At the ZOO

 Saturday was a beautiful and warm day so we headed up to Salt Lake City to go to Hogle Zoo.  It was really packed... like everyone had the same idea as us to spend the first lovely day of Spring outside!  Wrynly had to carry her new baby everywhere we went.  Her favorite exhibits were the monkeys and the gofers where you could stick your head up in the glass and watch them up close!

 Sunday, of course I had to make cup-cakes... and when that happens, I have to share. We delivered a few to my mother's house as an excuse to let Wrynly jump on the trampoline! She loves it so much. (we really don't need excuses to visit my mother, but I like to make them anyway!)

                                            Crazy hair from being on the trampoline

 Hanging out with mom

Kissing Baby Sister!

Wrynly's Birthday!!!

Wrynly loves balloons, so I thought it would be so fun to fill her whole room with them for her 2nd birthday! I got the cheap $19.90 helium tank from Wal-mart and 80 balloons of her favorite colors and went to town blowing them up last night!  I got half way through the ones for the ceiling when I read on the tank that they would only last a few hours... so I saved the rest to do in the morning. We couldn't help but take this sweet picture of her in her bed with no idea what awaited her in the morning!  We have video of her waking up to find the balloons posted on my Face Book wall if anyone is interested to see her reaction!

She had an absolute BLAST playing with the balloons... it also helps that she has an awesome and child-like father who played with her in them for a good 30 minutes! She was giggling and chattering, kicking and throwing, just loving it!

 After balloon time, Wrynly helped dad make us waffles for breakfast!  She helped dad mix all the ingredients and put the batter into the waffle iron.  She loves to dip her waffle in syrup or whipped cream and absolutely has to have chocolate milk to go with it.  She loves to help cook, empty the dishwasher, make a mess, pretty much anything!

 For a fun activity, we went down to Sandy to pick up Grandma Linda and went to the Aquarium.  She had so much fun pushing around her new baby in the stroller that Grandma got for her. Her favorite exhibits were the jelly-fish that changed colors with the lighting, the penguins, and the sting-rays.  She got to pet a sting-ray today... there was one that loved attention. It would just make its rounds around the pool and whenever a hand was near, it would surface and let you touch it!  She was so worn out after all the fun that when we got home she took a good nap!

After waking up, we went to eat at Chick-Fil-A where she got her picture taken with the cow.  We came home and the neighbor kids were out playing, so of course she had to play too. They are a little older, around 10 & 6, and they love to ride their bikes. Wrynly didn't care that she can't ride a bike, she just ran after them yelling "FAST... FAST.... FAST", having to pull her pants up every fifty feet because they kept slipping down.  When it was time to come inside, Grandma Susan, Grandpa Bill and Uncle Marcus came over to give Wrynly her birthday present. Marcus played in the balloons with her and made her laugh so hard! She has a totally different laugh when she is tired and you can definitely tell she was slap-happy! After they left, Jarom read her a story and put her to bed. PHEW! What a long and fun day! 

I am so grateful to have this little nugget in my life! She has been so much fun, ever changing and learning and showing me what life is really all about. I can't believe it has been 2 years already!! Happy Birthday Little Girl!!

Weekend in Monticello

 I took Wrynly down to Grandma Linda's house on Wednesday morning so they could go visit Jarom's sister's family, Erin, Dustin, Braxton & Katie down in Monticello.  They planned on staying the weekend and coming home on Sunday. Jarom and I were excited to be able to have a date weekend... which we haven't had in over 7 months.  We thought of things we could do but weren't satisfied with anything! Dinner and a movie seemed too boring and we started missing our little nugget!

Sooo.....we decided we wanted to go down to Monticello too!! Hahaha... so, Jarom got Friday off from work and we took off early Friday morning.  We planned to have an awesome chat the whole 6 hours down, but this baby is sucking the life out of me and I ended up sleeping over half the time! Jarom said the ride was peaceful!  We made it to Erin's house by 1 pm and when she answered the door, Wrynly was there and gave us the biggest hugs we have ever received from her! It was so cute to see how excited she was to see us!

On Friday night Erin made Wrynly a cake for her birthday (which is next Wednesday on the 21st). We sang Happy Birthday to her and she had the biggest grin on her face! She loved the cake and all the attention she got for it being her birthday.  She's going to grow up thinking her birthday is a week long with all the different times we have to celebrate it to accommodate our entire family!

Saturday, we had such a fun day with the cousins! Katie, Wrynly and Braxton ate ice-pops over at Dustin's parent's house. Since it was St. Patrick's Day, everyone was wearing green so Braxton wouldn't pinch us. 

We spent the day driving to awesome places to view the scenery of Southern Utah.  We went to NEEDLES where the kids threw rocks over the railings to fall hundreds of feet below. We got a few family pictures while we were at it!  The air was warm but the wind brought a chill that made you wish you had your jacket on.

Everyone hiking up the rocks to view the overlook.

Wrynly loved playing with Katie... she was such a tease to her. Sitting in the car, Wrynly kept trying to hold Katie's hand and Katie wanted nothing to do with her. Katie would move her hand away and cry saying she didn't want to hold her hand... and Wrynly, little stinker, kept trying to grab her hand anyway. You can see her cheesy smile is a reflection of her SUCCESS!

We ate at Pasta Jay's where Wrynly wouldn't eat her food, but ate everyone else's, so I started calling her Helen Keller.  She was such a cutie all day long!  We were so glad that we were able to come down to visit with Erin and Dustin and see the cousins interact with Wrynly.  We really want to plan on doing this every year! There is so much to see and do down in South-Eastern Utah that I'd like to come down more than once a year!

Jumping Queen

Sunday night we had dinner over at my mother's house. Wrynly has so much energy, we decided to let her wear herself out on the trampoline. She had so much fun and got really good at it too. She could jump at least five times in a row without falling down, then she'd run fast in circles while saying "circle" and "march".  Good thing daddy was there to take over seventy pictures so we could capture these awesome moments:

Mommy's little helper

Wrynly has been wanting to help me with everything lately!  With my new idea of a "Job Jar" in motion, she has been wanting to be by me every step of the way. I made a list of things that need to be done around the house and put them on separate slips of paper. I folded those papers and stuck them in  a jar and once (sometimes twice) a day I will pick one out to do.  It makes my life so much easier because it gives me motivation to do something and I don't have to waste time deciding what needs to be done first!  Yesterday I swept and mopped the kitchen floor. Wrynly helped sweep up the dust and crumbs into the dust pan and put it in the garbage... though most of the stuff ended up back on the floor because she's not quite good at balancing things evenly yet :) .  She helped me do some mopping. She used the mop and I got the dish towel to get the stuck on spots. She ended up mopping the top of the kitchen table too.

I usually have dinner fixed and ready for when Jarom gets home.  Last night Wrynly helped me make it! We wanted egg and cheese sandwiches, something breakfasty and easy.  She pulled her chair up next to the counter and helped me crack the eggs into a bowel, beat them with a fork, and pour them into the pan. She also helped put the English Muffins in the toaster and take the cheese slices out of the wrappers. I'm thinking she's going to be a good big sister and mother one day!

Mauri took Wrynly to Beus' pond to feed the ducks today and gave me a break... to do my job of the day! Fun times with Aunt Mar Mar!

Wrynly's favorite things

 Wrynly knows her colors! She loves to get her crayons and color in her princess/fairy book. I usually color with her and if I ask her to get me a certain color and she will find it for me! This picture is daddy coloring with her so he could see that she knows her colors.  Sometimes she still gets a little mixed up, but overall, she's a pretty smart cookie!!  We started doing this over at Grandma Susan's house when we go to visit... she learns a lot of good things over there. 

We had Grandma Susan watch Wrynly a week ago on Feb 23rd, so I could go to a last minute doctors appointment for the little one.  When we went to go pick her up after the appointment, we were just pulling into the driveway when Grandma and Wrynly came out the front door. I watched them as Wrynly went and squated at the edge of the fish pond and Grandma bent over to get a stick for her to play with.  The next thing I knew, Grandma was running for Wrynly, trying to grab her before she went in head first... but her shoe slipped in the dirt and they BOTH ended up in the fish pond! I was so shocked, I didn't know whether to laugh, whip out my camera or run to help them.  Motherly instinct kicked in and I jumped out of the car and ran to help them out (faster than I thought my pregnant butt could go!!).  Wrynly was shocked and started crying as we pulled her out, algae on her clothes and all. I had Jarom take her in the house to taker her clothes off and warm her up while I helped my mom get out of the pond.  I was really worried for her, since she just had her back surgery last month.  She insisted she was fine... but we are still waiting to see the full extent swimming in the pond had on her back.

The past few weeks Wrynly's new favorite word has been "STUCK".  She'll say "I Stuck" for almost everything, but this picture is usually why she says it... she has her feet inside the empty boxes of wipes and walks around like that. When she's done and can't get her feet out she says "I stuck" for me to help her!   

Her favorite shows on TV are The Fresh Beat Band and Peppa Pig.  She loves the Fresh Beat Band because they sing and dance and have a lot of fun. Her favorite character is KiKi, the girl all in pink. She plays the guitar and is real sweet.  When she wakes up in the morning, she grabs her two favorite blankets and says "KiKi... KiKi" and will keep saying it unless you tell her YES, we are going to watch KiKi! Then she'll sing and dance along with the songs. So far, her favorite song is Bananas and will scream "NANAS" and go crazy!! They are having a concert tour but are not coming to Utah... a total bummer because Wrynly would absolutely love to go see them.

Her other favorite show is Peppa Pig.  They have English accents and snort frequently, but she just sits there and giggles the entire time it's on.  A Youtube link to one of the episodes is : Peppa Pig: Car Wash.  It's so fun to see her reacting and laughing on her own to things that she thinks are funny.

At the end of last month, I made her a potty chart so we could start doing potty training.  Our plan was to have her trained by her 2nd birthday on March 21st, so when the baby gets here, we only have to worry about one set of diapers!  Well, as you can see by the lack of stickers on her chart that it is not going so well!!!  She absolutely refuses to sit on her potty!  She will sometimes sit on it, but with her pants on :(  Every time you ask her "Do you want to sit on your potty and get a sticker?" she'll say "Noooope!" or "NO!" or any version of that!  Sometimes she'll say "Okay" if you ask her to sit on her potty for a cookie or a million dollars, but when you get her in there, she just screams.  I guess she'll start to go when she is ready. Wish us luck to at least have it happen by May 8th!!

Jarom and I took Wrynly to the "Treehouse Museum" on Saturday.  She s a hyperactive ADHD child in there! She's always zooming from one activity to the next, whether it's the bongo drums, reading corner, blocks, etc... the only thing that held her attention the longest was the computer section that had interactive games on Mac computers.  Hmmm... does that mean she gets too much TV/game time at home? Yes, I know I need to work on having play time and imaginary time at home without the influence of TV or iPhone games, but sometimes it's so hard to entertain her the whole day when I'm not feeling well or tired from being pregnant!  Excuses... excuses... right?