2/14-4/12
Hello! Life has been absolutely bonkers lately! Let's start this post off with some pretty pictures 😊
blue mouth and hands after eating blueberries 🫐 😂
cuties
couples stay cation
we get a free night in a hotel every year with the credit card so we went to slc while my mom watched the kids and breathed some life back into us
the kids had fun too
McDonald's is cooper's favorite!
they both went in to play by themselves too (after I played in there for a while first lol but still progress) and Cooper asked a girl what her name was and played with her!
Park city family time
it was so fun to see them again! the kids kept asking where they were after they left. it had been so long since we had gone skiing or tubing we forgot how much fun it was! we skied, swam, tubed, ate, watched shows, went to an arcade, went to sky zone, and did taskmaster.
this was for a task- we had to balance something perfectly
since we knew we'd be swimming we had the kids practice being in the goggles and life jacket so that they would hopefully wear them at the hotel. kinder refused to wear them at all for practice but she did wear the jacket for my mom there. Cooper wore them in practice (and wanted a photo shoot in them) but didn't wear them there lol
this was at skyzone. it was so fun for about an hour and a half and then the kids were done and started asking to go home
at the arcade picking out the prize she wanted
dallin "carving" 😆
their kids watch a show that we don't so when they introduced it to Cooper he laughed soooo hard lol it was so cute
taskmaster
once again, taskmaster was a blast! Trenden made my mom make a taco the size of a table and she made it look like Trenden's face lol
she was babysitting that night and my aunt Kim came to help her and I thought it was cute that they could meet her and that mckinley liked her so much
the last task was getting the stuff out of a bottle and it was closed with vaseline covering it and then we had to get an entire frozen banana into it!
this was who can blow up the biggest balloon blindfolded without popping it and kaylynn popped hers
coopers bday
on his actual bday I didn't make him go to school because he was having HUGE fits before school leading up to that. and I took him to the store and said he could pick anything he wanted and he picked chopsticks for 1.29$ 😂 because his grandparents sent him a box with a birthday present and it had packing peanuts in it and he was very excited about those and called them his marshmallows. So I said are you sure you want chopsticks? and he said yes it will be perfect for my marshmallows! and we got his other two favorites- pink donuts and McDonalds 😃
This was when we celebrated it a couple days later with cousins
he got monster feet for his bday
What an honor to be the parents of such a special soul! Cooper is the most authentic, creative, empathetic, funny kid. He sees the world in such a beautiful way and his enthusiasm for dinosaurs, knights, the Statue of Liberty, and sticks is infectious. Looking forward to a lifetime of being inspired by the amazing, one-of-a-kind person he is. Your potential is limitless, Cooper, and Happy 5th birthday! 
she loved the decorating cupcakes part... she said "I like cooking!" and a couple other kids chimed in and said me too lol
At the beginning she was feeling very shy. I think it was because she's used to having her brother there with her and he wasn't this time. But I was so proud of her for telling me when she needed to potty and using the toilet there ! She is a potty training pro!
I thought his answers on this were hilarious and heart warming. Especially "when I grow up I want to be a friend." Does it get any cuter than that?
This was some MAJOR progress for him! I helped him with the first one and he did the rest!
he wanted to jump with her
taking a napping the play house
CLICK HERE TO VIEW COOPER'S 5 AWESOME YEARS OF LIFE!!!!!! 🤩
Mckinley's first haircut
She keeps saying "I'm like rapunzel I got my haircut!" lol
kids say the darnedest things
this is when mckinley put herself in time out... multiple times lol
Sadie got her shots
Kinder wanted to come with and was very respectful and obedient...... I just learned that she should wear pants when she's going commando due to potty training because she kept flashing people lol
birthday party
Kinder was really sad when she found out it wasn't like Christmas where everyone gets to open the presents.... 😬 But she was so cute/good even tho she was sad she didn't touch the wrapping paper at all anymore she just sat there watching sadly. And she held it together until presents were over and then said "I want to go home" and then we left and the moment we came in the door she burst into tears and told dallin how sad she was and how there were "no presents for kinder"
playing with the neighbor kids
Our neighborhood is full of kids and we have so much fun just walking out the door and having friends to play with. This was exploring the mud area with smith and Kamryn from next door
coop's new school
Cooper switched schools and he doesn't fight going to school anymore! The old school was becoming more and more of a fight to get him to go in so I was starting to see it wasn't a good fit for him. Now he gets to ride the bus and he was scared of it at first but then we showed him the bus the day before and he hyped himself up and got on with no hesitation at all from the very first day. I was so proud of him. This was him giving the driver the "bus toy" back.
so now when I say he's going to school he makes sure its the new school before lol
the bus driver who takes him to school is so nice he even got him and kinder an easter present!
This was his first day at the new school with his new teacher. He was so brave I was so proud of him. She is so giving, thoughtful, hard working and positive. I'm grateful for people like her in this world
whoops
my annoying horns that show up because of my excess of baby hairs
soooo idk why I have such bad luck with hair. but this was the day of the appointment
and this was after a couple washes. I literally had orange hair. so I went back and she had to fix it. I don't think im all that picky, why does this keep happening!?
online parenting conference
I attended a couple conferences that were free and online where you watch the talks from experts and it was pretty good. Some of the stuff was common sense or stuff I knew already but I always enjoy learning more and feeling like I'm "sharpening my parenting saw" so to speak lol So these are pics of my favorite speakers
other stuff
cute painting from Sara for easter
Potty training
I was so lucky shelly came to help me for 8 days. I truly don't know how I could've done it otherwise. Probably just tons of screen time. anyways The first 4 or 5 hours were horrific because she was terrified of the toilet, potty or anything (even a cup under her) besides a diaper. There was screaming, crying, tantrums, and I was thinking holy crap this is going to be terrible and dallin was thinking he was going to have to work somewhere else for a while. I literally said swear words while running with her peeing everywhere all the way down the hall and she went stiff as a board of course so I had to force her to hinge at the waist to sit on the toilet and in the struggle she fell in the toilet (literally knees at her chest all the way in) and she was kicking and screaming and peeing and getting toilet water everywhere. So that was very messy because it was clean up on me and her and the whole bathroom mudroom and hallway. drenched. so after that she napped and when she woke up we put moana on the tv and the baby potty right in front of it and sat her on the potty. She was so distracted watching the tv that she didn't realize she was on the potty and when a little pee accidentally happened we celebrated and it was like something clicked in her brain like "oh this isn't scary, I can do this because I apparently just did!" and then after that- I promise you from then on out she immediately became a potty pro! The book says they go from clueless to I'm peed to I'm peeing to I need to pee. So she immediately skipped from petrified of the potty to I need to pee and being able to hold it until she sat down and go completely on her own. it was amazing.
we brought the baby potty everywhere with us- in the car (still do that) in the basement, upstairs, etc. and we did night and day training at the same time because I see it like why delay the inevitable.
she loved having Grama here. Both kids did. the pic on the right was when she was trying to poop. She held off the poop for like 5 or 6 days because even though she got the hang of peeing it still scared her to poop on the potty or the toilet. So she kept saying I need to poo poo but then when she would sit down she would cry and say "You give me hugs?" lol 😂 so probably one of the strangest things I've done but me, dallin, and shelly all took turns hugging her while she either pooped or tried to lol and she's over it now she will do it without hugging 
Pic on the right is the sensory bin with pluffle
the potty in her room because we both were going in there every night to have her pee. now dallin is just going and I'm not anymore. She's been doing really awesome!
while we were potty training I got sick (a cold) and Cooper got this weird blister thing on his thumb that was growing.
Dallin took him to the dr and they couldn't figure out what it was so they gave antibiotics but then honestly we didn't remember to stick to them with everything we were doing with potty training and then we soaked it in warm water and then when dallin and him were play wrestling it popped (disgusting 🤢) but Cooper was totally chill about it the whole time so apparently it never hurt. And then the next day he had this dried out white flap of skin over the top and he said "look mom I pulled the sticker off!" and he had pulled the skin off and it was just this exposed raw purplish red skin underneath... 🤮 so we were like "cool!" lol while making barf faces
It's always so much fun getting to see the cousins and everybody together so the kids get so excited when we say we're going to either Matthew or Brian's house and they beg to go back for the next few days.
lol ...... this is what it looks like when Cooper is supposed to be in bed and I'm brushing my teeth... he sleeps in our bed full time now and has major issues with separating for bed
I was so proud of him for making major progress on tracing the line/motor planning! I did it with him the first time and then he did it all on his own.
He learned this from Gaston lol he is "strong like Gaston"
I was so excited he was doing so good I took a ton of pictures.
They're so cute when they play together. and they love playing together so they do it a lot now.
🥰
they both know to stay out of the street now so it's so nice that we can finally be in the front without worrying. Literally just within the last few months that has become an option for us
naps (he loves cuddling daddy so much that it's hard for him to fall asleep when I'm the one putting him to bed)
doing pushups together and kinder pushing Cooper on the trike
went to 3 job interviews here only to find out it was not going to be a good fit for me 😞 we shall see about me working in the fall.... it may not work out with all the therapy he needs to get to
planning out the miss orem opening number. That role has been a lot more time consuming and stressful than it was when I volunteered last year at MB. But I'm still glad I did it- it has been fun- just this time of my life right now has a lot going on
playing together
Pretending he's throwing snow balls
making a cake
I have been active with occupational therapists to try out things that will help cooper's sensory system so the pic on the left is him in a blanket burrito. Pic on the right is kinder's first time out to a restaurant after potty training! No diaper (no underwear yet either) and she asked to go to the bathroom when she needed to and we tried going to the bathroom at slim chickens but she was scared of it so we went out in the baby potty in the back of the jeep. I was so proud of her!
family dinner
I thought it was cute that dallin told his brothers that Cooper wanted to roast marshmallows on a fire and Matthew went and got his neighbor's so we could do it. So nice of them. The guys planned out the whole meal it was smash burgers and they were so good! Shelly came with us and kinder had a little accident but luckily it wasn't too messy.
life at home
cosmic bath
dogs giving each other kisses
painting in the basement is so nice because then I don't have to worry about anything getting messy
therapy
We were going to speech, Occupational therapy, feeding therapy, and ABA for a while there and it is a balancing act fitting it all in with school but he likes all of his therapies! and I do think they're helping him a lot! I have seen him working hard and growing and I'm so proud. Now speech is over so it's just the other 3
ABA is at home so that's nice. This is him with is weighted blanket
these are all pics from feeding therapy
OT has a swing that is like a big rectangular board so he calls it the magic carpet
one of the times we had to take kinder with us to speech because I couldn't find child care it was a disaster. I tried having her listen to music and that worked ok but Cooper was very distracted by her
cooper's 5 year dr apt.
I thought it was so cool that we were able to get his height and weight this time! we haven't known since he was 2 because the other 2 times he was petrified of the measuring tools. So he said "I'm strong and brave-i take a deep breath so I can do this." He is amazing!!! 🤩 😍
At the end of the appointment he threw a huge fit. But at least he did well at the beginning and during! lol
let them be little
They love mud. And we are surrounded by mud.
He likes to feel the earth under his feet. I don't fight it anymore because I have become very educated in the sensory processing world and see it like "you're getting the input you need." more mess for me to clean up. but less meltdowns.
doing pushups together and kinder pushing Cooper on the trike
went to 3 job interviews here only to find out it was not going to be a good fit for me 😞 we shall see about me working in the fall.... it may not work out with all the therapy he needs to get to
this was me trying to buy non-skinny jeans..... and they did nothing for me so I swiftly returned lol but I had to send the pics to ppl first to ask.... is this the style now? or are they just too saggy? lol I'm out of the loop now with knowing what's in style
planning out the miss orem opening number. That role has been a lot more time consuming and stressful than it was when I volunteered last year at MB. But I'm still glad I did it- it has been fun- just this time of my life right now has a lot going on
"I want Matthews house"
sleep
He would fall asleep in the weirdest places before we gave in and just let him sleep in our bed. it's much less work for us that way
He loves his sister it's so cute
they loved it!
a lot of the time I take a picture that doesn't make sense its because I'm documenting an outfit choice lol 😂
Meghan Rachel and I went to Selena’s pop-up event for aesthetician stuff in Provo for Valentine’s Day and that was a fun night
children's museum with Kelsey
Kelsey was my roommate at miss Utah! it's so fun to see her and meet her kids after all this time has passed. she is so sweet.
my brief attempt at fitness
and then I fell off the wagon because I wasn't making it back in time since dallin works so early and Cooper wakes up so early. and now I have gotten back on again because I have noticed some major rolls happening lol . its so hard to balance everything right now. But basically I've been trying to run or workout in the morning and we're doing a 10k in July
old school
riding bikes to the old school
ski sticks
dallin left on a business trip and it was hard for Cooper (always is because they are so close) so dallin promised him a present of any kind and Cooper said "I want ski sticks." lol so the ski poles he sees people skiing with. he was very excited.
Dino museum
Nonna's box of surprises!
daily life stuff
brunch with Kim
moms connect at church
so fun! we love smack
valentines day
not my fav year for V-day. kids were sick. dallin was out of town. I was very depleted.
I got the kids matching outfits and I couldn't even get the picture of them wearing it all cute for Valentine’s Day, so Cooper was barely getting over the cold enough to be able to go to school that day and he was excited because he could do the Valentines and what not so he seemed to like it. And then I got a picture of McKinley wearing the shirt Later.
So this was like a week later when I could finally get the picture in the cute matching outfit. So he’s not wearing it, but she is and we went to the dinosaur museum and then I just cut out his picture and hers and put it in a picture together using editing
We had tickets for the Jurassic jungle that day and it didn’t last longer than 30 minutes for us before it got to be overstimulating, but still it was really fun and I’m glad that we have that option with the pass
it was so crowded the last time we went cuz it was Christmas break but this time we had it to ourselves which makes me wonder why we still have to make reservations
They are so cute!
So here’s his picture on the actual Valentine’s Day before school
He was so excited after he got home from school to show me all of his valentines
Thanks to editing, I still got the picture I wanted!
I blew up a couple of times and I had a little bit of guilt over it, but not that much to be honest because I was so depleted and Dallin got me flowers and gave me a little break and then I was good as new
It is very hard when you feel like it never ends and you never get away or have a break even at night
disney vaca
To watch the dogs for us so that we could go on vacation so these are the pictures that he sent of Sadie and Jake
And then here are the pictures from our vacation. We went to Vegas first and stay the night and then went to California the next day and we went to two days of Disneyland and the plan was that we were gonna drive home as well but by that point we were so depleted that I just flew home with the kids and Dallin just drove straight through home. Needless to say….. it did not go well. Lol
We learned that the kids won’t sweep if they’re not in their own beds and so then all four of us were sleep deprived and cranky, and Disneyland is a very overstimulating place with a lot of crowds and lines and unfamiliar foods
There were a few brief moments that were fun though lol I guess I don’t really regret going… I still think that it was good exposure for the kids and a good experiment for all of us to apply that knowledge to future vacation attempts
We did as well as we could have done in hindsight, so I’m proud of us
Falling asleep during the day because of not sleeping at night
The great wolf lodge
McKinley loved the chip and dale ride and cooper was scared of all the rides so I think Winnie the Pooh was his fav because nothing abrupt or fast happens
Swimming!
I have never been that tired in all my life. And I was bugged by how crowded it was and how far they make u park the stroller from things and then how they move it and u can’t find it. We paid an exorbitant amount of money for a dinner that was just so so specifically so that we could have prime seating to a certain show that night only for them to cancel the show right when it was supposed to start and then they funnel the crowd of that whole show in a certain direction so we were walking away from where our stroller was parked, but they wouldn’t let us go toward our stroller so we had to walk like 6 miles around the stupid park carrying the kids way after bedtime and didn’t get the show and just went home mad
Arcade at the great wolf lodge
Ice cream!
this was in the Vegas hotel we just checked in and then went to the food court area of the hotel only to discover there is nothing the kids will eat
The drive was actually not that bad. There was a bout of screaming, hitting, kicking and throwing things ….. but it was probly only 45 mins
this was a pit stop
we did the whole drive screen free. Cooper gets carsick if you let him watch he barfs.
she was falling asleep but saying she wasn't tired. Been there.
All of us were so glad to be home. I’ve never valued our house more in my life lol
She screamed (literally a 10/10 tantrum) the entire time from Dallin dropping us off at the airport through security and all the way to the gate. It was so bad random strangers were asking if they could help me. (Happened like 4 different times) I was balancing her car seat on top of the double stroller while pushing it and didn’t bring anything other than my backpack because Dallin took all of our luggage with him in the car home so then once we got home we just got an uber and cooper just didn’t have a booster seat. This picture is once she finally calmed down. 😱
This was us doing nothing and waiting around for an hour to see the show that we didn’t even end up seeing
We were both vowing to never go back to Disney land the whole time we were there lol
the kids were so zonked out people were laughing as we passed
the "sleep" situation..... aka none whatsoever
Cooper cried the whole pirates of the Caribbean ride. that was traumatic for him I guess because he went back to school the next week telling everybody there were pirates trying to kill us on our trip lol they were like jeez what did you guys do?! 😂
I do not even want to know how much $ we spent on this trip... 😳
I was underwhelmed by the whole thing thinking “so this is supposed to be magical?” And Dallins response to the castle was “…..oh that’s it? I thought it would be bigger or cooler like we could go inside or something…”
when we saw Captain Hook we said hey Cooper its Captain Hook wanna go over there and say hi? (because he plays Captain Hook and Peter Pan a lot at home) Mckinley grabbed his arm and said "NO! don't go!!" lol and he was on the same page with her- scared and bewildered "what is he doing here?!" lol
I was flabbergasted by fully grown adults chasing down characters like their life depended on it to get a picture with them. Or adults wanting to wait in a line to go on a childish ride completely by themselves… weird.
We walked around for an unreasonable amount of time just trying to find the dang door to even get in to Disney the first day lol 🤦🏽♀️
I don’t think these pics show the amount of meltdowns there were….. thousands… millions maybe lol
This was our reaction to the thought that we did it all for what felt like eons of time (2 days) and still had 2 more days to go like this lol 😂 😱🤯😅😳 These are the moments you're thinkin "I need a vacation from this vacation."
so here we are thinking Disney land will be the main event (HAH! Rookie mistake.) ........ but in reality..... all Cooper wanted was the Statue of Liberty. (If you know him- you know is enthusiasm for the Statue of Liberty. his new preschool teacher said, "there was a poster of the Statue of Liberty in the hall and Cooper started educating all of us all about everything about the Statue of Liberty. I have never seen a preschooler do that in all my years teaching!" lol) So naturally when we passed it he was very mad that we didn't stop and climb it and go up the stairs and take a tour and all the things he knows you can do at the actual Statue of Liberty.... not the one in Vegas. so he gazed up at it in wonder and awe until the traffic light changed and we drove away while he screamed "NOOOOOOOO!" reaching for it (much like that scene in Star Wars lol) It's in the video compilation... you should watch it.
When we were trying to go to the food section of the hotel we had to pass through all the slot machines. He was so mad we wouldn't let him play the games. He thought it was like an arcade (similar I can totally see his point). When we were talking about food he was looking at a plant and by the time we were getting our food we noticed he didn't have one of his shoes. We said where is your other shoe? and he said by the tree. and sure enough we went back and there it was!
when we got to Vegas I wanted to keep them away from the smoking and weird stuff of Vegas and do something interactive with them since they've been in the car for 5 hours. So we went to skyline a jump place and it was fun for the first 10 minutes or so...... (that is when these pics were taken) After that mckinley got hit with a coughing attack (probably because she had the cold the week before so the cold was gone but this lingering cough remained. it really only happened when she was breathing hard. All the jumping started it up and then she has a REALLY easy gag reflex. So she proceeded to puke 11 TIMES ALL OVER THE PLACE WALKING IN A TRAIL PUKING. sooooo ya. the workers there hated us.
But the good news is one day when my kids are older they're going to read this and laugh and then their kids will do the same thing to them lol
Lets end this on a positive note, shall we?
one of his many stick creations
the other night we were doing "FAMILY HUGS!!!" where we do a group hug and squeeze and do random fast kisses on all the ppl and it was so cute the kids wanted to keep doing it again and again. Cooper often will say "I love my family!" and they are already both so good at making amends when they fight even tho they're both so young. It's inspiring and heartwarming to think about this environment/family we're creating where you're in a house full of ppl you love being around. And that's the goal for everyone right?? I know for me, I'm lucky.
till next time!
-Sydney (I doubt that I really need to say who wrote this. You think dallin would ever do this? 😜 hah! he won't even text you back! 😝 )
