St. Patrick's Day

We love celebrating St. Patrick's Day at our house. A couple weeks ago we made and frosted shamrock cookies and made shamrocks to hang by our fireplace.

For family home evening this past Monday we had some friends over for a lesson and then to build leprechaun traps and have Sprite and lime sherbet floats. These have now become Zach's favorite treat. I didn't get a chance to take pictures at this activity.

Yesterday I made the boys some leprechaun hats and beards and we had a gold hunt in the backyard. Caleb's and Zach's faces in the first picture show well how each felt about the costume idea. That beard and hat came off Caleb as fast as possible. They both loved getting to be leprechauns and finding the Rolos and plastic gold in the backyard.

It was a bit windy which didn't work so well with the beard...

This morning the boys woke up to find that in spite of their efforts to trap the leprechauns, those sneaky little guys got up to their usual St. Patrick's Day mischief.

Our pictures were decorated

Footprints were left to show how our cleverly designed traps failed to do their job

The chairs in the kitchen and dining room were tipped over. Zach was especially impressed that one chair ended up on the table. Those little leprechauns are strong for their size.

The milk was turned green:

At least the leprechauns seemed to have had a hole in their gold bag and left chocolate gold at the scenes of their crimes. The boys loved getting to eat chocolate before breakfast.

Caleb was a little slower to get into gathering up the gold we made Zach leave for him. It didn't help that when he was dazed and still waking up Zach kept running up to tell him more about what the leprechauns had done and shoving chocolate into his hands. In the picture below, Caleb is modeling the stickers the leprechauns put on the boys while they were sleeping. The thoughtful little guys wanted to make sure the boys weren't in danger of getting pinched due to the lack of green on their pjs.

A nice display of the gold Caleb gathered...

After exploring and eating chocolate, Zach decided that St. Patrick's Day would not be complete without showing some Irish heritage pride and posting our little flags in the front yard.

Breakfast highlights included the green milk and cinnamon rolls with the icing dyed green. I'd bought Lucky Charms for the occasion but forgot about them until about lunchtime. Oh well.

Since St. Patrick's Day happened to fall on Sunday this year and Zach was in need of a new church shirt, the boys got new green dress shirts to wear for the occasion. These will also double for Easter clothes. Happy St. Patrick's day everyone!

Preschool

Starting in September, Zachary has been going to preschool at a Presbyterian church. All of the preschools around here seem to be at churches or day care facilities. I was really torn with the idea of signing him up for preschool but feel like getting him into this program was really an inspired choice.

Originally I'd planned on doing mom-taught preschool such as Joy School or a co-op because none of my siblings or I attended a professional preschool and made the transition into Kindergarten well enough. The main reason we decided to put Zach in preschool was for the social aspect; and so he wouldn't die of shock being separated from me 5 days a week with Kindergarten next school year.

Zach learns amazingly quick (I swear the kid has a photographic memory) but preferred to play independently of others because then he could play exactly how he wanted to. At play dates he'd go off by himself or would be really clingy to me. Within just a couple of months he's started running off to play with other kids when we get to their houses and sometimes suggests that mommy and Caleb go take naps while he goes to an upcoming play date without us. He goes to primary without being nervous anymore and sits with his class the whole time (he used to come sit back with my class and me more often than not). He's still improving in big group settings and I get so excited now when I see Zach running around with a group of friends at the park or other play date. I love how much more confidence he has since starting preschool!   

Another added perk of preschool is that Zach's speech has really improved. He's had to work a lot harder to not be as lazy speak more clearly in order to be understood by his teachers and classmates.

Zach loves his teachers and classmates. The teachers at preschool are amazing at keeping me updated with Zach's progress. They are also amazingly careful with protecting Zach from anything that could cause a reaction because of his food allergies. I've gotten calls from school to double check ingredients on things they're making in class. If I can keep up with my attempt to catch up on blogging, there will be more posting on field trips and/or holiday parties.

Apparently, this is the best way to pose on your first day of preschool. The blue bag is what each kid was given to carry their things to and from school.

Zach's Latest Hobby

Zachary loves drawing pictures. He has recently taken to finding all the animal words in books and writing them on paper, outside with chalk, or into the Google Images search bar on the iPad. Since he's been doing this for "fun" for awhile now, Zach can spell most animal words from memory. Eric Carle's The Mixed-Up Chameleon has been a hit recently.

The Proper Placement of Stickers

 In case you didn't know, the proper use of stickers is to place as many as you can on your forehead...

...or on your eyes.  Putting them on paper is way too tame for these boys.  

Cute Zach-isms

Zach's become quite the dancer ...

Zach loves to tease us...and climb on the table. It's kinda a never ending battle with him :).

Zach loves to carry around big (for him) things. The bigger the better.

The remote control batteries never stay hidden for long.


Being upside-down is a favorite position for Zach. He puts his head on the ground and butt in the air to let us know he wants us to pull him up by his feet.


Climbing in and behind things...

August Catch Up - Part 2

We celebrated Derrick's 25th birthday. He requested strawberry shortcake made from scratch using the Jones family recipe. This has become a tradition since he's requested it all 3 birthdays we've been married. Melissa and Nate joined us for hanging out and eating dessert. It was a pretty mellow celebration this year.


Zach fell asleep while sitting in his high chair for first (and only) time. What's crazy about this was that the day before I had made a comment to Derrick about how I never thought Zach would do it. I guess fighting me with nap times and transitioning from 2 naps a day to 1 is enough to wear the kid out.


Derrick redesigned the website for CleanTelligent (the company he works for). It was a really fun project for him. To see it go to: http://www.cleantelligent.com/. It's more impressive with a before and after but it still looks good :).

Nate and Melissa moved a couple blocks northeast of us and we spent a lot of time helping them move and clean their apartment. Zach added to the fun by climbing on, getting into, and trying unpack everything.

August Catch Up - Part 1

Derrick finished up his internship with Dish Network and we moved back to UT. Derrick's parents picked us up from my parents' house and helped us get all of our stuff back here. Zach handled the car ride pretty well. It really helped that we took 3 days so we had a break to just play with Grandma and Grandpa Bowen.


While in Grand Junction we got to tour the big dirt hole in the backyard (Derrick's parents are extending their bedroom and adding a basement to their house), go mountain biking (Mom Bowen watched Zach), and go to a wedding reception which led to us leaving Zach's booster seat in the trunk of the car that didn't come with us to Utah :(. More to come on how that worked out okay.

For mountain biking we rode Mary's Loop and Horsethief Bench Loop. It's rated as "intermediate" and was pretty scary/exhilarating at times. It's a hike and bike trail so at the part between the loops we had to carry our bikes down a pretty steep trail. There were great views of the CO river...though most of the time I was focused on not dying :).



After getting back to Utah we realized that we were missing Zach's booster chair. While unpacking, I was walking upstairs and overheard a conversation about a high chair. One guy was asking another if he needed a high chair for his kid. The second guy didn't and the first guy explained that someone in the ward had found a high chair left by the dumpsters and moved it by the laundry building since it was in such good condition. We went to check it out and ended up bringing it home. It was exciting to not have to buy a replacement and the timing was amazing! We cleaned it up and it works great!

Battle Wound

This morning Zach got into a fight with this saucepan and sadly the saucepan won.


It all started with Zach going to play with the pans as usual. The next thing I know there's a loud clang and Zach started screaming. I went to comfort him and found that his big toe was bleeding heavily and his toenail was barely hanging on. I had no idea what to do and blood was getting on everything. It was scary. After slowing the stream and calming Zach down with fruit roll-up stickers, I carried Zach to urgent care because I wanted to make sure it got bandaged up right.

Ten minutes of trying to get a 13 month old to soak his foot in some solution stuff (that ended up everywhere), lots of gauze used in vain attempts to stop the bleeding, jelly foam stuff that did more to stop the bleeding, and lots more gauze later, Zach had a massive bandage on his toe disguised to look like a sock.


It turns out that the pan sliced through Zach's toenail a little down from the tip and at the base so he'll lose the nail. Good news is it should grow back alright. Thankfully Zach's toe didn't seem to bother him since we left the doctor. He's been busy running around, climbing on, and getting into everything.

Utah Trip

During the last week of June, Zach, my mom, and my brother Garrett all drove with me to Provo. We had a great trip but sadly didn't get too many pictures.

Friday (6/26)
Drove to Provo. Zach did surprisingly well. It helped that we had Derrick's netbook so he could watch 3 Baby Signing Times. Melissa and Nate had a yummy dinner for us.


Saturday (6/27)
We visited with my Grandma Eddington for awhile. We didn't time things very well and had a late dinner so Melissa, my mom, and I had to really rush to make it to the Mt. Timpanogos in order to make it to the session for my really good friend Tara who was going through the temple for the first time. I was so glad I could be there for her and also see my old roommates! Here's a picture from the first time Tara and I ever hung out. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship :).


Sunday (6/28)
Lots of meetings in the morning for my calling. I got to go to my ward and it was so good to see so many friends. After church we went up to Sandy and visited with my Jones grandparents.

Monday (6/29)
We met up with my Grandma Eddington and went through the Oquirrh Mountain Temple open house. It's a beautiful temple.

(http://www.ldschurchtemples.com/oquirrhmountain/gallery/images/oquirrh_mountain_lds_mormon_temple27.jpg)

After dinner we went golfing with Melissa, Nate, and Tara. Tara kept talking about how bad she was but she still beat us. It was a pretty close game for everyone though.

Melissa's prego belly. Golf balls make the belly a bit pokey.

Zach liked to help get the balls whether we were done with them or not.

With all Zach's playing he got pretty dirty.

Tara, my mom, Garrett, Zach, me, Melissa, and Nate

Tara and me

Tuesday (6/30)
Garrett watched Zach so I could go visit my friends Ken and Kelsey Ross in the hospital and meet their new son Jared. Later that night I helped put on the R.S. Quarterly Enrichment Meeting. After packing up we drove to Grand Junction and stayed the night at Derrick's parents' house.

Wednesday (7/1)
Zach got to play with Grandpa Bowen and then we headed back to the Boulder area where we had Zach's birthday celebrations.