Dallin's Birthday!

Well, Dallin turned the big 0-1! (Happy Birthday to Dave too!) For those who don't know, Dallin shares a birthday with his uncle. We decided to celebrate with a few friends. We reserved a room in our community center because our apartment is much too small even to have a couple of people come. I made soup, bread and cake. We invited our neighbors the Lees and the Halversons. We had fun. Dallin liked his cake. He really liked having so many people to play with.

Mary Poppins

Last night, in an effort to get Sadie excited about cleaning her room, I suggested that we pretend we were cleaning her room by magic like in Mary Poppins. One minute she was grumpy and refusing to do anything, the next she was a perfectly behaved and willing participant. We proceeded to snap our fingers and "magically" clean her room. She was Jane; I was Mary Poppins; Dallin was Micheal; Steve was Bert. Steve thought we were nutty as I sang "Spoonful of Sugar" and tried to stay in character. Sadie loved it. We had the room clean in about 5 minutes, but she stayed in character the rest of the night. Anytime we called her Sadie she quickly corrected us with, "No, I'm Jane." It was really cute until 5 am I was awakened with a poke on the head . . . "Mary Poppins, I can't sleep."

Jane eventually went to sleep and now she is back to being Sadie. I am just amazed at how well a little play works to achieve some quick work.

Who is who?

There are some clues that can tell you which child is which, but you can definitely tell that they are related! When people ask me who Dallin looks like, I tell them, "His sister!" I know that's not what they are looking for, but it's the truth. I guess that Steve and I just have a good mix of genes.

Puppy Dog!

We did it.
We broke the rules.
We got a puppy, and he is cute.

Dallin has discovered the easiest way to carry things around. He uses his mouth. He carries just about anything this new way. But this is his favorite. He makes us laugh every single day.
We will have to get some videos of his new tricks, but just so you know, he loves to do "Patty-cake" and "Open Shut Them". He also knows how to shake his head "no" (he does it a lot when he is tired).