Cheesy

I LOVE Spencer's current "cheese" smile! It fits his happy, silly little personality so perfectly. Lately, he's really been getting into being silly and thinks it's hilarious when I make up silly lyrics to songs he knows (especially if I insert his name into the song).




Side note: This was our first attempt at sleeping in a "big boy bed" vs. the crib. I hadn't planned on transitioning him for another 6-12 months, but we scored this cute bed from a couple in our ward and I thought I'd give it a shot. We're going on a 2.5 week vacation in July and since Spencer won't sleep in a pack 'n play anymore, I'm worried that sleeping is going to be a nightmare. I was hoping the trip would be a little easier if Spencer could learn to sleep outside of a crib before we left. This attempt quickly failed when Spencer just followed me out of the room when I left. I didn't want it to be a negative experience, so I didn't push it at all. Any tips on this new adventure are welcome!

30

I know this looks like it could be Spencer's third birthday, but it was actually Alan's 30th. Alan hit the big three-o last week, so we had three birthday celebrations. I made his favorite dinner (lasagna and bread sticks) and Debbie made his favorite cake (homemade German chocolate) for our weekly Sunday dinner. My lasagna didn't turn out as good as Debbie's, but my mouth just started watering just from thinking about that cake. Ohhh, it's SO good! The cake looks a little lop-sided in the picture because it's actually only half a cake. We ate the first half for Alan's Dad's birthday the week before. He! He!




We had a pretty full schedule on Alan's actual birthday, so we didn't do much celebrating. Alan made sure we opened presents first thing in the morning though.


Alan wanted to take Spencer goofy-golfing at Safari Sam's for the first time for his birthday celebration. Spencer lost interest in the game about a third of the way through our 18 holes, but he did improve dramatically while we were there. He loved running ahead to scout out the holes and I think Alan had a good time "teaching" him.






Alan requested Papa Murphy's pizza and peanut butter popcorn for his second birthday dinner. I decided the candles would probably work best in the pizza, but after seeing how much they melted, I'm not sure that was a good choice.



Happy Birthday honey! I love you so much and hope you had a nice birthday week!

Signs of Spring

First picnic of the year! We got this awesome wagon for a baby shower and can finally use it after two years!


What more need I say?

Children's Museum

Our wonderful friends from Hillsboro invited Spencer and I to go to the Children's Museum with them last Friday. I had taken Spencer there once about a year ago. He liked it the first time, but he LOVED it this time because he could do so much more. It took us about 45 minutes to find parking and then walk to the museum from the spot we finally found about a mile away, but it was super fun and totally worth it to watch the excitement and amazement in Spencer's face. Here are a few of the fun things he got to experience:

The Water Room: Spencer was pretty timid at first, but finally decided it was ok to play in the water.



The Stage: He's not much of an actor, but had a good time making background music with this xylophone.



The Clay Room: No great masterpiece, but at least he didn't try to eat it.



The Train Room: Still Spencer's favorite part of the museum. He probably could have stayed in there for two hours.



Magnates: These gear magnets were pretty cool.



Grocery Store/Cafe: He made me lots of yummy plastic sandwiches. :)


Thanks for inviting us Nicole, Hailee and James! We can't wait to go again!

My Mom

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My Mom has the misfortune of having her birthday on the 9th of May, so it is either on Mother's Day or right around it every year. She gets a little jipped for both celebrations because of it, so I wanted to do a little shout out to the best mom ever! I always feel bad that I can't help make her breakfast in bed or a nice dinner from 1,000 miles away. I hope she knows that I'm thinking about her and wishing I was there at least.



I was trying to think of my favorite memory of her yesterday, but found that there were just too many. My Mom is tied to most of my growing up memories and it's hard to separate them out. I have goo memories of her taking us on picnics, teaching me how to cook (and some not-so-good memories of her patient attempts to teach me to sew!), and of her being involved in my Young Women's personal progress.

Most recently, I have loved just being able to visit with her and ask her advice on raising Spencer. I do a lot of the things at home the same way she did when I was little. I know she feels like she shouldn't give me too much advice, but I really do appreciate her sharing her knowledge and experience. I have also LOVED watching her be a grandma to Spencer. He adores her and refers to her as "other Grandma" because he doesn't get to see her very often. These two videos are for you, Mom. We hope you have an doubly wonderful Mother's Day and birthday! We love you!

xoxoxoxox


(He really doesn't pick his nose. I'm not sure where that came from, but thought it was pretty funny.)

This is the one and only picture I took this week. Not too exciting, but we've been busy getting a little more settled in. We are mostly unpacked, but my walls are still bare and I haven't done any decorating so it doesn't really feel like home yet. We haven't found a good area rug for our laminate living room and that's driving me crazy. I've been sitting on an old towel to play with Spencer because I don't like sitting on the cold, hard floor. Plus, you can see every speck of dirt on that floor so it always feels really dirty to me. We've been spending a lot of time searching Craig's list for a new washer and dryer. (The set we bought in Utah, but only used for about 2 years doesn't fit. Grrr.) No luck so far so I'm hauling my laundry to Alan's Mom's house a couple of times a week. Much better than a laundromat, but still a hassle.

We've spent a lot of time in the back yard the past couple of days and Spencer has had fun "helping" and playing with his little car. I didn't take any pictures of the yard because it's not very exciting right now. So far, we've just been working on clearing the weeds away from around the fence. Once we get that done and all of the rocks and trash cleared out, we'll be tilling up the whole thing, leveling it out a little and then re-planting the grass. LOTS of work, but it's nice to be outside and Spencer loves having a safe place to run around. It doesn't look like much now, but I think it has a lot of potential. We found a cute, little frog and a lot of gross bugs that I'd never seen before yesterday. Fun stuff for a little boy!