This girl is speaking much more these days. Her language consists of a single word, then a pause, then the following word...here are some of her cutest lines as of late:
"I. Love. You."
"More. Milk. Please?"
"Thank you. Mommy."
She just started to create sentences rather than one or two words. Other than a few animals noises, she will now speak full english rather than noises and grunts.
Seryn adores and looks up to her sister. She is so loyal it hurts me to watch sometimes. Sailor seems to know this and takes advantage of her sweet and willing spirit. Sailor has learned that asking her to do things for her is an easy task. Seryn still loves to draw, pretends to be a baby, cat, or dog, & will clean up if I ask her too. Wednesday mornings she gets to spend a couple hours alone with me while Sailor is at preschool. I love this time with her but I have to remind myself the urge to "get things done" is of little importance. Seryn is the pickiest eater at the moment...if it was up to her she would eat/drink milk, cheese, graham crackers, & toast all day long. Despite that trail, she warms my heart, is up for a cuddle anytime, & still doesn't like to receive help. She is learning her letter sounds alongside Sailor and wrote her first word a couple weeks ago:
Can you tell what word it is?
MOM
I thought it was the cutest thing!
She brought it to me and told me the letters were "m's" and "o."
And this picture below represents my sweet Seryn. We were at a friends house with a group of little friends and amongst the mess of toys Ser found these two toys and held them the whole time. Turns out it was the only Minnie and cat toy that the household even owned...and she scavenged & found the tiny gems!!
Sailor
Sailor attends preschool & ballet once a week. On a daily basis she asks if she can "play with her friends." Sailor has matured a lot in the last 6 months. She keeps me on top of all the daily tasks:
"Mom, we need to make our beds,"
"Mom, we get dressed first and then do our hair,"
"Mom, we forgot to read our scriptures..."
 |
| Sailor & Gwen...she was really excited. :) |
She is full of ideas, creative play, but then could turn around lay on the couch and watch a movie all day long if I allowed it. I am trying to introduce to her new & different activities in hopes that I might see some interests and then cater to them. She still likes creepy things--especially anything related to Halloween. And if anything is bleeding or someone gets hurt she is so curious and has to see the damaged spot. She likes to play with swords, hide-n-seek, and really into "Jake & the Neverland Pirates" right now.
Kiya
For the last few months, I have been getting up before sunrise and making my way up to the hiking trails with my good friend, April. April is a woman I met here in our complex and I love her to death. She is one of those women that compels you to be better & you want to be just like her when "you grow up". She is been through a lot through out her life and has a strong love for God and likes to share it with others. After we had been going for several weeks I started spreading the word about the early morning hiking experience and now we've got quite a group coming. The weather is perfect, the light is beautiful, and the fresh air has been so refreshing. I don't ever want to go back to being cooped up in a gym again. IT HAS CHANGED MY LIFE.
I stay busy keeping up with the daily chores, taking the girls to their few activities and playgroups, sporadic photoshoots here and there, & then fulfilling our PHX, AZ Bucket-list. Once I realized we had 2 months left in the state, I made a list of the many things we have yet to do. I've planned out our last weekends here and so far it's been so fun and successful! I've started to slowly pack and currently trying to figure out what we are keeping and how we will be moving it. This will sound really nutty but I've been learning A LOT the past several months. It's been a slow process but I've grown to see life through somewhat of a different lens. It's more of a spiritual growth that I'm learning who I am, what our purpose is in this life, that there's a time and a season for all things, and the importance of having correct priorities & worthy goals. I've found so much comfort and guidance especially from the messages given by leaders of the LDS church, the scriptures, experiences from others' lives, and simply pondering about things on a much more deeper and meaningful level.
Chase
Chase just got home from a quick 2-day trip to North Carolina. There, he and his friend Lance had to take the 2nd part of their board exams...and yes, they make every optometry student in the country fly there to do this. It's an expensive process, but he took it and felt alright about it. He learned it's worth booking a hotel room in advance to avoid spending the night in the ghetto. I thought he may have been exaggerating when he told me the details of the place, but then I saw the video and pictures he took while he was there. The pool was an outdoors one that had no water but a few inches of brown water sitting at the bottom. There was a broken piano, nail clippers, trash, & weeds growing out of the pool. Chase said when paying for the stay they signed a paper that had two things written on it. 1) the price of the hotel room for the night and 2) a disclaimer that stated they are not responsible for theft, injury, or damages-- that night they decided to push the night stand up against the door. Chase slept in his long cargo pants and shirt from that day and then laid his jacket on top of his pillow in order to feel just a little more comfortable about the bed situation....yikes. Anne (Lance's wife) and I had dinner together back in AZ and then had a sleepover. We stayed up late chatting for hours--we will definitely miss them! After talking to our husbands about their situation, we suddenly became especially happy didn't have to be there. haha
Chase's schedule is nice--consisting of a normal work day and then very little study if any. We both look forward to Monday volleyball night where a big group of us students/families meet up and play for hours. We start at 7 and the last few times we've gone, we haven't gotten back until close to 10:30. The kids run around together and play or watch movies. Chase went to ward basketball last week and ended up loving it-- this is a surprise because for years he would never play. Currently, Chase is researching job opportunities, potential locations for residence- post-graduation, & figuring out for himself some goals for life after school.
Notable Quotes & Moments
*Disclaimer: this is very long and random, mostly meant for documentation purposes. :)
After my mom sent me this picture:
Sailor & Seryn were taking a bath and as I walk towards the bathroom I hear Sailor say, "Seryn, don't disappoint me, ok?" Seryn responses with, "I know. I won't."--mind you, I can't ever recall using the word "disappoint" before. :)
For the last couple months, Seryn has been cribless and sleeping in the twin with Sailor. It was a fun and easy transition! The girls love it! You would think Seryn would be the hard one to keep put in the bed, but that is not the case. Sailor doesn't always give us a hassle but some nights for an hour or so she fights it. One particular evening, Sailor kept leaving her bedroom, following that action the consquence that follows is a removal of one of the many stuffed friends that they sleep with (this is a consquence we came up and works really well- normally). This evening we kept having to take Sailor's toys one by one and at this point she is throwing a tantrum. Finally, she quits fighting it and lays in bed. After she showed me that she was indeed, going to stay put in bed, I came in with her toys and talked to her about the ordeal. Seryn sits up in her bed and says, "Sailor. Out. Me. In.....No. out. Sailor."
Sailor just started an "Angelina Ballerina" class with her friend, Gwen. She gets nervous anytime I tell her that we are going to go to her dance class, but once she's there she has the time of her life, you would never think she was nervous to get there. So, once it's out in the open that her dance class is "today" she will say, "No, Mommy, I can't! My legs hurt really bad! I feel so tired, Mom! I need to stay home and lay down on the couch & watch a show because I'm so tired, Mom!"-- this cracks me up because she could be completely running around the house chasing Seryn the second before and then when the cat's out of the bag she is suddenly dying of sleep deprivation.
After making a fort to watch "Little Mermaid 2" one evening, Sailor tells me, "Mom, you are so cool!"... "This is the best ever!"
After borrowing "The Nightmare Before Christmas" from the library Sailor says,"Mom, I have an idea! How about we invite my friends over and we dress up in our costumes and watch Jack & Sally movie! It would be so fun!"
One day we were babysitting August, my nephew, and Seryn didn't like him playing with a couple of her toys, so she does what every 2 year old does and takes it from his hands. Sailor saw this and said, "Seryn, Heavenly Father wants us to share our toys."
Seryn responded with, "Nuh huh."
Sailor said, "Yeah, He wants us to share with August."
"Okay."
Since the girls just recently had a birthday that meant shots were immenient. Sailor was fully aware that "going to the doctor" meant getting shots. I warned her ahead of time and overall she was very ok with it. Once it was time to get them Sailor took them like a champ! She had 5 individual shots! As I sit there, somewhat straddling her, and hold her against me, she would receive a poke and respond like this: Grunt. "Oww." Exhale. repeated 5 times. Not a tear was shed and she watched the needle go in every time. The nurse was very impressed and told her she was the strongest 4 and even 5 year she's ever seen! Sailor was pretty proud of herself and gladly picked out an Ariel sticker & a purple dum dum.
Sailor is definitely aware of her surroundings--especially when we are driving around. Whether it's day or night she can guess where we are going according to what the surrounding area looks like. One time I told her we were going to go to Costco (which is a 7-10 minute drive from our place). I decided to go to a different one that she has only been to once before. We were driving and once I turned the "wrong" way she told me. "Mom, that's not where Costco is, you are going the wrong way, Mom!" I told her we were going to a different Costco, and she said, "Nuh uh!" I reassured her that there was one over this direction and she went quite for a moment, looked around, and said, "Oh yeah! We went to this one a long time ago."
 |
| Birthday Party with |
 |
| our friends the Bowermans &Manns! |
For the last 6 months or so, my Sailor has made comments like,
"Mom, I want a dog."
"Mom, everyone has a dog, can we have one?"
Well, this same question has been said repeatedly over and over, but the want is a "baby boy." We have been wanting to bring another little soul into our family for a year now, and for some reason it's not our time. So the girls have been waiting patiently & just the other day we were at our friends's house who just had a precious little boy a couple months ago. Sailor was tickling little Drew when she said,
"Mom, everybody has a dog and a baby boy...where is our baby boy??"
STAB! Right in the heart! Luckily, I was not an emotional wreck about the situation (and I was in front of our good friends) because we just laughed and I had to reassure her ours will come someday. I love those sweet, innocent questions.
We are currently trying to figure out where we want to live once Chase become a real physician (coming soon in May) :). We aren't really passionate about any location at the moment so Chase and I asked Sailor:
"Sailor, do you want to live here in AZ, with your swimming pool, with all your friends, in the warm weather, OR do you want to go live where it's cold near your grandmas & grandpas."
Sailor excitedly responded with, "I want to go live by my grandmas & grandpas!"
In that moment I was ready to leave everything here and move up north!!
No comments:
Post a Comment