Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day! Friday night Aaron took Blake and they went with Grandpa, my brother David, and his kids, Seth and Kaleb...along with the rest of our ward to a Fathers/Sons Campout. My mom watched Dylan after I put him down for the night so I could go shopping. It was great to go shopping all by myself. Blake with perhaps a lot of help from Aaron made a frame for my mother's day present from the boys.

Blake took a picture of us.

All the mom's in the family came over for a celebration. After the moms opened some gifts, Blake got to open some more birthday presents from his aunts and uncles. Thanks everyone for a great day!

Ziggy Wanna Be?

The other night we said our family prayer and at the end we heard a little boy laughing, we open end the prayer, open our eyes and see this. Dylan is taking fashion tips from Ziggy (if you don't know who Ziggy is then you don't follow BYU football). He likes to walk around with 3D glasses. These are the 3D glasses that we got at a theater that weren't recycled apparently.

He tries to say glasses, but it sounds more like lalas.

The boys are ready for bed.

Dylan slept with his glasses that night. It made him happy.

Brayden's Birthday Party

Blake and Dylan were invited to their friend, Brayden's, 5th birthday party.

Blake's favorite thing was to go down the big slide.

He also loved running around the jousting ring.

Dylan really liked the slide and basketball.

Blake liked knocking down the towers that the adults were making.

And what little boy wouldn't love being able to shoot balls at other kids.

At the end, the kids all got to eat some yummy food. Happy birthday Brayden! Thanks for the fun party.

18 Months

18 months old is a glorious age because it means they are able to go to nursery at church, which means they are in their own class, which means Aaron and I can enjoy our classes without the "help" of kids. 

We took a trip to the doctor yesterday for Dylan's 18 month check up and Blake's 4 year check up. 

Dylan:

28 lbs. 6 oz...85th percentile

35.5 inches...off the charts

19 cm (head size)...75th percentile

Blake:

40 lbs 8 oz....80th percentile

44 inches...97th percentile

Dr. Chu's remarks after he told me the stats, "You produce tall kids." They are both doing well physically. Dylan goes in for his next round of tests in a couple weeks.

Dylan now says nice, bee (which means boo), baby, uh-oh, and I do it (although I think it isn't super clear). He is well past the 5 words, plus mom and dad that he is supposed to say by age 18 months. 

Blake loves to run...I have no idea where he gets this from. He is very creative and loves legos. Both the kids get extremely grouchy when they are hungry and that happens every couple hours. They are both good helpers and slowly becoming more useful and effective in helping. They still make one another laugh and still fight. I know that Blake only has a couple years before Dylan can dominate Blake. Dylan is very strong and aggressive.

EnterTrainment Junction

On Monday, we went to EnterTrainment Junction to celebrate Blake's birthday.

They have the world's largest model train display. It was huge. Dylan really enjoyed the trains.

They also had an area that was just for kids.

Grandpa got a shirt for Dylan so they could match.

Blake got to ride on a train.

Then we got to play with some train tables.

There was a train that you could shovel coal in.

And a play area.

The Birthday Boy had fun. 

The next day we returned home...yes, the day that American Airlines had a computer system outage. What?! It was terrible. The kids weren't feeling good, their bodies were confused as to what time it was, and well, they were tired since it took about 18 hours to get home. We ended up going home on a different airline and flying into LAX, which is much farther away from our house. We get on the freeway and 20 minutes into our drive home, the freeway is closed...of course. That was just how the day went. But we made it and are happy to be back.

Happy Birthday Blake

Blake turned 4 on Sunday. Both the kids were sick and after Blake nearly hacking up a lung at church, we left. We had some yummy ice cream cake.

Everyone enjoyed it.

Dylan was not only sick, but also teething. Somehow me managed to eat some cake.

He opened a present from mom and dad.

A lego dump truck! Happy Birthday Blake!

Tractor

Later on Saturday, we went over to Jake's house to feed the fish in his pond and ride his tractor.
















Grandpa got the tractor fired up.

Dylan went out for a spin with Grandpa.

Dylan enjoyed the ride. Blake did not want to go on the tractor.

Dylan thought he was a big boy and could drive it by himself.

He is just the right size for the tractor, right?

Blake finally got on the tractor.

Blake found his new love!

Park

The next day, Saturday, we went to the park.

Even though it was cold, the kids needed to get out and play.

After the park, we went over to play with Evan...my parents' neighbors' kid. They had a blast and Blake loved playing with Evan's legos and riding his little car. 

Columbus

The next day, we drove the 4 1/2 hours from Kirtland to Oxford. Along the way, we made a few stops and took zero pictures to prove it, but this is what we did:
-Visit with Chris and Jen Walker and their two boys, Michael and Zach. Chris is a law professor at Ohio State, but wasn't teaching that day. The boys all loved playing together and we enjoyed catching up with them.
-Visited with the Mission President and his wife. President and Sister Nilsen are great. There were some great things we discussed, but my favorite was seeing and holding one of the first published copies of The Book of Mormon (they say 500 are still around). It was in great condition.
-Visited the Mission Office.
-Went out to dinner and got another movie to keep the kids content for the rest of the drive.

Kirtland Sites

After the Johnson Farm, we went and took naps, then went back to Kirtland and did the rest of the sites. This is the Johnson Inn. This was the first MTC, first patriarchal blessings given here, a printing press was here and also people slept here.

Whitney Home. The Whitney family opened up their home to the Smith's and would frequently have others over for dinner.

The boys enjoyed the water powered sawmill.

And Blake got to "help" in the ashery where they produced potash. The profit was used to fund the Church and went to helping to build the Kirtland Temple and print scriptures.

Here is the ashery and sawmill along the river.

We also visited the Whitney Store. Many wonderful things happened there. Probably the coolest are the Word of Wisdom and another visitation from Christ. 

Here is the family outside. The Whitney family, along with the Johnson family and many others, sure sacrificed a lot to help out the Smiths and the Church.