Applause

Ari loves to clap her hands lately--here's a cute little video.

Out Like a Lamb???

This was Friday--the first official day of spring! It was such a beautiful, warm day, we broke out the water table and spent hours out in the backyard.

This was the backyard today. I just have to keep telling myself to hold on just a little longer--warm weather (that stays) will be here soon!

Five Years . . . and counting!

Happy anniversary to us! Five years ago today we were married in the Salt Lake Temple. Its gone by so fast, and yet its hard to imagine life any differently. We celebrated over the weekend by staying in a castle (well, the Castle Creek Inn B&B in Sandy, that is).

Nathan and I met in a singles/student ward. Sounds so typical, I know, but it really was ideal. Here's the story for anyone who cares to know: Nate was attending the University of Utah and I was done with BYU and working in Salt Lake at the Family History Library. We both lived on Capitol Hill and went to the University 41st Ward at the U of U Institute. For a year or so we were aquaintences with a lot of mutual friends and got to know each other on the activities committee and at get-togethers and hiking/camping trips with friends. Things finally just started to "click" when we went on a backpacking trip in August of 2003 with just two other friends in the Wellsville Mountains in Cache Valley, Utah. Near the end of the hike we ran out of water and were exhausted and my feet were so blistered that I had to finish the hike in my socks. Nate ended up running down the rest of the trail to the car, hiked all the way back up to where I was and carried my pack the rest of the way. How could I help but like him after he rescued me like that? Anyway, we had our first official date a few days later (where Nate introduced me to Korean food--pretty good, I might add!). Around this same time we were called to be co-chairs of the activities committee in our ward and found that we really worked well together and liked being around each other. Well, as they say, "the rest is history." We got engaged on December 20, 2003 at the Cape Mears Lighthouse on the Oregon coast (my family lived in Oregon at the time and Nate had come up to meet them).

Well, Nate, its been an amazing five years full of many different kinds of adventures and I look forward to the next five, and the next five after that, and the next . . . . I love you!

Wierd Potty Training Tips . . . That Work!

So Robbie is turning out to be a tough kid to potty train, so here's some wierd things we've been trying (actually, I'm sure we're not the first parents to do these things). Warning: If you don't have little kids, you may find this a tiny bit crude and if the words "poo", "poop", "pee", etc. make you cringe, you might as well quit reading now.



Wierd Potty Training Tips


1. Poo Personification--Robbie loves it when we pretend the poo likes to swim in the toilet bowl and down into the sewer pipes. Even better is when we talk for the poop to encourage him to go: "Let me out, I want to go swimming!" or "Hey, I need a friend down here to swim with!"


2. Reverse Phychology--All we need to say is, "I REALLY hope you don't use the potty soon." or "Don't sit on the potty!" and Robbie goes from crying and complaining to begging for us to let him use it.


3. Pretend "It" is a Fire Hose--'nough said.


4. Poo-poo Parade--Sometimes to celebrate we march around the house, playing instruments and singing "Robbie went pee-pee on the potty! Robbie went poopy on the potty!"


5. Everyone Gets Praised--You know you're a potty-training parent when you walk out of the bathroom and your whole family cheers and claps because you just went poo-poo on the potty!

Swimming

We took the kids swimming at the Legacy Center in Lehi on Saturday and had a blast! This was Ari's first time in the pool and and she took to it with absolutely no trepidation. In this picture she's getting sprayed by the little fountains at the edge of the pool--she loved crawling around in them and trying to drink the water (YUCK!). Robbie has made great strides in his fear of the huge tipping bucket of water on top of the kids play area and actually had a great time getting doused. Can't wait for some great outdoor swimming this summer!