Picture Dump

I wanted a family picture for Christmas cards to represent our life now in Seattle so I got it all planned out and got everyone ready. Well  life happened between the time they got dressed and Dallin came over and we went from a potentially solid Christmas picture to this. Its not bad but there are many reasons we didn't use it. I got so mad at this picture at first but now I think its hilarious. I wish I was better at laughing in the moment.

 Our girls wake up too early for my taste and so I always try to sleep in more while they are awake. You know how the story ends. But look how happy she is so see me!

 I lover her after braids hair

 I don't have an amazing camera but phones can pick up some amazing pictures all the same. We have some great lighting in our house so I was playing around with it. I love how this one turned out.

 Girl loves pizza

One cloudless day (while it was 33 degrees) we played outside and were rewarded for it. I can't wait for nice weather!!! 

 Fun fact: That JOY was 3 dollars at Target. I painted it and glittered it and love it

We decided that we wanted to be fit so we exercised. I lasted about a pushup pass this picture, but Ethan has been exercising every day since! I'm so proud of him. 

We were laughing about how little college tree because I can literally hug it. See...
but we love it so much! I don't know if we will ever replace it. Its just perfect. 

 A rare sight these days. It made for a lovely run

 My girls never want me to read to them anymore which sort of hurts, but Kelsey reads to Madison and they love it. She makes up the stories and Madison sings along. Its so adorable.

The week we had snow, I got some GREAT pictures of our back house thing (not sure what to call it)

snowing with sun

snowing

19 degrees outside!!!

Foggy (this was taken at 9:30!)

Fog from the lake. We are high enough that we don't always get the fog. Its so fun to see it though

 Stop it. This is hands down the cutest Madison I have ever seen

 Princesses frequent our dinners quiet often

 She is ALWAYS wearing Kelsey's underwear. Heaven help me that I have to potty train another child. I already did that. Don't the rest just come pre-potty trained?

We were downtown and obviously is was a P-Day or something. There were missionaries EVERYWHERE!!! 

 First monorail ride

 Yeah, its 6:15 in the morning. Too early for this mom

 Kelsey is genuinely the happiest riser I have ever met. She walked out of her room with toys and this smile.

 Loved our neighbor gifts this year. We gave 4 cookies and a bunch of fruit. It was a fun and easy mix up. I only had to make one batch of cookies but still gave a great gift. Also, Ethan made the tags and I bought these bags at Hobby Lobby last year for about 10 cents a piece. Winning all over the place

"Hi mom!"

 I know right?!

Kelsey literally writes everyone shes knows about a letter a day. She is ALWAYS writing letters. We send them out sometimes, but sometimes its just too much. Lately she has started writing the letters, filling the envelopes, and then we show her how to "put them in the mailbox" aka, open our slot with the key and throw the letters in. She's happy and we don't use quite as many stamps as she requires. One day I didn't know she was ready to deliver, I looked up and saw this: coat, boots, mail key, ready!

Will the mailman know where to send these? I only put my name?

 It was cold outside but she didn't care. The sun was out!!!

They were trying to see if the markers tasted their color. they don't

We were on the couch and heard a dragging sound. I went in the kitchen to see Madison, sitting on the counter, feet dangling, chalkit in hand. She had carried the stool from the bathroom (which is AS big as her) climbed onto the counter, grabbed a chocolate, and treated herself to a "nack" or a "tet" as she calls it

Snow in Issaquah

Everyone told me not to worry about snow in Seattle. "its so rare to get snow in Seattle." "It hardly every snows in Seattle." Blah, Blah BLAH!!!! It SNOWED and it was freezing. For 5 days!! It melted every afternoon, but still.

It was such a weird snow though. It looked like snow and felt like snow, but was so wet and heavy that it fell like rain. We tried to play in it but after about 20 minutes we were SOAKED and freezing but we still got in a good snowman and some snow angles. I forgot that Little Miss Sunshine hadn't ever seen snow before. She was so confused but loved it almost immediately.

  I do feel like my house is made for the snow though. I mean, thats super cute. And look at those lights. So here's the story. On December 1st Kelsey and I wanted to do a service but couldn't come up with anything. Ethan had attempted to put those lights up about 100 times but always ran out of time. We thought our service could be putting up the lights for him. So my and my 4 year old, shimmied our way around the post and got those lights up. We were throwing strands of lights at each other, climbed up and around those posts, and finally got them up. We plugged them in and TAH DAH! The middle strand was out. HAHAHA!! You better believe I left them up. It took us about 2 hours to do this. No way was I going to take it down.

Attack of the Sugar Plum Fairies

Kelsey had her first dance recital and knocked it out of the park! I was so proud of her!

Miss Sue sets up her shows so that the little kids are the first 5 numbers and then she has an intermission so that you can leave if you want. It was perfect.

Baby Calvin

We got to be very involved with the arrival of baby Calvin and I'm so glad. Shellee was in and out of the hospital with high blood pressure, but the Saturday after Thanksgiving they decided to just take baby Calvin. We got to have the girls at our house all day and night as the Salmons were busy with baby stuff. It was so much fun having all those girls around.

About 2 hours before Calvin was born, Dallin and Ethan took a mans trip to McDonalds to celebrate. The brought it home and then proceeded to share it with their girls. This is the last "girls only" picture before Calvin was born. 

Sweet little Hadlee was so excited to meet her brother that she stayed up until 11 to meet him. I took her back and forth the hospital a few times, but the final time was more than she could handle. We had just put her in her seat and she was out. 

 After church we got to go meet Calvin. I felt so bad for Shellee. She was so sick, but let us come anyway. I don't really know why she said yes, but I'm glad she did. I'm pretty certain the girls thought we got to take this cute baby home. They had a really hard time letting him go.

Thanksgiving

There was a lot of rain on Thanksgiving which changed some plans but I think on a whole everything went great.

My favorite this year would have to be predators and smells

Ethan played football and I ran
Then we had the Salmons and the Holden's over for a turkey dinner. Everyone brought a couple of sides to share and we really had a great time. I grew up having Thanksgiving with friends so this felt kind of homey. I love finding people who need a place to go and having them join us.

Mark brought his virtual reality glasses so obviously we had a lot of fun with those.

The only disappointment was that I messed up the pie so we had no dessert. It felt slightly less like Thanksgiving. No one complained, but you could tell there was an overall "ho-hum" once I pulled out ZERO pies. I mean for goodness sake! It was Thanksgiving!!

Once everyone left we set up the Christmas tree, watched a movie and had The Feast. Great Thanksgiving. I'm so grateful that we live close to close friends. They made all the difference this holiday. 

Madison

Like Kelsey, I don't know where to start, so I'll just pick up in the middle of my thoughts. Madison is awesome. She is hilarious and totally knows it. Talk about attitude. I don't know if its because she is almost 2 but everything she does I just want to kiss her checks and keep her in my pocket because the cuteness is out of control.
If I had to write this post in only one sentence it would be this: if Kelsey does it, Madison is not far behind. Madison LOVES Kelsey and literally does and "says" everything Kelsey does. She loves her big sister and loves the attention she gets from her big sister.
Madison seriously is a prankster. She loves to get into trouble and loves to get a rise from people. She follows rules because she is a good girl and knows that she should, but first she tries to push as many buttons as she can before she does what she is being asked all the while laughing at her silliness.

I know Madison is not a baby anymore, but its been hard for me to accept because she is still my baby. But she definitely acts like a toddler now. Madison loves to play. Run, jump, hop, roll, play. She just wants to move. She's really into babies right now and maybe my most favorite thing that she does is pick them up and goes "sh sh sh sh" while she pats their backs. Its adorable. She also loves to push the babies in the strollers and feed them food. That being said, she LOVES when Kelsey treats her like a baby but only Kelsey. She loves it when Kelsey picks her up, puts her in her booster, helps her with her shoes etc. As long as Kelsey is the one helping, Madison will do anything she is asked. One of Madison's favorite things to do right now is take things that you are using and she knows you are using and run away. Its funny like maybe the first time she does it, but that's about it.

Madison is a strong willed little girl. I used to get worried about it, but now I can see how wonderful and good it will be in the future. I definitely see us butting heads, but I also see Madison standing up for what she believes with such a vengeance. She just won't get pushed around. She will believe and do what she believes for better or worse. I hope to be able to help her know how to use that super power for good, but Madison is already such a good girl that I feel like I'm on the winning side. Sometimes it goes against me though. Like, there have been many nights and afternoons where Madison sleeps in a heap by the door because she decided that she didn't want to go to bed.

She also started believing that she needed to be awake at 5/5:30 for about 6 weeks. Yeah... that was the worst.

As much as Madison likes to cause mischief, I know she is a good girl because every time she is doing something "wrong" she will close her eyes as if to say "If I can't see you, then I can't hear you and then I know I won't get into trouble." Its actually super hilarious because she totally knows what she is doing.

Right now, Madison and I are working on being okay with getting messy. She HATES being messy. Its not just being messy, she hates being out of line. If her hair is messed up she asks me to fix it, if she spills she can not focus past the spill, if she has something on her clothes she wants to change etc. I'm trying to help her know that its really going to be okay no matter what spilled or who dropped the spoon. What I have I done to my poor children! They are so afraid to make messes around me. I'm so sorry.

Madison is still working on the whole talking thing but its coming. She can say a pretty good list of words including:

mamma, dada, bubble, baby, "up above," help, up, yay, puppy, santa, Jesus, grampa, boots, hat, and a few others. 

The words are limited but the communication is not. She will grab our hands, gestures more all the time, or points to stuff until we understand. She often will bring us stuff to know what it is or if we aren't looking she will grab our face and direct it to where she needs help. Its so cute to see her try so hard to communicate. Ever since she learned how, the screaming has gone down 10 fold. Its so nice.  

Madison is so fun to have around. She loves to dance, is always reading books, plays hide and seek, and seriously does anything that Kelsey is doing. Right now she loves to pretty much only eat milk so that gets super old, but she loves Ethan and her blankie. She sleeps like a champion and naps like an all star. She knows that mom's phone is not a toy so any time she sees it, she runs to grab it and bring it to me. Any time she can sneak on to the computer she does, and loves to play tag. Coloring is her favorite pass time and she loves screen time. Being outside is cool if she can stay clean and she climbs things years above her age. Madison has always wanted to keep up with Kelsey and all things considered, she does a pretty good job. Gotta say though, Madison you don't have to keep up with Kelsey because on your own you are awesome. You make us laugh, are tougher than nails, and so sweet. I love your free hugs and kisses that you give to us every time you see us and I love that when you haven't seen someone in a long time you run up to them to hug them. My favorite thing right now is how every morning when you wake up you give Kelsey a hug before she even has time to acknowledge anyone else. You love your sister and she loves you. Stay sweet and stay sassy. It makes you so unique. The world needs that mix


There are a few things I wanted to add that I forgot.
Madison loves to play peek a boo behind your back. She pops out at your shoulder and says "booboo!"
Madison is always saying "donow?" when she can't find things (I Don't know) and she says "Ididit!" when she is really proud of herself
She enters a room by saying hi and leaves by saying bye, even if she has already said these things to you she will say it over and over and over as she come and goes.
Madison is not really known to walk places. If she is in motion, she is typically running
She is CRAZY ocd and if anything gets on her foot, she stops to wipe it off. Considering I vacuum maybe once every 10 days, this gets really annoying for Madison.
She loves slides and loves to swing
She is TERRIFIED of animals but loves to make the noises and point them out. She will run towards a dog because she is excited to see it, but as soon as he gets close she SCREAMS and runs away. Its a weird relationship.
whenever you tell something to Madison she responds by saying "oh" "madison, look at the lights." "Oh." "Madison, stop jumping off the ladder." "Oh."
Madison is great at asking for more, calms her self down really well, stops crying pretty easily, says yes and no, says thank you when you give her something, and uses please pretty often considering her age.
Every night as I'm tucking her in, she blows me kisses as I'm walking out. She also asks for kissed by sticking out her lips and walking towards you. She is very quick to give hugs. When she hasn't seen you in a while, she runs towards you yelling "YAAAYYYY!!!" and gives you a big hug. It makes you feel great.
She has a sound effect for everything she does. I think she does this becasue she can't talk all the way yet but its awesome. If she is trying really hard, she will puroselly grunt. If she is trying to jump she will make that "uh" noise with every jump. When she sits down she will go "boom!" I love that she does this.
Madison LOOOOOVES to sing and since she can't talk the words, she makes up the noises that she hears in the syllables. It rocks. For example, when she sings "Try Everything" She will go "ohohoh nanana ohohoh" It helps if you know the song but its so cute. She sings the 12 days of Christmas and obviously can't get the words, but gets the medley pretty darn well.  We always hear her singing along in the back seat. She will oh,ah, and hum at all the right parts. I love it
Madison also loves to dance, but it basically is just her spinning in circles. She copies everything that we do so she will copy our moves, but if it is totally from her own brain she is spinning.
She recognizes us in pictures and will point us out by name "mama, dada, essy, and memo"

Madison and Kelsey love to play the screaming game. I hate it for obvious reason but they literally just sit and stare  at each other and scream. Its not a high pitched girly scream but more of a "AHHHHHHH" scream. Its still super annoying but they laugh and laugh and laugh.

When she wants us to come with her she motions us forward with her whole hand. Its really cute.
She calls all food apples
She will tell us when she is wet or dirty. She will come up to us and say "tink!tink!" (stink, stink)
She LOVES watching shows. "Madison? Do you want to watch a show?" "A stow! A stow!!"as  she is running through the house. If Kelsey doesn't know she will run and find her so she can watch too and then motions Kelsey to sit by her. 
shes really mastered the tantrum. She slowly will lunge forward onto her belly so she gets the dramatic effect but still not to hurt herself. Once there she starts rolling and crying and kicking. Its quite impressive.

Kelsey

I always have these grand intentions to blog these big long post about my girls and where they are developmentally for my own keeping, but then I get so overwhelmed that I never do anything. I guess I'd rather sit and live their lives with them than document them. BUT I already feel like time is flying by so I would hate to not put something on paper.  Like always, what ever I think is going to get thrown on the page. I may not even edit this one (shocker right? Since 90% of my post aren't edited) but I just really want to sit and type about Kelsey for a while.

I guess another reason I keep putting this off, is because I just don't know how to start. For the sake of embarrassing myself with a lame intro, I'm going to start this one in the middle. That way I can't be judge for my poor intro about one of the coolest topics I know.

Kelsey as a 4.5 year old has been really fun. Kelsey ready for life. I don't know how, but she is ready. She wants to be in school so bad and thrives under structure. She just wants order and structure in everything that she does. Sound like anyone you know? Sorry Kelsey! I promise good can come from being like that too. Kelsey is very creative and LOVES to play pretend, but to sum her up in one word it would be routine. If we deviate in any part of her life, she just flips out. Girls gotta have her order. I would die without Kelsey. She keeps me laughing, keeps me level, and keeps me happy. She is so cheerful, and her one liners kill us. She is so much like her dad when it comes to being silly and I love that about her. "mom relax" she says almost daily.

Kelsey loves to make people laugh. First thing she does when she wakes up, well is snuggle with us because she loves to be snuggly, but after that she cracks a joke, or tells us about a ridiculous made up dream, or cracks a funny face just to get a rise from people. She doesn't love to be the center of attention, but she LOVES to make you laugh. If she has your attention, she will run with it.

Right now Kelsey is in a dance class and she totally loves it. She loves the ballet part the best because "its hard to move my feet in tap."

The only blonde! Crazy right?!

She also loves music. Like thrives on music. I don't know a ton of 4 year olds and maybe its totally normal, but Kelsey can sing the words of a song after like 2 listen through. And its not just kids songs that she loves. She loves songs in general. Sometimes she will ask me to play songs over just because she liked certain instrumental parts or because she like the way the violins sounded versus the trumpets. I'm not saying she will grow up to be the next Taylor Swift, but I love how much music speaks to her. The other day we were listening to "Hand Clap" and Kelsey asked me to pause the music. I thought it was weird because she loves that songs, but when I did she did her best to essentially ask me what  rythym was. She didn't know the words to ask so she did something like this "Mom. Why do the notes know when to come at the right time and they always come when my head moves?" Very basic (and sort of confussing) question, but she felt it! I love this so much!!! She hears different instruments in songs and has asked for about 15 for Chrsitmas "including the one that is like a guitar but where you move both fingers at the same time on the top and bottom of the stick thing" Banjo :)  We are trying to find some sort of music class for her to join because I think she would love that. She asked me all about choirs and if she was old enough to be in one. I dont' know if Kesley will ever be a soloist because she tends to enjoy crowd performances better, but you never know. I just really see music in her future and that would make me really happy.

One think that we are working on is trying to help her understand that being perfect is not a thing. Its not real life, it is unachievable, and it will only bring heartache. I mean, this is one of the hardest lessons ever learned in life so we aren't too crazy about it, but Kelsey HATES making mistakes. She already beats herself up so much and it worries me just a little bit for the future. I have seen perfectionism destroy lives and marriages and I just don't want that heart ache for Kelsey. To be more specific, Kelsey puts herself in time out ALL! THE! TIME!! At first I thought it was really cute, but as she is getting older and her punishments are getting harsher on herself, I'm starting to see that its not like a funny joke, but more of a personality thing that we can work together to improve. The only reason its hard for me, is because Kelsey is such a good girl. I know I'm biased but my goodness I'm her mother so you better believe I 'm biased.  Kelsey is the most obedient person I have ever met.Don't get me wrong. She's still 4.5 and daily I have to remind her that I am the mother and I'm doing a pretty good job, but for the most part, she rocks when it comes to rules. Like 2 months ago, I told her never to move this one chair, and then yesterday I told her to go grab it and she was like "mom, I can't move that chair. If I move that chair, I am breaking rules and I don't want to get into trouble." She has cried multiple nights because she was afraid Santa didn't know that she was sorry and comes and tells me when she has done something "wrong." I know and believe that each of us come to earth with our own personalities but I do wonder (and worry) what I have done wrong to make Kelsey believe that she has to be so perfect. What have I done to set the bar so high in her young life? I just hope together we can figure out how to let her loosen up, have fun, but still follow rules. Following rules is not bad, but being a kid isn't either. We often say "get messy! Make mistakes!" I just hope she believes me and knows that I really want her to do that. I love you Kelsey. You are such a wonderful person!

Kelsey loves to be the mother, she loves to be in charge, and she loves knowing that she is the boss.  I wouldn't be surprised if she grows up to be a CEO or something. She is always negotiating with us or her teachers and helps class mates find order. She naturally just knows how to help chaos. She often tells me that she wants to be a mom when she grows up and that makes me really happy.

Kelsey is one of the sweetest girls I know. She says hi to strangers everywhere we go and always seems to make a friend. She always introduces me and Madison and then asks them about their life. Most people are taken back at first but then they open up. I'm still not great at following her lead, but I totally believe that if we were all a little more open and friendly like Kelsey (and kids) we would just have a kinder world. Can you imagine if you said hi to everyone and everyone said hi to you? Wouldn't it be so happy?! I hope Kelsey never gets nervous to stop doing this.

And then in general just for record sake, here are a few things that Kelsey loves at 4.5
cowgirls, dress up, playing house, playing moms, bad guys, coloring pictures, mailing letters, cooking, making lists, taking care of babies, music, spaghetti, salmon, crunchy toast, sugar, screen time, tablets (she pretends her books are tablets because she doesn't own one), and turning on her radio. Kelsey goes potty by herself, makes her bed without being asked more days, loves to help take the groceries in, hates going to the bathroom before bed, loves to play with friends and at the park, uses big words that she doesn't know the meaning of, sings her thoughts, and loves to hold and read to Madison. I'm sure I'll think of more, but that should give a great idea for now.
Some of her favorite shows right now include, Word World, Jake, Wild Kratts, Adventure Cat, Lion Guard, and a Goofy Movie.
Her good friends are Hadlee, Siena, Vera, and Madi

There are a few things I forgot about Kesley
She loves to play house and babies and mom and is always talking the parts out. She creates house all over the house and will tell you your lines as you play. 
Kelsey is the queen of one liners. Its hard not to laugh because she knows exactly what to say to be hilarious. Other day I was like "Kelsey, you need to stop making that bread. I told you not to use the toaster and you didn't listen" In response this is what I got, "Mom, don't get mad at me for trying to learn how to be a mom. I'm just practicing being as awesome as you some day." And done. She wins.
Right now if you ask her what she wants to be when she grows up she will say a mom or a cowgirl
Kelsey is always making up games. She is exactly like her dad. The titles of her games might be the best part. "Mom, lets play tickle my face and you say boo." Want to play that? 
She also is full of questions right now. I try my best to come up with accurate answers that give her what she is looking for but it gets hard because she will always ask a question and then not give me time to thinking. While I'm thinking and gathering my response she just sits there and goes "who?who? who? who?" or "why?why?why?why?" I want her to know that question are perfect to ask and its great to ask questions, but we are working on letting people find an answer too.
Kelsey works so hard and loves to show you her efforts. What I love so much about Kelsey is her ability to be pleased with the little things in life. She wants to do a good job, but she also gets excited when she makes her bed, or discovers a rhyming word. It helps me remember to be joyful in the simple things.