Anna is 4 months!

Anna is now a happy 4 month old.  This is always a great age.  Her personality is showing a bit more.  She's infatuated with her sisters.  She is still sleeping great but I know teething is right around the corner.  She is eating 4 times a day and taking 2 1/2 naps.  I could LOVE on her all day, sometimes it's hard to get anything else done!

Anna's tricks:

*rolling from her stomach to back

*gagging herself with her fingers she loves to chew on

*drenching her shirt in drool

*laughing hysterically at anything mommy does and getting the hiccups in the process

*holding her head up while sitting in the Bumbo seat

*grabbing for toys on her play mat

Anna's 4 month stats:

weight- 16 lbs 2 oz. (90%)

height-24 3/4 inches (75%)

head- 16 inches (50%)

We thought her head was a lot bigger but it turns out she's all CHEEKS! :)

Easter Weekend

We, like all of you, had a wonderful weekend.  Full of fun, candy, food and testimonies.  I am FULL in more ways than one!  We started off with our traditional indoor, early-morning egg/basket hunt.  They found all the eggs then the search was on for their baskets.  It took a little time but they were pretty darn excited when they found their fun-filled baskets.  We sampled some candy, had our traditional Goldenrod breakfast, read some scriptures, did an egg activity with symbols from the last days of Christ's life, and watched a few Easter 'Mormon Messages'.  It was a great morning. 

Natalie dug right into this chocolate bunny and by 9 a.m. had a sugar buzz you wouldn't believe. 

A little baby cleavage never hurt anybody

After church we went over to the home of the family David works for.  There we had a tasty meal, a great egg hunt (the girls came home with some cash!), fed some horses and played and played.  

I'm so grateful for this Easter holiday.  I feel like every year my understanding and testimony of the atonement grows deeper.  I'm so grateful for the knowledge that we have and for a Savior who did what we could not. 

Springtime Visit

We got a last minute surprise visit from my parents last week!  Well it wasn't a surprise for me.  I convinced them they needed to come and when they came 5 days later they surprised the girls!! 

The weather was beautiful and we had some quality time together.  We went to the Natural History Museum, the Mesa Temple Easter Pageant, Cyrena's baseball game, and spent a lot of time playing outside as well (flying little airplanes grandpa brought).  It was great to have them here and it went too fast as always. 

Grandpa was a gold panning expert at the museum.  

He's the reason Cyrena came away with so much.

 But don't tell her that.

We went to Sweetcakes for lunch and brought home some of their humongous cookies.  Here the girls are showing off their chewing skills.

We packed a picnic dinner and ate near the temple.  We took some pictures, walked around and enjoyed a beautiful Arizona sunset before the pageant began. 

All the pageant characters walked around before the performance.  The girls enjoyed petting the sweet lambs.  

 We really enjoyed the pageant.  For Cyrena it was the ultimate church movie.  She recognized all the stories and at one point leaned over to me and whispered loudly, "Mom....everything they're saying is TRUE!"  She had some great one-liners that night.

All the girls enjoyed cuddling with grandma and grandpa

They headed out Sunday morning but before they left we had the girls try on their Easter dresses early so grandma could see (but we took them off before church!)

Thanks for coming grandma and grandpa!

Oh the weather outside...

We're feeling that horrible heat coming our way.  It was really hot this past weekend so we know it's not going to be long before those mid-70's days are GONE.  We've been outside as much as possible.  Here's what we've been up to:

A couple of Saturday's ago we went to the Feathered Friends Festival at the Gilbert Riparian Institute.  This was a BLAST.  My only complaint is that we didn't get a chance to see and do everything because there was so much!  We packed a picnic lunch, ate it when we arrived, then explored.  I was very impressed with all the amazing high-schoolers that had set up science booths and did such a great job explaining things to all the kids. The kids came home with all kind of fun things they'd made.

The girls used chopsticks to pick up bugs to mimic how birds eat

Cyrena listened intently to the presenters.  Here she was learning about why you shouldn't feel bread to ducks--it's really bad for them!

Looking at algae through a microscope

Folding a paper frog that really jumps

Sailboat races. Ingenius.  Styrofoam boats with index card sails, rain gutters filled with water and a straw for the wind!  This was the highlight of the day. 

I took this picture for all you owl enthusiasts.  He was a bit creepy just perched on a lady's arm.

Cyrena looked through a GIANT telescope to see the spots on the sun

Just a typical picture of our goofy girl

The sisters had a lot of fun together....Anna slept in the stroller

There was so much more.  It is definitely something we want to do every spring!

Last week Cyrena had a preschool field trip to a local Farm.  It had been eagerly anticipated and it didn't disappoint. 

I loved this picture because Cyrena is the only one looking at the farmer-and he's talking to the parents.  She's so serious sometimes

They got to milk a 'pretend' cow

They rode the cow train several times, played carnival games, went through the hay maze and rode on these pedal cars.  Cyrena was so slow that a kid behind her basically pushed her around the entire track. :)  

Again, Anna slept in the stroller

Anna is 3 months

Anna has hit that 3 month milestone where she's no longer considered a 'newborn'.  We're still enjoying her immensely.  She still loves to sleep.  We were having a problem of 45 minute naps for a couple of weeks.  I worked and worked to figure out why and I finally realized she wanted to be awake longer between naps!  Duh, my baby is growing up.  So she quickly jumped from 60 minutes of awake time to 80 minutes of awake time--problem solved, naps are back on track.  Phew!  So right now she takes 2- 2.5 hour naps and 1- 45 minute evening nap then sleeps 11.5 hours at night.

She still has some evening fussiness between that last evening nap and bedtime.  Right now we're just dealing with it, waiting for it to pass.  As soon as her evening routine begins, the tears are gone.  David read her a book for the first time the other night and she was very happy.  We're sure lucky to have her!

She's a happy girl

Here she's watching her sisters adoringly

We've been trying to give Anna more tummy time so her neck can get stronger--she holds it crooked right now and is still a bit floppy.  Twice today she has fallen asleep during tummy time...I never thought she would since she doesn't love being on her tummy.  Too cute. 

She's got the moves!

We have 1:00 church on Sundays so we get a bit antsy in the morning waiting to go.  We usually turn on some music and try to get some quiet time in...it doesn't always happen.  In fact a lot of times I'm really grumpy by the time we get to church.  Thankfully, within a few minutes of being at church the grumpiness begins to melt away.

However some Sunday mornings are happy and delightful.  Here's some footage from one of those kind of mornings.  

 

St. Patty's

We had a fun St. Patty's day here, complete with a leprechaun hunt.  First on Wednesday we did some learning activities and sang some leprechaun songs; then on Thursday we did one learning activity then just had fun.

We played this 'heads and tails' game.  We put 10 pennies in a mentos container.  We shook it up then dumped out the coins.  We sorted them how they landed...heads or tails.  Then Cyrena wrote a number sentence for it.  5 heads + 5 tails=10!  It was a great way to introduce her to the different ways we can make 10.  

It was fun for Natalie to help sort the pennies then she would pick them up and put them in the container...a great fine motor activity for her.

On Thursday we had some buddies over and we graphed Lucky Charms

Then we decorated shamrock cookies. 

I turned my back on Natalie for a second and this is what she came up with...1/2 a jar of sprinkles are now GONE.  They went outside to play after this.

While they were outside a tricky Mr. Leprechaun came and stole some gold nuggets I had sitting on the counter.  Luckily he left some clues and led us on a rainbow scavenger hunt. 

We found where he hid the gold and it couldn't have been more exciting!