Miss Morgan Turns 3!!!

I can't believe where the time has gone! In the last month or so, I've been watching Morgan and she's not a baby anymore. She's not even a toddler! Morgan has turned into a little girl! Although Morgan's birthday was officially last week (June 18), she has requested we wait and have her birthday party with Untel Tyler at Grandma and Papa's at the beach in Sandy Eggo (catch that?). So, she opened her present (a big wheel bike) and we made cupcakes (mostly, I wanted to try a new recipe) so she could blow out candles.

Morgan woke up to find her new bike and helmet waiting in the kitchen.

I kept asking Morgan over and over what she wanted to eat on her birthday. She kept saying, "M's" (m & m's). I explained to her that we don't just eat "M's" and she needed to pick a different meal. We ended in a compromise...whole wheat banana pancakes and Morgan got to put "M's" on hers.

Only the family will appreciate this one--I'm afraid we have another "Patrick". Morgan didn't take her helmet off all day long! In fact, she even wore it to preschool (luckily, it was bike day, so she needed a helmet). If her bike is within a mile and she's even considering possibly riding it within the next week, she puts her helmet on! Safety first, I guess!

Morgan and her birthday "cake". We really liked the recipe, so if you'd like to try it, click here.

Blowing out the big 3. She made sure we had 3 candles, not 2, to put on her cake. Because she's 3 now. Okay. She's 3. In June.

Happy Birthday, Morgan!!

The Wise Man and The Foolish Man

Brian taught the nursery kids a new song last Sunday.

Here's Morgan's version:

The Foolish Man

The Wise Man

Apparently whether you're wise or foolish, you house is going to wash away. But, you won't get flooded. Instead, you'll have beautiful, tall flowers growing in your front yard.

All Sorts of Random Stuff

Here's a bunch of stuff from the past couple of weeks. I didn't feel like giving each thing its own post, so it's all lumped together.

Morgan and Baby

Morgan has begun mothering her baby much more these past few months. Over breakfast last week, I asked her how old her baby is. Her response: "18 months." I then asked if Baby could walk. Morgan replied, "Not quite yet. (brief pause) But she can talk. She says oatmeal (what we were eating for breakfast), booster seat, napkin, spoon, stroller, sippy cup..." You get the idea. Now look at the picture. I wonder where Morgan selected her baby's new vocabulary words from...

Mr. Sun (and Morgan, the "toot dirl")

Here's Morgan and her talking sun she made at Preschool last week. It's lots of fun to watch her have "conversations" with it.

Sadie's Toys and Tricks

Sadie recently discovered Morgan's array of "big girl" toys and Morgan loves to get them out to play with. So far, the only stipulation Morgan has imposed on playing with the "big girl" toys is Sadie must be wearing some of the necklaces. Sadie doesn't seem to mind, as long as she can ditch the baby toys!
Brian taught Sadie a new way to play peek-a-boo.



I just couldn't resist that cute grin!

Colorado in June

When we lived in Provo, I got used to one final snow storm sometime in the middle of June. Pretty random, but, to be expected (at least while I lived there). However, in the 3 1/2 years we've been in Colorado, we have yet to experience "normal" weather. Our first winter was those 2 awful blizzards at Christmas. This past winter, we hardly saw snow until the Spring and then had 6 weekends straight of snow! So, we weren't surprised when late the other night, we looked outside and saw this:

Thunder, lightning and hail! After about 5-10 minutes, the ground was white! The next morning, there were little mounds of ice on our front lawn!

The Ward Dutch Oven Cookout

Morgan and her friend, Pen decided to experiment with a possible career choice, pole dancing. While I will not endorse this for Morgan for as a career, it kept her occupied at the ward activity.

And Sadie loved eating, what she does best.

Yay Sadie!!

This morning, at the lovely, eye-opening hour of 6:43 a.m., I heard Morgan exclaim, "Mommy! Daddy! Sadie did it! All by herself! Sadie did it! All by herself!"

So of course, I make it over to their room to see just what Sadie did all by herself (I had a pretty good idea of what it was; it's just a matter of time before she actually did it). Now you're anxious to know what Sadie did.

Here's what Sadie can do, all by herself:
Yep. She can pull all 23+ lbs of herself up. This means we get to lower the crib (that's always a blast!), and watch out for everything about knee height that I used to think was "safe". Oh, the joys of parenthood!

Oh, and no major event in Sadie's life would be complete with out a proper applause from Morgan. She did this for a good minute or so, but I think after a few seconds, you get the idea.

Way to go, Sadie Bug! We love you!

Day Old Bread

We had some bread that was getting old, so for Family Night, we went to feed the ducks. However, the lake (pond) near our house only had about 3 ducks swimming on it when we went last night.

In fact, only one duck came over to partake of the fine feast we had to offer.

And, Morgan did a pretty good job of scaring him away quickly.

While Morgan proceeded to summon and then dismiss the lone duck in a matter of about 30 seconds, Sadie became unsettled. The idea of food remaing uneaten when it could easily be consumed, caused her to quickly spring into action! "Why feed the ducks?" she thought. "Let's feed Daddy! "

Better yet, why feed Daddy! I'll just eat it!

And, for giving it such an earnest effort, we'll share the day old bread spoils with Morgan, who tried so diligently to find ducks to feed.

So, alas, our adventure to feed the ducks evolved into a leisurely rove around the Green Valley Ranch pond, all while my children consumed the bread, instead of the intended recipients. Better luck next time, I hope!

Brush Your Teeth!

Morgan has a new fetish. She is either so concerned about proper dental hygiene or loves her new toothbrush and "Berry Bubble" toothpaste so much that she will find every excuse to brush her teeth. And I do mean, every excuse.

Yesterday, the girls and I played in the backyard. Morgan received a new bottle of bubbles as a party favor at a friend's birthday party, so she decided to try it out. (Yesterday she actually wanted blow bubbles. Today, she decided to wash her car with them, so there are no more bubbles. What will this girl think of next???)

Anyway, back to the bubble blowing. Morgan has perfected her technique in bubble blowing (translation: spitting hard enough to produce air to blow bubbles out of the wand), while Sadie has introduced herself to yet another delicacy, grass. Sadie was even kind enough to divulge her newfound discovery to Morgan.
[You're probably wondering why I am telling you this, and how this story relates to the title of this post (no, it isn't a mistaken title).]

So, a few hours later, Morgan said to me, as I was cooking dinner, "Mom, I already ate dinner."

I said to her, "What did you have?"

Her response: "Grass. And so did Sadie. So now I can brush mine teeth."

So, Morgan will eat just about anything in order to inform me that her teeth are dirty and need brushing...even grass.

Family Pictures

Our AMAZING friend, Teri, took our family pictures for us this past Saturday. She took hundreds of shots (we love digital photography), but here are a few that I liked. Now that I have a hallway wall, I think I'll compile a collage of family photos!

Note: It was Sadie's idea to splash in the water. She was crying and trying to reach for it, so I finally just dipped her feet and legs in--she had a ball!

Somewhere in all of the pictures, I'm sure I'll find one that we all are looking at the camera and smiling...

If you'd like to see Teri's favorites (with the nice photo editing, too!), click here to get to her blog.

Thanks so much, Teri! You did fabulous!!!

We're Done!!!

Well, as done as we can be for now. There's still the touch up painting and decorating to do, and until the inspectors give their final okay, our house is still technically "under construction".

For those of you just dying to see the remodel, I thought I'd pleasure you with the whole process, start to finish, sans lack of sleep. That, my friends, can only truly be experienced by those of us that were here. Count your blessings, is all I can say to that. I'm still EXHAUSTED!!!

Anyway, the kiddos were treated with a bath in "Mommy's Big Bath Tub" every night. Mostly because they were in the way in the other bathroom. Nonetheless, Morgan thought she was in the lap of luxury.


After the kids went to bed that first night, the men went to the all too familiar Home Depot. Sorry the picture is blurry, but when Lauren and I saw them pulling into the driveway like this, we couldn't stop laughing! Travis rode home from "The De-pot" straddling the 2 by 4's after one fell out of the Pilot!

It's official! Once the carpet is cut and gone, there's no going back! Morgan woke up Thursday morning and said, "Oh, the carpet. Where'd the carpet go? I like my carpet!"

I thought I'd break the monotony occasionally with random pics of everyone. Here's Lauren and Kaden just hanging out.

The electrical's done Friday morning, sometime about 1 a.m. (no that's NOT a typo, though I wish it were). Don't touch these switches. I'm serious. You'll get zapped. I did. I just had someone else turn the light on the rest of the week.

Sadie had to test out the new flooring before it was installed. She saw Travis pull it out and crawled (as fast as her army crawl can go) right over to them. Pretty cute.

Morgan helped Travis pull up the old flooring. She thought it was pretty cool that she and Travis both wore matching yellow shirts. Friday happened to be "Twin Day" for Morgan and Travis at our house.

This is the amount of space the girls had to play in all day Friday. That's the coffee table boundary in the center and the couch boundary at the bottom. Complete their "cage" with the sliding door just past the TV and the half wall just behind me (I'm taking the pic). Talk about tight quarters.

Alas, the inspectors came and we passed the rough inspections on both framing and electrical. Good job Travis!

Travis pulled up all the carpeting and Sadie then changed her mind about the flooring. So, we opted to just leave it this way:

Just kidding! Here's our new flooring! We love it! Sadie especially; she can scoot across this floor twice as fast as on the carpet!!

We went to the zoo on Saturday. It was a gorgeous day to go and the kids were so good the whole time!

All the animals at the zoo just exhausted Kaden. Here he is with all things girly. A girly carseat, a pink blanket, and Sadie's cowgirl doll.

Later Saturday night, Brian installed more flooring while Travis muddded the drywall. Apparently Morgan misread the memo about work attire and felt her winter jacket and summer pajamas would be more appropriate. Well, it is only May...

Here's the hallway! Only texture, paint, flooring, and baseboards to go!

Every major construction project has to have a hiccup in it. Ours was the pleasant surprise under the vinyl flooring. Our builder stapled particle board to the subfloor and then glued the vinyl to the particle board. Oh, and the staples were about every 2 inches. Enter pry bar, hammers, strong men, and worker bees (i.e. Mackenzie and Lauren). 4-6 hours later (it was so late we lost track of time), we had the flooring up and ready for the new floors.

How am I supposed to cook dinner? No stove, no dishwasher, no refrigerator, no counter space!!! Enter takeout...

As if I didn't have enough messes to deal with already, I thought I'd give Sadie her first Oreo. I blame that mistake on the sleep deprivation. What was I thinking??? She took a baby wipe bath before I even pulled her out of the highchair. But, she loved it!!

"Mommy, can I watch 'Tars' for nap time today"

"Umm, sure, Morgan."

That lasted about 5 minutes.

Okay, the dishwasher is now in the new bedroom. How will we wash dishes???

Travis to the rescue! Not really. Paper plates to the rescue!!

I just thought Morgan's face was so stinkin' cute in this pic! And, Kaden wanted to show off his feminine side in Sadie's pj's.

Brian, exhausted, with the 3 kiddos. They truly were troopers. We all were. It was a L-O-N-G week! Oh, and it was a little cold in the basement, so Kaden borrowed Sadie's purple pajamas, too. They were pretty cute with his red hair!

The view from inside the new bedroom. On the right is the closet and you can see the fridge and the girls' bedroom door through the doorway (to help you orient yourself if you've been in our house before).

This is what the front room looked like for the majority of the week. We were all too tired to pick up toys and they were going to be out again in less than 6 hours, so I didn't bother picking them up last week.

From the kitchen, here's the new bedroom. We decided on a soft yellow color, so it can double as an office for now, and possibly a nursery in a few years.

Here's our new floor and in the top corner, you can catch our new dining room light. And yes, the paint cans are still sitting in the dining room. If I waited until all the little "odds and ends" painting touch ups were done to post pictures, it would be a long time. So, please, excuse the mess...

So, there you have it. Our first home remodel project. And, we're still alive to tell about it. Overall, it was an awful, exhausting week, but we love our floors and our new room!

Thanks, Travis, Lauren, and Kaden for coming out to help us with our project!!