Camping

We took the kids camping this past weekend for a quick overnighter up Farmington Canyon. It was a blast. There is something so great about being surrounded by the outdoors, kids just love it. We did everything from hiking to relaxing around camp to cooking over a fire to roasting marshmallows to sleeping in a tent.



To Caleb's great annoyance, I may or may not have been a know-it-all and accidentally landed us wandering around much longer than planned on our little hike. Caleb of course, used this experience as an opportunity to teach Corbin about how the Israelites were forced to wander the wilderness for 40 years as a punishment for being wicked, thanks friend!


Caleb has a long standing love of IBC rootbeer... we like to practice the whole 'avoid the very appearance of evil thing' :)




Corbin and Makelle both had smores for the first time, they definitely discovered a new love.



Corbin has always been a great, deep sleeper and we could put him to bed anywhere. Makelle tossed and turned and whined ALL night long, apparently she doesn't like the rock hard ground. SOO girlie!

Fireworks

We watched/played with fireworks a few different times over the past several days. The Walkers brought the kids some sparklers on Friday, we sat outside the stadium and watched the Provo fireworks on Saturday night and last night we had a bunch of people over for the annual Miller Family Tank Wars.

Pledge of Allegiance

We attended the Andersen Family Reunion this weekend and Corbin worked really hard all week to learn the Pledge of Allegiance so that he could recite it for everyone with his cousins.


Next year we'll work on being in unison :)

New Favorite Toy

I got tired of my wooden spoons always disappearing and of finding long sticks snuck into the house, so I gave in and bought the kids some foam swords--they are both in love.


(If you turn up your volume you can hear Makelle yell "cheese" when she notices the camera and runs off.)

Bonfire

We swam most of the day today and then threw the kids in the shower and got them all cleaned up before deciding to take a mini trip up Farmington canyon for the night. It was fun to get out of the house and hike around exploring 'the forest' as a family. We even built a fire and roasted hot dogs and marshmallows before heading home for the night. Who knew kids could get so dirty so fast?

Little Fish

You can definitely tell that Corbin has grown up with a pool every summer of his life, because he LOVES the water. This year he was actually old enough to take swimming lessons and start to learn the correct way to swim.

He became best friends with the all the other little kids in his class within about 2 minutes and got so excited to go swim with Miley, Collin, James and his teacher, Kayleen, everyday. He did awesome and passed off the requirements for preschool level 1 within the first few days (submerge head, blow bubbles, move arms and legs simultaneously, etc.) and then his teacher let him move up and start working on the next level.


At his level they basically work on teaching him the right form, while supporting him in the water. On his own, he can jump in and paddle far enough to get back to the edge, float on his back and sort of tread water.

Makelle made friends with all the younger siblings of the kids in Corbin's class. Somehow three of the four kids had family dynamics nearly identical to ours, so she had fun at his swimming lessons as well.

Everyday on our way out of the rec center we would have to stop and let the kids play on the rock wall. Corbin can climb maybe 2 feet off the ground on his own, but loves it and is so proud of his own mad skills :) Makelle jumps around on the landing mat, only her feet never actually leave the ground... I love toddlers, they are so fun!

So proud of this kid

I am so impressed with how fast Corbin learns. He knows a few dozen little words by sight and can sound out most short, phonetically correct words. The biggest challenge is finding good books for him to read, because he has a ridiculously good memory and starts to regurgitate sentences the second time around, rather than actually reading anything. Thank goodness for libraries.

And so it begins...

Good bye real world, the World Cup has officially begun and thus we won't be interacting with you for the next month or so.

Let's just say, Caleb is happy.

Rainy Day

It rained on and off most of the day today. Lately the kids have gotten used to going out to play for at least a little while every day, so it took some extra effort keeping them entertained today.

While Makelle was napping Corbin and I worked on writing together. I was SOOO excited for him, as he is finally getting able to write his own name legibly (I know I am using the term loosely :) He has been trying to accomplish this for some time for the sole purpose of wanting to fill out his own name tag at the library during story time, like all the big kids do.


Proud Mom moment.

Party Animal

Apparently our entire neighborhood was born in the late spring/early summer, because Corbin has been to a half a dozen birthday parties lately. Sometimes he has a hard time accepting that it isn't his birthday, but for the most part he does really well and has fun playing with all his little friends.

Vacation, All I Ever Wanted

I think summer is finally starting to show up in Utah. It has been such a cold spring, we are excited to get outside and play!

Caleb took the day off on Friday and we went on a family adventure. I had to run in and meet with a client in the morning, so Caleb packed some oatmeal and took the kids to breakfast at Carl's Jr. (Corbin hates the food there, but LOVES their play place.) Then we all went to the Living Planet Aquarium.




Makelle is getting to the age where she finds things just facinating and will stare and point forever. Corbin is getting to the age where he wants to rush through everything and ran from exhibit to exhibit as quickly as possible. So it was an interesting balance trying to hurry Makelle along while slowing Corbin down and trying to teach them each something new along the way.

After the aquarium we stopped at In-N-Out on the way home, because Caleb can't drive past 106th south without getting one of their yummy hamburgers. Corbin developed a love of french fries dipped in cinnamon applesauce.

When we got home Corbin got to go the the neighborhood Popsicle Party to celebrate the last day of school. He obviously didn't understand what we were celebrating, but enjoyed running around with all the kids and eating popsicles.

Back at home we had a late nap and quick dinner before Caleb and I had to leave for our soccer game. We won. 4-0. It was a fun game, we (meaning primarily Caleb, not I) actually made good passes and set up plays. Much better than the whole team running around in different directions with everyone doing their own thing. The kids got to visit Grandma and Grandpa's house while we played, where they of course got spoiled and had a fun bonfire roasting marshmallows.

It was a long, but fun day. And it is so great to still have the whole weekend left. We love vacation days!

Makelle's First Haircut

I trimmed Makelle's hair today. I don't think it really qualifies as her first haircut, since I only cut about 1 cm off of 10 different hairs, but all the same she looks pretty cute now--in a bald, boyish sense :)


It obviously wasn't long enough to need an actual cut, but there were a couple of spots around her ears where she was sprouting little wings. So I trimmed around the neck and ears to get rid of the couple of long fly-a-ways she had. As you can see it made such a HUGE difference!
Before:
After:

Family Outing

It being a holiday weekend and all we decided to get out of the house and spend some quality time together as a family. So we took the kids out to eat at Applebees... they were surprisingly well behaved and it was actually quite enjoyable.


Then we all went bowling together. Corbin enjoyed it a lot more this time and was pretty excited when he was able to knock over some pins. He even held the ball the correct way (you make your hand like you are shooting Spiderman's webbing :) and would barely drop it down the lane. Approximately 5 minutes later it would strike a few of the pins after having ricocheted off the bumpers numerous times on the way down. He was cute.


Makelle was adorable. We let her use the little bowling ramp and she was so proud of herself whenever she would push the ball off the ramp. I am pretty sure she thought that was the extent of the game we were playing because she would clap for herself every time she pushed it off and then run to get another ball without ever taking note of where the ball was going, let alone how many pins she got. One-year-olds are great.


After we were done Caleb let the kids go play in the arcade room for a little while. Corbin played the kiddie games and got rewarded with some tickets that he spent on little toys.


Makelle quickly discovered the dancing game and couldn't have been happier. Oh boy what are we gonna do with this one?

Garden Club

My parents let us plant a couple of rows of vegetables in their garden this year and I brought the kids up to help me work this week.

Makelle liked playing in the dirt, pulling all the twine out of its roll, and pretending to comb her hair with a dirty, chewed up--likely lice infected--comb that she found in the weeds of the abandoned lot next door.



Corbin helped count out and drop seeds, water and place little starter plants. He also roamed around with his sister and rode his bike for a little while.



I love hanging out with these two all day. They are so great!



(Corbin took these last two photos while playing with the camera... not bad.)

Cootie Bug

Corbin loves playing games. We usually play together while Makelle takes a nap, but sometimes the whole family will sit down and play a thrilling round of Candy Land or Go Fish together.

Last night it was Cootie Bug, which happens to be Makelle's favorite game ever. You would think that she would like playing with the little bug pieces, but no... she LOVES rolling the dice.

I even tried to pacify her between turns with a random dice from our game closet, but no, it has to be that little red one. She freaks out every time she gets a turn to roll, she is so excited. It is fun to watch.

May 24th... Seriously?!

He did it!

Yesterday was our 5th anniversary! To celebrate we went up to the Union Station and wandered around the runner's expo and then split a sandwich at Jimmy John's, which was delicious.

My parents took our kids for the night, but not to give us a chance to spend time together, rather because we had to wake up at 4:30 am and drive up to Eden, so Caleb could run the Ogden Half Marathon this morning.


He ended up with a final time of 01:55:45.3, which unfortunately is better than the time Melinda got 2 years ago. Nice job!

We need some Miracle Grow!

Poor Makelle consists of 50% Lloyd genes, which equates to having NO hair. Yesterday I gave Corbin a haircut and jokingly asked if I should cut Makelle's hair too. To which he said I couldn't, because she doesn't have any. Then he questioned why she had boy hair.

So today I took a pea sized amount of gel, which ended up being a greater volume than the amount of hair I used it on, and gave Makelle her first ponytail. Look closely, you may need to blow it up, and then zoom in, but there are two tiny little pigtails on top of her head. Slowly but surely, we are getting there :)


Sidebar... we were in the car this morning and the sunlight hit Corbin's legs and made his tiny little leg hairs more noticeable. All the sudden he shouts out, "Look Mom, I am getting leg hairs! That means I am growing up and I am going to be like a Daddy, not a Mommy!" He was so excited to discover his manhood. For some reason it made me laugh.

Little Stinker

I guess that is what I get for not draining the bathtub right away... apparently she was not ready to get out :)