident on the floor at our condo--and it was the last thing I could deal with that day--I got a little mad with her.  So after we got her and the floor all cleaned up, she immediately went and told Grandma and everyone else in the room that "Mama, is an angry bird!"  It was all I could do to hold my laughter inside! 

I decided at that point I needed to just lock myself in the kitchen and outside for a few days and put her in just underwear until she realized how to go in the potty.  Well....we started on a Monday morning by having Jade pick out her big girl underwear, she of course chose Tangled and Princess ones.

So after loading her up with juice and salt snacks all day...

and getting a popsicle or another treat for each time she went to the potty...

Kiera really enjoyed this treat too!!!  Isn't it great being a younger sibling, you reap all the benefits of what the older one is doing!

 

We finally had success at filling up one whole potty chart with stickers.  She got one sticker for pee and two for poop. I was super excited and positive with her all day and she was having so much fun drinking all the juice she wanted and getting stickers and treats.  

Our first day was such a success, I was motivated to go on to the next...so we sat in the kitchen all day. I brought her play kitchen and dollhouse into the kitchen with us too.

Day 2 was not as lucky as day 1, Jade had 6 accidents in a 3 hour period.  I was getting frustrated and tired of wiping up the kitchen floor so we headed outside to read some books. After a few more accidents outside, she finally started going in her potty more and really got the hang of telling me before she had to go.

By the end of the week, Jade was doing fantastic!  She could tell me before she had to go and made it to the potty. She was down to one or less accidents per day and she was filling up her sticker charts fast!  Each time she filled up a chart, she got a Barbie movie--her current favorite!  I was so proud of her because we went shopping all day with my Mom on Friday--just 4 days after starting this process--and she only had one accident at Costco! But she asked to go to the bathroom 6-7 times at each store we went to--sometimes she went and sometimes not--but at least she was going!  

She has now earned 3 Barbie movies and is working on her last chart to get the final movie.  She even wakes up dry at night and sometimes in the middle of the night will scream until we come and take her potty!  I was not planning to tackle that night training hurdle yet, but she will not pee in her pull-up at night.  I think we are going to have a big party to celebrate her being potty trained!! YEAH!!! Only one kiddo in diapers again--hopefully Kiera will follow Jade's example and potty train herself--ha ha!

Yard Improvements & Daddy's Little Helper

I walked out into the front yard one Saturday morning to find this sweet picture above. Jade sure loves to help her Daddy with everything.  She had found her little wooden hammer so she could pound nails just like Daddy.  They were building this...for our new dog...

 HA! HA! Just kidding...no new dog at our house.  We already have 2 little people to take care of!  But...Ben thought he was pretty funny writing Rex on his new lawn mower cover.  It kind of looks like a dog house, huh?  Anyway, long story short on this one was that he was storing the lawn mower in our shed and it was making all of the girls clothes, toys, and our books smell like gasoline.  So Ben built this little beauty for his friend REX!

Next project involved our front tree.  Jade was super sad when she got too big to ride in her pink swing in the backyard.  So Daddy built her a new one for big girls in our front yard tree.  It is much sturdier and she loves, loves, loves (did I mention loves) it!

Way too high for me!

The Proud Papa with his Happy Jadee Lady!

She gets this happy little grin on her face when she swings. It make it all worth it, thanks Papa! Her favorite thing to do is get a running start, jump in the swing belly first and then let herself go.  She looks like Superman!

The last "little" project Ben has been working on is digging the holes for some posts for our backyard Pergola.  He planted the grape vines last year but they need something to grown up on.  So Jade is helping by making mud pies out of the lovely dirt he digs up.  She was quite enjoying herself...feeding her mud pies to the worms!

Here is a picture of the posts he put in.  Now onto cutting all the wood for the Pergola part! Hopefully it will provide some nice shade for the backyard when it is finished.