Ivy's 2

Ivy's birthday came and went on Friday and I never sat down to write a post just about our little pretty.  

First of all, she's nearing the middle of the pack in her stats...she has previously been in the 9th percentile, but we're inching up on 40% here people!  25 lbs and 35 inches!  oh yeah!

Here's Ivy at 2:

Still sucks her thumb...her thumb is gross.  Her teeth stick out a little from the thumb suckage...and it's horribnle, but it's so cute, i can't stand it.  She still loves to twirl one of her ponies (so, if I have them up in nubs, one will soon not be a nub, and turn into a pony...so she's lopsided...and I kind of like it.)  She's got the awesome-est little grandma arms ever!  She has the teeny-tiniest feet.  She still mostly wears 18 months shirts, she won't keep a clippy in her hair, she loves to go to playgroup with her friends, She calls her nursery leaders and my friends mommy when I'm not there, and I love it..and I think they do, too.  She says "me too either" when Max and I both agree on something...because she wants in on the action.  She loves sharks, Junie's lip gloss, shovels, money (pennies) and climbing on Max's bed.  She calls people 'poopy head' all the time when she doesn't get her way (oh my gosh, how do I stop it?) She likes to eat oatmeal, and ham hocks and beans.  She tries to sneak my diet coke when I'm not looking, she loves to play with Max, she loves to torment Max and get him in trouble.  She does NOT enjoy being in a cart at the grocery store...except those forward facing carts at Target (oh, how i love target)...it could have something to do with the popcorn, too, but at no other store will she sit in a cart.  she likes to get into the car and her car seat by herself...she's adamant about it.  She is very careful with books, and loves to look at the pictures and read with max and I.  She dances around the room like she's galloping and her arms flap as she does it...hilarious.  She loves Lady Ga Ga and the Glee Cast version of I think I Wanna Marry You...and she only requests those songs as well as the Jaws Overture (her fav since Halloween)  She drinks milk like a crazy girl, loves her Doctor (Doctor Cornelson) and impressed him by saying his name.  She's totally potty-trained...wears pull-ups to bed, but we reused the same one like 4 days in a row because she always wakes up dry (awesome job, Ives) and she loves to snuggle and be held.  ( I don't mind either). She loves to sing the Sunbeam song.   She's so perceptive, and has an awesome memory...she always talks about her friend Hugh and how he drinks rice milk...(she talks about that every time I pour a glass of milk...)She likes to compare little things and big things...Daddy ones and baby ones, and (I think) has her colors down, finally!  haha (that's so sad on my part!)

We love our little pretty...she cracks us up all the time, and we're so happy that she's part of our little family.  

My favorite little baseball player!

Max had another game today, he's getting better and better, and is so fun to watch!

Here he is with his buddy Talan

love those two!

Today, Marie (Rie) came to watch him play...it made his day!!!  She was better than a celebrity!  The only thing that could have topped her coming was if she'd brought her dog, Buddy!

He smiles when he runs the bases...it's awesome.

Today, he batted last...which means that he got to hit a homerun every time...and see, he's still smiling as he comes back into the dug-out..

My very favorite thing...I know he's little in this picture, he's the one over on 3rd base. He waves at me.  He takes off his hat, and waves with it.  gosh, he's cute!

Here's him throwing...it takes him a while to figure it out...hilarious to watch, and you know he's trying to throw like the pictures he's seen of Daddy...

Daddy says he's got good extension...

Happy Birthday to Ivy!

Ivy turned 2 today!  hooray!

Here's what we did to celebrate her day...for now!

I found these super fun templates in Family Fun Mag for an April Fool's Day trick

(this is about as tricky as I get on AFD...Hannah and the Peanut Butter incident in college really made me not prefer this holiday!...and if you ask Jeff, I can't take a joke!).  

Since Ivy's birthday is on April Fool's, and because we hosted Ward Story Time at our house this morning, I thought we'd go with the doughnut theme!  

We gave these to the kids to snack on...

we read some books about eating junk, and doughnuts (The Doughnut Chef is super cute, as is The Great Doughnut Parade, and Gregory the Terrible Eater)

We sang to Ivy and she blew out the candle on her massive Doughnut Cake...

and all her friends got to enjoy the cake, too!

Max was at school while all of this happened, so after all of our friends left, Ivy and I high-tailed it to Pretend City (the coolest place alive) to play for a little while, just the 2 of us!

We took a brief intermission for "naps" after we picked up max and then went back and played for a few more house.

I hope she had a fun day!  

FHE Tent

For the last couple of General Conferences, we break out our little kid tent for FHE.  we talk about King Benjamin and the tower and how everyone gathered around from all over to listen to him speak, and they set up their tents with their doors facing him so they could hear.  We talk about what General Conference is, and how we get to hear the Prophet speak, just like the people from the story did.  Then on Sunday, we set up the "Reverence Tent" for them to watch a talk in (we only make them do 1 talk for now)  They loved it last time...to have their sleeping bags, and conference packets and goodies.  

Just thought I'd share!

missionary training

That's what my friend Amber calls riding bikes on Sundays.  I love it!

Baseball season is in full swing.  Jeff's been gone for long bouts of time, and I can't remember 2 nights in a row that he's been home for dinner in over a month.  It's all good, we've got the hang of it, and we do have our daddy in the morning, but when Jeff was HOME all day today...no baseball at all...I convinced him to let us show him where we've been taking Max to ride his bike (another thing my friend Amber told me about...she's a genious!)

So, we went for a walk/bike ride, enjoyed nature, had some much-needed good family-bonding time...and of course trained a future missionary!  {that's still keepin' it holy in my book!}

thanks for the fun tips, Amber!

ps...don't walk and take pictures ever again! {duh}

{oops}

jam session

yesterday, our neighbor Ritch was helping me with a project...and he invited Max to play with his drum set to keep him occupied for a minute...

little boy heaven.   

Ivy sang into his mic, which was heaven for her!  

remind me to NEVER buy a set of these...it was sooooo loud!

etsy shop

It's been a while since I put anything in etsy...I didn't put much effort into it the first go 'round...and I think I was too busy.  BUT, I just posted a bunch of necklaces, and pins into my etsy shop.  I'd love it if you stopped by to check it out! 

click on the picture below to go there.

or you can click on the link in our sidebar any time.  

There are more necklaces to come, and I love making custom ones! 

I'll also put some more headbands up as I can get the pictures taken.

See you there!

autie

Playgroup!

 My turn to host Ivy's playgroup is OVER...woo hoo!

I had a fun time scheming up little activities and themes for these girls to do each day, but I'm glad to have my 4 hours a week back to MYSELF!  We got 2 more girls in our group, finally!  So we now get more weeks off than we did when we just had three.  Love it.  Aren't these girlies cute?!?

{Ivy, Aubrey, June, Brynlee and Maddy}

The last 2 weeks, the girls learned about Fish, Ladybugs (and the number 6) Colors with Brown Bear, Brown Bear, and then St. Patricks Day...

I was especially excited for the Brown Bear Day...here are some of the things we did:

We did a matching activity ( I do one of these most of the time) using the brown bear characters from the book.  They all did so good matching--they haven't always been so good at it, so its fun to see them progress!

 ...and because there's 5, I really can't help them much!  Stuff has to go fast, and there's hardly an one on one time...holy cow.  love it

By coincidence, I happened to find this idea on one of the blogs in my reader!  I found this idea here.  It's an i-spy bottle with the little characters from the Brown Bear Book.  As we read the book (which we did about 5 times this day) the girls had to shake their bottles around and find the character of the page we were on.  I did double-sided circle punches, and just got the little pics from off the internet.  

The other fun thing we did was to make a brown bear book of our own...I had each of the mom's send me a picture of the girls before hand, and I put together a little book for each of the girls.  When it comes to the "teacher" part, I got one of their nursery leaders to let me take her picture (we all love her!)  I think the girls liked it.  It didn't turn out the way I wanted...but it's perfect!

tball game 2

some pre-game pictures in our Duck Garb...

Ivy sharing her thumb with Daddy...she thought that was silly.

Max got to play pitcher today, just like Daddy did...and got the first play of the game.  It's so much more fun when you get the ball!

here's the first ground ball...

My favorite part of the game today was when Talan, who was the last hitter today, lapped his teammate at second base...and they ran right next to each other the rest of the way home...hilarious!

Max getting a ball out in Left Field

So fun that even though his boss is in town, Jeff was able to make it to his game today and help out on the field...love it!

here's a little piece of the action!  (because I know you're dying to see more!)

Here's Max playing 1st base for the first time...hee hee

...he got a little better at it!

Our St. Patrick's Day

We started out the festivities on the 16th, at Ivy's playgroup.  I heard about a leprechaun that had lost his rainbow...so we had to go on a hunt to find his colors.  The girlies found the red crayons on our red couch, the orange crayons in the fridge with the carrots and oranges, etc.  It was fun!

We had rainbow Jell-O for our snack...which all but 1 loved.  :)

My mom used to make this all the time...but I had never done it, so it was a fun little project for me to do for the little girls. 

 St. Pat's eve, I decided to make Ivy a rainbow belt, circa 1987, like I used to wear...you can find the tutorial for it here at me and my friend Jen's craft blog...

She loved to wear it today...i loved seeing it on her!  you can't see it in this picture, but this is her showing it off...

This morning, we woke up to a crazy leprechaun leaving funny little surprises around the house...he tinkled in our toilet...he turned our milk green...and likewise our oatmeal, he left a trail of gold coins around Daddy (who happened to be sleeping on the couch...and no he didn't get kicked out of bed, he wanted to sleep there) and left a pot of gold and some fun green surprises for m & i.

It was a really fun morning.

Max was decked out in green with his shirt, undies, socks and shoes...but was still concerned that his pants were blue...

 ...and while we're taking pictures, can I please make a funny face?

 how about this one?

 he's cute, I had to post them.  

we ran a couple of errands this morning, library, michaels, pet store (just to look), etc...

And then after naps, we went to feed the ducks at a NEW PARK! 

My friend Amber told me about this park..and I've been dying to go...and dying to feed the ducks our cast-offs!

We loved it.  My favorite was seeing these little boys...and their friend Emily who isn't in the picture, running around together in their green shirts!  

 I think one of the leprechaun's hi-jacked my cute little miss today...because she turned into a leprechaun herself...although she was cute, I didn't enjoy her 2 crazy fits today.  good thing she's cute!

 more green guys

and then we came home, read our library books, ate dinner...and then feasted on the rainbow cupcakes like we made last year!  YUM!

the prettiest cupcake to eat!

 It's so fun to celebrate the random little holidays!

...and on a side note, I thoroughly enjoyed driving around today, and seeing the random old lady in the car at the light next to me with a wacko green shirt on...or the man walking his dog with a green T-shirt...or my friend Amber who ran in a green t-shirt today...i loved seeing green everywhere!

thank you jeff, for making me day, and changing your shirt.  :)