eating healthy

this is just one example of our many healthy meals we have been enjoying. We bought the Biggest loser cookbooks and I have loved their recipes. Not one let down yet!

these Kabobs had chicken, green peppers, yellow peppers, red peppers, onions, and sweet potatoes on them. yummy!

Love is in the air

Cyle had his arm around our neighbor friend, Chloe Spitzenberger. It was so cute and he did it all on his own several different times...good to know we are teaching him good things




Caylinn loves to say "Ilovu" and blow kisses. This girl has progressed leaps and bounds this month even with being sick twice and having some pretty crazy stuff happen to her. you go girl!

homemade valentine's day crayons

I got this idea from pinterest. you take broken crayons and make new crayons. they are super fun to color with and made great valentines for Cyle's friends.

daddy's girl

Caylinn Loves her daddy so much! her face lights up so bright when daddy comes home from work. even if Cyle says daddy's home Caylinn will turn and look over to the front door to see her daddy. it is so cute and they have such a great and fun relationship. they love each other so much and it is so precious!

LOVIN the Kiddos

bad luck

So lately it feels like our luck has been pretty bad. please excuse this post, for, it may sound like i am complaining...but honestly we are pretty done with this stuff happening and try to stay positive and humorous about it but i wanted to document it so we can read back on it and think to ourselves- whew! so glad that is over!
1. Caylinn's right thumb got burned on the outside of our stove and our housing maintenance people claim that it is normal for stoves to get hot enough for a person to be able to get a 3rd degree burn on them for touching the outside of it. needless to say- that didn't float with us and we are in a battle with them to get it fixed so it doesn't happen again....and they had the nerve to try and blame it on bad parenting skills...right, it would be one thing if she had burned it on the inside of the stove and i hadn't tried to get her away but, hello, the outside of an oven should be cool to the touch.....
2. Caylinn got bitten by our cat. it cut through the skin and we had to get her on antibiotics. thankfully that is completely healed now.
3. our van keeps having "problems"- first it was the wiper blades, then it was the back signal light going out, and then our front right tire went completely flat and is now completely out of use until we get our tax return in to purchase new tires. a couple days before the tire went flat i had filled the gas tank which is now useless because i can't drive the van with a flat tire.
3. since we were a one car family LaVon was helping out in the afternoon's by riding his bike to and from work so i could have the car to do school pick up and drop off for Cyle. on Friday, LaVon went to get his bike and his back bike tire was completely flat because a piece of metal had poked through his whole entire bike tire...so now we don't even have that to help out while we are a one car family.
4. our tax return date keeps getting changed and we could really use the extra money- it is so funny how they are so quick to take our money away but so slow to get it back to us.....
5. our last big thing that we barely escaped by the skin of our teeth was LaVon's computer dying on him....luckily that one didn't last for too long and it just took the touch of Joy's magical finger.
all in all these might seem like minimal things to other people but they are our trials and struggles right now and they seem to never end or at least not soon. this month has been full of bad luck and I am so done with it. hopefully March will be a better month for us. I know when this is all done we will be laughing about it all and we will be that much stronger as a family but right now- it sucks!

before and after

thanks to my lovely husband, who is also my hair stylist, for giving me a fresh new look. I love how it turned out!

Curiosity and skills

Caylinn has had a huge spurt in her curiosity and listening skills lately which has led to her discovering lots of fun things and doing lots of new things. some of my favorites are her making a smacking lips sounds, reading books and turning the pages all by herself, opening cupboards where food once was, sliding closet doors, throwing diapers away, cleaning up toys, putting her shoes away. she has also gotten really good at communicating with both sign language and vocalizing. she can sign: more, please, thank you, all done, and milk. she says momma, daddy, hi. I love this little fighter of a girl and I am so proud of how far she has come! I can't believe that next month she will be going into our church's nursery! also featured in the video is cyle's new found talent of singing jack and Jill went up the hill.

SNOW!

we got a pretty good snow storm in Monday afternoon/early evening. This is Caylinn's first experience with snow. She really didn't know what to do with it so I taught her how to throw it...by next winter she will be a pro at snowball fights :) Cyle on the other hand learned how to slide on the slush/ice like a pro so quickly from his dad just in the little time we played out in the snow before bed. it is so much fun to see him become a true boy through and through. I love my little family and I am cherishing the moments, for, I know now that the time we have with our little ones flies by so quickly!

Preschool

Cyle's first day of preschool was this past Monday. He is adjusting well and really has not struggled with it at all. In Fact, HE LoVeS it! He was so exhausted after his first day that he zonked out on the drive home. It was quite emotional for me during his first father's blessing for school. I really can't believe that my little man is going to school- BUT I know he would do well with it and I am right here to support him!

starting school

So many of you know that I have always thought about homeschooling my children due to the fact that we are military...but Cyle has different desires....there is a school bus that drives around our cul-de-sac daily and every time Cyle saw the bus he would say, "mommy I go to school?" I would ask, "don't you want to stay home with mommmy and learn?" and his response was simply said, "NO! I want to go to school!" so there you have it! Cyle is enrolled in preschool now and will start next Monday.

the cure for cabin fever in our home

we have frequent ball wars in our home. it often goes like this...mom starts it with cyle by calling dad over to the bottom of the stairs and we sneak attack him by throwing balls down at him....he then catches on and then the war begins....this time we even had a crib mattress up for our protection and because caylinn finally learned how to throw balls she even joined in on this last one. by the time we took a picture of this last war the matress "some how ended up at the bottom of the stairs with Cyle on daddy's side" :p I love my family and our pass-time activities :)

cookies with Cyle and Chloe

so we had an FHE with our next door neighbors, the Spitzenbergers, who happen to be LDS and our best friends! we did it on friendship and since we just had some new neighbors move in to our cul-de-sac we baked cookies and took them over to them. Cyle and Chloe helped by putting the cookie dough onto the trays and we all thought it was picture worthy...don't you???

my speed walking trouble maker

caylinn is officially our speed walker who is determined to do everything and anything she wants to do! she is so stinkin cute when she walks! she is such a copy cat of her big brother...which is quite adorable! here is a video of her playing baseball with daddy outside (we have been getting lots of warm days this month so we have taken advanatge of them)

potty training

Cyle is being such a big boy! I swear two days after he turned 3 his potty training switch turned on and he has not really had any big issues with going potty since then. it helps that he has the motivation of going to school and that he really does want to be a big boy. I will say to any mothers that may be potty training right now- hang in there! your hard work will pay off and they will get it one day. For Cyle we started at 2.5 years old and put him in pull ups strictly to tech him when he would go pee (the picture disappears). we also told him that when he went pee the picture would get sad and go away....anyone who doesn't know- cyle is a huge people pleaser and so this worked well for him. once he figured that out we went pantless for a long time (probably about a month) while we were at home and did diapers while out and about...then he finally got the whole thing down without pants so then we put underwear and pants on him and then after a while (like 3-4 months) he mastered that but would not poop for anything on the toilet....so we ended up in diapers a lot more then we should have because we wanted to avoid accidents....but then after he turned 3 and had the motivation of school he started going poop all on his own... it has been quite the process but I am so proud of him!

Disney World- Magic Kingdom part 2

Sunday we spent the day observing the sabbath...let me tell you- it was a day of much needed rest. i cooked chicken fajitas for LaVon's family...lets just say, it was a hit! then monday morning we got up bright and early again to head back to Disney World's Magic Kingdom. this time we took Caylinn with us and met more characters, shopped, watched parades,and met even more characters. Our kids weren't too sure about the people characters like peter pan and the princesses but warmed up to them eventually. Cyle enjoyed a pirate show with captain jack Sparrow and a ship mate while Caylinn zonked out for her morning nap. Later that day cyle zonked out from pure exhaustion and Caylinn was doted on by every single walking character in a parade don main street... the pictures say it all :)

Busch Gardens

Day 3 in Florida we spent at Busch Gardens. Keep in mind it was new year's eve and Busch gardens is owned by Budweiser so it was quite the adventure that evening...I am just glad we sent the kids home with grandma and grandpa before it got all drunk/ drug crazy. For those of you who don't know Busch Gardens is where LaVon proposed to me and so it made it that much more special. we spent most of our time playing in the kid zone area. they had the sesame street characters (perfect for our little caylinn) and rides for cyle to have fun on. Cyle rode his first roller coaster this day and did so well. seriously, this kid has no fears! they also had a water splash park and yes we had the kids playing in it on the last day in December- the weather was beautiful while we were there!after a long day with the kids we sent them home with grandma and grandpa so they could go to bed while we rode some of the world's best roller coasters...the newest one, The Cheetah was so awesome!!!! we ended up leaving before midnight to avoid all the drunks and drugged crowds- and thank goodness we did!

Disney World- Magic Kingdom

Day 2 in Florida we left Caylinn home with Grandma and Grandpa Salmon and took Cyle with us to Magic Kingdom. We rode all the rides we could (with Kami in the wheel chair for her bum knee we were ble to ride a lot of rides/ wheel chair lines rock)! Cyle's favorite ride was by far the tea cups but he thoroughly enjoyed all the rides. we stayed really late that night and got to see the fireworks and a light parade. It made Cyle's 3rd. birthday so special to have just a day with him! He was a bit cranky that day and with us being so busy riding rides we didn't take many pictures but just know that we had so much fun riding almost every ride in the magic kingdom!

Disney World- Animal Kingdom

I need to do some catching up so I will start with January's events. We spent some time in Flordia with LaVon's side of the family. we were there for 6 days and 4 out of those 6 days we spent going to amusement parks. The first day we went to Disney World Animal Kingdom. we quickly learned that disney world really is not the happiest place on earth (nap time and bed time are :))...i mean, come on... you have tired parents and kids who haven't slept well in their own homes or beds, you have crowds beyond belief, and you have a daily schedule that has been thrown out the window---so we made the best of it and ended up really having a blast, given the circumstances. caylinn refused to sit in the stroller because she didn't know all the people around her and couldn't see mom and dad who were pushing the stroller....so we ended up carrying her most of the first day (please remember she weighed 23 lbs during this time- tired arms, back, and legs = a bad combination). she also did not do well with any shows or rides (which worked out pretty well for Animal Kingdom....you may ask what we ended up doing that whole day for the whole 10 hours we were there???? well we went and saw as many characters as we could because our kiddos LOVED the characters- that alone made the first day so worth it....Caylinn who was just learning how to walk even attempted to walk to Donald Duck! they would seriously be whinning and crying and the second it was their turn to see the character (didn't even matter who it was) they were all grins and giggles! here are some pictures from the first day at Disney World Animal Kingdom.