Aptos

We went to Papa Ray's 70th birthday bash. It was a week long event so the boys and I spent the week on the beach and Alma joined us for the weekend. I didn't bring my battery charger so I didn't get many pictures. Also being the only parent at the beach with to fearless naked boys swinnig in the waves dosen't really make for great picture taking as you are constantly running in the water to fish out you r little daredevils. I did love seeing them on the beach and how much they love it. Susie kept trying to use this as leverage to get us to move closer to her.

I did get pictures of the boys at the playgraound at the big house. This was a frustrating activity for Beckett as this is a big kid play ground and he couldn't keep up with Beckett. But Coen was fearless, as usual. He has been climbing to the top of the 20 foot structure for a year now. But finally was brave enough to go down the giant slide. This is a play ground Ray had made out of all the neglected outlawed dangerous playgounds of our childhood. He then put all these bits on stilts and lifted them to SCARY hights. The boys love it.

We also went to Santa Cruz as a family, but I didn't get to see Zoe- which was sad.

Some Pictures from the Valentines Party

Well the party was a success. The kids had a blast. The cookies were decorated. The Luv Bugs were glittered and stickered. The kids were adorable. I can't wait to get the crowd together again.

Clove Family Preschool

I have been trying to do some preschool type activities for Coen every week. I have had a lot of fun making matching games to play as a family and finding art project to do with Coen. I am hoping that with this, music class, and story time at the library he won't be missing out on too much of the preschool experience- since his mother was just not ready to send him away from home yet.

Here was some of our snow art work. He had fun flipping through Grandma Clove's magazines looking for pictures of a house- he ended up choosing a light house, a school house and some New England farm houses (mostly thanks to Yankee Magazine). We also made snowflakes out of puff balls.

This was Coen's idea. He asks of sushi at least twice a week for lunch- so one day we made peanut butter and banana sushi and some turkey avocado sushi. This was a big hit!

So-- I Craft a Little Too

I have started knitting again after a long break due to my back pain. I started with a little project that went well (both pain wise and cutness wise) so I have started a bigger project (ming you none of my projects are big because I have the attention span of a knat and therefore only make things for little tiny children). No pictures yet, but soon.

I made some little bug valentines- but I will put pictures of them in the Valentines post.

I also made these paper flowers to decorate the bulliten board. I loved how they turned out, the colors and textures. Many hours into the project I realized it was a bit much for something no one will notice- but Coen and I had a blast making them.

I also made this Tis the Season sign for Christmas. I had all the stuff and had wanted to make it all Christmas season, but didn't get any time until Jan! I didn't get any great pictures, but you get the idea right? I am not sure I ever took pictures of all my Christmas crafts this year, or did I?

A Little Love For Beckett- our second, and therfore neglected child

So much has been going on with Beckett! He is talking up a storm, and has been making three and four word sentences, mostly only understood by his mom.

He loves this little cow and zebra, he calls them his moo moos (any black and white four legged animal is a cow). Here he is with his little buddies:

Beckett also likes to read, almost as much as he likes to eat. His very favorite book is a Spot book and at least 20 times a day I hear "Spot pees mama." Typically he points out all the food in the book, and claps when he sees the teats (treats). Here he is reading his favorite book with Dad:

He and his brother are playing really well together. They love to wrestle and laugh and are very goofy. They are together all the time and when Beckett goes down for nap Coen begs for him to get up. One day recently they were playing in the family room and when I wandered in the room Beckett wasn't there. I asked Coen where he was and he innocently denied any knowledge of Beckett's whereabouts. For five minutes I tore the house apart, shouting Beckett's name before I heard the little giggles coming from the toy chest. And there he was tucked away in a drawer. He spent several hours that afternoon hiding in the drawer and popping out again. He must have really been pleased with his evil genius at scaring his mom.

Beckett also feels very strongly about what he wears. Generally he will only wear a shirt with a collar and takes along time picking out his outfits. He loves his double breasted pea coat that no matter how hot he gets he won't take it off at church. While we were at Papa Ray's house last month he would pull at his shirt as soon as he saw Papa- so that Ray finally asked me "What is with this kid and his shirts?" How many fastidious 18 month olds do you know? He is equally fussy about his hands and clothes being clean and genuinely loves helping me clean up toys. I hope this quality hangs on a little longer. This is one of his favorite outfits:

He is making up for his fussy infancy with his sweet little smile and cuddely persona. He loves to talk on the phone, so if you need to hear the cutest little "uv you", "Yesssshhh" or "Bye bye" give us a call.

Coenisims

I don't seem to record these often enough- but there are just so many.

The other day Coen told me the name of a dinosaur (unsolicited) and then his whole face just lit up and he said- "Mom I remembered! I just remembered it from deep in my heart."

His new thing when strangers say hello is to hide his head and say "I am too shy to talk to you."

Coen is obsessed with snow boarding and Sean White in particular. He made a snowboarding course in the family room out of our cushions and furniture and runs around pell mell while he watches the snow boarding races. When Alma was the same age he was injured during the 1976 Summer Olympics running a heat around the coffee table. He still bears the scar by his eye. So every time Coen leaps around the furniture I worry about him following in his father's foot steps. If he sees Sean White he screams "Sean White Sean White"- even if the camera is just panning the audience and Sean whit is sitting in the crowd.

Today he set up with some bubble wands in the shed in our back yard and was banging them together and saying "Money money we need money. Money for coconuts." He would then tell Beckett to go get more money and Beckett would run around like a maniac saying "mny mny". I asked them what they were doing and Coen told me they were working for money. I have no idea how to explain this.

He has turned into a complete nudist- he wants to be naked all the time. We went over to Wendell and Kirsten's the other day and as soon as he walked into the house he said to a shirtless Grant- "No one wants to see you naked Grant- put on a shirt." Talk about pot calling the kettle black.

How Can You Not Laugh?

So the other day I walked into my kitchen and I saw this:

Just so you know- Coen has discovered the sugar bin, and tries to sneak it as often as he can.

He isn't nearly as sneaky as he thinks he is.

Two parties down.
One party to go.

So what do I love today? I love my friends, I love opening my home to others, I love how gorgeous the table was for our VT luncheon today, I loved the plates, the flowers, the linens. (no picture because my battery was dead. Yes the one time in my life when something turns out better than I imagined- something worthy of being on one of those envy inducing blogs belonging to others and my camera was dead!) Lets just say there were several flower arrangements, pink linens, great plates- it was great- better than you can imagine.

Now tomorrow I have the toddler party. I am having the kids decorate some luv bugs ( I have to make those tonight!) eat lunch and then we are decorating cookies. It should be fun for mom's and kids. Maybe I will charge the camera to take some pictures of that party- but they won't be as cool, because you don't do fancy table settings for toddlers.

Do I need to make a little gift to send home, or is the luv bug and the cookie enough?
And I just finished getting the stuff for the cousin's packages today, so that will be a little late! Oh well- getting mail is always exciting, even a few days after the holiday!

Oh and just for the record the first party was Saturday- for Anna and Dad's birthday. Anna came over and we made stuffed flank steak and BYU brownies. Yum.

And it is 4 parties if you count Alma and Coen's Superbowl party- even though that was just the two of them sitting in the living room at Coen's little table eating pizza and drinking soda- IN THE LIVING ROOM. It was very exciting. Coen thought it was a great party.

A month of Love

In honor of this month of love I have decided to post about what I love about my life and family. I will do this periodically through the month, which how good I have been about posting recently this may be the only one written.

So my thoughts for today- which trust me the is a bad post-call/cranky/ painful day so it was a little hard to come up with some thoughts. Coen even told me I was grumpy and bad.

So I love how good the boys are at entertaining themselves today, pbskids.org, a pile of books, and every toy in the house on the floor and they have been quite for hours this morning. Tender mercies.

I am thankful Alma wakes up and goes to work every day, and hears my phone beep when I am so exhausted it doesn't even register in my brain, and wakes me up so I can go calm some panicked parents down at 4 am, and then genuinely feels bad when he sees me sitting in bed reading "Team of Rivals" because after being on the phone for 45 min I can't go to sleep, and then he doesn't kiss me good bye because I have barely drifted off and he doesn't want to wake me. That is a good husband.

I love my house, my comfortable, cozy house.

I love Beckett's very loud pretend eating noises he makes while he jumps up and down and spins around with joy while I serve him his food. This kid loves to eat. Not that you could tell- seeing as he is the size of an infant.

I love that at Papa Ray's party Beckett danced like crazy and sang along with the band and loved all the attention. Coen stood in the corner with his hands over his ears, scowled at strangers and asked to go. So much like their parents.

I loved how much the boys loved swimming in the ocean. I remember swimming in those same beaches in January myself.

I love Vicoden. Makes the pain slightly more bearable, but also makes my nose itch.