Josh is Two!

Warning: Super Long Post

This last week Josh turned two. On his birthday David made him blue pancakes for breakfast and we got to go feed Dicey (Celeste's dog) for them while they were on vacation. Josh loves "Dice Dice", but was pretty sad when "Lef" (Celeste) and "PooPa" (Cooper) weren't there for him to play with. That night we had a family birthday party and Josh had a great time blowing out the candles 3 times and eating cupcakes and ice cream. Then we went to another party, this time to welcome home my friend Sandi from her mission.

Josh with his blue birthday pancakes (yes he still wears a bib...I think I'll keep him in one for as long as he'll let me).

I saw this idea for ice cream cone cupcakes on the back of a cake mix box. They turned out pretty cute even if they were flat ice cream cones...I guess they are Thrifty ice cream cones. :)
Josh seemed to like them!

We didn't get any still pictures of Josh opening presents and blowing out candles, only videos that I don't feel like editing and waiting for them to upload.

We had a little pool party for Josh yesterday with a couple of his friends and cousins and had a great time playing in the pool and eating corndogs, cake and ice cream.

I was trying to think of something fun to do cake-wise. One fun thing about Josh is that he LOVES cards. We have some old Uno and Rook cards that he has been playing with for the past several months. He'll pick them up, put them down one by one on the couch, pick them up again, come and hand them to me one by one, take them back, put them in a box or cardholder or slide them under the TV (annoying), and generally entertain himself for quite a while with these. So, I had an idea to decorate his cake like an Uno card. I've never attempted cake decorating, but my friend Kimmie was kind enough to let me borrow her supplies and little instruction booklet and gave me a few tips.

Here are some pictures of the party and the cake:

Does it look like an Uno card?

Josh with his cousins Karalee, Spencer and Bryant

Enjoying a corndog

He had to have some help blowing the candles out. He tries to blow, but doesn't really get much air out.

For his birthday David and I gave Josh a baseball glove and ball (he's not into them at all yet) a couple of Sesame Street movies and some cards. He played with his new cards all day long on his birthday, pretty much, so at least we know one of our presents was a hit! His Great Grandma Orr gave Josh some alphabet magnets, which didn't get opened until the day after his birthday, and now he has been playing with them almost non-stop (thanks Grandma!).

"I did it!" He spelled such a long word I can't even pronounce it. What a smart boy (he must take after his dad)!

I can't believe how fast my baby boy is growing up...he learns new things every day and he often makes me laugh out loud! A few of the things that make Josh great:

• He knows most of his letters and numbers and colors. Thank you Sesame Street, Uno cards and alphabet magnets!
• He can pretty much count to 12 on his own. After that all the "teens" start tripping him up.
• He says "Eee-ahh" when riding a real horse or a Daddy/Mama pretend horse.
• He says "Eww Dross" when he sees something that looks yucky (or pretty much anything that is wet).
• He argues with himself. When he first started talking one of his first words, of course, was "No". He would say that when we would try to make him do something he didn't want to do, and so we would always respond with "Yes". Now he will say the "Yes" for us..."No yes no yes". It cracks me up.
• When he can't find me or David right away he'll say "Mamy/Daddy, where are you?" (I can't figure out how to spell it like he says it, but it's really cute.
• When he wants me to pick him up he says, "Ma ma ma jew" (Mama I wanna hold you).
• Since Josh started learning to talk David has been teaching him to say, repeating one word at a time, "Daddy is the best". I recently started having Josh say "Josh is monkey". A week or so ago Josh came up with "Daddy...is...the...best...bunkey (monkey)". Too bad David wasn't there to hear it, because that one was great.
• He still calls Mary "Baby". I've tried several times to get him to at least say Mary, but to no avail. Tonight during dinner we were trying again and were unsuccessful at first, then started breaking the syllables up. We finally got a "Mar-baby" out of him. David and I started cracking up, then Josh did his fake laugh because we were laughing so hard. Good times.
• He is a great big brother. He'll often come and tell me when he hears Mary crying after she's woken up from her nap. He loves to kiss and hug her goodnight, and throughout the day, for that matter. Not that he isn't a little rough with her sometimes. He hasn't bitten her for a coupel of weeks, so hopefully that stage is over.
• He gives the best hugs and kisses, and usually isn't afraid to give them to anyone. His hugs always have the "ahww" sound effect.
• Mom's kiss will make pretty much anything better. I love that!
• When he gets excited he'll clap his hands and say "Yay" really excitedly.
• When he finishes something he's been working on he yells "I did it!"
• He is as skinny as a rail, but super strong. He can now reach our top counter (the bar) and is getting way too adept at pulling himself up to the regular counter and reaching things on it.
• Josh is definitely a high energy little boy...he rarely walks anywhere, and when he gets really excited his legs go up and down more than forward when he runs.

I'm so blessed to be Josh's mom, I love him so much and am so grateful that Heavenly Father has entrusted me with him! Here are some more fun pictures of my sweet boy:

Pioneer Days

A couple of weeks ago we were able to go up to Snowflake for my favorite holiday...the 24th of July celebration in Snowflake! I've only missed it once, and that was two years ago when I was too pregnant with Josh to travel...and I missed it!

On the day before the town celebration we always have a Flake reunion for the decendents of my great-great grandfater, William Jordan Flake, who was one of the first settlers of Snowflake. We always have a rodeo (yes, the family is easily big enough to have our own rodeo), a luncheon, and a talent show/program.

This year the rodeo was quite a bit more eventful than in years past, and not in a good way. One of the events is called the Keg Race, which is kind of like musical chairs on horses. Since my cousin Vicki and my sister Kayla were the only two entries for the Ladies' Keg Race, Kayla was trying to round up more entries from me and my other sisters. Mindy was the first to jump on board and then she helped Kayla talk the rest of us sisters, minus Crystal, into signing up. I had to borrow a horse from Vicki's family and ended up switching horses not long before the race started. My hopes were (1) to not get hurt--which I said a prayer for as I was sitting on the keg before the first round--and (2) to not be the first one out. I was the first one out. My horse (I think his name was Jedi) started dancing around after they said go, so it took me too long to get on. I was a little embarrassed, because I'm pretty competitive and I just don't like doing things, especially in front of other people, unless I'm good at them.

Penny got out during the next round, and after that is where the real excitement happened. They said go and as Mindy was trying to get on her horse the horse moved and she ended up landing on her head. I didn't see it until she was actually on her head, and it looked bad. To make a long story a bit shorter, everyone was super worried about her (she, the awesome mom that she is, was most worried about her kids) and she ended up with a broken neck and some sort of injury to her leg. They're still not sure what is wrong with her leg, but it is feeling better and she is getting around quite well these days. She has to wear a neck brack for 6 weeks, but is already 3 weeks into it. (If you want more details, you can read Mindy's version here.) The accident definitely put a damper on the rest of the weekend for our family, but we still had fun doing the rest of activities.

On Friday evening I drug David to my 10 year high school reunion, and my cousin Michelle came with us since her husband Brent was away studying to take the bar exam. I'm not a great mingler, but I had fun seeing some of my classmates...some of whom I see fairly regularly and others who I hadn't seen since we graduated. I was surprised that there weren't more people who came, but we had fun anyway.

Saturday we went to the parade and Josh's cousins helped him gather some candy, so he was a happy boy! After the parade I went to a baby shower for my niece Kari, then we went and visited Grandma Wiltbank and David's side of the family for a bit and just had fun hanging out at my mom's and visiting for the rest of the day. David and I had planned to go out shooting with his new 22 pistol, but it just never worked out, dang it! Next time. Josh had a great time playing with his cousins and all the dogs that were up there for the weekend, and Mary was a good sport about letting so many people love her and hold her all the time.

Here are some pictures:

Two Marys enjoying the Flake Rodeo

Chillin' at the Flake family luncheon

Fun at the parade

Josh and Trevin riding Mumble

Yee-haw! (It sounds so much cuter when Josh says it.)

Two dirty boys having fun in the bath

Corn, Corn and More Corn!

As a kid, my family always had a big corn field and late every summer we would take a Saturday (and sometimes several mornings before school as well) and "do corn"--pick, shuck, de-worm, silk, cook, cut off the cob, put in bags and freeze. Those were always long days, but every Sunday we loved enjoying the fruits of our labors with dinner.

Earlier this week one of our ward members offered corn to our ward. I originally only took 10 ears, but after learning that there was still tons left that needed to be taken I decided to "do corn" for our little family (especially since we bought a little deep freeze last week, so now we have the room to freeze it--yea!). Wednesday night after mutual I had a really late night getting it done. The corn had already spent a day out on my back porch after I picked it up Tuesday night, so I needed to get it done before it went bad.

I didn't get a picture of the shucking part, but here it is on a much smaller scale than what my family used to do:

I didn't fill up the quart bags, since our family doesn't need that much for a meal, but all in all I got 29 bags...not too bad!

Happy 4th of July!

We originally planned on spending the 4th of July up in Shumway with David's family, but since David had a school assignment due this weekend (lame), we ended up staying here and he had to work on it most of today. Our complex's pool is finally finished, so we all tested it out on Friday night. Josh was very clingy at first, but he warmed up pretty quickly and even started "swimming" on his own after a bit. A storm was blowing in when we started, so we didn't stay too long, but we had fun! Josh and I even went again this morning.

The kids showing off their stylin' suits. Josh looks so funny in his little floaty suit.



Ahhh...isn't my family cute?

Wheeeeee!

Presenting...Little Miss 4th of July!

Trying to get Josh to sit still and pose for pictures is pretty much impossible these days. Just imagine a picture with Josh holding Mary and both of them wearing the cute star sunglasses...that's what I was aiming for, but these are the best I got of Josh with his glasses. Oh well.

Now that's stylin!

Bass Pro Shops was having a lot of free activities this weekend, so David took a little break from working on his project and we went and hung out there for a bit. We did their laser shooting range and loooked at the fish, which Josh loves to do.

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!!!

Josh's Look-alike Meter

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Family tree software - Pedigree

Mary's Look-alike Meter

MyHeritage: Family trees - Genealogy - Celebrities - Collage - Morph

Warning: Naked Babies!

Okay, not quite naked, but almost. I just love the contrast between being able to see ribs poke out of Josh's skinny body and Mary's ribs being deeply hidden. :) Josh actually fits in the Bumbo almost as well as Mary...her legs often get stuck in the openings and it will come up with her when I go to take her out of it!

Josh was having fun playing with the canning rings one morning. He is getting so tall and learning so many new things. His favorite things to play with these days are old Uno and Rook cards, which is awesome, because he's learned most of his numbers, as well as "D" and "R" from them! Also, PBS Kids must be paying off, because he recognizes a lot of other letters, especially those on our welcome mat. :) Josh loves to give us (and pretty much everyone else for that matter) tons of hugs and kisses, and David has been teaching him to say "Daddy is the best". He is such a fun and energetic boy and constantly makes us laugh (except when he wakes up every morning at or before 6:30)!

Mary is FINALLY to the point where she'll actually be content for a few minutes at a time when I put her down. Thank goodness! She hasn't quite rolled over on her own yet, but she's working on it. She does NOT like tummy time (probably because she rarely gets it). She'll usually go about 7 hours between feedings at night, so I only have to get up once with her most nights, which is such a nice change after Josh's many nighttime feedings. She is still in our room, mostly because I'm afraid she and Josh will wake each other up during the night (or early morning when Josh wakes up) and of Josh throwing toys in on her in the crib. One of these nights we'll bite the bullet and move her!

Josh didn't ever really want to "hold" Mary for about the first month, but now he will often ask to hold her, or when she is laying on the floor he will usually go and lay beside her. He's not always as gentle as he should be (biting her toes and cheeks), but I'm glad he likes her! It 's the cutest when he says "I Luh Baby" or talks baby talk to her. Mary is a patient little sister and often smiles at Josh.

I love my cute kids!