Uncle Love

These boys are so spoiled!

 They have 4 Uncles and 1 Aunt that Love them very much.

 

Uncle Doug sent the boys these adorable hats!!

Don't you just love the "R" for Riv's hat?! I love the colors too!

 

Milo looks adorable in his beaver hat! You can kind of see the little beaver tail hanging from the back...so funny :)

 

Well if these two kiddos could talk they would say "We love you Uncle Dougie! Thanks for the great hats. We love them" :)

So Spoiled, but not rotten :)

Redo Part 2: Kids Room

Before: The boys room was a mess of my old sheets and pillows from when I was single mixed with a kiddie duvet cover that looked awful together! A puke green wall that I pretty much hated as soon as we painted it a couple years ago. In short it was in desperate need of a Redo, and it finally got one!!

 

After: (Sorry for the bad pic) Now it is bright and cohesive and much more boy :)

 

The theme is woodland creatures. The color theme is white, mint green, orange, gray and yellow.

 

I recovered the old pillows that didn't match. I was proud of myself for being able to do that! I know that that is no big deal, but for my non sewing self I was thrilled that they came out in one piece! haha!

I was able to reuse some of the pics I had painted for River when he was born.

 

Milo's Fox pillow ( I know it looks like crabs in this pic)

I'm not totally done, I still need to recover their diaper changing pad and hang a few prints, but I was pleased with how it is coming together so far. Much cheerier then their old room! Yay!

Redo Part 1: Family Room

I have been meaning to recover my couch pillows ever since we got our couches and just got around to it!

 I found some fabrics I thought were cute and used three different patterns to mix it up a little.

 

This is my least favorite, but oh well. Anything is better then what I had before

 

Of course I love the fun Chevron. I found a tutorial on how to make pillow slip covers. They were super easy and will be great to clean and change when I get sick of them.

 

It brought some character to my Family Room that it desperately needed. Overall I'm happy with how it turned out. Glad to finally check that off my to do list!

I FINALLY got a place to store all of the kids toys. I was really sick of looking at them all just piled on each other in the corner. I tried using baskets but River would just dump them all out as soon as I would clean it up, so I gave up. He is doing a lot better with this system, so I'm glad. I still would rather that they weren't in my Family room, that is my next project! I'm going to change our office/junk room into a office/playroom. So that will be happening hopefully this Summer :)

Kiddies {just pics}

Milo is 9 months

Milo is now 9 months old and I can't believe it. Time flies. I decided to start going to the family Dr. (Shelly Savage) that delivered Milo, for pediatric now. Her office is closer and I really like her. Milo is still my tiny! He loves to eat and is crawling everywhere at light speed He is such a happy baby and his laugh is irresistible!! River and him have become play mates and it is the best to watch. Milo is standing on his own and getting so close to taking those first steps. He is saying mama, dada, baba, and loves to scream. He thinks screaming is incredibly funny!

Milo's 9 month stats are:

Weight: 16 lbs 11 oz. 5%

Length: 27 in. 15%

Head circ.: 17 in. 5%

I'm not sure why he has always been so small but he is our little love bug and we could just squeeze him all say!

Milo Standing

My Cutie!

(Sorry all my pics are from instagram and not the greatest. I really want a nice shooting camera, but Tony doesn't think I will use it!! Really?! Still working on that one!)

Dr. Savage checking Milo out

My St. Patty's Day cutie!!

One Blessed Mommy!

This tiny little chunky monkey is actually starting to chunk up a little!

 

We had a glorious day in 60 degree weather so we hit up the park! It was so nice to get out of the house and run around a little. While there a girl with her daughter asked how old Milo was and guessed 4 months. This isn't the first time that has happened. He is almost 9 months old, but he is just my little tiny man. She even asked if he was born early, nope just my wee one :)

I don't know why he is so small, but I'm looking forward to his 9 month check up to see his progress.

Milo is always eating! He loves baby food, cheerios, yogi's, yogurt, applesauce, puffs and pretty much anything and everything he can get his hands on!

 

We recently went to the Dino museum at BYU with a play group from my ward. I was glad to be able to go cause I always seem to have something planned that doesn't allow me to.

There was a decent sized group there, but River was not to interested in interacting with the kids that day. So we kind of hung back of the crowd and went through at our own pace.

 

River was doing so well in the beginning. He really loved the T-rex fossils!

 

Riv wanted to make sure I saw the fossil too :)

 

Milo telling me he isn't interested in getting his picture taken.

 

Things were going pretty good, then they took us to the back to show us how they find the fossils in the rocks. Riv for some reason got a little nervous, but not bad, and wanted me to hold him. So I held him up so he could see over the kids. We were kind of in the back of the group and suddenly a little generator went on right by us, well that totally freaked River out! I'm not sure why it wasn't even very loud, but after that he was done and wanted to leave. Luckily it was the end of the tour anyway.

All the kids were throwing coins into a donation box that had a T-rex mouth where you put the money in. They were loving it and thought it was so cool. I tried to get Riv to come do it, but he was to scared at that point and was hiding behind some of the cases. I really wanted a chance to talk to some of the Mom's before we left, but River finally just went and stood by the door. I knew he wanted to get out of there. I got to talk a little bit, but had to cut it short.

I felt bad that things were going so well and then that generator ruined it for us. Oh well, it must have been an off day for Riv, because he wasn't interacting with the kids either.

 

Milo is a mover and a shaker! He is ALWAYS on the go. He is super fast at crawling now and even stands unassisted for up to 30 secs. at a time! He is already getting so close to walking!!

 

River being a show off! :) I asked him to go grab his shoes and he came back with these on! haha! Then he posed for the camera :) What a riot!

 

Well, all I gotta say is I am one blessed Mommy to have these wonderful boys in my life! I don't know what I would do without them. (Maybe sleep?! haha)

I sure do love these guys! They are the sweetest boys I could have ever asked for!

Love you kiddos

Love, Mom (mama)

xoxo

River Speaks!!

This little stud has been making some big progress! When we got back from Florida I was actually a little discouraged because while there he wasn't trying to talk at all! He had been trying to make word like sounds before. Shortly after we got home we had a meeting with Linda from KOTM. I expressed my concerns of his lack of making word little sounds and that he actually had started talking a weird shibberish. She was discouraged too, but then she started working with him on an animal app he likes and I can not even tell you how amazing it was!! He all the sudden was trying to make every single animal sound on the app! He has never done that!! Maybe a sound here or there and that was with coaxing! This time it was all him and he was trying to make every sound!! It was like he was going to prove me wrong...well he did! I was so thrilled!

 Linda almost got a little chocked up. We couldn't believe it and we still have no idea why? But I don't care why!

Since then River has been trying to say more and more words. He actually called me Mama!! I almost cried, it was the greatest thing to hear. Most of you reading may think, great he is talking now, and unfortunately that is not totally the case. This is progress though! He is actually saying words now and that is big. He is also getting better about using his signs.

A lot of the words he say sound a little strange and I am hoping that his speech therapist can help with that. The word that he is BEST at and it actually sounds correct is Cookie (of course)!

So here is a list of some of the words he is attempting:

Cookie *

Grandpa/Grandma

Mama *

Bubble *

nose

eye *

head

cheeck

dog

drink

baby *

Milo

car*

no*

yes

eh uh

*These words actually sound really good!

Those are most of the ones I can think of now, but I will post more as I hear them.

Another big step is he is starting to interact better with kids. After I picked him up from Transition class (@ KOTM) after Florida his teacher said how well he was interacting with the other children and was really trying to participate! Such progress!! He has done just as well at his following classes. He is actually starting to interact and "play" with Milo too! It is really cute and I can tell Milo LOVES it.

 

We are still trying to work on Rivers eating habits. He is especially struggling with protein in his diet. (He gags on meat, and just doesn't like most protein items.) And also struggling with variety in his diet as well. He really hates trying new things. He has a list of about 5 items maybe less that he will eat, if that. I had an eating specialist meet with him from KOTM and she has instructed me to no longer let Riv graze through out the day on crackers and milk. ( I have only done this out of concern for how little he was eating.) Instead he is to eat 6 meals a day with 3 tablespoons of protein, carb, and a fruit of veggie. He is also only allowed to drink his milk at meal time, which is every 3 hours. I am supposed to introduce a new item in one of the categorizes each meal. I have tried introducing new things before and it has never gone well, but I think this method will help where he has at least two catogorizes that he is comfortable with at a time.

So far this hasn't help with protein, he just won't eat the protein and eats the carb and fruit. Unless the protein is a hot dog, cheeseburger, or yogurt. I'm a little worried he seems to get dehydrated a little too, even though he doesn't ask for a drink between meals. ( I don't think he fully gets the concept that he has to drink what he wants at meal time. So he doesn't drink much at meal time.) I don't know, we will just have to see how it goes and hope he has a break through in this area too.

I want to end this post on a high note though, because I am so happy with his progress and couldn't be more proud of River!! Love you dude keep up the good work :)

Disney World {2012}

We were lucky enough to be able to go to Florida in February. It was so nice to get away for 10 days! There was a Jewelry show held in Orlando that my Dad and Tony were going to attend, so we decided to make a family trip out of it and take the kiddos to Disney World! My Brother Trevor decided to come along too. It was great to all be together.

My Dad, Tony the kids and I got there a day before Trevor came. We spent the first day getting our badges for the show and then headed to Downtown Disney for dinner.

 

After dinner we walked around Downtown Disney. I loved getting to see all the beautiful flowers! We won't be seeing those for months in Utah.

 

And of course River LOVED seeing all things Toy Story and Mickey mouse related!

 

Riv and his best buddy Buzz Lightyear!

 

It was so cute...when River saw Minnie Mouse, he ran right up to her and hugged and kissed her! It was hilarious! He was in Disney heaven.

 

It was so nice to be able to pull out some of our fun summer attire. Although it wasn't overly hot, it was a much needed change from cold Utah :)

 

Riv even got to go swimming at the hotel a few times. He loved being able to be outdoors so much! He has hated being so cooped up this Winter.

As soon as Milo would get out to the pool he would fall right asleep.

 

Our first day off to the park, we decided to hit up Epcot first.

 

Dad and Trev in Canada @ Epcot.

 

I loved all the cool plant features they had at Epcot! Isn't this Lady and the Tramp, so cute!!

 

River of course stopped at every toy kiosk. We were strong parents and didn't give in, although Uncle Trevor wasn't always so strong! ;) {I had bought Disney items at Walmart before we left to save money, and gave them to him at the end of each day.}

 

Sensory Overload is exhausting!

 

Since there weren't a lot of rides for the kids we decided to head over to Magic Kingdom and well...

 

This pic shows about how well Magic Kingdom went! :( Unfortunately, it was SO CROWDED!! To be honest it was Miserable! I think we went on one ride the whole day!! To top off the "fun" all the restaurants required reservations, Apparently that is some new rule, and come to find out all of them were booked through the week! So our options for food in the parks were narrowed down to any thing at the small food kiosks. I will tell you that we weren't to thrilled about our $50 hot dog dinner.

 

Magic Kingdom you burned some bridges! Poor Trevor was traumatized and made it clear that none of his future children would ever have the "pleasure" of attending a Disney Park! Lol!

Well after our first Awful experience none of us were too eager to get to the park the next day. We all kind of dragged our feet. We went and ate a big brunch out of the park to hold us over for as long as possible. Lucky enough day two was much kinder to us! The crowds really seemed to have thinned out and it was a much more enjoyable day!!

River's favorite character is Donald Duck if you can't tell ;)

 I was SO disappointed because while Trev and I were waiting to get on space mountain, which literally broke down as soon as we were next in line to ride!! River ran into Donald Duck at a Dance party outside of Space Mountain and Tony said he went crazy and ran over to him and started dancing with him and wouldn't leave his side. Tony didn't have the camera and by the time I got off the ride and tried running back to the dance party to get it on film, Donald walked away right when I got there! Talk about not being able to catch a break! So needless to say I was SO sad to have missed it! Tony was the only one that got to see it. All of us were pretty sad about it.

 

Gearing up for day 2!

 

Yep we are those parents that have their kids on a leash! Don't judge us :)

 

Yummy Dole whips!

The weather cooperated perfectly for us!

We only had one incident with rain. It POURED for about 30 mins, but then passed. We all hid in a covered walkway until it passed.

 

The Boys all wore their V-neck shirts on the same day! River loved being like the "big" boys.

 

Day 3: Milo watching the Marching Band on Main St.

 

I just have to say that Milo's big rimmed hat was amazing! It totally kept the sun off him, great purchase!

 

It was pretty cool that on some of the newer rides {like here @ Winnie the Pooh} they had things for the kids to play with while they waited in line. Genius!

 

 This was the third and last day we spent at the Disney Park. It was also my Birthday! Can't believe I'm 28, so weird how old I'm getting!!

{We found out later why the park was so packed the first day, the All Star game was in town and also the indie 500.}

The next park we went to was Universal. We really just wanted to see the Harry Potter land.

 

The Harry Potter thing was pretty cool. We all Loved the Butter beer! There really wasn't a lot to do other then just walk around and look at stuff. So we got done with that section of the park relatively quick. So we headed over to where all the roller coaster were. It was awesome because the park was so empty we just walked onto all the rides! The adults had a lot of fun getting to ride some "real" rides!

 

I have to say I felt so blessed that on both flights my kiddos did EXCELLENT!! Really I was so amazed at how well behaved they were, answer to prayer!!

I wanted to post this pic of the kiddos in their stroller. I finally broke down and got a double stroller after months of looking and getting discouraged, I finally decided on this Phil and Teds. I have to tell you this is the best stroller ever! It is so compact and easy to push. The kids love it! River actually loves the back seat, which I was worried about before I bought it, but it has been a wonderful stroller! Great purchase if anyone is looking for a double and sick of all the huge bulky options out there, this is the BEST!