river and the big teddy bear

my parents gave flower this bear the first time she came to their house. river has now sort of claimed it. it's huge, bigger than she is, and she carries it around the house. it's very cute.
one night when i put her in her crib she pointed at it on the floor. so i picked it up and put it in her crib. she immediately lied on top of it and hugged it. when i went to bed she was still like that, an hour later, so i grabbed the camera. the flash woke her up. but she was so sweet. :)



i kicked myself later because then she had a hard time falling back to sleep and ended up crying quite a bit. but it was worth it! :)

02.17.2010::first park day of the year

we are hoping for many more sunny park days to come!

table dancer

kg captured these one saturday while i was at work. he was cleaning, which is what he's been doing almost every saturday that he's off and i love him for it. i appreciate coming home to a clean house so much! he's the best.
river loves to climb. the table is one of her favorite spots. you won't see the chairs like this anymore. if you were to make a surprise visit here, you'd find them all leaning forward against the table in an attempt to keep her from climbing them. so far it's working.
she's so proud of herself.

think she was trying to hide? this makes me laugh.



i love her mohawk. and no we don't cut it like this like someone asked me recently. it grows thicker in the middle and is always flyaway like these photos. so cute.

usually i'm the one taking the photos and kg reads my blog to see things we did while he was asleep. it was fun to plug in my camera to find lots of photos showing what kind of day they had.

random bits from february

...the girls and i went to lunch with amanda f. and mary catherine at olive garden. yum!

...i went to lunch with kris, hilary and lindsay at shangri la. it was so fun to get to know lindsay and to reconnect with hilary. their humus is so good. i've already gone back for more! yum!

...the girls and i got a visit at work at just the right time(right when i was about to lose my shit) from ryan, amanda and lorelai with super cute valentines and goodies. i loved it. and the girls enjoyed a bit of play time with lorelai. thanks for thinking of us guys!

...kristen spent the afternoon with me at work one day. we got caught up on doctors appointments and she helped me cut out hearts for valentine's day. it was so fun to have her there!

...i went to lunch with kris, claudia and kate at pollo rey. really fun to get together with different people!

...the girls and i went to lunch with kristen at olive garden. river fell asleep on the way there so i put her in the chair and she slept through half of lunch! :)
i had a fun month of lunch dates and work visits!

the train

we have lived in our place for two years. for two years we've heard the train in our living room. i love trains. trains and fireman/trucks. at the idanha i got to hear and see firetrucks everyday. now i get to hear trains everyday. good trade off. i love hearing them. they remind me of staying with my grandma and grandpa campbell in idaho falls. they lived right by the train tracks and it was so loud and you could feel the ground shake. trains and their noise make me happy. so as long as i've lived here, we cross the train tracks almost wherever we go. one day the arms went down right after we went over the tracks so it was right behind us and flower couldn't see. we've also been way back in the line stopped at the tracks, too far back for her too see it. :( i've hoped that one day we'd get stuck and have front row seats as it passed in front of us. well, it finally happened last week! i saw the lights go on and i stopped right then. i actually could have gone and i think the guy behind me wished i would have and he almost rear ended me! too bad for him. flower and i were giddy. we rolled down all four windows and screamed in delight. it was awesome and she thought it was the coolest thing ever!

finally, after two years, front row seats to the train. see...something good happened!

pepperoncini

remember our heart shaped pizza?

please notice the pepperoncini in the upper left corner

and the garlic butter in the lower right corner.

the day after devouring that yummy pizza river scoured the box for more but all she found was the left over pepperoncini and opened garlic butter. that was just fine with her. she went to town! she would dip the pepper in the butter and suck it off, over and over.

*love her dimples!

so precise and careful.
she was very pleased with herself.


then she handed me the pepper so she could drink the butter.
i have to admit the photo of the pepperoncini here totally makes me giggle!
not pretty.

*oh the jokes that could be told!

and then i gave it back to her.
eventually she even bit into the pepper.
and liked it.
and she ate the whole thing.
she loved it!
silly girl.

*please excuse the cruddy cell phone pictures. :0)

river is 15 months.

here are a few things that she's been up to over the last three months(since the last update) that i want to document.
.....she says mom, daddy, up, out, flower(wower or da-wer), uh-oh, hot, hi, bye, no no no, mine.
.....she likes to spin herself in circles and always counter clockwise.
.....she thinks walking backwards is funny. she'll do it and giggle to herself.
.....when she's in the bath she loves to put her ear under the water. she does it and them giggles and smiles.
.....the first time i gave her a bubble bath she was not impressed. she was freaking out! now, three months later she has warmed up to the idea and even has fun.
.....she loves to sit on stools and is so proud of herself when she does.
.....continually drops food then says uh-oh. her uh-oh is so darn cute!
.....she has 16 teeth. kg calls them shark teeth because each tooth has a space on each side of it. love it.
.....she is a climber. she climbs in and out of her high chair all day long.
.....she climbs up the ladder into flower's bed and as of this week also climbs down. that bed is 6 feet high!
.....she does language for more, please and thank you. there is nothing more funny than seeing her beg in sign language. she does more/please on repeat as fast as she can get her hands to move. it's funny stuff.
.....she says hot and blows on hot food.
.....she does the sweetest fish kissy face complete with the smack of her lips.
.....she can now open all our doors. she has opened the front door and gone outside(we were standing right there). thankfully we have a double sided lock so you have to have a key to get in or out and it is always locked now!
.....she loves to take baths with flower and the hour between dinner time and bed are now my favorite because of this!
.....she likes to help me put clothes in the dryer. she gets so excited and then loves to put in the dryer sheet and then slam the dryer closed. she's a great little helper.
.....she knows that the timer on the microwave going off means food is done and she stops everything she is doing and goes running to the kitchen, usually signing more or please!
....if we say, 'love the mommy' then she lays her head down on me and pats me softly. it's so sweet.
.....the girls love to chase each other and get each other laughing so hard!
.....she says hi in the cutest little voice while she waves frantically. she now does this to strangers in the grocery store. also the other day as i was driving we were stopped at a light and i looked back at her. she had the car next to her laughing as she was waving and saying hi over and over!
.....she loves to share food. she will offer you a bite and then smile so big and giggle when you actually take a bite. she'll end up feeding you the entire thing because it makes her so happy. you have to say 'your turn' for her to take a bite.
.....she folds her arms so sweetly during prayers.
.....she's 34.5 inches tall.
.....she loves to jump and basically acts like the floor is a trampoline. she easily gets several inches off the ground with both feet at the same time.
.....she does the cutest jumping jacks!

she's just a clown. she really keeps us laughing and is just goofy. it's hard to explain but i wish you could all just spend a day with her in her environment and then you would get it. you'd see all the cute, quirky little things she does that make us love her!

sunday, lovely sunday

sunday was lovely.
i was so excited to see the girls since i hadn't seen them since friday morning. plus i brought them some goodies and wanted to share the love.

they loved the flash lights i got them from the concert.

both lights do the strobe thing in multi color or can be solid in green, blue or red or flash in those colors as well. lots of variety equals lots of fun.


i also brought them some fun colored bowls, cups and plates from ikea. they were a hit!



after that kg had an elder's quorum meeting so i took the girls to get cinnamon rolls for my aunt carolyn and uncle herb. he fell and ended up at the hospital so we paid them a visit.

when we got home there was just enough time to get flower dressed to go with kg to church. river and i went to bed. :)

after they returned home from church river climbed into kg's lap with a book. she loves books.



that evening while kg was doing elder's quorum visits, i got lots of cuddles from river. she's been doing this more lately and i'm loving it.


later still, as we were getting the girls ready for bed, kg left the bed to go get a diaper and river quickly jumped up and stole his computer(a loaner...his is still broken). she is so cute with that thing on her lap and she pounds away at the buttons just like us.
after they had pj's on we said prayers. river now folds her arms and closes her eyes. it's really the cutest thing. yes i was being irreverent and taking photos during the prayer but i had to document her sweetly folded arms! :) and she was even kneeling here.
when we say 'fold your arms' she immediately crosses them up on her chest. so precious.
and then flower had a little dance attack goofy act on the bed before finally calling it a night! :)
it was a lovely, lovely day filled with river being such a sweet, funny little clown. she made me laugh all throughout the day. then flower finished it off with a good laugh. cute girls.

ps.-from my concert blog...i called it a standing ovation but what i meant was an encore. yes i know the difference. it was late. it's now corrected. so i'll say it here just to be clear...i hate encores! :) the end.

year of the tiger

we had our annual chinese new year celebration at oriental express. we were joined by lots of family. i'm grateful they were all able to come show support to flower and this holiday. it was super last minute. things have been crazy and then with it falling on valentine's day. but late sunday night i decided we'd do it on monday night so i sent out texts. we didn't expect anyone to be able to come and we were fine with that so we were pleasantly surprised. sorry if i forgot to text anyone. i realized after we arrived that i forgot the great grandparents. :( sorry. next time. but we had a great time!
in attendance:

adam, royal, spencer, zach

doug, opal, lauren, victoria

laura, ken, justin, adam

flower, kas, gregg, sandee

river

roger, alyse

and of course kg and i.
jimmi and chow treated us well as usual. they also gave flower and river their red envelope with a couple of dollars each. they really love the girls. buffalo grandma also put in some money. thank you!
happy new year!

ryan and amanda i texted you...i'm hoping you got the text and just couldn't come! i'll feel bad if you didn't get the text. just know we wanted you there!