A new favorite word

Donovan now has a new favorite word, "bed". He loves to jump on our bed and always pulls my hand and says "bed" over and over again until I put him on it (he is a pretty good climber, but our bed sits pretty high). I know it isn't the best thing for our bed, but he has a blast! It is a new fun game that we play daily. We pile our pillows on his head and he giggles like crazy, it's a lot of fun for all of us...until he cries when we make him stop. We have been getting better at reading scriptures and praying as a family every night, so he just jumps on the bed as we read. He is actually pretty good at calming down and folding his arms for the prayer too. The other night we were laughing pretty hard. We asked him to close his eyes, so he had to put his fingers over his eyes so he would keep them closed. It was pretty cute, I wish I would have had my camera for that one. He is growing up so fast and learning so much! He can now say "Lenna"and tries to say "Mason", but it sounds nothing like it. We don't have anything but laundry to do tomorrow, so he is going to have some fun being naked tomorrow! I'll let you know how it goes, you should all be thankful that I don't have my camera because I would probably take some disgusting pictures!

In other news, I am now the Sunbeam teacher! I am actually pretty excited. They have had a hard time with their Sunbeam teachers in the past. They didn't show up every week so the kids had different teachers almost every week and some of them have had a hard time with it. We had an awesome bathroom break before the lesson that took about 20 minutes, I learned my lesson on that one. We usually just have them go into the nursery to use the little bathroom, but the primary president suggested we take a bathroom break so the kids wouldn't have a hard time getting back to class (who would want to come back to Sunbeams after seeing all the toys and snacks?). I will never do that again! We only have one boy (who has to have his grandma in the classroom, otherwise he won't come into class), and three girls, so I took all the girls to the big bathroom and the little boy stayed with his grandma. Twenty or more minutes later, we all got back to the classroom and by the time I got the lesson started, we had three minutes left. It was awesome. I think we will stick with them going one at a time to the nursery.

New favorite word

Donovan's new favorite word is "potty". No, he can't use it, but we did buy one to spark some interest. We will be playing in one room and he will decide he wants to sit on the potty, so he runs to the bathroom saying "potty" over and over again. He can now say "pee pee" and "poo" as well. When we have some time next week we are going to spend a couple of days letting him run around naked so he can figure out his functions and hopefully learn how to hold it in before he can go to the potty. I don't really think he is ready, but I can be optimistic!!

TIVA!!

I forgot to mention that our good friend Tiva got home from her mission while we were in Utah so we got to see her the night before we left. She played soccer on the women's team with me at Iowa Western and I love her to death! This girl is seriously one of the greatest people I know, she is amazing. She is also a fun person to be around and has been a really good friend since the day we found a shopping cart in the parking lot after a training session. Long story, but after that, we were instant friends!! We all love her!! Her dad is from Saudi Arabia and her mom is from Utah, so she wasn't able to join the church until she was 18 because her dad is Muslim and wouldn't allow it. I love both of her parents too though, they are awesome people, she gets her sense of humor from her dad. He is hilarious, and not to sound racist, but the accent makes his jokes even funnier. Love ya T!

sorry...

I apologize for not posting any pictures lately. I don't have any! We still haven't found our camera and Brad doesn't want to get a new one yet so it may be a while. I will try to take some video with our actual video camera this week if I can figure out how to use it. Donovan has been learning a lot lately. He can open just about any door, except our front door, thank goodness! He is starting to play really silly pretend games by himself. He says quite a few words now, and you can understand most of them if you really pay attention! He has surprised us a lot the last few days with some of the words he has been using. Some of them include: "baby", "Addi" (Lenna heard that one), "please", "thank you", "Hannah" (that is one he says almost perfectly now), "hello" (more like "hewo", it used to sound like "whoa"), "ow" (he says this anytime he sees a scratch), "kitty" (or "kee"), and a few others that I can't think of right now. He is still a little ball of energy. If I had half his energy I would have no problem getting through a whole day without feeling exhausted! I don't know if I posted this before, most people have already heard about it, but Donovan loves to sing! Especially at church when someone is trying to give a talk. One week, Brad was gone and it was just Donovan and me so we had to spend some time in the foyer before he calmed down enough to sit in Sacrament Meeting. When we finally sat down, there was only one seat left next to some grumpy old people in our ward, so we sat on one end and they were on the other. Donovan, being the friendly boy he is, took his crayons and markers to their side and was trying to make the grumpy old lady color with him. I know I probably should have controlled him a little better, but he was being really quiet and good! So he starts coloring by himself, after being unable to get her to grasp the marker he was trying to force into her hand, and begins to sing. He got shushed by the grumpy old lady! I almost busted up laughing right in the middle of Sacrament Meeting. I thought it was pretty funny, did she realize he isn't even 2 yet? I remember being at a regional conference where President Monson spoke (he was still a counselor at that time) and reminded everyone that little children have big spirits inside little bodies, so it's hard for them to sit still and keep it all in! Sometimes I have to remind myself of that when I get embarrassed about Donovan's outbursts. He is such a sweet little boy, but he sure can try my patience!! He knows how to push all of my buttons, good and bad. I can't believe he is almost 2 years old!

big boy bed

I don't have any pictures because I lost our camera, but we are attempting to get Donovan to sleep in his converted crib tonight. We will see what happens when he has freedom in the morning. He will probably still jump on his bed!! I decided to do some experimenting today and didn't put him down for a nap...it has been a very long day, not because he was naughty or grumpy, he was actually very pleasant and made me laugh a lot, but because I didn't get my midday break! It's hard to keep an eye on him for that many hours without a break! He has done much better than me without a nap. He is listening to the Wiggles and running and jumping up and down the hallway. Hopefully he will be worn out enough not to notice that he is able to get out of bed when I put him down. Wish us luck!

Too many pictures....

Before we went to Utah on the 1st, we made a trip to the zoo with the Hiatt's (minus Scott) and Hannah. It was actually a while before we went to Utah, but I just found these pictures and they were cute.
Donovan loves to get into my head bands. He thinks he is so funny when he gets them on. I think I was trying to pack and he kept getting into everything so I let him play with one.
Blue Steel.
He spent 20 minutes running across the cushions and jumping off. He is getting very good at jumping off things, but is also very cautious about height...thank goodness!! Hopefully we won't suffer any broken bones until later years.Handsome boy.
When we got to Utah, Donovan and I spent some time in Lehi while Bradley went to Logan for a Hanks' wedding. We went on Donovan's first hike on Friday with my family on Friday morning.
He loved being outside running around. He made me a little nervous a few times, he wasn't very careful around steep edges.
He had to get close to the waterfall.
Grandpa and Faye.
On Saturday we spent some time over at Nate and Kirsta's to celebrate Colin's birthday. He is an adorable little boy and always has a smile...when he isn't tired or hungry.
Donovan helped open presents. It reminded me of Donovan's 1st birthday when Mason helped open Donovan's presents. The three boys are so close in age that they should have a lot of fun together once they get older and get out of the hitting and biting stages and learn how to share.
Kaylee got to open a belated gift from her aunt Hannah. She is so cute.

Messy cupcakes. Kirsta made really cute monkey cupcakes!Cute messy boys!


Later that night we went to Caleb and Heather's to eat, play, and set off fireworks. Donovan loved playing with Hermoine, their kitty.

We played some rounds of snitch pitch and then the boys pretended to play horseshoes.
Donovan loved the sparklers and made me very nervous. I guess it's just a glimpse of the things he will do with fire in the future. He touched the end of it and ended up with blisters the next day.We had one of the Hanks's join us for the festivities. She didn't have anywhere to go for the 4th so she came to play with us!

On Sunday we went over to Brad's friend, Dave's house. I think most of "the boys" were in town for the weekend.

Beck, Dye, Dave, Will, Moss, Silv, Roberts

All the boys and their families. I think Dave and Beck are the only ones not married now.
Donovan loved Dave's sister Lindsay. She is really good with kids.
On Monday we went hiking with Granny and Papa and Caleb's family.
He loved putting his feet in the stream but it was so cold that he would cry and get out for a while before going for more.
We got back from the hike and headed straight to the lake to spend some time with Ben and Dalissa (Roberts), Moss (and his dad), Beck, and Dye. It was a lot of fun. I really like wakeboarding, but I'm not very good at it. I got up every time and got out of the wake twice...but fell immediately after.

Brad did pretty well. He's better than me!

The Moss's also have a wake surfboard. It looked pretty cool, but I didn't even try it. It looked like it was really hard to get up.
You can't tell, but we both got pretty burned.
Playing the piano with Faye. Donovan still doesn't really know what to do with younger kids. He still likes bigger kids.We had a lot of fun, but we were all ready to get home! I don't think we will ever drive again if we don't have to!

No pictures....

We are having way too much fun to have time to download and post pictures. Everyone will have to wait until we get home this weekend. Just know that there are some super awesome pictures coming in a few days. We have stayed very busy!!