About these kids...

A few notes about these kids of ours at this stage of life right now:


Lydia Elise:

She lines all her stuffed animals up in her bed by sticking them between the bars and the wall so they surround her entire bed.
Got her first song stuck in her head (I hope they call me on a mission) and walked around for a whole day saying things like "I just can't stop thinking about that song!" It made me laugh to hear her playing in the other room and then have her randomly start singing "to teach and preach... as missionaries do" over and over. I felt like it was a small rite-of-passage into her older childhood years. Since then, she's gotten a few other songs stuck in her head. Last night she kept singing "We're going to the zoo-oo-ooo, how about you-oo-ooo?" So cute and funny.
She's SO excited for kindergarten. She keeps packing things up in her backpack and talking about all the things that she'll need to bring to school. I'm going to really miss that girl.

Austin Scott:

Is going through this really funny phase where everything he sees is his. For example, driving down the road: "Those are my mountains! Are we going to my park? Look, that's my truck." It drives Lydia crazy because she insists that those things aren't his, but we've explained that he's just exploring the world around him and that it's a developmental stage where he thinks everything belongs to him. However, he's taking this stage a bit further than most because he has convinced himself that he has an "old home". "My old home", to be precise. He talks about his old home all the time, as in "At my old home I have fruit snacks," and "We can go to my old home now."  I'm not quite sure where he got the idea that he has an old home (other than we went to Logan and showed our kids the apartment that we lived in when we were first married) because he's never lived anywhere other than the house that we are in now. It's been so funny to talk to him about it. A basic conversation goes something like this, "I have an old home! Oh really? Where is your old home at? It's far, far away. It's far, far away? Yes, it's by my mountains. I have fruit snacks at my old home. You do? That's so nice. Do you want to home to my old home? (said as he starts walking away down the street)." It started getting less cute and more stressful when he started to actually start leaving our house (with or without someone else) to go and look for his "old home". One Sunday I decided to humor him, hoping that he'd get it out of his system and we walked about a mile and a half, all the way past the frontrunner station and back, looking for his old home. All he'd say is "It's far, far away" while we were walking. As I finally had enough and was forcing the kids to walk back home he saw the Casey's house on the corner of Blanket Flower Way and he said, "There is my old home!" and proceeded to walk up to the steps and try to open the door. It's a funny thing for him to have latched on to right now.

Caleb Samuel:

Likes it when you pretend to eat his tummy. Thinks his pacifier is a chew toy. Is getting better at holding things. Is acting interested in food, so I think we are going to start him on solids soon! I just wrote a huge blog post about Caleb at 5 months, but the things I want to remember about him right now are: how happy he is when he wakes up from a nap, his big toothless grin, the way his eyes lock onto yours and brighten with a smile when he realizes that you are looking/talking to him. He's such a sweet baby and he just fits in perfectly with our family. I just adore him, and so does everyone else.