Three-0

Happy Birthday!

You may no longer get carded at the Temple, but I think you look great for being three decades old!

For fun I looked up movies that came out the year you were born.  1982 brought classics such as Rocky III, The Dark Crystal, and Tootsie.

Some other 1982 facts include:  gas was somewhere near $1.30/gallon, the TIME Magazine man of the year was The Computer, a computer scientist suggested using smiley faces to show emotion in an email, Gato Del Sol won the Kentucky Derby, and Channel 4 is launched in the UK.  Now we will sweep the competition in an 80's version of Trivial Pursuit.

Sunshine

I don't think there is anything better than seeing your baby smile at you.  It warms you up from the inside out.

I'm completely smitten by this girl.  She is such a patient and sweet little baby.  I can't wait to see her grow up.

Trail Mix

This post has nothing to do with a salty yet sweet snack.  It's just a mixed bag today (ps Happy Birthday Lesa!)

It's cute seeing Noelle interact with Ivy.  I showed her how Ivy can hold her finger (someone told me they taught their kids it's a "baby hug", so that's what I told Noelle).  Noelle thought it was fun.

Noelle loves trying to interact more with Ivy.  She likes to tell her things (like about a bug that was walking in her room) and try to get her to dance when music is on.  When Noelle finds my phone lately she'll open it and say, "Hewo. Ivy's drinking. Bye".  I guess she's caught on that Ivy is always drinking.  She likes saying "night night" to her and "morning!".  Dad is teaching Noelle how you shake someone's hand and say "nice to meet you", so Noelle will grab Ivy's arm and shake it while saying "meetchoo".

Ivy is sure getting cute.  Her little curl is still there, and her eye lashes seem to be growing lately (maybe she'll have sweepers like Noelle).  I've gotten a few hairs on her comb lately (tear tear) so she may be loosing her beautiful locks for a bit.  She is smiling a bunch now.  I keep forgetting to record her in the morning.  She is super happy when you get her out of bed and smiles a ton.

Anywho, we had a busy week of visiting the splash pad, play places, zoos, packing, and just hanging around the house.  Here's some pictures of another visit to the splash pad.  We went by ourselves as our friends were out of town.  Noelle still had fun by herself.  

Here's me and Ivy (can you see her, she's pretty hidden).  

This is the face Noelle gives you most of the time we are there.

I look over and this is what I see.  Not sure what she was trying to do but it was funny.

We officially have the run of our new place now.  We took a few loads (by we I mean Corey) over to the house and are already itchy to be moved and settling in.  It's nice having a low key move after that last one.  That is for sure.

Ten!

We have been working on things for a while now, we were pretty excited to hear her do it by herself:

It's sure fun seeing her learn things.  For the longest time she'd repeat numbers we said but then we we told her to count she'd just say "two two two two".  What got us over the hump?  Nothing short of the old standby, clip hands.

We had been playing with clips recently (Noelle found my bag of them I have around for crafts).  She found them funny to clip on my fingers so we would practice counting.  We were just going for five but sometimes she'd keep going.  Apparently she was listening to all those Sesame Street episodes.  She got to ten in no time.  Maybe I should patent clip hands for teaching children how to count... "Clip hands worked for us!"

Toddler Cookery

Noelle has been cooking with me more and more.  


She's even come up with her own recipes.  Below she is making a lovely Disney casserole.

Another new favorite is clip stir fry.

And here she is in action:

;)

The title of the post about sums it up:

Swimming

Earlier this week I took Noelle swimming--actually I just took her to a free splash park in town.  We went with a friend from our ward who has a little girl just about Noelle's age.  They had a blast.  I packed Ivy around in a wrap, and my friend was kind enough to take pictures on her phone (I left the camera at home).

It was so fun watching them timidly start playing (in their defense the water was rather chilly) and then get more brave.  As they are both small mainly they had fun watching other kids get wet, but they liked splashing in the little fountain sprays and running around.  

Don't worry, the fountains come up really slowly, so no one gets sprayed in the face.

Every so often Noelle would just run up to me with the biggest grin on her face yelling "splashin'" or "water" or something of the sort.  So cute.  We will be going back soon!

Miracle!

Before I get to the miracle I should note that Noelle recently mastered twisting off caps.  Could she have done this long ago?  Probably if we showed her how.

Whilst occupied elsewhere in the house for a few minutes Noelle found my nail polish (which for two years had been safely hidden in the back of the cupboard in the bathroom), opened the polish, and proceeded to paint her toenails.  Did I mention it was RED nail polish?  Did I mention she has never painted her nails by herself before?  When she happily came and found me proudly showing me the opened nail polish and saying "painting!" my gut dropped.  The carpet!  

Miracle of miracles this little girly painted her nails and then ran through the house without getting anything on the floor.  There was a tiny drop on the bathroom floor, which was easily cleaned up. 

For her first try she did a pretty good job don't you think?  Plus everyone knows red is one of the hardest colors to use as it shows goofs so easily.

Sisters

As I've said before, Noelle loves her sister.  

One day Noelle heard me call Ivy "Ives" (I tend to shorten or create nicknames for things) and it has stuck. 

To Noelle, her sister is "Ives". We ask her to say "Ivy" and she says "Ives!".

As long as they love each other I don't care if their nicknames for each other are "potato" and "corn flakes".  They are two cuties.