Cousins and Crawling

Christen and Alex came to visit this past weekend with Luc. Alex planned it all and surprised Christen by coming out here. They boys loved having their cousin here. Luc is crawling (real crawling) and I guess that is all Jaiden needed to really crawl. Jaiden now crawls all over and pulls himself up on anything he can (as does Luc).

Monday we went to Steamboat. We went to the Botanical Gardens. They were pretty (would have been prettier in the summer or spring though). We walked around Steamboat and had lunch downtown. We also went to the library and walked to a couple of the close sulphur springs around there. Alex made a good dinner before they left (yeah, no cooking for me!). We also had the leftovers Tuesday night. We are glad you guys came to visit, Christen and Alex.

I couldn’t get them to look at the same time. I think Alex may have gotten a few good ones though.

This was last week sometime, when Ian set up a picnic for him and Jaiden in the kitchen. All day long he kept telling me that Jaiden wanted to play picnic with him.

Church

So Rex’s work schedule has changed yet again (so it actually changed at the beginning of the month) and he works Sundays again. He does get off in time to come to the last two hours of church, but I have to do Sacrament meeting alone with the boys. They really aren’t that bad, but it is harder when it is just me.

Anyway, Sunday was Stake Conference. Since it was in the morning, Rex couldn’t go (we did go to the adult session Saturday night though). On the way home I was kind of complaining to myself about the fact that Rex can’t come and there aren’t that many people who really understand what it is like. Then all the sudden I thought of my mom. She did it when my dad was in the Bishopric, Teri couldn’t have been that old. So I started thinking about all the other women who sit alone with their children during Sacrament meeting, either because of their husband’s calling, work, single mother, or inactive/nonmember husband. So I realized there really are a lot of people that do this and I am not alone (and there are some wonderful ward members who help out when they see that I need help, i.e. Ian running away or throwing a tantrum). I don’t even know why I was complaining last Sunday. Ian was good during stake conference (which was a good meeting, broadcast from SLC) and Jaiden was pretty good for not having taken a nap at all that morning.

Our stake boundaries are really big (I don’t know how big, so don’t ask). So they decided this time to broadcast the meetings within the stake to the ward buildings. So the Priesthood and Adult sessions were held at our building and broadcast to the other buildings. The stake president said they may do that for training and for at least some stake conferences so people don’t have to travel that far (like 3+ hours) and more people will be able to attend. Last time stake conference was in Rifle which is about 3 hours from us (I didn’t go because I didn’t want to go that far with two kids, one only a few months old and I would have had to find a ride since we only had one car at the time).

1-2-3 Magic

Recently I checked out from the library and read 1-2-3 Magic by Dr Thomas W Phelan. I figured since I have to return it, but I want to remember some of the things from the book, I would post about it.

He talks about Stop behavior, Start Behavior and improving relationships with children. I liked a lot of his ideas, particularly the no talking and no emotion rules when disciplining. When disciplining a child is not a good time to talk, since both parent and child will be angry. Most Stop behavior (whining, fighting, etc) can be counted, “That’s 1” “That’s 2” “That’s 3, Take 5” The take 5 is a time out for a few minutes (a minute for how old the child is). After time out, you don’t talk about it, unless it is new or unusual behavior for your child.

Start behaviors need different tactics since they often require more attention and time to complete (cleaning, homework, etc). The tactics he shared are: Positive reinforcement, simple requests, timers, docking system, natural consequences, charting, and a different kind of counting (for things that don’t take that long).

One thing I didn’t like was him talking about maybe there are places you shouldn’t take you kids to avoid problems. He mentioned an example at church. I will always bring my kids to church, church is for everyone.

Jaiden’s Crawl

Jaiden doesn’ crawl normally, it is kind of an army crawl. When he is sitting, he will get into a crawling position and then keep going down to his belly, but he gets around where he wants really well.

Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam

One of Ian’s favorite songs from nursery is Jesus Wants me for a Sunbeam. He also loves to play the piano while singing it (the children’s songbook has to be open while he is playing it, too).

Lately

We have been this and that lately. First, the weekend of August 20-22, we went to my parents’ for a reunion with my sisters and their husbands. And guess what, I can announce this now that she has posted it on Facebook, my sister Kristi is pregnant. She is having a boy and is due the very beginning of January. So Jaiden will have a cousin almost exactly a year younger than him. Kristi and Jon are very excited.

Anyway, for the reunion, we hung out. We took a walk along the trail near Fort Buenoventura in Ogden. It was really pretty and went along the Ogden River. We even brought the three bikes from my parents and took turns riding them. My aunt took family pictures. They turned out pretty well, and I will post them if my mom gets permission to post them and stuff. We will have a family picture with the four of us on our wall soon, instead of just the three of us!

Since then, we have been playing around here. We have gone to several parks to play. And I actually took some pictures. Enjoy.

I tried to get them both looking at the same time, didn’t work.

Don’t you just love this face?

Trying to get a picture of them both, looking, but this was the best I got.

We have also been busy with play group and church activities.

The town of Hayden is doing Smart Start. It is a program for kids 3-5 to teach them basic skills, such as throwing, kicking, batting, etc. Of course we signed Ian up, we knew he would have a blast. Well it started last night, it was down at the elementary school gym. Ian had a blast. There were different stations set up and you could go at your own rate. There were only three kids, so it was good. We spent most of the time at the batting (t-ball) station. Ian loved hitting the ball with the bat.