At least we know he's listening

A couple of months ago we decided to start Family scripture study with Ladd.  It has proven to be very interesting.  

The first night  I tried to get Ladd excited to read by getting him his own Book of Mormon and telling him how special it was.  We went through the pictures one by one and he seemed very intrigued.  After reading I told him we were going to put his new special book in the drawer next to his bed while he slept.  About 5 minutes after I left his room he started yelling.  "Get it out! Get the book out!"  He told me emphatically to get the book out of his room. I think the picture of Samuel the Lamenite scared him.  I took the book out of his room and placed it on the toy chest outside of his room and walked away.  Not 5 seconds later I heard "Put it in your room!!! Mom, put it in your room!"  

We've continued reading every night (found a copy of the BOM without pictures) trying to do anything to keep his attention on the scriptures including having him pick out words he knows.  Usually they are words like Jesus, Jerusalem, And it came to pass, God, etc.  This is how it went tonight

Doug:"Yea..." 

Ladd yelled out: "Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!!". 

Doug continued: "... and there will be One..." 

Ladd starts singing to the tune of ABC "One, two, three, four..."

Some nights go better than others.

Primary Songs

Ladd LOVES all the primary songs and can be found singing them throughout the day.  The other day while we were at Costco Ladd started BELTING out "I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." The only problem was that was the only line he sang over and over again.  I couldn't stop laughing because everyone was looking at me like "Look at that poor brainwashed child."

Another one of his favorites is "Follow the Prophet".  Sometimes he sings the right words, but most of the time he makes up his own lyrics.  Yesterday the chorus went like this "These are my undies.  These are my undies. These are my undies. I put them on. " I think he's going to be a song writer

Ladd turned 3!!

Ladd hasn't been able to stop talking about his "dirtday" (birthday)  for the last couple of months.  Every time we asked him what he wanted for his birthday all you would say is "popporn & chloclate" so it was pretty easy not to disappoint. 


He wanted cupcakes for his birthday and he helped me make them.  Since his birthday fell on a playgroup day I took advantage of the opportunity to have an impromptu party by bring the cupcakes to the park.  I wish I would have had my video camera with me when all the kids sang him happy birthday.  He was beaming with joy- it was the cutest thing I've ever seen.  The picture below almost captures it, but not quite.   We finished off the night with a trip to the New Hope Cinema Grill sans Ollie (thanks to the Christensen's).  It was a fun little theater where you sit at tables and they serve you dinner during the movie.  We watched "How to Train Your Dragon" which was a little too scary for a 3-year-old, but he loved it all the same. 

Opening Grandma Rae's present

What you may not know about Ladd:

1.He has the sweetest voice I've ever heard and it makes me melt

2. He loves babies and especially his brother

3. He's a master at puzzles

4. He loves dinosaurs

5. He is almost potty-trained

6. He's still taking naps - Hallelujah

7. He loves for his mommy to rock him at night

8. He can run for miles

9. He's not stubborn- we can get him to do almost anything if we act excited enough

10. He loves to go anywhere and asks me every morning where we are going, however he's awful at sitting in a stroller

11. He has a pretty good swing

12. He LOVES ice cream, tomatoes, pizza, chips & salsa, and popsicles

13. He loves all his friends and talks about them all the time

14. He misses his Shamas and might be visiting them soon.

15. His favorite color is Orange

16. His favorite animal is a Lion

17. His favorite show is Diego or Dinosaur Train

18. He's still sleeping and it's 9:15 am- I think he may be sick.

We absolutely LOVE our little Ladd and we are so thankful he's ours! I honestly feel so blessed to be his mother and don't know why I got so lucky.   Happy Birthday little Ladd.

A wonderful Spring

We've had a warmer than normal spring and haven't wasted a single moment of it.  Here are a couple of highlights from the last couple of months.

We went antique shopping in Hopkins one weekend and finished off the night with some yummy ice cream.  

Ladd practicing his usual chokehold love on his favorite brother.  Ollie's not super fond of it, but he's getting use to "tough love".

We have a new favorite loop we love to walk on Sundays by our house.  Recently we've seen frogs, turtles nesting, tons of wild flowers, deer, and we even brought home some ticks one night- and we haven't been back since.

One of the rare occasions that Doug let Ladd's stick be bigger than his.

Ever wondered what the symptoms of Hand Foot Mouth disease and a double-ear infection look like? This was a couple of days before I took him to the doctor and he was still dishing out the love.  And then Ladd picked up HFM  and from the looks of the pictures below his daddy is pretty lucky he didn't get it. We would have had a pretty miserable 2 weeks if my mom hadn't come to visit for a long weekend.

Shama Lene's visit.  

We didn't break out the camera much because the boys weren't feeling too good, but we still enjoyed playing outside and being together. The boys LOVED having their grandma come and can't wait to see here again.

At the end of my mom's visit we drove her down to Omaha.  It was my first car trip with the boys and it was exhausting.  Thankfully I had my mom to entertain them for the 6 hour trip to Omaha, but the way back was a little more stressful. 

 I planned a little outing to the Omaha Zoo before we made the trip back.  It was an awesome zoo and the boys loved it.  I loved that they slept for 3 hours of the trip home!

We loved the orangoutangs.  They were super interactive. 

More fun times outside- Really we can't get enough of it.

Fun-times inside too.  I hope Jocey's and Austin's mommy's don't think I'm too crazy for wrapping our kids up like burritos. I promise they begged me to.

Oh yes and this is from a couple of months ago, but we did a Family Home Evening focused on taking care of the world Heavenly Father created for us. We ended with a service project where we cleaned up the wetlands in our neighborhood.  I could hardly believe that we picked up 5 garbage bags full of litter in the area just behind us in the picture.   The kids were awesome and really did most of the work- especially little Lydia- look at that bag (on the right)!!