January 27 2011

Talking Toddler

I can’t get enough of Caroline’s growing vocabulary and ability to piece words together to get her idea across.

Lately she’s started saying, “Look, Dad!Â Watch this!”Â Then she proceeds to do something she thinks is remarkably clever (such as spinning around in a circle or burying her head in a blanket), and expects us to shower her with smiles and laughs (which we readily do).

She has also started saying “Want this!” at the dinner table.Â When I type that, it seems like a cute thing to say until I confess that her “Want this!” is said while vehemently shaking her head no and is closely followed by an “Uck!” sound.

I’ll wrap this post up with a picture.Â Do you think this much yarn around a toddler’s neck presents a strangulation hazard?

Brooke, Caroline, Dallas, Holidays, Madison, Rebecca, Spencer

Santa Pics

It was time for the ward Christmas party and Rebecca asked me to take the pictures again this year.

Brooke, Caroline, Family Fun, Madison, Spencer

Golden Art

I’ve been storing up kid artwork for a while, so here’s a post dedicated to our aspiring artists/graphic novelists.

Brooke’s school papers continue to be used (for better or for worse) as her sketch pad:

Holidays bring out her creativity:

She saw our bananas and couldn’t resist giving them a little personality:

And then we have the endless doodles and comics she draws on every scrap of paper she can find:

Caroline isn’t quite as prolific of an artist, but she does do cute drawings as well:

Spencer enjoys drawing also. Here we have a self portrait:

Another child who can’t resist doodling at school:

Spencer went through a phase where he was really into flags. He’d look up pictures of different flags and recreate them in miniature:

Lately Madison has been joining the artistic ranks.

Madison drew this one in church. Her friend Norah is sad, so she’s giving Norah a doll to make her happy:

This princess got caught in a rainstorm and wasn’t happy:

Madison brought this paper home from preschool. I was shocked at the adorableness of that zebra and had to text her preschool teacher to see if Madison actually drew that. Turns out she did draw it all by herself. It’s especially surprising how good her zebra is when you compare it to the other two animal blobs beside it.

One day we played Pictionary as a family. We told Madison she could draw whatever she wanted. The category was “animal.” She drew this:

After guessing every animal we could think of we finally asked Madison what it was. Her response? A giraffe. I continue to chuckle to myself every time I think of her neckless giraffe.

Caroline, Family Fun

A Birthday and A Baptism

Allow me to interrupt my months-long blogging hiatus with a special report – Caroline turned eight! We had such a fun time on her birthday.

We started off with presents. Tradition holds that on your eighth birthday you get scriptures:

A scripture tote,

and a scripture marking pencil (which Caroline was apparently highly skeptical of):

I had planned to give her a Lego set, but unfortunately it wasn’t able to get shipped and arrive on her birthday…or so we thought. We left the house to go to swim lessons and gymnastics and Kangaroo Zoo (a bounce house place) and when we got back we saw that there was a package for Caroline! A birthday miracle!

Caroline wanted the Lego girl Olivia for her cake. Kindly ignore all the brown splotches:

Caroline was excited for her birthday, but she was really excited to be baptized. She has been looking forward to this day for months. When it finally arrived, she was ready!

Dallas baptized and confirmed her. We had a luncheon after with our family. It was a wonderful day.

Dallas was able to take some beautiful pictures of our beautiful daughter. Caroline is such a good, sweet, kind girl. She is a friend to everyone, and we love everything about this special girl.