He, She, We

A little family update.

He: Austin

Pulls all the books off of the bookshelf every. single. time. and is so proud of himself. 

Keeps an eye on Lydia all day. He might be doing his own thing, but as soon as she starts doing something interesting (or looks like she might be willing to play with him) he makes a beeline for her. If she's laying on the ground, you better bet that within seconds he'll be right there trying to climb on top of her. 

Laughs at everything. Even things that shouldn't be funny like Lydia manually rolling him over or laying on top of him or swatting his face with a blanket. I tell her to be soft with him but he just keeps on laughing and she says "He likes it!" Which he apparently does, but I don't know why. 

Started clapping (so cute!) and today he climbed up the whole first half of our stairs all by himself.   

She: Lydia

Asks for a popsicle every morning as soon as she wakes up. She knows that she only gets one a day, but that she gets to choose when she can eat it. I always remind her that she only gets one, and ask if she really wants it right now or if she wants to save it for later, and she always chooses to have it first thing in the morning. 

Says thank you over the sweetest things. "Thank you for helping me get my shirt on, mom!"

Decided that she wants to ride in her carseat rearfacing again. I think it's because she can see out the back window better (rearfacing on the side). So we flipped her around and she's happy as can be. I love it because that means I can eat candy in the car without her knowing, but it is much harder to hear what she's saying, which is a bummer because she gets frustrated when I can't understand her. 

She's so big, physically and intellectually. I can hardly believe it. It's like she turned 3 and then decided she just wanted to be a grown up. I'm holding tight to the little-girl-things she says and does. One of my favorites is that she says "little" as Lidder. She'll say "I can't do that because I'm too lidder. But when I'm a mom, I can do that, too!" 

Started dressing herself. She picks out her clothes for the following day when she's supposed to be in bed sleeping. I almost never find her in her same clothes/underwear when she wakes up from her nap as she was wearing when I put her down. I'm still able to manipulate things so that she matches decently when we are going somewhere important - but for the most part she wears what she wants. (long sleeves included). 

Such a social little girl. She wants to play with friends all the time. She puts in requests for Henry, Carson, Elsie, or Aubrey on a daily basis. We just had some new neighbors move in and they have a seven year old daughter. Thankfully she's super sweet and seems to like playing with Lydia, which means Lydia is in heaven. She continually asks if she can go next door and see if "her friend, Sammie" can play. 

Loves nursery. She's got some great nursery leaders who she really connects with. If you ask her what her favorite part of nursery is she'll say "We eat snacks. Like fruit-loops."  

I love these two, and they love each other. It makes me so happy. 

We: David and Shantel

We both have new callings. I was released as the Secretary in the Primary and called as the 1st Counselor, still in the Primary. I love working with my presidency and have enjoyed the change in responsibilities. I'm now over the nursery and activity days organizations, which is right in my wheelhouse. 

David was just called as the Secretary for the Elders Quorum. We are both a little sad for him to be leaving his calling as a primary teacher, but it will be a great experience for him. Now we are left with the task of scheduling both of our presidency meetings so they don't conflict and trying to juggle Austin during the block. 

I've been reading a whole bunch of books this summer as part of the Lehi Adult Summer Reading Program. It's been awesome. I've enjoyed reading books outside of what I'd normally read and for giving myself the excuse to sit and read. "I know there are a hundred other things to do, but this books will mark off my 'Read a book that was released in 2015' box." 

David's been anxiously awaiting the opening of NBA Free Agency. Or something like that. I'm not sure exactly what it is except apparently players are released from their contracts and the whole sporting world gets together to talk about where they'll choose to go... and it's a big deal.  

After David surprised me with Parade of Home tickets for our anniversary, we made every attempt over the few weeks that it was open to hit as many houses as we could. It was a fun time and we took about 100 pictures that need to be downloaded into a "Home decoration and improvement ideas" folder for future reference. 

The home prices in our neighborhood are skyrocketing. Houses similar to ours are selling for a full $100,000 more than what we bought them for just two years ago. Although we love love love our house, we've played around with the idea of moving to a different neighborhood, if only for the financial benefit that it would give us. (Note: This is not actually happening, so no freaking out.) We have some friends moving to Bluffdale and they keep talking us up onto the ledge of buying a house in their neighborhood. Then we discovered our close-to-dream home floor plan, the Silverton. With the crazy increase in home value here (which we think is a bubble and won't really last), there was a possibility of being able to get into that home and being able to add on all the things/changes we'd want to make, like a 3-car garage (David) and a bigger laundry room and loft (Shantel). We even went and talked to the home builders a couple of times. But there weren't any lots open, and when they open new lots there will be a price increase which will bring it out of our budget. PLUS, we love our house and could probably use the extra (imaginary) money just making changes to this house instead of squeezing ourselves into a house that is wayyy bigger than we need right now. 

With the conclusion of White Collar and the decline of Doctor Who, we've been missing having a show to watch together in the evenings. My sister Jenna introduced us to Chopped, which opened up a whole new world of Food Network TV. We both love joining Alton, Bobby, and Giada on the numerous shows that they appear on. After the kids are put to bed, you can probably find us curled up on the couch, bowl of popcorn in hand, watching Cutthroat Kitchen, Food Network Star, or Beat Bobby Flay. It's pretty awesome. (Or Castle! We are still catching up on all of the previous seasons. We love Castle.)