Happy Birthday Dallin!

Dallin turned 4! He was so excited for his birthday this year. He would ask me several times every day for the last month or so when it was his birthday. It finally came! Jeff's brother was blessing his baby, so to start off the day we got the kids up at 5:30 am to get there on time. Dallin really wanted donuts. They were not very thrilled to be up at this hour though...
Then we drove 2 hours for the wonderful baby blessing. Then we went to their house for a couple hours, and Dallin had a blast playing with his cousins and the dogs. He spent almost the whole time in their backyard. Grandma Petersen got him a yummy ice cream cake. He hid behind Jeff when we sang to him...I guess he is still kind of shy.
Then we headed home. I'm pretty sure 4 of the 5 of us were asleep for part of the drive (Grandma Butts came the night before to visit). Then it was time for presents!!! Dallin could hardly wait. He got a new helicopter, a firetruck, a lego tractor, lego fire station, a new boat, a Mater bike, some puzzles, a new tent, a bike helmet and bell, and a DOW truck (doppler on wheels - the truck they use to chase tornados). Alyssa tried to help him open all his presents. She even tried to unwrap some without Dallin's help, which he did not like.

Here is Dallin opening his dow truck.

Here is he is opening his new boat.

Alyssa loves to play in his tent.
And ride his bike...
After he opened his presents it was time to ride his bike to the pond and drive his boat. I'm pretty sure daddy enjoyed this activity more than Dallin :) That is until it broke, so we had to use Jeff's boat to push it back to us...another one is on the way.

Then it was cake time :)! Dallin really wanted a garbage truck cake, so Jeff and I made one for him. It even had a dumpster and little orange trash cans.

On Monday night Dallin picked Choo Choo Johnny's to eat for his birthday. It is a place where they have a train that brings you your food. There is also a train that goes along the whole restaurant. The kids were great because they just sat and watched the trains the whole time. It was awesome. Dallin loved it so much, but I think Alyssa was more fascinated :)

18 months old!

Alyssa is 18 months old today! She has been so much fun. She is a great sleeper now. She likes a few more things to eat. She now has 11 teeth (she is sooo grumpy when she is teething). Alyssa loves playing with trucks, trains, stacking cups, her baby, and pretty much anything Dallin is playing with. She loves going down her slide and playing with her kitchen. She is talking a little more now. She LOVEs getting new clothes, especially dresses and shoes. She loves to give us kisses and hugs now. If she gets a boo boo, she makes us kiss it over and over and over again :) We took her into the doctor for her 18 month check up and she was a whopping 20 pounds 11 ounces, so she is pretty small.

We have taken her to nursery the past 2 weeks to prepare her for really going. Well, we thought Jeff was going to need to stay in there and make her feel more comfortable, but she has loved it so far. She was feeling left out when Dallin went to his class, and she LOVES playing with the toys. She even lets the nursery leader pick her up, which is pretty rare. Jeff just has to put her down, and she is fine. The nursery leader said even though she is the youngest, she listens the best and does exactly what they say. I hope that lasts :)

Our little monkey!
She LOVES yogurt, but it gets pretty messy sometimes...
When we come inside after playing outside, she always has the reddest little cheeks. She loves being outside though. She would play outside all day if we let her. There's almost always some kicking and screaming when we bring her inside.
She LOVES to color. She colors all the time.
For the most part (except when she is teething) Alyssa is a very happy little girl. She loves to just run around jumping and laughing with Dallin.
I realized I have not taken nearly as many videos of Alyssa as I did with Dallin, so here are a few. The first one is of her pointing to her body parts.

This second one is of her different sounds. At the end I asked her if she wanted to take a nap because I love how she says no...she really exaggerates it. Every other time I would ask her if she knew how to say "no" she would respond with a yes...

Splish Splash

Every day this week Dallin has asked me to get the pool out. We don't really have a great place to put one, but it was finally almost 90 today so we got the pool out. It was a little too cold for Alyssa, but she kind of got used to it. They mostly played with the cups and dumped water out, but they also bounced a lot along the sides of the pool. They thought that was pretty funny. It's amazing how fast they grow. Just last summer Alyssa wasn't even moving, and now she is running and jumping with Dallin :)

Frisbee Golf

For our FHE activity this past week, we went and played frisbee golf at the course by our house. It was the first time Alyssa "played" with us, and she had lots of fun. She mostly threw it off the tee and then carried it to the basket :) Dallin is getting better too!

Mini golfing

Yesterday there was a deal on groupon for $15 worth for a $1 at a miniature golf course near our house. We did the deal and took the kids. The kids ended up being free so it was a total of $1. Then we could play the other course they had for $2 each. So we played 36 holes for $5. The kids had fun, and so did we.

They had beautiful waterfalls and sweet tunnels.

Dallin had 3 hole in ones. He was actually much better this year. These are the the 3 that he did.Alyssa had fun and was really good. She stayed right by us the whole time. She held her ball the whole time. She would throw it in the hole sometimes or push it around with hands. She was pretty cute.
We went during nap time to miss the crowds, so Alyssa was very tired when we got back in the car.

Mother's Day

This handsome little boy was very cute on Mother's Day.
At church he made me this card that cracked me up. I don't even know what some of it means like the barn. I've never bought a house, but I'm glad I am teaching him how to buy one :) And the last answer really made me laugh.
Alyssa was kind of sick but she was still very happy to wear her new dress with her new shoes.
We bought her these sunglasses, and she loves to wear them :)

Dad's Boat and Dallin's boat

For Jeff's birthday last week, Dallin really wanted to get him a boat. So we bought him a cheap one. It was finally nice enough to go outside, and we took the boat out. At first he was a little concerned because every time we would walk by the pond he would ask us to read the sign. He thought we would get in trouble because it said no boating!
He had fun anyways. He loved to come "park" it against the side.
Now to Dallin's boat. We bought this kit from Michael's to build this ship. It said it was easy and just required a little glue. I am no so crafty....so I could not figure it out. I tried everything. Finally I got some packing tape and taped it all up. It looked pathetic, but Dallin didn't seem to mind.
My little giraffe.
One day it was actually warm enough the kids had a picnic for lunch on the back porch. They thought it was so much fun, and they ask to do it pretty much every day. Chicago lives up to its windy city nickname, and is normally too windy/cold for the kids to eat outside.
Eating cookies and cuddling with daddy!