Davy Turns 1!!

I can't believe it came so quickly. My last baby is one. Crazy. It's the end of an era. Richie said, "Well, we don't have babies anymore!" And I flat out refused. "Davy is still a baby!!! He's not walking yet, so that means he's not a toddler, and that means he's a baby!" :) I thought it would be a lot more heart wrenching, but it was surprisingly routine. ??? I think it might have something to do with the fact that he's still so small. He still seems very much a baby to me. I'll write more about all the fun things he's into lately on a kid update post soon, but it should be mentioned here that I took him in for his first well child check since he's been born (ha!) and he was in the 90% for head circumference (right on track), but only 50% for height (Huh??) and 15% for weight (what the what??) I don't think I've ever had a baby lower than 80% in anything, so I was dumbfounded. I asked my awesome doctor, in all sincerity, if he was ok. She said he's fine, just maybe inherited some small genes somewhere along the line. Mind Blown. It will be fun to see how he grows up and changes. But for now, he's still my little baby!

On the day of his birthday, we made his favorite pumpkin sourdough pancakes and made sure he got a #1 pancake with a candle. He had no idea what was going on, and was still getting over a cold, so he was not entirely happy or overjoyed with his pancake, candle, or present. (Lindy wrapped up her old Barbie car to give to him, since it plays music. :) ) And that was about it, as far as celebrating goes on his birthday!


That Sunday we celebrated with family. He LOVED the sweet potato fries grandma made. (I think sweet potatoes are his favorite food) I made him a chocolate zucchini cake with blue icing (way more blue than anticipated), which he really enjoyed. He got a few outfits from Mom and Dad, and Grandma and Grandpa, and then an awesome stuffed animal from us. With our no spend challenge, we decided that birthdays get $100 to be spent however you'd like. Since Davy won't be planning a party, and the clothes I had for him I bought on clearance last year, we splurged and bought an expensive, hand knitted, stuffed fox that also provides 10 meals for food banks in needy areas, through our purchase. He seems to enjoy it, and I'm glad about that. Benson wishes it was his. :)


Davy is a joy to us all. I'm so grateful we have him here to teach my other kids how to handle babies, to teach me to slow down and savor things, to make us all laugh during otherwise tense or boring moments, and mostly to cuddle me in the mornings when I nurse him. I don't know if I can give it up! Richie jokes that I'm spoiling him and that I'll be nursing him till he's a teen. *eye roll* But being my last baby, I can't help if I just want to hang onto his little-ness forever! And he officially said his first word on his first birthday: "Dad!" :) Of course it sounds like "Da!", but he knew exactly what he was saying and what it meant. :) Happy 1st Birthday Davy!!

2nd half of February

Bath time for these cuties is a nearly every night event. They both love it so much!!



We are getting rid of everything. EVERYTHING! I can't even count the trips we've taken to the DI in the last 6 months to donate little things, and we've gotten rid of/sold so much furniture. It's completely liberating. One that was a teensy sad was getting rid of the crib. Davy rarely sleeps in it, he mostly uses the pack n' play, so we decided we didn't want to haul it to Idaho, and gave it to a neighbor who is going to turn it into a bench! Yay!


We took a homeschool group field trip to Conservation Gardens in West Jordan. It's a really neat place and the kids love running around.



I'm trying to be more intentional about taking Benson to actual story time at the library when the older kids are at Canyon Grove. He was loving it for the first 20 minutes- singing along with the lady, answering her questions etc- then he got bored and triggered the alarm when he opened a door he shouldn't have when I was distracted with Davy. Sounds about right.


We got these cool passes to fun things around the valley by filling out a PBS reading log. So on this day, we took advantage of free passes to the Natural History Museum. Such a cool museum! The kids were lucky and caught a screen printing station in the works, among other things. Benson just wanted to ride the "alligator" (elevator) though, and while we were on the top floor, I turned around for literally 20 seconds, and he was gone. We're not as familiar with the layout of this museum, so I was panicking that we wouldn't be able to find him. There's no way he even knows where to go, right? On a lucky whim, we took the elevator down one floor and started looking for him. We found him almost to the dinosaur exhibit (a ways into the 4th floor). The dinosaurs is what he was most excited about, so it made sense, but geez! I couldn't believe he made it that far in that short time, and that we actually found him.


My kids are awesome. The latest testament to their awesomeness, is that most mornings, Gwen wakes up before everyone, reads her scriptures, starts her schoolwork, starts breakfast, and then brings Davy to me when he wakes up and wants to nurse. Yeah. Pretty amazing. On this morning, Lindy had set the table by herself and Gwen had made pancakes, all ready to go. All of this on their own, without me asking at all!


We had been counting to 100 days of school for Lindy and finally got around to celebrating it by her request of making 100 cookies. (We actually made 120, but no one complained)


More baths for this kid. He loves when Davy gets out so that we can fill the tub more, add bubbles, and turn on the jets!



Working on the flooring! Richie took a couple of days off to try and knock out more home improvement projects. We are trying to get the house on the Market in a few weeks, so we are running around trying to do all.the.things. One this day he was working on getting the flooring in the kitchen finished. We're almost there and it looks so good! Also, Benson's bum crack in this picture! :) :) :)


Again, trying to squeeze all we can out of our Thanksgiving Point pass until it expires. I will really miss this pass. It's such a great one. I told the kids that if they got their math for the week done a day early, we'd skip school on Friday and spend the day there. They were in. We went with our neighbor friends. Love that picture of Benson and Riggin. Riggin is Benson's best (only) friend. :)



Miles's good friend Colton invited him and their other friend Parker to go ice fishing last Saturday. Miles, Parker and Colton are good buddies and I'm so sad to break them up when we move. They are such good boys, from such good families, and they have such a great time together! I was grateful to the Peshell's for setting this up. They said to be at their house by 730 am on Saturday, and Miles was up at 630 raring to go! He was so, so excited. He caught fish, spent the day with his buddies, and got a mega sunburn on his face. Successful outing, I'd say.



Almost 6 months ago, I saw an ad on our pandora station that Stacey Kent (one of our very favorite singers) was going to be coming to SLC. We missed her the last time she was here almost 8 years ago. So I did something sporadic and bought the tickets right then and there without asking Richie. I kept it a surprise for months until he accidentally saw it in my planner. This was our Valentine present to each other. Less Stuff, More Adventure. The concert was fantastic, and the company was even better.

Valentine's Day

We are trying an experiment this year of buying no non-consumables. I read a book about a family who did the same experiment and it just made a lot of sense to me. We are already de-junking like crazy, since the house we will be living in for a few years is about half the size of the one we're in now, and we don't want to rent a storage unit. This challenge just offers another step up from that. I could go on and on about my feelings about this...maybe another time.
It's been going really well so far. One of the things we've had to get creative with is making Valentine's! We had broken crayons, ingredients for play-doh, paint swatches I grabbed for free, condiment cups, magnets and scrabble tiles, free printable Richie printed at work...The kids all turned out top notch Valentine's, it didn't cost me a dime, and we used up more things here that we won't have to move later one!





We had a homeschool Valentine's Party where we exchanged Valentine's, made paper hearts, frosted sugar cookies, and then "heart-attacked" a few widows in the ward. It was a great way to celebrate, but I was feeling stressed because our house was a wreck. Everything from the kitchen was still in boxes in the living room. Chaos. But we made it through and the kids had fun. My favorite parts were seeing Miles and Cee-Cee running off together to play like actual friends, and finding Miles on the couch comforting Brendan who was having a rough time.



On Valentine's, we had our traditional mini heart pies, and I heart-attacked the kid's door with things we love about them. Later that day when I took Richie's truck to clean it, as per tradition, the kids found their way outside and had a mud-party. Thank goodness for soap, and water, and washing machines. :) We were supposed to swap babysitting with Ian and Makenna, but we each had some sickness going around our families, so we had to cancel. So on Valentine's night, we got heart shaped pizza and then we went around the table and each said something we love about each person. That, hands-down, is my new favorite tradition. We laughed and cried, and it was like I could literally feel the bonding happening. Gwen even teared up when she was saying why she loved me- saying she was glad I was her mom, and teacher, and also her friend forever. Melt my heart! The next day, we had our fancy dinner (oooh-la-la) complete with chocolate fondue. :)