Sounds of Different Ages

It is fun to hear the ways my kids are growing up.  The development of language is so quick.  Bentley can identify animals as we are out walking or driving.  She may not be able to pronounce their names perfectly, but we can definitely tell what she is saying.  Sometimes she even makes their sounds, but she is a lot better at making their sounds when we ask her what a certain animal says.  Bentley also really loves Bria and says her name all the time.  Right now she is only able to say “Bia”.

Bria on the other hand, is learning all kinds of things and is always communicating them to us.  She asks questions about things like momentum and says words like hypothesis.  Spelling is one thing that has always been interesting to her.  One day on the paper she was writing on were the letters “UV”.  She proceeded to tell me that it was the word “of” that she had sounded out.  Obviously, that is not the word “of”, but when you sound it out those would be the letters that make sense.  We have been working on letter sounds for a while, and she has been trying to sound out words and spell them for some time too; but for some reason that day just seemed to make her more grown up.

Yesterday, Bria had a child development screening (the same as pre-kindergarten screening).  The people who did the tests were impressed, and said that she could hold a nice conversation.  Even though Bria is not old enough for kindergarten this fall, the screening showed that she would be ready if she could go.  We are glad that she is doing so well.  Honestly, she is easy to teach because she is so curious about learning.

The sounds in our house never stop.  I hope that it continues to mean that the girls are learning new and exciting things.

Easter Fun

The girls and I headed to my parents’ for a couple of days before Easter. Grandma had all kinds of Easter activities for the girls, which kept them busy the whole time.

The first night we dyed eggs. The youth center that my mom runs is a great place to do it. Messes are easier to clean up and there is lots of room. Dying eggs before Easter has been a tradition in my family since I was little, and it is something that they still love to do (even if my siblings are all grown up). I seem to be the only one who doesn’t get to excited about it. I’m sure it has something to do with my aversion to things that make big messes that could be hard to clean up.

Bentley was also excited about dying the eggs, but she just kept trying to drop them into and take them out of the dye. We tried to just let her watch, but she was always reaching for the dye so we found something else for her to do.

One of the most fun parts was watching my dad dye eggs. I don’t know if we have ever seen him do it before. He liked making them two colors and had a very steady hand for holding half the egg in one color then turning it and holding the other half in another color. It was funny how excited he was about it. My brother also had a good time taping his egg and getting it three different striped colors. It was obvious that he is an auto body repair person.

The next day was spent swinging and hunting for Easter eggs outside, the ones we had dyed.

Bentley can’t sit on the swing yet, so grandma helped her by holding her. Bria then thought she needed to push the swing.

Bentley enjoyed finding the eggs. I couldn’t get very good pictures of Bria because she was running around the yard looking for eggs.

We came back home Saturday morning, so that this morning we could be part of our church’s sunrise Easter service. We had church at 7:30 am this morning. In order to get the girls ready, we had to wake them up, which they were not happy about and continued to let us know that while we were at church. After the sunrise service, we had breakfast at church, and then had our regular Sunday school and church services. The girls were so crabby after Sunday school that D brought them back home. That concluded our Easter activities. I didn’t even make an Easter meal since we were going to be spending so much time at church this morning. The lazy afternoon was really nice.

We hope that all of you had a joyous Resurrection Day. The reason that we have hope in eternal life is in the fact that Jesus is Risen from the grave. His death alone could not save us, but because he was raised again we can be certain that we can receive eternal life by placing our faith in a living Savior.

As a side note: our cell phone service switched over to AT&T on Thursday and all the pictures above were taken with my new phone. The camera on the phone seems to work quite well, however, we are not so sure about the actual phone service yet. There seems to be some kinks that need to be worked out.

April Snow

We just had a very wet April snow storm. It didn’t even last 24 hours and we had about 8 inches of snow. That doesn’t include the rain and ice we had before the snow.

This a picture of our pine trees in the back yard. They are so weighed down by snow that the lowest branches are almost touching the patio. Usually, we can walk underneath the branches while walking on the deck.

The girls thought it would be fun to get outside and play in the snow. We haven’t had wet enough snow to build a snowman yet this year, so D and Bria built one yesterday.

Getting started on the snowman. I think they were adding the middle snowball.

Bentley couldn’t get around in the snow very well, so she just stood on the sidewalk most of the time (it doesn’t help that her boots are too big).

Her adorable round face with her hat on was too cute.

Before the snow stopped, and we were all just hanging out in the house, D was listening to some music and Bentley wanted to listen too.

Do you think that she is going to want her own iPod in a few years?

Slow, Slow, Slow…

We haven’t done too much out of the ordinary the last three weeks, and I haven’t had the motivation to update the blog.  We have spent some time with both the grandparents, but there aren’t many pictures to show for it.  Because it has been such a long time since I updated the blog I thought I would at least put up some more recent pictures.

Both girls helping grandma wash dishes.  Really just making a bigger mess for her to clean up.

Bria using a bulletin from church to type on the computer.  What a professional.

Bentley learning to take her own pants off and put them back on.

Tattoos that the girls found.  Once I put one on Bria, Bentley insisted on having one too.

There have been plenty of memorable moments in the last month, but they are not all on camera or they are something that only parents find interesting.

Snowmobiling

This last weekend we had more snow.  It has really piled up these last couple of storms.  We have enough snow that one of our friends (also D’s coworker) decided to get their snowmobile out.  They gave us a call on Saturday, when it was still freezing, and said he wanted us to join them for some fun in the snow.  We all took turns riding on the snowmobiles or being pulled on the sled.  The girls had a good time riding the sled behind the snowmobile until Bentley got too much snow in her face. 

D taking the snowmobile out for a test drive.

D and Bria riding on the sled behind the snowmobile, which is out of camera sight, and D’s coworker holding Bentley.

Because the temperature was so cold the girls only lasted about 45 minutes.  When we left to head back home Bentley was crying because her fingers were extremely cold and stiff.  It didn’t help that it was nap time.  Even though the girls had two pairs of gloves, warm socks, and boots, they both ended up with cold fingers and toes.

We all had a lot of fun.  It amazes me how many people around here invite us to do all kinds of things we hadn’t done before.  Different people have different toys and somehow we get to enjoy all of them.

Chicken Noodle Soup

A few days ago we had a little blizzard.  What’s better on a cold, snowy day than Chicken Noodle Soup?  It was perfect.  Bentley especially thought so; although, I’m not sure eating soup with your fingers is the best method to get it to your mouth.  It seems though, that her favorite part is drinking the broth out of the bottom of the bowl.

This method of eating tends to get quite messy.

I mentioned that we had a blizzard here a few days ago.  Prior to the blizzard we were actually at D’s parents.  D had some work close to his parents’, so I dropped the girls off at grandpa and grandma’s then met D.  We had a nice evening away from the girls, and I also had a few hours to run some errands that I needed to run.  We spent the next couple of days with his parents.  On Saturday we headed to SF for a farm toy show and little bit of shopping.  We even met up with my sister who’s at college in SF.  After dropping off a baby gift at our friends’ house we headed back to D’s parents, then made our way home.  The original plan was to come home Sunday afternoon, but the threat of a blizzard sent us home early.  We made the right decision, and spent the next two days comfortably in our house while the snow blew.

I’m not sure how well the pictures show the snow we received (they were taken in the middle of the storm).  Previous to this blizzard we could see all of the ground.  Today we received even more snow.  We have just as much snow as we did before it all melted last week, or at least it seems that way.

Sun and Fun

Today was just an amazing day.  I knew the forecast was for about 50 degrees, but I didn’t expect it to actually get up to 67 degrees.  The girls and I spent a good portion of the late afternoon and early evening outside.  We found all kinds of things to do.

Getting the tractors out after months of seeing them just sit in the garage was a lot of fun.

Bria had fun walking through the snow in her goulashes.

After walking in the snow she had to dump it out of her boots.

She also enjoyed jumping in the mud puddles.

Bentley thought it was fun just to touch the snow with her bare hands.

She tried walking on the snow some, but wasn’t very steady.

The girls also ran around on the driveways and played with sidewalk chalk.  A little later when D came home we were able to go for a walk.  It was warm enough that D didn’t even feel the need to wear a jacket.  I know this weather is only going to last a few days, but it really brings on the Spring Fever.  It was nice to have some days to get outside after what has already been a long and cold winter.