My little pink girl modeling the new hat I made her.
Walking to the temple after church one Sunday.
Some pics of our weekly Sunday family dinners.
Some tired boys there.
Here are a few pics of our Valentine's Day celebrations. It's not usually a big deal for us but Cora loves all things girly, pink and hearts so we did some fun things this year. I busted out the glue, glitter and kiddy scissors and helped Cora make Valentines for her cousins, Kalani, and our family. We also stamped hearts with a bent toilet paper roll, and made some embroidered hearts for a centerpiece. For dinner we busted out the Martinellis and had heart-shaped rolls and angel hair pasta with shrimp.
We have been working on a big new accomplishment for Cora that I didn't want to announce until it was good and set. Cora has begun saying prayers on her own, going to bed earlier using a bedtime chart, and .... using the potty!
After months of struggling and trying many different approaches, tips, techniques, and getting lots of advice, Cora is finally potty trained! It took more bribery that I'm willing to admit, as well as a new set of princess panties (to supplement the ones she already had from a few months ago), new panties (which I sewed) for her dolly who also went potty, and a lot of patience, time, family support, and yes, even prayers. Once it happened there were very few accidents. The first couple of nights she wouldn't go to bed because she kept wanting to come out and go potty, and it took a few days more for Cora to go #2 in the potty but other than that it's been fairly smooth. It's been a couple of months now and Cora's so proud of being a big girl! We thought she'd be in pull-ups at night for a while, and even stocked up at Costco when they were on sale, but she wants to wear her panties even at night and she keeps them dry, although she sometimes wakes up in the night to go. It took a little longer to get used to going in a public toilet but she does that regularly now too.
We think she has the cutest little bottom in her little panties, and it's so nice not to see the diaper sticking out of the back of her pants. Her clothes fit a little looser now which is good because she was growing out of everything. For the sake of modesty, we won't post pics of her cute little toosh in panties, or her skinny little legs swinging from the big potty, but here is a pic of her first completed potty chart!
The kids both love to hide in the cupboards. It's super cute so we took some pics but we generally try to discourage it, since it tends to result in either crushed food or crushed fingers.
Eli looks like he's blinking - but he's not - it's his silly camera face/"smolder".
Elijah loves dancing - for a while it was just bobbing his head and sometimes bouncing his knees but then he learned to dance like a ballerina by imitating Cora - so he'll put his hands over his head and spin in a circle when he hears music.
Cora's gotten really into drawing lately - she's always got a marker in her hand. (which is dangerous but it's washable) She is pretty good at circles, and tells us exactly what her drawings are. It's usually pretty imaginative. Some things she's drawn recently are: the "uwf" (earth) "daddy's he-man show" "monsters" "nice dinosaurs that live in Idaho and eat plants" Kalani, and of course, Mommy, Daddy, Cora and "why-jah" (Elijah.) This one was the earth.
I can't remember what this particular drawing was - I'm such a bad mom - but they all look the same. ;)
Here's Cora's bedtime chart we used to streamline and move up her bedtime process. It worked really well.
Cora washing her face after having a fudgesicle.
A couple of pics of Ryan:
Biking with Will,
and meeting Matt Romney at the Laie Shopping Center. (Go Mitt!)
