Last Day

On Thursday was the last day of preschool for the kids and I just know that they were all heart broken. No really Ashton was a little sad, he has really enjoyed it. He is very social. I am almost worried for him this summer. I let them do their favorite thing: paint. Does it get any better than that? After the finger painting we played ABC Bingo. I was very pleased that all of the kids knew several of the letters in the alphabet by looking at it. I was afraid that this would be a problem for Ashton and he even surprised me several times. I am convinced more that ever that he is just playing me for a fool, and to think I let him. After Bingo we had another game that turned out to be a favorite too. The pinata. They were hitting it pretty good and it still took a long time for it to break. They had a lot of fun for sure.

It was a lot of fun teaching a little bit of preschool this past year. It kept me busy but the kids were great and so much fun watching them grow little by little with each little bit of knowledge that we all gave them. Ashton never tells me right away what he learns at preschool, he has already moved on but it seemed that several days latter something would come up about what he learned in preschool. So, I know that it made a lasting impression on him. Just tonight he sang the days of the week song that I thought he did not know. What fun!

Memorial Day?

This was our Memorial Day with cold rain. I was hoping for a nice warm day to grill some food and play some yard games with my family, instead we stayed in and kept warm except for when we sent John out to grill our food in the pouring rain, what a good sport. I kept wondering if it will ever warm up.
This memorial day reminds me of the good old memorial days past when we would do a ward picnic in a park somewhere that had a shelter because it rained almost every year that I can remember going. It was always cold, but it was a lot of fun.
Ashton and Ransom did adventure out for a bit but they got way too cold.

Happy Birthday John!

On Friday was John's 35Th Birthday. We went out to celebrate his birthday on Friday and then did cupcake and ice cream with presents on Saturday with the kids. Ashton was so funny he was there every step of the way to make sure I had every thing we needed for a great party, except the right number of candles. It is a good thing they didn't think to count that yet. He still wanted to get balloons and a pinata. He is our little party animal.
Happy Birthday, John! We hope you had a great day and all your birthday wishes come true.

Moab

Last weekend we went to Moab. I know how sad that it has taken this long to post these but due to computer problems that frustrate me to no end. Anyway, on Saturday we were all in and out of the car stopping at all the stops in Canyonlands.
Several years ago John and I headed to Moab and took an extended weekend to do the grand circle. We visited Arches, Canyonlands, Monticello temple, Mesa Verde, Four Corners, Monument Valley, Grand Canyon, Lake Powell, Bryce Canyon and then home. That was a lot of driving in four and half days. It was all new territory to me (except Mesa Verde) and I loved seeing it all for the first time. It was then that I absolutely fell in love with Canyonlands, that was my favorite. If you think the Grand Canyon is impressive then you should check out Canyonlands, even better.
It is so big and so deep. It makes me feel so small and almost insignificant. It makes me wonder why I worry about all the little stupid things that happen in life, after all each moment is so small in the grand picture of our spirits life. Yet somehow I know that each of us is significant in the right where we are. What is more amazing is the fact that while looking at the canyons and enormity of it I know that it was created by a something or someone greater with great power and it is here for us to enjoy and be awed by.
This was our first time to Dead Horse Point. The name always seemed pretty morbid to me and I was not interested in it for that fact but this time we did go and it was beautiful. It was named Dead Horse Point because it is a natural peninsula (in the sky) and was used to coral horses there and a long time ago some horses were coraled there and left for too long without water and died. It is a gorgeous place.
On Thursday we went to Goblin Valley and hiked a slot canyon outside the park. The kids loved all the rocks and all the sand. It got a little narrow for me carrying Tahlia in a back pack. The sandstone was wind blown and in very interesting formations.

Of course we did go to Arches and hiked to delicate arch to see it again. Ashton walked the whole way (three miles round trip) and John carried Ransom most of the way. I carried Tahlia in the backpack and she enjoyed it all too. Here below is Grandpa Hook with Ashton and Ransom. They had so much fun. The weather was perfect and we all had a lot of fun!

holy socks

Ashton loves his colored socks. He has a colored sock fetish and his favorite colored socks are of the Halloween variety that he wears all year long in hopes of getting candy I am sure. His Aunt Laura got him started on this years ago and continues to provide him with great socks. Here are one of his favorites and he continues to wear them for some reason, hole and all, he does not care. He was sad when I told him he had to throw it away. So we took a picture of Frankenstein. The funniest part of it all is that he continues to wear his colored socks with shorts. Today was Frankenstein with brown shorts and yesterday was longer jean shorts with bright blue socks with penguins. Every time I saw that I just laughed. I wish I had a picture to share it was that good.

I have had my own fun with his colored sock love. He has had several pair of ghost socks and about a year and a half ago Ashton was very restless in sacrament and I worried about his behavior in his primary class, I still do but, I put on his ghost socks and told him that they were special socks, they were reverent ghosts and reverent ghosts were good listeners and quiet. So when he would act up I would ask him about his ghosts. It actually helped him get over his craziness for a bit. Since then he has had reverent fisherman and reverent zoo animals and everything else in between.

Beautiful Baby

Finally here are the pictures of Tahlia that we had done of her. Here she was six weeks old and smiled on rare occasion. She is eight weeks old yesterday and will smile when we talk to her. Ashton has been enjoying that, he is convinced that she just cannot get enough of him.
I love these pictures of her. I love her chubby cheeks, big blue eyes and dark hair.
Tahlia was blessed last Sunday May 4th, she did really well and only cried for the first couple of seconds. She loved visiting with all the family that was here, she finally passed out around 7 pm and slept most of the night. I am waiting for her to do that again on a more permanent basis.
Now I get to brag for a moment and tell you all that I made her blessing dress myself. When I was pregnant with Ashton I made a dress and a romper so I had both and I am so glad that I made it then, I don't know if I could have in the last year. She is beautiful in white. I look forward to seeing her wearing white again as she makes covenants with Heavenly Father.

Hansome Ransom

I love to take the kids in to have pictures done professionally. I do not think of my self as a photographer at all. I think that I am actually pretty bad at it. So here are a few of the pictures that I had done of Ransom. He was pretty sad and crying because standing there by his self was torture, I guess.
I still find it hard to believe that he is two now and just as cute as ever. He just loves to play and have fun and laugh. I have been very concerned that he does not talk. A person can listen to only so much screaming before they start screaming themselves.
I have been talking with the pediatrician about this for a year and he has always suggested that we wait until he is two for intervention, after all he may decide to talk and catch up to where he should be. Well, last week we had an appointment with a speech language pathologist in the school district here and she played games with him to find out where he is developmentally and evaluate what he needs. She told me that anything less than the seventh percentile qualifies for services through the school. So after the playing she said that he was pretty much in the 50th percentile in everything except language. There he scored a whole less than one percentile. That means something like more than 100 percent of kids 25 months old are talking better than he is. Needless to say he qualifies for a speech language pathologist to come to the house and do therapy with him. I hope and pray that this will help him and give him the confidence he needs.
We know that he hears us and understands normal two year old stuff and are guessing that he is just fine, but afraid that he will not say the words right. She felt that out of all the speech problems possible that this was correctable over the next couple of months or years. Silly boy! He says No!, ma, no, dada, amen, happy, No no no no no and happy bir, and has been know to say Hevly Fater.