Update on the Kiddos

I feel like my kids are growing up way too stinkin fast! In an effort to remember some of the little things I like to write them down into a random list. While I find all of these things quite interesting I understand that you may not! But if you can’t agree that my list is exciting I’m sure that you will agree that my kids are cute and can skip to the pictures! :)

Jayden at 5 months

• He is such a happy smiley baby. It was really easy to get Conner to smile too but Jayden is even more eager to smile! He is always looking for someone to grin at. He loves the attention from other kids the best. All Conner has to do is look in his general direction and he starts laughing like crazy! No one can make him laugh like Conner can!


• We started feeding him rice cereal. He usually makes a big mess but he loves it!


• He is always giggling and cooing. There is no better sound!


• He still loves his pacifier although we are trying to wean him off of it because it isn’t that much fun to get up 3-4 times a night to put it back in his mouth.


• He just started sleeping through the night! Hallelujah!


• He is grabbing at everything. And once he gets a hold of something it immediately goes into his mouth.


• He is a big time drooler. The front of his shirt is always soaked and when we lay him on his stomach there is a puddle of drool on the floor.


• He can roll over but doesn’t do it very often. He almost always goes from his back to his stomach but rarely goes the other way.


• He loves grabbing his feet and sucking on his toes. Yummy!


• He has a little bit of “stranger danger” and is sometimes afraid of people he doesn’t know. It is different for us because Conner wasn’t that way until he was a lot older!


• He just has such a sweet little personality and he is seriously so much fun right now! This is my favorite age because he is old enough to interact but isn’t getting into anything yet. And I love his big toothless grin!
  Conner at 2 1/2


• He likes to make up random songs about anything and everything. (such as the “Going to Walmart” song and the “Wearing my Backpack” song) He is constantly singing and I love it!


• I have been trying to limit the amount of milk he drinks so that he will eat more food so I sometimes will only fill up his sippy cup half way. Now every time I fill it up he tells me “All the way top mom!” If he wasn't able to observe me filling it he will ask "All the way top?" when I hand it to him.


• His favorite color is green. He tells us that it is and when we give him a choice to pick something that is colored he usually chooses green. And his most beloved possession… his blankie… is green.


• He has been able to recognize every letter in the alphabet for a while and now knows what sound almost every letter makes.


• His favorite food is frozen burritos with melted cheese on top… I wonder who taught him that! He requests one almost daily.


• His favorite game is Hide and Seek. When we look around the house and say “Is Conner in the bathroom?” he always gives away his hiding spot by yelling “No! I in the closet!” And he usually only gives us to the count of two to hide before he comes looking for us.


• We have been working on potty training him for a while now and it is tough! He understands the concept and is NOT interested. When I try to get him to go in the potty he says “No I poop in my diaper right now. Go in potty later."


• If you ask him what his name is he says “Conner Nathan Gilbert.”


• When you ask him how old he is he yells “2” while holding up 2 fingers.


• We sing him two songs before bed and he always requests “I am a Child of God” and “Once there was a Snowman.”


• He calls everyone a “her.” For example… “Where my Daddy? Go find her?”


• We moved him into his “big boy room.” Even though he still sometimes asks to sleep in his “baby room” he has done really well! I think that I had a harder time than he did.


• He is over his Dora obsession. He used to ask to watch Dora every day and would watch nothing else. Even though he still occasionally asks for Dora he is branching out… his current favorite show is “Max and Ruby.” It is a little bit sad for him to outgrow this stage because it means that he is growing up!


• We started a preschool with a few kids in our ward. We take turns teaching and Conner has loved it! Here he is with his new backpack. For some reason he kept asking for a Diego one (which he never even watches or cares about) but there wasn’t one so we told him he needed to choose from the ones that were there. Of course he chooses a purple sparkly doggie one, which we did NOT buy him.


• Conner has such a fun spunky personality. It amazes me how much he understands things that we tell him. He is such a big boy!

Jason & Laura's Wedding

My brother Jason had been engaged to a sweet girl in Paraguay (where he served his mission) named Laura for a few months. We found out that her Visa was approved when we were in Washington and that she would be flying into Salt Lake two weeks from then and that they would get married the very next day! They were hoping to have the Visa approved by the end of July but it took longer than they had planned so they were pretty anxious to get married. We headed up to Salt Lake on Friday and met her for the first time in person (we had all skyped with her) right before they went into the temple. The sealing was great… they were both so happy and make a really cute couple!

The view from our hotel room:Jason wanted us to be able to get to know her better so we all went to Lagoon together the next day. (Not the traditional honeymoon!) We had SO much fun! Since we were bringing four kids I was worried that they wouldn’t want to stay in the strollers all day and that we wouldn’t be able to go on very many rides but I was wrong! The lines were really short so we were able to ride plenty and the kids did fantastic! Conner and Kynzee loved the little kid rides and wanted to go on ride after ride. Conner still tells me that he wants to go back to Lagoon! I felt like a little kid again… getting excited about the rides and about eating dip N’ dots and funnel cakes… mmm.Jason and Laura are so cute together. I’m so glad that Jason found someone that makes him so happy! We love her and are looking forward to getting to know her better. They are having their reception next weekend so more pictures of the happy couple to come!

Washington!

After our time in Oregon came to an end we headed to Washington to hang out for another week. Although it felt like we were away forever we had fun spending lots of time with family. The kids went swimming on numerous occasions… We took all the kids to the splash park and after going down the water slide once Conner was hooked. He had a huge grin on his face the whole way down and when it was over he said “Water slide, it so fun!” We kept going down over and over again for the ENTIRE time that we were there! After each ride he would get out and say “All done! Go again!” and would immediately get back in line. Luckily I thought it was really fun too! When I said “weee” all the way down it wasn’t just for Conner’s benefit…

We went out to see Grandpa’s cows and I think all of the kids were in heaven… besides Jayden, he didn’t really care…
Conner’s favorite thing was to bump their water containers and watch all of the flies scatter… yuck! The kids played in the cotton seed but Conner wasn’t too interested because he was obsessed with the “tractor” parked nearby.
After visiting the dairy we met up with Grandpa who gave all of the kids a ride on his tractor. Conner has been loving tractors lately so he was a big fan.
One day a few of us adults escaped without children and went cliff jumping at Goose. I wasn’t entirely convinced that I would jump but I ended up surprising myself. We had SO much fun!

On a daily basis the older kids would ask to hold Jayden. Josh especially loved cuddling with him… it was SO sweet!

At the park...Conner was too young to tag along with the older boys but Claire was nice enough to be his buddy. They played outside together and I once found them playing dollhouse...