Chapter 3

If our life was a novel, I feel like we've had two chapters so far.

• Chapter 1:  Being married.  Living in Provo and going to school.
• Chapter 2:  Living in the Frost's basement.  Having Megan.  A super busy daddy working and going to school at the U.

And now we're moving on to the next chapter.  It is stressful around our house at the moment trying to get the next chapter rolling along with Christmas, but we're excited.

• Chapter 3:   Bought a house in Layton.  Baby #2 arrives May 2013.  Patrick graduates from school and continues working at the state.  Alisha works two days a week to try to get hours for her CPA.

Well glad to get that off my chest to the blogging world.  :)  Unfortunately I have no relevant pictures to add to this post.  Partially because I am bad at taking pictures lately and partially because I am not completely sure about the location of our camera.  Probably still in a box somewhere.  Gosh I am slow at unpacking.  But a post is no good without pictures, so here are some pics from Halloween.  That way this post is a two for one.  Halloween and general life update!

Nasty pumpkin guts.  Megan didn't like them much.

Mom and Megan the bumblebee and pumpkins.  And of course baby.

Dad and Megan and pumpkins.

 The fam and pumpkins.

Great pic of these two.  Love their candy eating faces.  Best buds Megan the bumblebee and Nathaniel the pirate.

And the cute girls.  Pictures are practically impossible with toddlers!

A Terrible Two Year Old! :)

Megan is two now.  It happened over a month ago, but things have been a little crazy around here and I have not updated the blog in forever.  But I love my terrible two year old and wanted to do a little update on her and her birthday celebrations.

It was still fairly warm so we celebrated with the Frost's at a park in Kaysville and went to a corn maze with the Clayson's to combo celebrate Patrick and Megan's birthdays.  I need to steal pics from my mom for the party at Cornbelly's, but here are pics from the party with the Frost's.

Talking Talking

Megan is getting better and better at talking.  I wanted to record some of the cute things she says lately.  She makes me laugh.  She is getting a larger vocabulary everyday, but her pronunciation is still not great so she still requires mommy ears a lot of the time.  But it'll come.  I think I must mumble or talk really unclear and that's why she can't pronounce anything.  But I'm sure with time she'll get better.

Here are some of the things I hear everyday...

• I ask her if she's ready for breakfast or lunch and she holds up her pointer finger and says "not quite"
• "Scary" (while putting her hand over her heart) and "skip" while she's watching a show
• "Two mellows" after she uses the potty (mellows=marshmallows)
• "Tank" for thank-you
• "Mommy, doin'?"
• "Meggy do" or "Meggy help"
• "Need booties!" - snow boots are her new favorite shoes
• While typing at the computer, "I need check e-mail."
• "Mommy save me!"  "Save me Jenna!" - this is her little imagination because her cousin Jenna is never around when she says this but she pretends Jenna is chasing her and I have to save her
• "Sshhh, qui" - for ssh be quiet when she wants us to whisper
• "No talk!" - not my favorite thing.  She says it to be rude.  The other day at dinner she told grandpa no talk so I said she needed to try to be nice.  So in the cutest voice she could muster she said "Grandpa no talk."
• And probably her favorite subject to talk about at the moment is The Lion King ("Lie King").  I hear about it all day.
• "Scary Lie.  Skip!" - I have to skip every scene that has Scar or the hyenas in it
• "Baby lie, cute." - in her sweetest voice
• "Ti pumba" - for Timon and Pumba and then she just starts laughing
• "Ti pumba ta ta" for Hakuna Matata
• "Sing Lie" and then she yells "Aahhh" trying to imitate the song at the very beginning of the movie

She's a doll.  But also becoming very two.

The other day she spit on me because I wouldn't give her any marshmallows for just sitting on the potty rather than actually going to the bathroom on the potty.  After she spit on me I told her she couldn't be by mommy again until she said sorry.  So I put her in her room and told her to come out when she would say sorry.  It took an hour and a half for her to say sorry!  And she made her best attempts to get out of  it.  About every 10 minutes she would come out of her room and in her sweetest, happiest voice say, "Mommy, came back!  Play Meggy."  I would ask her if she had something to say to me and then she would scream "No!" and run back in her room and throw a fit for another 10 minutes and try it all again.  She didn't say sorry until I sat on the floor with beads to make a necklace.  I cheated a little.  I knew she wouldn't want to miss out on the fun and I was sick of waiting for her to say sorry!  I wanted to get on with the day!

And some pictures for good measure.

 

Road Trip

Patrick had to go to Cedar City and St. George for work.  Megan and I didn't want him to have to go alone so we tagged along.  It was a fun 2 day get away.

 Ready for a long car ride.

We found time to have some fun while Patrick wasn't training.  We went mini golfing Friday afternoon.  It was hot hot hot, but fun.  It was Megan's first time really golfing.

Megan also found time to take a nap.  With her booty in the air in the bathroom.  :)

 

We also walked around the mall in Washington to escape the heat.  And of course Megan had to test the fire engine.

Being trapped in a tiny hotel room certainly wasn't Megans favorite thing.  But she entertained herself by jumping all over the bed.  And she had some fun with stickers.  She also loved to sit on us on the bed and say "giddy up."  Except she says it "gippy" up, so her nickname of the moment is gippy.

Megan also saw her first movie in a movie theater on the trip.  We had 4 hours to kill in Cedar City while dad was working, but our hotel room was in St. George, so we had to find something to do to escape the heat.  We saw Brave.  She did great!

Summer Cousin Time

We have had a ball getting together with cousins this summer.  Especially since I don't think we'll all live this close in future.  So it's nice to take advantage of it while we can.  :)

Of course I haven't taken hardly any pictures.  But I did break out the camera for a bit this week.  Unfortunately I didn't have the camera out while Megan was on all fours lapping up the water that was squirting out of a hole in the hose looking like a dog.  It was hilarious.  But I missed it.  Also unfortunate, we put grandpa in charge of taking a group picture, but somehow the pictures didn't get taken.  But here's a few cute ones anyway!

Disneyland II

We were ultra bad parents and only remembered to take pictures like once in Disneyland.  So here are more pics from my mom.  Thank goodness for a more prepared Grandma.

Disneyland Adventure 2012

We were lucky enough to go to Disneyland this past week.  It was a blast and Megan was an angel.  Thank goodness!  She was great on the plane and in the park even though naptime and eating schedules were completely off.  We all had a blast and we look forward to being able to go again in the future!

We went on two rides that were new to Patrick and I--Little Mermaid and Toy Story.  Both in California Adventure and both great.  Toy Story is probably one of my favorites.  And dad and Megan went on Little Mermaid over and over.  Megan liked it and it was a good ride for her while everyone was doing bigger rides.

Bugs!  And as you'll notice her thumb sucking habit is getting worse and worse.  Boo!  Anyone have suggestions?  The doc told me I can't do anything about it at this age, but it's just getting worse and worse.  I would at least like to slow it a little!

This is what a good meal can do for a girl.  She was so so grumpy about 10 minutes before this pic was taken.  Food is magic!  :)

And notice Chad's hideous shirt in the background.  You can't see the whole thing.  But it's a beaver wearing shoes.  Weird.  Although it was helpful when we needed to find him.

Her favorite ride was Winnie the Pooh.  Maybe she loved that ride because she and I went on it over and over and over when I was pregnant and couldn't go on the other big rides.

Megan liked playing in the sand on the beach...as you can tell.  But she really wasn't a fan of the water.  It was pretty cold.  The minute it touched her feet she looked at me with a sad face and said "co" and then wanted to be held the rest of the time.

Goofies

Love the giggles.

18 Months

Holy cow. Miss Megan turned 18 months old this month. She is growing up so fast. We love her to death. She's such a goof and is always making us laugh.

 She is a total outside girl.  Especially at Grandma and Grandpa Clayson's house.  Since we live in a basement we don't have a door to the outside, but at Grandma's she can just walk right out.  She loves it and loves their sandbox.

 

 Peanut butter and honey sandwiches are definitely her favorite lunch.  Although she'll eat most anything most days.  And she loves eating.  I never have to worry she'll starve!  :)

At the Treehouse Museum in Ogden.

 

 She loves loves loves daddy lately.  She gets really excited when she sees something that's his while he's gone at work.

She used to call both Patrick and I mom, but now she calls us both dad.

 

 If you look real close you can see a little tiny ponytail in her hair.  She HATES having anything in her hair.  Just like her mom.

 

One of her favorite places to be is our bed.  She likes having the pillows stacked on her.  And she loves playing tent on the bed ("nent" as she calls it).  She will sit under our blankets for hours.

Easter egg hunt at Grandma's.

Other things to remember about the Megs....

•  She is slowly adding more words to her vocabulary.  But her pronunciation is terrible, so most of the time I have no clue what she's saying.  It has to be way in context or I have to ask her over and over again what she's saying.  Some of her favorite words are more (said "mo" with a sad tone), tent ("nent"), trash, please ("pah"), dog or pup, and go.  And the one phrase she uses is "want some more."
• Lately she has been afraid of spiders and bugs.  She will scream "bu" until I come take care of it.
• She is awful at the grocery store.  Now I totally understand why the YW leader I served with in Provo went grocery shopping at 5:30 a.m. before anyone was awake.  If I have 3 of her to go grocery shopping with I'll go crazy.
• She is still tall (90th), still has a small head (22nd), and is a bit heavier than average (65th).
• She has gone to nursery twice and done great.  Keep it up Megan!  Nursery leaders say she is a cute observer and watches the other kids more than she plays.  Probably a trait she got from her mom.