Olivia's Favorite Things to Do (Usually with Jocelyn)

There's nothing Olivia loves more than playing with Jocelyn and going to the park.  These are pictures from my old school camera that I've been meaning to put on my computer for months, but never have.  Keep in mind, we don't stay home all day like these pictures suggest.  We just always have a camera at home.

Jumping on the bed: of course, the whole time I am singing about 5 monkeys jumping on the bed the entire time.  She also loves jumping with Jocelyn and she loves it too.

When John's parents came to stay at my house, we had the girls sleep in our room so they could take the girls' room.  We brought Jocelyn's crib mattress into our room for Olivia to sleep on.  Most nights, she couldn't stay on the mattress.  She slept in this position every night.

When John's parents came over, we set up two new bookshelves that, of course, Olivia had to help us with.  Instead of giving her a real hammer, we gave her the meat one instead.  And she was actually pretty good!

Olivia always has to wave bye bye to everyone.  She also loves to wait for her Daddy to come home from school.  To prepare herself, she got on her Cinderella dress, pulled up a chair, and was reading her book while waiting.

The corner of Olivia's room is perfect for forts.  She loves to pile up all her stuffed animals and sleep on them!  Usually Jocelyn is along for the ride too.

Olivia reading books to Jocelyn:

As much as I brag about being super organized, I'm not nearly like Olivia!  It must be in her blood (from her father's side) because she loves lining things up.  I'm pretty sure I've shown it before in previous posts.  But here she is lining up all her library books.

I'm pretty sure Olivia and Jocelyn throw food under the table during meal time on purpose so that they can eat it later.  Either that or Olivia brings food under the table to feed Jocelyn.  Don't worry.  I do sweep my floor more often than I brush my teeth, so you don't have to worry about them eating week-old bananas.

Playing under the bed.

I don't know why I allow this to happen, but everyday my kids take all my kitchen stuff out of the bottom cabinets:

And then they crawl inside.  As annoying as it is to clean up all the pots and pans and bowls and having them in my tiny kitchen while I'm cleaning, it's worth it to keep them occupied while I prepare dinner.

And yes, I do clean all my dishes again right before I use them, just in case you were wondering.

Jocelyn's Favorite Things to Do

It's been a long time since I last blogged on here.  I could blame it on a lot of things, but how about just looking at pictures instead.

Jocelyn is getting so old, but not so big.  She is almost a year old but only weighs about 13 pounds.  My sister thinks I should put her in movies when then need a scene shot with a newborn because my child is so little, but she might ruin the shot when she tries to crawl away on set.

Jocelyn is so interactive now and really tough.  She has taken a few steps, but not walking yet though it is weird seeing a little girl who still wears 3-6 month clothes walking, but she'll be doing it soon.  She talks a lot!  Always yells "MAMA!" and tries to repeat things that we say.  Her favorite song is the famous "Gunk Gunk" song from girls camp since she always does the hand motions with me.  Here are a few pictures of other things that she likes to do:

When I was young, a lady in my ward made me a little doll.  Olivia now plays with it all the time.  One day we thought it would be fun to switch it up a bit.

So we put the clothes on Jocelyn!  Isn't that adorable!

She always like to help me with laundry.  She usually sits on the bed and hands me clothes one by one.  This is a recent development.  Otherwise she sits on the floor and takes everything out of the basket.

And just like her big sister, she loves looking at herself in the mirror.  It's the best toy in the house that we have!

I think Jocelyn's body is equivalent to a gallon of 1% HEB milk.

Unlike Olivia who likes to dump out all the toys, Jocelyn prefers to play with them in the basket.

Until I reorganized the toys into 3 different baskets on the shelf.  Now she just likes to take them all out and play on the shelf.

And finally, this girl LOVES to eat!  She eats more than Olivia and that is no exaggeration.  She has 3 teeth on top and only 1 on the bottom, but that doesn't stop her from eating fruit twisties, whole bananas, a jar of baby food, and a cup of cheerios in one sitting.  She must get that from Aunt Amanda.

Just Jocelyn

Can you believe that Jocelyn is already 8 months old?  She loves climbing like her sister and constantly get beaten up, but surprisingly she loves it.

The other day I made the girls some "Moon Sand".  Jocelyn just wanted to eat it, but Olivia liked to do other things with it

Jocelyn loved it!

I have to sweep the floor about 5 times each day because of all the cheerios and other small finger foods.  I decided I should just let Jocelyn clean up instead.  It worked.

Target.

I LOVE this picture!  Jocelyn doesn't spend much time with Daddy anymore since he is at school a lot, but when she does, she loves it!

Jocelyn's favorite toy:

Time with the Cousins

One of the reasons that we were excited about moving to Texas is that my little girls can play with their cousins just a few hours away!  They got along really well the first few hours together, but I think Olivia just wants to play with her cousins her way.  She would always follow Brandon who is a year older than she is, but he wasn't too happy about it.  I guess if I had a little girl that would chase me with sticks, open the door while I was going potty, challenge me to screaming competitions, and lock me in a dark pantry following me around I would get really annoyed too.  Brandon was a really good sport though.

When I was pregnant with Jocelyn, I flew with Olivia and had a miserable time chasing her around with all my bags and feeling larger than a whale.  I saw another lady traveling with two small children alone and at that moment, I told myself I would NEVER do that.  Well, I was wrong.  I was glad that I saw her though because I was very well prepared for this flight.  The night before our flight, left our kids with Uncle Ryan and Aunt Emma and headed to the Dollar store.  We bought Olivia 5 cheap toys that I had in my backpack and gave to her one at a time every time she got bored with her toy.  It worked wonderfully!  Jocelyn did great and Olivia loved all the toys!

Since my sister is ridiculously healthy, I had to wait until she left to make chocolate chip cookies.  I had the kids help me.  Even though they are really tiny kids, they did a great job not making a big mess. 

PaPa, you've been replaced for your horsey rides.  Bryce is the fastest horsey I've ever seen! 

Jocelyn really got into solids at my sister's house.  She is really loving her solids unlike her sister who refused everything that I put in her mouth.  I love this picture of Jocelyn.  She is actually so tiny that she is lifting herself up in the picture so she can see over the tray. 

Brandon and Bryce LOVED playing with the baby!  They always wanted to hold and play with her. 

My nephew Bryce got a pocket knife!  He and Grandpa decided to carve some soap!  Both made a train and I was very impressed with their sculpting skills. 

Jocelyn crawling into a laundry basket: 

When the kids had a Popsicle,  they had to sit next to the wall.  It was so fun listening to them laugh and talk!

Big kids on the playground. 

Olivia always loves being on the swing, so we tried Jocelyn out on the swing and she loved it! 

My happy swinging girl!   

Bryce is like his mom when she was young: she never wanted to smile in any pictures.  After about 20 pictures of him hiding his face, we finally got one! 

And Amanda, since you think you can dance, guess everyone should see! 

Goodbye Idaho

We made our move to Texas!  We have been counting down the days to move away from Idaho.  We love our house and the friends that we made in Idaho, but we weren't progressing in our life like we wanted to, so we made the move to Texas.  Here are just a few things that happened before we left!

John's mom came to visit us for the last time in our house.  She was a HUGE help in helping me stage the house for renters!  Without her, I doubt we would have finished our house in time.

The week after John's mom came, my parents came to help us finish the BIG things around the house that my dad can do in 10 minutes, but would take us about 10 hours.  Of course Olivia had to help and surprisingly actually did by handing Grandpa all the nails. 

I just love this picture. 

This is our last Sunday and the day before we moved to Texas.

Whenever people ask us what our house looks like, we usually tell them it just looks like a house that a 2nd grader would draw: a box with 4 windows and a door.

We really wanted to bury a time capsule in our backyard and dig it up when we sell our house.  In our capsule, we put handprints, house colors, strings of the girl's height, John's work shirt, the newspaper from the day we moved, and a few other things to remind us of the time we spent in Idaho.   

We really enjoyed our time that we spent in our house, but we are really excited to be in a new place and meet new people.  

Oh!  And we are very excited that we now have renters in our house!  If you're in Idaho, feel free to bring our renters some fresh baked bread just so that they know they moved into a great neighborhood.

"Mom! Get a Video of Me Crawling!"

Jocelyn started to crawl before we moved here.  While we were at my sister's house, I tried to get some video of Jocelyn crawling, but it turned out to be videos of the other grandkids.

When Olivia and her cousin Brandon still got along, Olivia read him her princess book.  She even sings the "Tale As Old As Time" song from Beauty and the Beast.

Here is the video of Jocelyn crawling, but my favorite part is when my nephew Brandon (3-years-old) say, "Mom!  Get a video of me crawling!" 

My Little Helper

As many of you may know, we live in Texas now.  These past few weeks have been super busy with getting our house ready to rent and moving.  Thankfully, my parents came up to Idaho to help us move and helped us out a lot.  Here is just a small video to prepare you for all the updates that will be coming to this blog.

Olivia loves helping, so here she is helping Grandpa fix our deck.