Days of our lives...

The days of living in the "Dupe" (our duplex) are often filled with laughter, tears, funny moments, learning new things, giggles, complaints, joys, disappointments, and just every day occurrences...

I thought I'd share just a few highlights from the past couple weeks of some of these moments from our life:

Ty

Ty's soccer season has started and it is a blast watching Ty play soccer. He is such a hustler! He loves playing goalie (just like his mom) and isn't afraid to jump right in front of someone coming towards him to grab the ball and take it away. He's learned to stand right in front of the opposing goalie when it's a goal kick and block the kick and return it for a goal! Last game he scored six goals and finally his coach said "Ty go play goalie--let the other kids play too!" He's a pretty athletic kid, but we learned this week that he doesn't like PE in school. We haven't figured out why except he said "I just like sports, not PE!"

While doing homework with Nate one night Ty was working on the letter Y. He was asked to write three words that begin with the letter and then draw a picture to go along with it. As he worked he said to Nate, "Daddy, do you know that if my name started with a Y my name would be 'yt' (pronounced yut)...Nate started to laugh and said "That's right, your name would be yt"....and he has been called 'yt' ever since!

We were driving down the road one day and Ty said to me "Mama, remember when you were in the hospital with Caleb and Mimi came and stayed with us." I said "Yes, I remember. Why?" He then asked, "Well, when you were little did Mimi ever come over and stay with you." I had to keep myself from laughing but said, "Ty don't you remember Mimi is my mom and lived with me every day!" After thinking about it for a minute Ty said, "Oh, ya! I forgot!"

Ty has been a really lovey boy lately. He often will come up to me and say "Mama, I've got something for you." "What is it?" I ask. Then he wraps his arms around me for a tight hug and gives me a big kiss! One night he said to me "I love you mama more than the stars, space, and universe!" What a great kid! I love him too!

Mara

Mara has been practicing writing her name, she is doing fantastic in her speech class, and every day she does at least three puzzles! Boy we will be happy to get all our toys back!

I was doing a little song and dance one day during lunch to Caleb and Mara that went something like this, "I love you Caleb, I love you Mara" before I could finish Mara jumped right in and started singing "I love you Erica, I love you Erica!" (It's kind of weird hearing your name come from your child's mouth for some reason!)

While on our trip the kids enjoyed watching a few movies while driving in the car. One of the movies was Madagascar 2. If you've ever seen this movie you might be familiar with Alex the Lion who does a funny thing with his hand and making funny faces. Mara picked up on this pretty quick and she does it quite often. Her facial expressions are hilarious:

Caleb

Thank goodness the weather has been so wonderful these past few days...Caleb LOVES playing outside! And I am so grateful for a fenced backyard! Caleb has the best time running around outside and pointing at the neighbors dogs and watching for birds. He is so content outside!
The other thing Caleb loves is helping me wash the dishes! He stands up on the booster seat right next to me and loves playing in the water. He especially loves getting the soap bubbles on his hands! Caleb learns something new every day! This week he learned how to fold his arms for prayer! Talk about cute! He has also learned to sign 'please'.

Friends!

We have had some really great time with friends this week...old friends and new friends! We were able to see some really great friends from Pennsylvania who came into town last week and we drove up to Provo and met them for dinner. It was so awesome to see the Forsythes! Oh how we miss them! It made us wish to go back to PA for a visit and see the rest of our branch family and friends there!

We've also had a few families from our ward over for dinner. Who knew 17 people could all fit in the dupe for dinner! We actually went outside and ate a picnic and played soccer out back. It was a lot of fun to socialize and we are very blessed to be surrounded by such great people and friends here.