Momma’s Day and Dinos Galore

Weekly Happenings: This past week included Mother’s Day. Paul and Joseph made me breakfast, I got sweet presents, and I got to enjoy a great lesson in Relief Society. Mid-week was pretty normal. Yesterday, we scooted out to the zoo and found that they were getting ready for the dinosaur exhibit, which is due to open in a couple of weeks. This meant animatronic dinosaurs everywhere. It’s good that we had fun in the morning because in the afternoon I got hit pretty hard with a a stomach bug. As that was running its course, my slightly sore throat that started late Friday (which I thought might be from allergies) turned into a raging sore throat, so today I went to urgent care. I came away with antibiotics for strep throat. *sigh* Thankfully, Paul has been able to step in with the kids (hopefully keeping them from catching anything). Here’s to hoping this next week starts better than the last one ended!

The Weekly Weather: It’s been mostly sunny and dry, but we did have some rain come in last night and part of today.

What Paul’s Been Up To: He’s been kept pretty busy with team meetings and homework for school, as well as work and then the extra load that’s been added during my illness. I’m so grateful for him!

What Sarah’s Been Up To: I was recently released as a Gospel Doctrine (Sunday School) teacher and called to be the secretary in the Relief Society. I’m actually rather excited about it. It’s something I haven’t done before and the women I’m working with are amazing. I’m looking forward to the experience!

What Joseph’s Been Up To: He’s been enjoying the good, fun time that is the last little bit of school (I think he’s got about 2.5 weeks left). He’s also been a big helper with Abigail, for which I am super grateful.

What Abigail’s Been Up To: She’s been her normal, happy-go-lucky self for the most part. She is starting to put up a bit of a fight when we try to put her in for her nap, though. When I think about it, Joseph was about this age when he stopped napping. I was hoping Abigail would last a bit longer, but we’ll see what happens. She also has gotten brave enough to occasionally take a few steps by herself, but tends to still prefer to use the furniture or someone’s hands to steady herself.

This Week in Pictures:

The cute little plant I got to pot and take home from my Relief Society activity last week.
My Mother’s Day goodies.
A close-up of Joseph’s school Mother’s Day gift. They used the green screen in the computer lab for the background.
I love seeing what his mind comes up with for these answers!
Our little LEGO master.
Testing out the car he designed.
I love it when I look up and see little snippets like this.
Ready to defend Abigail from…well, just about anything, I suppose.
This is the sight that I’m sometimes greeted with when I have to get her out of her crib to go get Joseph from school.
Waiting in the parking lot for Joseph.
Seeing if her bin makes for a better seat.
Our garden.
Flowers on both the zucchini and the pumpkin.
I moved the other strawberry plant out from under the zucchini. I haven’t looked at it today, but hopefully it made the transplant okay and didn’t go into shock.
It was exciting to find that there is actually a zucchini on our zucchini plant!
She loves to crawl over to the hat/jacket area and see what she can reach to try on.
Dinosaurs!
Sometimes our photo app will stylize a photo. I thought this one turned out pretty neat.
The bears were actually out (and chasing around the vultures in their enclosure).
Roar like a dinosaur…
…definitely…
…was a theme.
I think Paul caught him between roars for this one.
And…he’s back at it.
He was pretty excited to see all those dinosaurs.

Bonus Video: Abigail Being Silly

Middle of May

Weekly Happenings: This past week was pretty average. We sort of just plugged along, doing our normal thing. Friday, Abigail and I met up with Paul to attend his annual work picnic (Joseph stayed in school, which was probably more fun for him…there aren’t really any kids there since it’s always in the middle of the day on a school day). Everyone was excited to see Abigail and how much she had grown (at the last one, she was just a few months old).

The Weekly Weather: It’s been warm and dry (as in, no rain…it’s been plenty humid, haha).

What Paul’s Been Up To: Work, school, and the like. 🙂

What Sarah’s Been Up To: Kids, home, and the like. 😉 I did get to attend a stake Relief Society activity which was uplifting and fun.

What Joseph’s Been Up To: He’s been really enjoying school. His class got a new class pet (a frog) to add to their menagerie. His teacher does so many fun things with the class I know it will be bittersweet on the last day of school.

What Abigail’s Been Up To: She has added her version of “thank you” (it sort of sounds like: “aye-oo”) to her vocabulary and will use it quite often (example: a friend of mine gave her a cracker and she told her thank you…and then told her thank you again when she gave her another one). It’s crazy to think that she’s going to be two at the end of the year!

This Week in Pictures:

She was trying to get the goggles on by herself but was struggling, so I helped her out. 🙂
“How does this thing work?”
Ready for the walk to school.
He loves to help her walk (with a reminder here and there that he needs to go her speed).
Chillin’ at Daddy’s work picnic.
There are many people at Paul’s work (students, instructors, other staff) who speak different languages. Every year at the picnic, they set up a table where different people will write your name in their native language. A few years back we had them do Joseph’s name, so this year we had them do Abigail’s. It’s so neat to see how they are all written.

Cousins and Other Fun Things

Weekly Happenings: This past weekend, we had the pleasure of having my nephew and his family stop by while they were in town. We had a really nice visit and Joseph was ecstatic that there were kids to play with. The rest of the week went pretty much as planned and then just this morning I took both kids to the zoo so that Paul could have some quiet time to work on homework. I really do love having the zoo close enough to visit on a regular basis. I also love having passes. We were able to go for just an hour and not feel like we had to try and see everything. Today we spent a lot of time in the aquarium and even went in to see the lories (we didn’t feed them…just enjoyed their presence). Abigail was really intrigued by those brightly colored birds.

The Weekly Weather: It’s been rather gloomy as of late. Overcast days, smatterings of rain, etc.. Yesterday, the sky finally opened up and we had a good, soaking thunderstorm. Today’s weather is gorgeous! Warm, sunny, and breezy. I love it!

What Paul’s Been Up To: He’s been rather busy with school work and team meetings (for school) as well as work and home life. He’s in the home stretch now, though! Just a couple more months and he’ll be done with his Bachelor’s. I am so, so proud of him!

What Sarah’s Been Up To: I’ve mainly been doing my typical mom thing. Not too much out of the ordinary for me.

What Joseph’s Been Up To: As I mentioned before, he loved getting to play with his cousins. He also had fun at school since they’ve started this countdown of sorts. Mid-week this past week, we hit the point of only having twenty-six school days left before the end of the school year (this is not counting weekends, obviously). The kindergarten classes decided they would assign a letter of the alphabet to each day, starting with “Z” and do fun things or dress up in coordination with that letter. It should make for a fun end of the year.

What Abigail’s Been Up To: Here’s a bit of a run down of what she’s been doing (and saying): her current “word” list: mama, dadee, bu-buh (Joseph), bah-bah-bah (bath), nigh-nigh (nap/night-night), uh-oooh (either love you or thank you) and gicky (Mickey Mouse). She also says, “Eeeeeeeee!” when I ask if she wants to watch her babies (Baby Einstein) and will make that same sound whenever she approves of what we’re doing (getting food for her when she’s hungry, playing with her, etc.). She can point to her nose (and sometimes her eyes), gives things “loves” by holding the object (usually a stuffed animal) close to her and patting it, loves to turn on and off light switches, tries to open doors, dances to music, claps, plays peek-a-boo, blows kisses, waves, and is on the cusp of walking without assistance.

This Week in Pictures:

Hanging out with his cousin.
Reading to Daddy.
Just chillin’.
I got her new cups since she chewed her previous ones enough to make the holes in the spout break down. These have reinforced spouts, so we’ll see how long they last.
I decided to change up the art square (a framed piece of glass that I use dry-erase markers to decorate) in Joseph’s room. He was rather excited to come home from school and see this.
I checked on our garden after the big thunderstorm came through. It’s fine…and the zucchini is looking quite healthy, haha. The pumpkin plant (which is peaking out from under the zucchini and is reaching out over the strawberries) is doing well as are the strawberries.
We thought it was pretty funny that the hippos were all smooshed up against the glass.

Bonus Video: Welcome to the Crazy (a typical afternoon or evening in our house):