a boy and his tooth

It finally happened! The tooth that has been sitting at the very edge of Peps gums has finally broken through! This was no ordinary up and down delay of the tooths arrival. This was, the tooth jumped on the train and made the trip all the way to the station and then refused to walk through the doors.... for approximately two weeks. Which made for a fairly unhappy baby at times and a frustrated Mama. Don't worry though the new tooth is soon to have a neighbor. Only problem is that this neighbor seems to have the same fear of walking through doors as the first tooth. We remain hopeful that he will conquer his fears soon though and that we will have two teeth with which to chew delicious foods!

If you look really closely you might be able to see our little tooth friend.

The tooth is among many first lately. Such as the first sled rides this year.... which equal Peps first sledding experience! Felicity and AnDee had a BLAST and they even got Aunt Gayle on board. And Buggy and I even got to go out... just the two of us and build a snowman together! Bet you can't guess what the snowman's name is?! (If you guessed Bonnie, you are totally right!)

The kids also both got their first hair cuts. I did them.... which was SUCH a bad idea. I did ok with AnDee just cut the very ends off but Im still sulking about what I did to Peps hair. I LOVED his hair. It made the perfect little mohawk and now its gone because of me :(

oh well... I still think he's cute.

I cut of at least a full two inches. so so sad

Remember how I was like 5 before my hair was this long and thick? Crazy.

Pep is getting EXTREMELlY active. He is starting to take a few steps on his own now and then but it is mostly just falling forward and trying to catch him self. He has been very successful with this though...

Its funny because this is in no way supposed to be a walking toy. Its just a little piano type deal but both of my kids have learned to walk on it. Its perfect cause it never tips over.

He has this habit of rubbing his eyes while eating his oatmeal before bed, which results in this...

Last week I was cooking dinner and had my back to the kids. AnDee was coloring and Pep was in his chair eating. Andrew was watching them so I wasn't too concerned with them. After a few minutes, without turning around, I reminded Buggy not to draw on her brother. Unexpectedly Andrew burst in to laughter at this reminder. why?...

It was too late. Thats right... Andrew had sat and watched AnDee color her brother. This picture by no means does justice to her artwork.

The little fatty has discovered a new trick. He has figured out that when he laughs his little soft pooh bear laugh... it makes mom laugh and when we are both laughing, he doesn't have to take his nap... at least until the laughter is over. So I will be holding him, rocking him to sleep and his eyes will roll in to the back of his head but suddenly a big fat grin will appear and his little laugh sneaks out. It gets me every time, I start laughing and when I start laughing his eyes pop open and he laughs even harder. The little stink, he knows how to manipulate me.

Speaking of "the little fatty" I think we are developing a future eating disorder in the kid. He has started shoving his fingers down his throat until he gags. Its only a matter of time before he start binging and purging. Maybe its time to lay off the fat jokes?

More funnies

Yesterday we were walking down the stairs (from my parents house to ours) When We got about half way down, out of no where AnDee yells back up the stairs "crocodile!" my mom laughed a little and said "see ya later alligator" to which AnDee replied "crocodile uncle Donald"
... Makes perfect sense to me.
We were in the kitchen last night making jello popcorn and AnDee decided it was time for some action so she came in and grabbed mine and Andrews hands "come on daddy! Let's play ring around the posies all fall on us bums"

I love listening to her just sit in her room and jabber away. She says the coolest things and the talking never stops. We went for a hike last Saturday (I know... It's January... Shouldn't it be too cold for that?) I had Pep on my back and Andrew was holding AnDee's hand and I could here her squeaky little voice going non-stop but couldn't make out what she was saying. I could hear Andrew however "what?"..."what?"... What AnDee" (sounding exasperated) "bug... You need to stop talking for a minute"
Ha! Have a little taste of my daily life, andrew! :)
She names everything Bonnie lately... Not sure where it came from but so far she has a tiger named Bonnie (who guards the dirty diapers on the porch) and two dolls named Bonnie... Actually the one dolls name is Honnie Bonnie. I think that's just her stripper name though. And most recently she has discovered her imaginary red dinasour... Named Bonnie.
FYI Red dinosaurs are nice but blue ones are mean. Steer clear of the blue ones.

kigamboni

So I know this is really random... a post about our trip to africa 5 years ago. But like I said. I want to document it since I didn't do a good job of doing it while I was there. Luckily I do have some journal entries to help me get things as accurate as possible.

This post is about our trip to Kigamboni. Its a little "resort"  we went to for an afternoon on the beach. But first lets start with the important things...

Meet Melkiory...

I literally can't even look at pics of him without getting teary eyed. He was our parents gardener.... but quickly became our best friend. His english was pretty poor but not nearly as poor as our swahili but it didn't even slow him down. He was so excited for anything and everything we could show him or teach him. He made exactly 30 dollars a month which was really good considering he only worked 3 or 4 days a week. Most of his pay check went to other family members like his sister or his uncle. Melkiory was baptized soon after we came home, he had gotten his own apartment and was doing really well for a while but a year or two later was got news that he wasn't doing so good. 

Some background. Melkiory was born in Arusha which is a village not far from Mount Kilimanjaro. When he was just a boy his parents sent him to live with his Uncle in Dar Es Salam. When we met him he was about 25 and had been with his Uncle for most of his life.

Back to the bad news... We received word that he had stopped attending Church meetings and that no one had seen him in quite some time. Then out of the blue he showed up, looking like he had been beat up and saying crazy things about people chasing him and how he wasn't safe. The Elders there tried to talk him through it but with there lack of speaking his language fluently and him struggling with english all they really got out of the conversation was that his Uncle was abusive and always had been. Im not sure in what way or to what level but most of his life he had spent with a man who was severely mistreating him....

Thats the last we heard. I would give just about anything to go back and find him. 

We miss him like crazy and worry about him all the time. 

Got a little side tracked there... that actually had nothing to do with this post, other than I wanted to explain that we adored him.

Although he had spent most of his life in Dar (which is located on the coast) He had never been to the beach. So when we decided to take a trip to the beach for the day, we had to take him with us.

He. Was. A. Blast. He was so excited about everything! At first we really had to coax him in to the water (which is literally like 80 degrees. its crazy warm) but once he was in... we couldn't get him out. There were quite a few jellyfish in the water so we explained to him that they could really hurt him. We thought that would scare him out. Nope. Other than a few yelps of terror, it really did effect his fun. He dug in the sand, picked up seashells and played and played in the water. When my mom handed him what was equal to about $10 U.S. to go buy some seashells a man was selling on the beach and told him he could pick whatever ones he wanted... I though his eyes were going to pop out of his head! And then the panic hit... he was SO scared he wouldn't pick the right ones. Fortunately for him we didn't care as much as he thought we would :)

It was such a fun day. We built sand castles and swam and sat on a beach that trumped any beach I have ever seen... even in magazines... and to top it off... we were the only ones there. 

 We have SO many boat pictures. It was hard not to photograph them... they were just so gorgeous on that perfect water.

I could be wrong but I believe the man with the net is the one we got the seashells from. The other little guy has some sweet little boats he had carved.

 uh... Andrew with an odd looking fruit? I have no idea what it was but Im pretty sure it was edible.

 The "resort"

 This pic was taken on the way out there. This is a totally normal thing there. Safety? whats that? Wouldn't want those chairs falling out.

a few missed pics

Here are just a few pics we missed from Disneyland and a couple random ones that I can't think of anything clever to write about but wanted to post them anyway.

you can see by the look on her face that she didn't trust Tink any further than she could through her...

Russian??

 Naugle Grandchildren..

Temple square

We like to go to Temple Square every year on Christmas Day. It is such a blast on Christmas cause there is virtually no one else there and its just fun to have a quite night on the temple grounds but seeing as Christmas was on a Sunday this year we had to postpone it a couple days. It was still fun and not too overly crowded. It sure was cold though. We had to stop in the conference center to warm up a bit.

Sorry for the poor quality. Most pics were taken with the phone.

Happy New Year!

Ok so when it actually comes down to New Years Eve.... we went to bed at the same time as we do every night. Actually thats not completely true. It was about an hour later than usual but only because the volume level was way too high to sleep.
This New Years Eve was spent with Andrews family again. This time we went to Bear River Lodge up in Christmas Meadows, Ut. Bet you didn't know there was a Christmas Meadows, Ut. We played in snow and on snowmobiles and drank lots and lots of "hocolate chocolate". AnDee loved loved loved the snow. Wish we could get some here at home. It was a good time for all.
and now, the pics...

Christmas Day

Christmas was superb this year. The kids didn't wake up until 8:30 so we just got them dressed and headed to church at 9. When we got home we changed and Pep took a little nap while AnDee dug in to presents. When she saw the Dora play house that Santa brought she forgot all about the other presents. We practically had to force her to open the others. She made a haul though, despite my best efforts to keep it small and simple.
When Pep got up we got to dig through our stockings and Pep opened his presents. AnDee went once with Mom to get Pep a present and once with Dad.... we didn't know it but each time she got him rubber duckies for the tub. It worked out though because he loves them and he LOVES bath time.
I took basically no pictures but here are the two I did get.

We had breakfast and spent a few hours at Grandma Pams house and then came home and got a visit from Uncle Dyl and shortly after a visit from Nanny and Poppy. For days after Christmas, every time AnDee would see someone walk through our front door she would say something like "What did you bring?" or "you have presents?"  Hopefully next year she won't be so greedy?? Probably not, but Im hopeful. She is a good kid though. She talked a lot about Jesus' birthday and how he was just a tiny tiny baby. :)

The Xavi boy

First of all... for all of you who don't know this already. Xavi is not pronounced zay-vee like most people think. Its pronounced shaw-vee. I have to clarify this because... well I think zayvee is an ugly name and that is how most americans assume the name is said. When we blessed Pep and the Bishop was announcing him he called him "Josheph Zayvee" So when Andrew actually gave him his name our bishop was slightly embarrassed. Now he ALWAYS calls him Xavi (like its supposed to be said) anyway.... lets talk a little about this Xavi boy.
He is finally getting his first tooth. It hasn't popped through yet but at the ripe old age of 9 months he is working on it. Which is so good because he still loves food and teeth are of course just a tool for eating more of it.
He is an expert crawler now. Both up on his knees and down on his belly, army style. I can't believe how fast he can army crawl. Its unreal. He usually only crawls up on his knees if his pants are off. Apparently they get in the way?
He is pulling himself up on everything now days and loves to hold our fingers and walk. His feet are so little in comparison to the rest of him though... Im afraid that this may affect his ability to balance. Poor little tiny footed man.
He is sweet as can be and loves to laugh... which makes everyone else laugh because his laugh is so darn soft and cute.
He is in discovery mode. Anything that has a button or makes a noise, he figures it out... and then I hear that noise over and over and over again for at least 15 minutes.
I think his favorite activity right now is swinging.... well first eating and then swinging.
He loves anything with wheels. Cars, trucks, strollers, high chairs, whatever... as long as it has wheels, its golden
We love our  little Xavi boy!

Me: AnDee Lew, its time to clean up.
AnDee: I can't... Im too tired.
Me: Well you better hurry and clean up so we can go home and go to bed then.
AnDee: But I SOOOO sick
Me: I think you'll be ok.
(AnDee still stalling)
Me:AnDee... you can either choose to clean up the toys or you can choose to put your nose on the wall and THEN clean up the toys
AnDee: I can't mom... a dinosaur will get me.
Me: AnDee... this is your last chance.. clean up the toys.
(She slowly starts putting toys in the box)
Me: Oh Buggy! you're doing such a good job!
AnDee: You're doing such a good job.... sitting there watching me!
I know you are all thinking she said this innocently... like she was actually giving me a compliment... Nope. She said it just exactly the way a snotty 15 year old would do. I am so not prepared for her teenage years.

A couple weeks ago we had some friends over and AnDee's Uncle Dave was joking around and saying some slightly unintelligent things. My 2 year old waited for a break in the laughter and looked straight at him and said "Dave, you are SUCH a child"
uh... excuse me?

Other things she says that make me giggle:
See ya later crocodile
I am irritated
My oldest mommy (referring to her Great Grandmother)
Hocolate chocolate (hot chocolate)