Dropping off Uncle Sammy and the MTC and Texas Trip

Uncle Sammy and Grandma Cole came to visit, but it wasn't strictly a social call. Uncle Sammy was getting ready to enter the Missionary Training Center in Provo to begin his mission in Philadelphia, PA.  We were thrilled that we got to be there.  Collin and I took them to the Salt Lake Temple while the girls all got to hang out with Aunt Cambrie. Then we did a lot of shopping since Uncle Sammy had been too busy hanging out with friends before he got to Provo to get all of his mission gear. The night before we dropped him off we went to get BBQ. The morning of we pulled Eliza out of school for the drop, which was super brief.  None of the emotional torment of missionaries exit through the right doors and family members out the left doors like when Collin and I went on our missions.  We just pulled up to the curb, took out his luggage, snapped a quick photo and drove out the other end of the driveway. On the way home to make sure that Grandma Cole didn't cry too much Leona lightened the mood by informing us that missionaries poop in their pants which is a common punchline.

Then to further assuage Grandma's grief we made sure she didn't fly home alone.  The girls and I all flew back to Texas with Grandma for spring break.  Collin joined us later. My children were tortured with bluebonnet photos, delighted with cousin time, puzzled while trying to remember which house was our old house (Eliza was finally able to identify it with some hints, but the other two had no clue at all.  It made me sad.).  As soon as we got to Texas we drove down to Houston to visit with friends. We hung out with the Mosses and then went to get frozen yogurt with friends from our old ward (Hulls, Bounds, Mosses, and Heather Jones). Then we headed over to the Dykes' house.  We spent the night there and in the morning went to Phoebe's soccer game before dropping by to visit Miss Margie.  She had little Easter baskets for the girls and was so happy to see them.  Like our old house the girls acted like they didn't recognize her at all which baffles me because we were just there last summer. We had a great time just hanging out with cousins when we got back.  We got to go to Junie's horse riding stable for an Easter event.  Once Collin joined us we also went to the Ft. Worth zoo, visited Grandma Hatch and had a movie night.  It was such a fun trip!

If Mr. T was a Little Girl...

One Last Snowstorm and Tubing

Leona is 3!!!

For Leona's third birthday we decided to have a Valentine's Day Party. She invited her three best buddies, William and Lucy Lewis and Gracie Kuykendall.  We decorated valentines, ate cupcakes, and had a dance party.  It was super fun, just like Leona! It's hard to believe that Leona is already 3 years old, it seems like not long ago she was a small baby who refused to roll over or walk and now she's definitely the most adventurous of the sisters. She runs and jumps and climbs all over everything.  It's also fun to hear more of her thoughts now that she's talking more.  Leona graduated out of speech therapy, which she's a little bit sad about because she really enjoyed her buddy, Kristin coming over to the house and bringing toys that only she could play with.  Leona still has almost a full year of nursery ahead of her though so she gets to be the oldest nursery kid and (hopefully) help out with the younger ones.  Leona is already such a sweet and compassionate child.  She gives sincere, unprompted compliments and apologies and genuinely tries to make others around her happy.  Leona is a true joy to have in our family.

Potty Training

Well we finally pulled the trigger and decided to potty train Leona. Bonnie, Grandma Cole's dog, kindly gave Leona some Anna and Elsa undies for Christmas. Since Collin had a long Christmas vacation we decided to do it while he could help, after all he's gotten off pretty easy with the first two.  Leona picked out some prizes from the dollar bin at Target: socks with donuts on them, a light up wand, a stuffed pink and purple hedgehog, etc.  She actually did a pretty good job catching on, only a few accidents. However Leona did not want to poop in the toilet and followed the example of her biggest sister in simply holding it in for excessive amounts of time.  Since I'm writing this so late I've blocked out exactly how long she held it for but it was around a week give or take a couple of days.  Enter the Firefighter Barbie. this was Leona's main bribe to  poop in the toilet.  After much blood, sweat, and tears on my part... and hers too... she finally earned that Barbie and could not have been happier about it. She told everyone we spoke with that she got a "fighterfighter Barbie for putting poops in the big girl toilet." The most comic part of the potty training process was carrying around the "emergency potty".

We had to carry this guy around everywhere for weeks.  Leona stubbornly refused to use a standard toilet so for about a month we carried this as well as a baggie of Lysol wipes around everywhere we went, including but limited to, into Sacrament meeting.  Don't panic though, we always used it in an actual bathroom stall. We got lots of amused looks from the old people we walked past as we left Sacrament meeting toting the potty.

Fun in the Snow/Hello 2017

Part of our New Year's Eve celebration involved us sharing a talent. Eliza and Clara both drew pictures. Dad played a song on the guitar. My talent was face painting although Clara clearly didn't think my talent was as great as the person (probably Grandpa Cole) who painted the picture in the book that she chose.

Sledding at Rock Canyon was tons of fun, if a little bumpy.  Don't be fooled by Leona's shiner though. She got that from running into the footrest on the recliner, one minute after I said, "Stop running around upstairs, someone is going to get hurt."  It has faded so wasn't so obvious in this photo but Leona actually had TWO black eyes.  The other one she blackened by banging her face into the corner where she was being forced to take a time-out for hitting.  We had to take her to church with two fresh black eyes and have her speech therapist come over with her like that.  I was so worried that someone was going to accuse us of abusing our child when she had actually done it to herself! She was certainly a sad little sight for about a week there. 

I think this is a pretty awesome Olaf, the snowman from the movie Frozen.  I feel like I should mention that in the event that "Frozen Fever" ever fades and isn't referenced daily at our house.

Christmas Break 2016

I'm writing the captions to this post in late September of 2017 so some of the finer details have been lost but I'll hit the highlights.  We had a super fun Christmas with tons of fun visitors from Houston and tons of snow which was a fantastic way to spend our last Christmas in Utah. The Bounds visited us before Christmas and the Mosses visited after Christmas.  Leona, that little morning person, didn't want to be in any of the Christmas morning photos but the other two were happy to oblige.  

The big excitement this year were the scooters waiting next to stockings.  Eliza and Clara have been campaigning since we got to Utah for scooters as they are all the rage but were repeatedly denied. It was a big surprise to wake up and find them.  The other favorite gift was the dollhouse, it's not quite as exciting as the one we borrowed from Auntie Mel last summer but it is still super fun and was fun to discover since it was hiding behind the chair, and was found after most of the gifts had already been unwrapped.

While the Mosses were here we went up to Uncle Scott's old stomping grounds, Heber.  We ice skated on the outdoor rink and rode the Heber Creeper.  The girls did really well on the ice skates.  Clara and Eliza started out with the walkers but by the end they were bother leaving them behind to skate freely.  Leona was probably the biggest shock.  We showed her how to lean over the walker and then she just took off.  She was an animal out there on the ice! Skating all over the place, she reminded me of the way a baby elephant looks when it walks- the snowsuit probably helped with that image. :) All the other skaters were so impressed.  The Heber Creeper is the old timey train that you can ride.  We failed to realize that a night time ride means we wouldn't be able to see any scenery out of the windows but it was still fun.  They had music playing and even a couple live performances thanks to the talented teenagers who run the city of Heber.  The girls & Evelyn especially loved singing along with "Don't Stop Believing" by Journey. I didn't realize how much they loved 80's power ballads.