My Darlings

My friend, Ashlee, took these fun pictures of me and my darling kids! It was so fun! I do not often get to be in front of the camera! She did a great job and I cannot wait for Justin to take some pictures with us too:)

This is typical loving Jorgen wanting to squeeze the life out of his adorable sister, Shelley! And Shelley is just being her patient self, wondering what her brother is trying to do to her.

I LOVE this picture of Jorgen. So, so, ... Jorgen!

I love Jorgen's hair all long and curly! Justin made me cut it all off a few days after these pictures were taken! He said it looked too out of control and accentuated his large head:) I think he looks so cute with long hair...it will grow back soon!

I love how different both of my children's personalities are - Jorgen is so full of enthusiasm and charm and Shelley is so content and sweet.

And here is me with my darlings! Both of them were so distracted at all the exciting things around them. I cannot get enough of my kids! I love them so much!

Thomas Jorgen

This picture was taken by my friend, Ashlee...more to come...

Jorgen says the funniest things! I wish I had a tape recorder recording all day long so I could remember the things he says. A few of my recent favorites:

Jorgen said this a few months ago while I was getting ready (I guess it's a rarity around here for me to be getting dolled up:D), "Mommy, you yook reayey cute! Yike an angel!" (yes, it DID melt my heart)

We had Enchanted on in the background (my sad attempt to try and have Justin watch it because I think it is such a cute movie...He conceded but Jorgen was way more into it than Justin), and Jorgen was glued to the TV. We thought it might be a little too dramatic for him and he overheard us saying maybe we should change the movie and responded, "Mom and Dad, I think THIS is the best movie for me to watch right now!!" (He is always listening to us and giving us his two cents.)

And just the other day Shelley and I were following him while he rode his trike outside and while driving recklessly screamed, "AHHHHH, I can't see! I don't have my contacts in!" (That made me laugh out loud! He really does listen to us when we are talking about Shelley and her contacts.)

Whenever Jorgen is not talking or telling stories to himself or us, he is singing. He loves to sing and hum. Lately, he has become more creative with his songs. He switches up the words and sometimes sings familiar tunes while telling train stories. It's pretty cute! He has a best buddy, Ryan, whom often gets put into his songs.

"Twinkle, twinkle little Ryan, how I wonder what you are. Up above the world so high, like a Ryan in the sky..."

and

"Book of Mormon stories that my Ryan tells to me (sometimes substituted with Ryan's mom, Heather)."

We love you, Jorgen!

Smoothie-stache

I feel like the past few posts have been Shelley-centered. Jorgen is just as adorable and just as much fun, it just seems like Shelley is changing so fast and doing such funny things that we have been taking a lot of pictures of her lately. I am going to do better at capturing the many fun Jorgen-moments too! I thought these were fun pictures of our darling Shelley.

This is her smoothie-stache. She loves smoothies so much and I am trying to teach her how to drink from a straw but until she masters that talent, this is what we have to look at every morning.

And we are OK with that. We think it is adorable!

Shelley has been jabbering so much lately and her jabbering has turned into saying real words. She had cheese for the first time a few days ago and I said, "say 'cheese'" and Shelley mimicked it so well. So we decided that "cheese" was her first word because then she just kept saying it over and over again. She has been babbling for a long time and says 'baba', 'dada', 'gaga', and so on but she is now saying "dada" when we ask her to and she looks at Justin. It is so cute! Today was a fun day because she had so much fun mimicking many of the words I asked her to. It was so cute! She officially waved with her little fingers today when saying by to some friends, in place of the up and down wave of her arm that she usually does. Shelley loves to make different sounds with her tongue, her favorite is when she clicks her tongue on the top of her mouth and it makes a loud sound that she thinks is quite entertaining. It is so fun seeing how she learns from watching others. She really loves to copy what we do.

These two pictures are of her doing what she loves most, playing at the train table. The second she hits the floor she cruises over to the train table and stands up to play with all the fun things on there. We all love you so much, Shelley.

27

I am now another year older and hopefully another year wiser but most of the time I feel like my brain keeps getting more and more mushy. But I do love my life and most importantly love my family!

I had a fabulous birthday! The day was topped of with a slice of this yummy chocolate cake and a date with my best friend to see Wicked!!! It was my fourth time and Justin's second time seeing it and it was, of course, phenomenal!!!! I have the best husband ever!!! And the best kids too:) Thank you to everyone who made my day extra special!!!

So Big

I keep waiting for Shelley to grow out of this game, but I do not think she will anytime soon. She loves it too much! Any time you ask her "how big is Shelley?" She hooks her fingers together and raises them as high as she can in the air and then holds her hands there or starts flapping them up and down. It is so darling! She is so funny! The way she squeezes her face and gets so excited makes all of us laugh.

And to go along with being so big - I am getting so old! Some very thoughtful and wonderful friends of mine threw me a surprise party last night! It was a blast! I was totally surprised and had so much fun chatting and eating lots of yummies! I have such wonderful friends here! I cannot believe I am almost 27!

Finally;)

Shelley is crawling! In the same day, she learned how to crawl and pull herself up to the train table. It is so cute to watch! Jorgen learned how to crawl at seven months old so I have been wondering when Shelley would learn. Our sweet little girl is almost ten months old and I cannot believe how fast time is flying. She is such a darling and funny gal. Shelley loves to make funny sounds with her tongue and throat; We all love listening to her discover all of her sounds. And she has grown quite fond of Jorgen's trains. Maybe she will be Thomas-obsessed as well? Who knows! What we do know is that we LOVE her!