Other May Stuff

Isn't this such a cute little messy-face monster?

 We took Hoyt to his 2 year well-check a few weeks after his birthday. Here are his stats...he's growing pretty evenly it seems:

Height: 35 1/2 inches (71%)

Weight: 30 lbs. (70%)

Head: 19 1/2 inches (70%)

He is growing up fast and so much fun to be around! His favorite letter for some reason is W and he can pick out a W and an O in books and everywhere we go. He tries to be just like his big sister and on several occasions I catch him going through her drawers looking for clothes to wear. Lexie decided to help him get dressed one morning, and this is the outfit they came up with. Silly kids!

 The end of May we headed over to O-town for Mickell's HS Graduation. Lexie and Jen posed for a quick picture before heading up to the ceremony and Lexie tried to sit still the entire time (luckily with such a small class it isn't too long).

Here is our family with the graduate. We are super proud of her and can't wait to have her in Cedar while she goes to SUU!

  Mickell was Valedictorian and did a great job on her speech! The siblings all went in together to buy her a sewing machine, and she was way excited!

 This made me laugh...like father, like son both getting a much-needed nap!

Luckily by May I hit my 2nd trimester, got rid of a nasty bladder infection, and started feeling much more normal. Finally I felt like I could enjoy life a little bit more and also accomplish a lot more around the house and with the kids. We now look forward to the fun summer months ahead!

Hoyt turns 2!

Where has the time gone? I can't believe my cute little Hoyt boy is now 2 years old! Because his birthday was on Sunday, we decided to have a party Saturday night with most of the Hoyt clan. We had our traditional pizza dinner, and I decided to make things easy and do basketball cupcakes. They aren't professional by any means, but I think everyone enjoyed them!

 Here is the birthday boy with his birthday candles lit. 

 He thought the black icing was chocolate so he was just trying to lick it off the top. It made for some funny entertainment because he would lick and then just burst into laughter. 

 Love that cute little face! That smile & laugh make me so happy!

 Before dinner, he just kept hopping around on the bouncy dog to show off for everyone. He also had fun playing basketball on his new hoop with Uncle Pete! 

 Hoyt had plenty of help from Lexie and Jen to open up his presents! 

Here he is all decked out in his new hat and glasses playing his new xylephone. That's one cool dude!

 My silly 2-year-old! Best shot of the night!

His actual birthday was pretty low-key. We went to church and had a relaxing day. I tried to get a picture of him with his birthday balloons but the only shot I could get is of him running away. He would only wear the new basketball outfit from Grandpa & Grandma Hoyt.

 I tried everything to get some good pictures of the birthday boy, but he kept running away and hiding. Here he is hiding in Lexie's closet and giggling. He's such a sweet boy!

What can I say about my little Hoyt boy? He is growing up so fast and brings our family great joy every single day. He has his Daddy's easy-going personality, and unless he is tired he is super happy all the time. He is a definite "mamma's boy" and gives the best hugs and snuggles! He constantly says "A HUG!" and wants me to hold him or give him a kiss. Hoyt loves to sing songs; his current favorites are "I Love to See the Temple", "I Am a Child of God", "Jesus Wants Me For a Sunbeam", "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star", "The Wheels on the Bus", "ABC Song", and of course the songs from "Super Why". He likes to go to "class" a.k.a. nursery as long as he has had a nap before it starts (1:00 church is rough for his schedule right now). He has been able to count to 10 for a while because he plays hide-n-go-seek with Lexie. He loves his big sister (when she isn't beating up on him) and they are starting to play really well together. He loves balls of all kinds, playing with cars, pretending to cook with the play kitchen, and pushing around the stroller and shopping cart. He has been more challenging when it comes to sleeping, but he still takes a 2 hour nap during the day (Lexie was done with those by 2 years old), but he will only nap on the couch not his bed. He is starting to become very independent and wants to do everything by himself including getting dressed, getting his own food, walking by himself in the store etc., and everything else we might try to help him with. He has been slower in certain developmental milestones like walking and talking than Lexie was, but he is far more physical and has to climb on everything and also seems to be far more destructive. But despite everything that comes with being 2 years old, we are grateful to have this little blonde-haired, blue-eyed cutie to enjoy and love!

Ready or Not...

...here comes Baby #3! After having an early miscarriage in November, we waited until the holidays were over, then decided whenever it happened, we would be excited for another little one to join the family. The last week of February, we found out we were expecting #3 the first week of November around Election Day!

 Mid-April we had our first official Dr. visit when I was 10 weeks. I had gone in 2 weeks previous with some pain and lots of stress because after a miscarriage just a few months earlier, I was completely paranoid of something going wrong again. So they did a short ultrasound that day and everything checked out fine (I was also relieved it was just one baby because I had been starting to show so early I was slightly worried it might be twins). They did another ultrasound at the 10 week appointment and here is our little munchkin upside down. :)

April was another month of being sick, hence the reason I didn't take many pictures or post about the happenings. Luckily, after my appointment, I did my pregnancy labs and they found yet another UTI. Once I finished the antibiotics I started feeling much better!

We are so excited to add another sweet baby to our family!

Easter 2012

For Easter this year we decided to make a quick trip to Grandpa & Grandma's house and enjoy the holiday with family. The Easter Bunny came Friday night so everyone could enjoy their baskets Saturday!

The kids were way excited about their new buckets that had new DVDs and a few other fun play things and of course everyone enjoyed the candy (after breakfast of course)!

 Later that day we colored Easter eggs. Lexie was being silly and didn't want her picture taken so this was the best shot I got of coloring eggs.

 We took a drive up to white sands to roll the eggs, but a huge family just got to the main area of white sands and we had to just find a smaller side hill to do our Easter Egg Roll. Hoyt was more interested in the 4-wheeler than the eggs. 

 Lexie had a fun time rolling the eggs and playing in the sand! 

 I think the eggs were thrown more than rolled, but everyone had fun!

Hoyt had a great time exploring!

 Easter Sunday we went to church and the kids were not happy or cooperating so this is the best picture I got of them in their church clothes. After church and dinner we traveled the long round about way home (we can't wait for them to get the road finished so we can get to Grandpa & Grandma's house a lot faster)! 

We are so grateful for Easter and the time it gives us to reflect on our Savior, the Atonement and especially His Resurrection and the knowledge we have that we can all live again. One activity we did with the kids this year was make "Resurrection Rolls". Lexie still talks about that and I know she learned a lot from that small activity. It was a great weekend!

March

Honestly, for me March was a complete blur. These are the only pictures I took at the end of February and through March. I was extremely sick in the early stages of pregnancy and since I couldn't tell anyone I just suffered in silence and hoped our little family would survive a rough month or two. Luckily my kids are really good most of the time and enjoy playing together so we managed to survive March.

Hoyt started climbing out of his crib recently, so getting him to sleep has become much more difficult. At first he really wouldn't go down for naps so he would wear himself out until he just crashed and sometimes that would be on the floor. He now usually just comes and sits on the couch and goes to sleep when he is ready to nap then I go move him to his bed. He has also become very attached to his sports blanket or "kee kee" and sometimes we call him Linus because we can't leave home without the blankey.

This is the only picture we took of Lexie all month long, right after she woke up one morning. She is my sweet girl who is full of life and has a great imagination. She tests my imagination skills every night when I put her to bed and have to come up with new stories to tell her usually about princesses, animals, and whatever else she thinks would be good in a story. She is loving primary and enjoys scripture stories and has learned her first 4 articles of faith so far. She can write her name, Hoyt's name, and is learning to write all of her other letters too. She is learning to spell and it won't be long until she will be reading more than just a few words!

 This picture makes me smile. It shows just what an imagination Lexie has. She paired up a bunch of her stuffed animals to get married and here are all the happy couples.

Hoyt is such a silly boy. He loves hats or anything he can pretend is a hat and we were laughing that the basket looked like a horse-feeding bucket around his neck.

Hoyt loves to push around Lexie's shopping cart. This day it was funny because he had a lot of stuff piled into the cart and we were joking that he looked like a homeless kid with all of his belongings stuffed in there (and notice the blanket and cup of milk which are his two essentials in life).

I wish I could remember more details about March, but I really can't remember anything interesting happening. I will try to do better taking pictures and blogging in the coming months when I not sick 24 hours a day!