Our spring

There isn't really a point to this post, I just had a bunch of pictures to post!

Savannah at the temple grounds (except, the gates were closed on Sunday so we're outside the gate...)

The Copper Mine

We went there last week and Savannah LOVED it.  She especially loved the Great Big Tire :).

Exploring Oquirrh Lake

Helping Daddy

Painting:

And last but not least, Savannah with her bugs

So, Savannah LOVES bugs.  Like, a lot.  A few weeks ago, she found a dead fly on my parent's windowsill and for the next week she kept telling me, "I found a fly! He was sleeping.  I love that fly! I miss him."  So, I bought her some bugs, but she has to earn them by going down well for naps and bed or by going potty.  She's seriously in love though.

My personal favorite that she's picked so far?  The creeptastic, nightmare inducing spider.  She calls him Itsy Bitsy.

Um, in other news, Savannah is starting to get quite interested in reading.  She's obsessed with me writing her name.  She loves writing letters (but, she can only write T, L, and O. Letters are hard).  She's always asking me what things say and telling me what letters different words start with.  I think she'll definitely be reading before kindergarten at this rate...

Oh, and check out my cute new diaper bag!

Cloth Diapers?!?

I've been thinking of doing cloth diapers for a long time.  I think I first started considering it when we lived in Gillette when Savannah was like 6 months old.  But, we didn't have a washer or dryer (apartment) so it seemed like it wasn't a good idea.  I kept thinking about it on and off, but there was so many different kinds that I would get overwhelmed and just give up on it.  But, then we got our house and our nice washer and dryer.  And then, I realized I will probably have two in diapers because Savannah refuses to potty train (when I try, she sits and yells, "I will not go in the potty!  I don't want to wear panties! I want my diaper!!!" That's started to get a little better; the past week she's shown a little interest, but I'm certainly not planning on her being trained by the time Lily gets here.  Then my friend Charlene started and she got me all excited so I decided to give them a try!  I was mostly doing them because I felt like I should, not because I wanted to.  But, now that we've started, I'll never go back!


We're using Alva pocket diapers.  So far I only have ones that fit from 12-35 pounds, but I have some newborn ones on the way.  It's not as hard as I thought it would be.  We have a diaper sprayer for the poop which makes it a lot less gross.  It's mostly just extra laundry.  The best part is, Savannah LOVES them!  She loves her soft diapers and she loves picking out which one she'll wear next.  I love that we're not wasting anything and that we won't be spending tons on diapers every month.  Even Corey really likes them.  Plus, they're so dang cute!

Our Yard!

When we moved in, our yard was BAD.  It hadn't been taken care of for a long time.  So, we're in the process of fixing it.  It's going to be a few years before our grass is super nice, but we're working on it!  We also want to grow a vegetable garden and we've planted some flowers and trees.  It's an uphill battle because our soil is absurdly rocky, it's clay, and we live in Utah.  But, we're determined to make it work.  Pictures!

Last year's yard

Classy, huh?

Our yard last Saturday

All the stuff we bought.  I thought that our budget of $300 was huge, but apparently it's not anything at all!  We went over that and will go even more over when we buy stuff for our vegetable garden in a few weeks...

Ugly gravel pathway we dragged our garbage cans through

This will be the vegetable garden, but we have to wait until after Mother's Day to make sure our plants don't freeze.

Our little gardener :)

Saturday after a long day of work!  

I actually took these today because it was dark then, but you get the idea :)

This is a Japanese cherry tree (pink flowers in spring)

A different Japanese cherry tree (more pink flowers!)

I planted a bunch of lilies and gladiolas here.  I hope they grow!

The great big shrub is new

That leafy shrub is new 

There will be more bulbs planted in that corner as soon as I get up the energy (kneeling bent over like that for a long time gives me braxton hicks contractions.  Lame!)

We had to beautify the play set too :)

Yay for a pretty path!  Corey measured wrong in his head and we need two more bricks, but we love the way it looks!  We were worried Savannah would be sad because she LOVED playing with the gravel that used to be there, but when she saw it she said, "Oh wow! Lots of beautiful rocks! I will walk on them!"  We were pleasantly surprised :)

So, that's our yard!  It's still a work in progress, but we're pretty excited about it :).  We definitely want to put more flowers in, but we'll see what our budget allows this year...  Oh, and Corey rocks for working his tail off doing most of this stuff (I planted the flowers...), our neighbors rock for letting us use their pointed shovel (we really need one) and giving us their extra mulch, and Bruce rocks for letting us use his tiller and truck.

It's been a while...

We FINALLY have reliable internet.  So, I can blog again!  Right now I would say our huge main focus is getting ready for baby Lily.  We need to get her a dresser and a new car seat.  We're also trying to emotionally prepare to have two kids.  Our one kid has been SUCH a handful lately.  Just ask anyone who's been in our house around bedtime :).  I'm super excited though!  She kicks like crazy now and I love it!  The one thing I don't love is the fact that she's taken up my entire abdomen.  My ribs are already starting to hurt at the end of the day...  I am super excited to have another sweet baby girl to cuddle though.


I've also started cloth diapering.  I've decided to do pocket diapers.  We got 4 from alvababy.com and so far Savannah and I both really love them.  I've ordered a bunch more and they should be here soon (I insisted on free shipping from China so it takes a while...)  We also have a bunch of newborn ones on the way.  I'm pretty excited about those ones.  It will save us a ton of money!


Anyway, that's about it.  I'll actually write on this from now on though.  

ABCs, phrases, a bunny with a jacket, and two frustrated parents

Savannah sings!  Last week she started singing the alphabet song!  She misses some letters, but she's got the gist of it.  She can recognize all her uppercase letters and she loves to pick them out of sentences.  It's very cute.  She can also count to 10 (even though she usually skips 5 for some reason...) and recognizes her numbers one through 9 (she thinks a ten is a 1 and an O.  Which it is I suppose).  I think she may be bored in preschool...  She's starting to recognize some colors.  Mostly just orange because she knows we have an orange car and I think it's such a distinctive color that's it's easier to grasp what it is.  She knows oranges and basketballs are orange too.

She's starting to speak in phrases a lot.  She says "Hi!  How are you?"  If we say "Good, how are you?" she usually says "good".  If she decides she looks nice she'll say, "Oh Savannah, you are so pretty!".  She loves playing with Emry (the little girl I nanny for) and refers to her as her best friend.  When we say prayers and say "Thank you for..." she usually fills in "Emry!"  She loves Jesus and reads our book with pictures of him all the time.  She says please, thank you, and you're welcome pretty regularly.

Our family has a fourth member.  It's a tan build-a-bear bunny with glittery shamrocks on her ears.  Bunny is Savannah's favorite EVER.  We can't go anywhere without bunny.  Savannah shares her candy with bunny.  She also has this cute striped jacket that she LOVES.  She insisted on wearing it 24/7.  And then I thought of a clever solution.  At bed time, meal time, when it's hot out (which is super rare at this point), and bath time bunny wears the jacket.  Bunny is so beloved that this is an acceptable compromise.  Sometimes I'm jealous of bunny.  She never gets mad at bunny or scratches bunny's face.  She kisses bunny all the time and never wants her space from bunny.  When she's saddest, bunny's the one she wants to comfort her.  Bunny's got it made :).

The past few days, she has been SO CRANKY!  We're not sure what's going on.  Teething maybe?  All I know is she asks for things in a whiny voice and then when we give them to her she throws them and she just cries and cries.  We love her and try to be patient.  I'm sure this will pass, but I had to vent, just a little.

Savannah will be 18-months-old on Thursday!  I can't believe how time flies!

Les Mis!!!

Jessie and I went and saw Les Mis on Saturday.  It was so amazing!!!  Valjean was fantastic and so was Eponine.  Every character was very talented.  The power behind their voices and the live music allowed me to experience the play in a way I never have before.  It was really quite thrilling.  I cried a lot.  The barricade scene was SO fantastic.  And Javert's suicide was really awesome too.  Gavroche's death was heartbreaking.  I loved all the little touches the actors added to their characters.  They seemed so real.  And it changed my life perspective, at least for a few minutes.  I gave money to a guy on the street corner who needed money for a wheelchair.  It seemed pointless to watch a 3 hour play about poor people struggling and not do something small about it.