Summer is Coming!

Weekly Happenings: This past week was a pretty typical one. We didn’t really go anywhere out of the ordinary or do anything out of the ordinary, either. I don’t mind when that happens, though. It makes the “more fun” weeks more special. Paul did assemble our pool, though…which provided some relief from the heat and humidity.

The Weekly Weather: It’s been rather warm and humid (typical late spring weather), but it’s supposed to be triple digits all this next week. I’m sure glad Paul got the pool put together!

What Paul’s Been Up To: He’s been busy with work, school, and home life. He did go see the new movie, Solo (about Han Solo) with a friend, which he enjoyed.

What Sarah’s Been Up To: The antibiotics worked rather quickly to clear up my strep throat (yay!). I had a wonderful meeting with our Relief Society presidency (as well as some of the stake Relief Society presidency). It’s so good to meet with them and find out more about my new calling and how I can best assist my presidency. 🙂

What Joseph’s Been Up To: The fun end of the year stuff at school continues. He has been enjoying playing with Abigail (and helping her walk). He also has procured a new Yo-Yo Ball which he has been making up tricks with.

What Abigail’s Been Up To: She has been battling a small cold which she seems to over, finally. She also decided a couple nights ago that she didn’t want to go back to sleep after waking up in the middle of the night. She seemed fine as long as either Paul or I were holding her (or letting her crawl all over us), she just didn’t want to be in her bed. We finally got her to go into her crib so that we could go back to bed. I’m not sure if she ever fell back to sleep, though (she was quiet and not crying, at least). Luckily that was Friday night, so we all got to catch up on sleep the next day. She’s also gotten more brave with walking and will walk between two people (usually me and Paul) rather readily. There was one night that she turned from where she was standing (by the couch) and started walking towards the recliner. It seemed like she did it without thinking, almost automatically. She realized what she was doing after about 3 steps and then dropped down to her knees to crawl the rest of the way, haha. So…progress. 🙂

This Week in Pictures:

This is what happens when you refuse to nap. You fall asleep on the two minute drive to your brother’s school.
The toad who lives in our backyard.
Paul took the previous picture as well as this one and put his shoe there for scale. He was trying to come back in the house after being in his office finishing homework and had to wait until this guy had his fill of the beetles that would just walk past him.
She didn’t want to let go of her jingly ball, so she had to figure out how to walk and hold it at the same time. 🙂
Let’s play, “Spot the Toad”!
Joseph hanging out in the pool.
It’s the perfect size for us. 🙂

Bonus Videos (yes, two!):

Joseph showing off his new Yo-Yo Ball tricks:

Abigail walking a bit:

 

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.