Family

One of my dear cousins, got me on the Celebration of the Proclamation to the World. She participated by making a handout and I got on board. I am so glad that she did, because now the Bug Hero and I are working on our own Family Motto and Statement.

For Family Night, we talked about our Family name, and who is in our family. The Friendly Hero thought that all his friends who live next door were part of his family, and when we told him no, he moved on to his other favorite friends. (These live a whole 100 yards away.) Talking about who was in his family was a very important step. We did come up with a cheer that night, which the Friendly Hero loves to yell out: "We are the Oozes!* And We are AWESOME!"

Anyways, I would like to invite all to participate or read some of their posts by clicking on my button that is now on my blog. Also I came across a guest post on one of them, and I'm now taking up her challenge to read the scriptures to find the women in it. This also was amazing. The Bug Hero is helping me learn Japanese, and I learned yesterday how to say, "I am a daughter of God." "Ten no Otoosama no musume des." These little things are all adding up and I'm excited to study the scriptures and deepen my understanding of what it means to be a "Ten no Otosama no musume des." It's going to be a crazy, awesome experience.**



*This is the pronunciation he uses on our last name. It's pretty awesome.

**She challenges people to do it in a year--the four standard works, I'm going to try, but I'm going to study, so if it takes me longer, I'm not going to stress. I probably will have lots to say about little known women in the scriptures. She says there's a total of 588 different women in the scriptures. I'm excited to see if I get that number.

Trampoline

 The Friendly Hero LOVED the Trampoline at Grandma's House. In fact, he really wants us to get one. He now recites, "We jump on Trampolines and on the Floor." We say this whenever we catch him jumping on the bed, couch, stairs, chairs, or any other dangerous height.

We got several fun action shots, and some fun ones with Peaceful Hero on the trampoline--who also loved it. He just required you to be gentle while bouncing. The Friendly Hero was a superb jumper.

 This shot was taken outside after jumping on the tramp. Too cute to pass up.

Fountains

 We played at the Gateway Fountains with Aunts. It was a lot of fun! We got soaked and then embarrassed one Aunt*, with a complete Friendly Hero outfit change, including Mater Underwear there at the fountains behind a towel, and in a corner.

The Peaceful Hero liked them a little. He wasn't so hot on standing on wet surfaces and I didn't let him crawl around on his belly.

*I personally never thought that it was possible to embarrass Aunt K.

The new interface of blogging is growing on me....I do admit, that it freaked me out the first several times I used it. It will probably still freak me out.

The Rap

We did it! We recorded him Rapping "Like a Cheese Stick." But in typical 2 year old fashion, it's not all you get to witness.

Swimming

Despite what the pictures look like, we did NOT like swimming. The Friendly Hero was excited--right up to the part where Mom fed Peaceful Hero before coming out. We came out about 30 minutes after he did, and he was really upset. He only wanted to be held by me as I swam around and after ten minutes he was done. I loved being in the pool again.

Clinging to Mom.

Peaceful Hero liked it best.
He did get the royal treatment and lounged away on a raft with Aunt C.
The other nice thing--now whenever Friendly Hero sees pictures of swimming he knows what it is. Previous to this encounter, he thought everyone was being baptized.

Temple

On our first full day in Utah, we did what I had really wanted to do. I wanted to take my boys to the temple grounds and have them feel the spirit of the temple. When we live three hours away from the temple, and our baby sitters (We love you cousins!) live twenty minutes closer to us then the temple, it's just not feasible to add an hour extra onto an already long day to have our boys walk around the Chicago temple.

They liked it. I'm so glad we did it.

Peaceful Hero with his mommy. He was quite attached for about a week.
Touching the temple.
All together, enjoying the day.
Touching the BIG CIRCLE. This is all the Friendly Hero got out of the experience. But it's not a bad thing. He sees pictures of the temple and excitedly tells people he touched the big circle.
After seeing the Jesus Statue at the Temple. He loved being there.

I'm so glad that I got to take my boys to the temple. I'm even more excited that we are an eternal family. They love visiting their second cousins when Mom and Dad go to the temple in Chicago. (He thinks that his grandparents should live in Chicago like M, R, and C.)

We did it

The Friendly Hero is so excited. He is now sharing a room. The Peaceful Hero sleeps in the Friendly Hero's room, and now it's The Boy's Room.

The Friendly Hero has been asking for it since we returned. He hasn't like being by himself. He's friendly, you know? We shared a room in Utah, all three of us, and he didn't like being alone again. We needed to re-sleep train the Peaceful Hero. (He thought he could get up two or three times in a night in Utah.) But they're both sleeping 12 hours a night and now are doing it in the same room!

We have an empty room. We were going to move toys up there--but I really like having the toys downstairs, especially when friends come over. (We have some who think our apartment is really their home--it's okay, because Friendly Hero thinks he lives at their house too.) I love being able to keep 6+ kids all downstairs and upstairs is off limits. So now we need to decide what to do with this extra space. Any suggestions?*

*There's no bath tub in the room so no Underwater-basket-weaving.