Goodbye to Our First House!!

Lexi has the Greatest Hair!!

Since the Move!!

We sold our house and survived the move back to Utah.  Things are finally slowing down.  We have almost got our new place furnished and functioning.  We miss Texas, except for the heat.  We love being back in Utah though.  We have been busy enjoying the time Joseph had off.  He is right now doing his first rotation in the ER as I type this.  

Since being back, we have been visiting a lot of play places.  We got the Pass of All Passes and have gone to Planet Play, Hollywood Connections, Seven Peaks, and the Fun Center in Orem.  

We have been enjoying the mountains and hiking.  Hiking is very different with two kids.  It is like herding cats.  Mainly we hike until we find water.  Then the kids spend the next half an hour throwing rocks into the water.

We have bought a pass up at This is the Place Park.  The kids love it.  We ride the horses, play in the play village, ride the train, play on the boat, and finally pan for gold.  Panning for gold is Lexi's favorite part.

We had a whirlwind trip back to Texas for Joseph graduation.  He is now an official doctor!!  

Lexi at 18 months

Lexi went to Nursery for the first time today.  According to Joseph, she only cried for the first 5 or so minutes and then did well.

Teeth Count: 8
Weight: ?? (We packed the scale already.)
Height: 32 inches  (Nicholas is 40 inches tall.)

Cute Things She Does:

• She tries really hard to jump.  She bends her knees and throws up her arms, but she can't get off the ground.  It is so cute.
• If she is having troubles getting to sleep at night, she will still rest her head on your shoulder if you bounce her.  She is definitely a toddler, but at that moment she still seems like a baby.  I love those snuggle sessions.
• She loves to color, especially if you give her a whole box of crayons to pick from.  She also passionately loves markers, but has been banned from using them because she takes a bite out of the tip when your not watching.  
• She is so sweet at story time at the library.  She loves to participate and do the hand actions when they sing the song, If You Are Happy and You Know It.
• Her favorite foods are fruits, vegetables, and candy.
• She loves powder sugar on strawberries.  She squeals when we give it to her.  We call powder sugar "kid crack." Both the kids are addicted to it.
• She loves to go super high on the swing.
• She is ADDICTED to Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.  She loves her Mickey.  She fusses every time she sees an iPad because she wants to watch Mickey on it.  She likes most cartoons.
• Bath time is a favorite activity.  She mainly likes to fill up big cups of water and pour them on her belly.
• She dislikes clothes, but will generally wear them.  She doesn't like shoes and will only wear them if I insist.
• She LOVES OUTSIDE.  She is completely content wandering around outside and will find sticks and rocks to entertain herself.
• She LOVES milk.  Nothing cheers her up quicker than a cup of milk.
• She loves blankets, especially her purple blanket.
• She carries around her baby dolls.  You know your baby is no longer a baby when she has one of her own.  She always tries to give her doll sips of milk.
• She is a wonderful sharer.  She is willing to give Nicholas a piece of candy even before she eats one herself. 
• She is definitely a second child.  She will watch and wait until a toy is free and then swoop in and get it. 

Bad Habits:

• She throws food and enjoys putting it on the top of her head.  She also spits out whatever she has in her mouth if she sees something she thinks she wants to eat more.

Talking:

• She is really behind on talking.  My theory is that she doesn't crave human interaction as much as Nicholas did. (Of course, few kids crave as much constant attention as Nicholas.)  She is perfectly content to entertain herself most of the time.  She also doesn't have too much incentive to talk because she gets everything she wants because she is very clear with her pointing, signs, and grunts.  Mainly she just will say the first sound of the word.  She is good at understanding, so I hope hearing isn't the problem.  If we tell her to point to objects in a picture, she will do it.  She is great at following commands, but she is just taking her time with the talking.  I'll start worrying about this more after we move:)
• Words She Says: Mama, That, Milk, More, Quack, Bug, Spin, Bug, Ba (for blanket)
  
  

South Padre in the Sping

Our big trip for spring break this year was to visit South Padre Island and some of the places in Joseph's mission.  We rented a condo right on the beach with some of our good friends here in Texas, the Riries, and we all had a splendid time.  We also visited the USS Lexington in Corpus Christi, which Nicholas actually loved.  The pictures aren't in any particular order, but do show most of the highlights.  

This was the best picture I could get of Lexi and her hands behind the head approach to watching shows in the car.

Nicholas absolutely loved the cockpits you can climb into.  He wouldn't look at the camera since he was so busy exploring his surroundings.

 We asked Nicholas which his favorite plane was, and he chose this one.  As a side story, the stairs on board are really steep.  We always tried to have one of us go in front of him, but sometimes he would start first or we would forget.  One time I was trailing him going down and he slipped.  I had all of the emotions of a dad watching his son undergo what seemed to be certain serious harm as he started to slide step to step.  Impressively, he was able to keep his head above his feet as he went down about 5 steep steps and ended up on the deck below on his feet.  After a second to collect himself, he decided it was a really fun slide and got excited to try it again.  Needless to say, he didn't get the chance to repeat that adventure.

 The beach was gorgeous.  It was overcast, but kept the temperature just about right.

While we were there, there hundreds of Portuguese Man-of-Wars that washed up on the beach.  They did lots of combing to get rid of them, but they kept coming up.  We didn't spend much time in the water because of them, but we were all happy to stay and play on the sand.

This is where Joseph lived while in Port Isabel.  It looks about the same as it did then.

The original plaster cast used for the bronze Arlington Iwo Jima monument is in Harlingen.  It was really fun to see it as I'd heard about it as a missionary but never got the chance to go by and see it.

The porch in the back leads into the apartment I had in Kingsville.  It is also where my bike was stolen from. It would be nice to have it now, but alas, I got my just deserts for not locking it up.

The kids loved putting on the hats and sunglasses at a gift shop.

Happy on the beach.

Nicholas was too busy exploring to smile for the camera.

We had a fabulous time and Maren decided we should try to spend some time on the beach every year in the future.  We would love it if we could pull that off.

Break Off Mormon Cemetery

Ever since I heard about the Lyman White group of Mormons who went to Texas after the martyrdom of Joseph Smith and that there was still a cemetery there, I have wanted to go see it. The day before the match I needed something to get my mind off of the match so we loaded up the car and it drove down to Central Texas to find it. I had already scouted out where it was on Google map and was able to drive right to it. While we were there a foreman for the ranch it was on came up and informed us it was on private property. He said that the 2 story house across the street is where the owners live and that we should stop and ask there next time. It is actually quite well maintained and we were told that most of the grave inside the stone wall were the former Mormons but that there were also quite a few other graves outside of the wall many of which were not marked. I have included several of the pictures that I took including the few graves that still had legible writing on them. If you are ever interested in going to see it we could give you directions and what encourage you to ask before going unlike what we did.

Matched

Joseph matched at the University of Utah in their Internal Medicine program.  We are super excited and now super busy getting packed up and selling a house.  If you know of a wonderful place to live, please let us know.  I can't believe how fast things are moving now, because they have been moving so slow for the past few months.  We can't wait to be by family again.  Though we are excited, Joseph does want to make it clear that he will never cheer for Utah's sports teams.

Photoshop

Thanks to my new computer, Joseph has been able to teach me a little photoshop so I can do some digital scrapbooking.  Here are a few pages I have been working on.