Bentley turns 2

Bentley is now officially a 2 year old. We celebrated his birthday at a park with a tractor theme. He loves tractors, cars, buses and anything boys love. It has been interesting to see how we have not pushed these things on him at all, but he naturally gravitates towards them.

 

 Bentley loves his blankets as well. If there is one of his blankets in sight he thinks he needs it. And if there are 3 of his blankets in sight... he has to have all of them.

 Bentley had his 2 year checkup and besides being deathly afraid of sitting on the doctor table he is doing great. His stats are:
Height: 34.75 in    64%
Weight: 23.8 lbs    7%
Head: 18.2 in       5%

He has been pretty consistent in these categories, but has grown a bit taller in the last 6 months. Bentley is active and very animated. He is wild and crazy and brave, but at the same time is super sweet and will say thank you and sorry and is always willing to share. Bentley likes to be with his sister and do almost anything she does. He is talking a lot and can say pretty much anything. He still has tubes in his ears which has helped with his ear infections and has all of his teeth other than his molars. This has enabled his fun personality to shine though without being in so much pain.

Jayda turns 4

Jayda bug turned 4. She invited her friend Addie, Nanny, Papa and Carter to go to Despicable Me 2. The movie was hilarious and every bit as good as the first one which is our all time favorite movie. I packed individual bags of candies for each person and they had a great time watching.

 

Nanny couldn't wait any longer to give Jayda her presents so she and Papa cam over afterward to give her gifts.

                                  Jayda designed her princess cake which was strawberry.
                           

Jayda at 4 years old is a great sister to her little brother. She likes to be the leader and conducts their playtimes together. Her favorite thing to do is to be with friends and will find one wherever she goes no matter their age or gender. Just like she picked the flavor of her cake she likes to pick her clothes and the way I am going to do her hair. Jayda loves to learn and knows almost all of her numbers and letters. She is also always asking questions wherever we go about what things are and why they are the way they are.

3rd annual Warm River trip

We were lucky enough to be able to go up to Warm River with Londi's family. They are brave and spend the week up there, but we only went Thursday through Sunday. There was lots of tubing the river and even more fishing. We barely saw Jayda the entire trip. She was in 7th heaven with her cousins.

 

Smoky the bear visited us on Saturday. The cute little girl on the right is from another family we got to know. The three girls were instant friends.

 Aunt Londi is amazing at hair and did this cute little number on Jayda's hair. She always looks so different when her hair is done up.

 Papa Schow came up for a while on Saturday and Jayda just wanted to be with him. She wanted to help him unload the car and while he was reading, she took her lunch and sat next to him.

 A lot of the trip you could find these two playing "kidnap" in the tent we brought up to hold our stuff.

 This little guy was hard to win over. It took him a while to get used to the idea of camping and being around his cousins, but all uncle Ben had to do was give him licorice and he was a happy camper.

 Fishing.... that's all I have to say. There was a lot of it going on.

 Bryce tried to get Bentley to touch the fish but all the flopping around it was doing freaked him out and he wouldn't touch it.

There may have also been something called the "cray cray qualifier". Let's just say it is a secret initiation that must be done in order to be accepted into the cray cray family! It involves glow sticks and guts.

Double weddings

Woohoo! Congrats to both of my brothers on landing such hot mammas for wives! Landon married Melissa on March 16th in California. We drove out for the wedding in the Oakland Temple and were able to enjoy a few hours with him in downtown San Francisco before he tied the knot.

 

 

 

  Jason married his cute high school sweetheart Jenae on June 7 in the Bountiful Temple and it was such a fun day. Everything was as gorgeous as any wedding I have ever seen. It is so nice to have two sisters now!



End of year recital

Miss Jayda had her very first end of year recital. I am biased, but I think she was the cutest one there :) She danced to "Let's get Loud".  The Monday before the show she had a practice at the Bountiful park on their big stage. She cried and was really scared to perform in front of so many people but I handed her to her teacher anyway and as soon as she was backstage practicing with her class she was all about it! The final performance was that Wednesday night and she did fantastic. I was really impressed with her improvement from her Halloween performance and impressed that she could keep up with the 5 year olds. Her Dad also did a daddy daughter dance that was so fun to watch. It was fun to have him be such a good sport about it. He practiced a lot at home and was actually excited to do it with her. I hope she loves dance for many years to come because it is so much fun to watch her and get her all dressed up.

 

Grandma Kinnear brought her flowers and came to show her support.

 Nanny wouldn't have missed it for anything!

 Mom and Dad got her flowers and skittles. (Her favorite)

 She also got two trophies for doing such a great job.

 Showing off her moves afterward at Nanny's house. We had to give the costume back because it was a rental so this is her concert tee and shorts.

Bryce is a graduate

April 26th Bryce graduated from Weber State University with his Bachelors in Communications. It was a proud but bittersweet day. We are so happy he has made it this far, but we knew he would be starting right into his Masters program and things would get even busier. I can't express enough how proud of him I am. He has more dedication and determination than I ever have and I know our family will be blessed for his hard work.

"Healthy"

Today was Jayda's first time saying the prayer in primary. She was not nervous at all and told the primary president that she could do it all by herself. When it was her turn she didn't quite know what to do, so I went up to the stand with her, told her to close her eyes and fold her arms and say it loud enough so that everyone could hear her and she just went for it. She said, "Dear Heavenly Father, thank thee for this day, thank thee that we could be healthy, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."
Her prayers at home are usually a lot longer than that, so I was a little surprised, but so proud of her for doing it all on her own. She is growing such confidence in herself which makes me feel proud. I think that although daycare has been hard on me and sometimes hard on Jayda as well, it has given her confidence to be around other people and not just rely on me all of the time. I think that she would probably be more shy had she not been forced to be around other kids and adults. She has learned to adapt to the situations around her and looks forward to meeting new people. When she was younger she tended to cling to me more, but is spreading her wings more and more.
I also was not surprised that she said thank you for being healthy. She says that a lot in her prayers and we talk about it a lot. How the foods we eat affect how we feel, how too much sugar makes our tummies sick. We have also had a lot of sickness in our house this winter. I think that everyone has. We had the flu in November, December and January, along with colds and a terrible cough/cold combination in March. I am tired of the sickness and am hoping to do a better job of preventing it and strengthening our immune systems. I want to be able to be educated and take good care of my family so I am reading books, finding recipes and blogs, and cooking as much as I can. I want healthy eating to come naturally to my kids so that when they get older it isn't such a struggle to research and learn and do.
Watch out because I am quickly becoming a hippie. I am using essential oils, researching chemicals in the products we use, looking for organic foods, etc. I used to think that people were just too uptight about everything and take it too far, but now I think they are just more informed and educated on what they put into their bodies and in their homes and I am interested in being somewhat the same. I am on a quest to figure out what can work for our family without making everyone miserable.