Licia-Bryce

Photo Credit: Sadie

And another bites the dust. 2012 has been the year of the goodbye for us. No joke. Multiple close friends, almost all of the Nielson family, and now my sister and her husband have moved away from Utah.

We have known the Gessells were going for a while now, which softened the blow. We were able to force them to hang out with us a lot before they left. 

One thing we will miss a lot is our John sibling dinners. We have had a lot of them over the past couple of years. On Sunday we gathered for one last sibling dinner.

The girls were a bit rowdy during mealtime so we stuck them in front of the tv with popcorn. That's some great parenting right there.

Our girls, and especially Elise, love the Gessells. They first started dating when Sadie was a few months old  so Bryce has always been in their lives. 

On an unrelated note. Louie was so proud of herself as she sat on the footrest and clapped. She's great. 

After the girls were in bed we sat outside talking for a while. We will miss the Gessells a whole lot.

We made them take a family picture with our kids so they can frame it on their wall in Boston.

We don't have to go cold turkey away from the Gessells because we are heading to Boston next week!

Music in the Park

Last week we went to see Caleb Blood-- a talented musician who just happens to be Daniel's cousin-- perform. You can see him on stage in the picture above. You can also see Sadie savoring every last sip of that juice box. Caleb is really talented- writes his own songs and everything. Daniel likes to think he sparked Caleb's love of music with some dumb song he taught him a family reunion long ago. I think we all know how far Caleb would've gotten with Daniel's teachings- nowhere, perhaps even backwards.

 

It was a gorgeous Utah summer evening. The girls danced/ran around/made noise and we all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

Elise enjoyed some one-on-one attention from dad while Sadie ran circles behind us.

Lou's favorite part was clapping when each song was over. She'd look around at everyone clapping and get so excited that she was part of the group.

Sleeping Beauty

Am I the only one who tends to feel an overwhelming amount of love for their children when they are asleep?  It's like all the tantrums and bratiness melt away and all I can see is the most angelic child in the world. Then Sadie wakes up and throws a massive tantrum about eating candy for dinner and I come crashing back to reality.  

PS- How do you get children to just give in to their tiredness and take naps during nap time? The above photo was taken after 1.5 hours of playing in her room instead of napping. 

Prince Hunter

Part of Sadie's bedtime routine is that she wants a "Shrek story". This means she wants us to tell her a fairy tale (but she dictates the story line) about Princess Sadie and all of her princess friends (only allowed to use names of Sadie's actual friends) and the red dragon from Shrek. Prince Hunter is usually the only male.  

Moving on...Sadie has been hanging out with Hunter a lot. 

 We've gone to the Lindon pool twice. It's so great for kids. $5 for adults and free for kids under 4.

 Elise likes it fine, but as long as she's got her afternoon snacks she is generally happy in all locations.

 I turned around to see these two laughing and singing together. Could this picture get more precious?

 (Only if Ella Dunn was in it, I suppose. Miss you, Dunns!)

One day we just camped out at the Faucettes while Daniel and Garrett were both working away elsewhere. I'm not kidding, we were there for 4+ hours. 

 The kids played so well. At one point Kaylie got concerned when they had been upstairs for a while without much of a sound. She found them just playing happily. In the pictures above they were stoked about dinosaur chicken nuggets. And rightly so. Dino nuggets are amazing.

Crazy Old Elise, Always Good for a Laugh

 She does funny things, but also constantly tries to make us laugh. She does this scrunch-face thing and breathes heavily through her nose. It is awesome. She also climbs on top of the printer a lot. It would annoy me, but she gets stuck every time and then we laugh and take pictures until we help her down. 

 Elise is dying to wear shoes, if she could only figure out how to walk in them. I don't bother putting shoes on her since it's hot and she falls over in them, but she frequently attempts to wear Sadie's shoes.

Louie also watches people and imitates them when she thinks they are doing something funny. Tonight at dinner Sadie was legitimately shaking her head no about something and Elise thought it was the best joke. She shook her head back and forth for 5 minutes and giggled.  

Alright, so Sadie is funny too. She found these onesie pjs in the back of her drawer and was dead set on wearing them while unloading every item in our bathroom drawers. She lasted about 10 minutes before she realized that body-length zippers are not comfortable. 

I am pleased to report that Elise is stepping up as comedienne of the Nielson household. Her actions aren't always deliberately funny, but she makes us laugh constantly.

So Play With Me, Maybe?

Our girls seem to be actually developing a relationship. I read other people's blogs where they talk about their older child doting on the baby, their kids laughing hysterically together and/or the younger one just worshiping the older one. That hasn't been the case with ours. When Elise was a baby Sadie didn't acknowledge her much, except for to notice when she was getting attention from one of us that Sadie wanted. When Sadie does recognize Lou's existence, it usually brings crying/fighting/hitting/whining. I mention all that to say that things are a-changing. A month ago nearly all of their interactions were negative, and now the number of negative exchanges per day is probably the same, but the number of positive interactions has shot through the roof. 

Here's to hoping these two will be friends, or at least frienemies. 

PS- the post title is an ode to Sadie's favorite song. It makes me laugh every single time she sings it.

Bunch a Crazies

Do you all realize the kind of craziness I live with?

Exhibit A

 Elise has discovered the joys of playing with your food

 Exhibit B

*Any tips on how to get your kid to stop coming in your room in the middle of the night would be appreciated

Exhibit C

Sadie took both of those photos, but Daniel chose to pose like that