Moments in May

I can't believe I didn't post anything last month. Nothing super spectacular happened, but here's some photos from the camera anyway.

We've started giving Jaxon an allowance. It's about ten cents a week, more or less, ha, ha. But he's excited about it and we're doing it mostly to teach him about tithing and how to be money-smart. Never too young for that. He was excited to pay tithing for the first time. :) It was cute seeing him give it to our "obispo".

Don't worry, we accumulate the tithing so he's not paying a penny every week...

And then to top it off, there was a children's story in the Liahona about how one boy's tithing goes towards temple construction, and we were able to go to the Payson Temple open house the next day as a family! Perfect learning opportunity for Jaxon. He loved being able to see "the inside".

Also, with warm weather in full swing, the splash pads have turned on. Violet felt pretty overwhelmed at our first visit to the splash pad this year. She just crawled to the side and laid down.

Jaxon and I were able to go see my "littlest" brother graduate from high school. Finally, all my siblings are done with public school. He was Sterling Scholar in English. So proud of you, Brig!

Sent this picture to Travis while he was on a business trip.  "Miss you, daddy!"

For Memorial Day, we hiked up to Battle Creek Falls. Jaxon was afraid of getting wet, as is obvious from the picture.

More bedtime stories. Violet has these cheesy grins that are to die for. Love it.

Talbot Reunion 2015

Last week we were in Southern California for another fun Talbot family reunion. The weather was wonderful (California in late April is perfect, for weather and crowds!). We rented a house across the street from Disneyland. It was nice not having to pay for parking, and we could watch the fireworks from the front lawn! :)

 

This was Jaxon's second visit to Disneyland and Violet's first. Jaxon's favorite rides were Thunder Mountain (he barely got in) and Winnie the Pooh. Such opposites. :)

Travis is the one in the red shirt, next to Jaxon

I love the green eyes. :)

We spaced out our two days at Disneyland with a day at Mamita's house and a day at the beach. This was Violet's first time in the ocean. She ate so much sand...so much...

Grandparents with all the grandkids

Wrapped around his finger

We all had so much fun! It was a well deserved, and much needed vacation.

Jasmine and Nate's Wedding

Last month, my sister Jasmine got married. It was quite possibly the funnest wedding I've been to. Everything was so beautiful and we were full of laughs. She was the last of my sisters to get married, so that was extra special. We love Nate so much and welcome him to our crazy family with open arms.

Magleby's famous chocolate cake, anyone?

So, since my wedding, it's been a tradition for the siblings to lip-sync and choreograph a dance for the bride and groom. Jasmine is really the dancer of the family and has been the one to choreograph in the past, so we just borrowed a dance off of YouTube. It was great! The song we chose was N'Sync's "It's Gonna Be Me". It was actually pretty close to N'Sync's original dance to this song. It took MONTHS to get down. It was worth it!

This was my favorite part of the dance- the music cut out suddenly and so we improvised and just started singing it and dancing like crazy at the end. We didn't care that everyone was watching our craziness. We were just being kids again.

Coming out of the temple...

Sisters...

Every wedding should be this much fun. :)

Everyday Love

I thought I'd keep track of some of the every day things that go on around here that I'd like to remember, such as, nightly story time with daddy...

Being creative when it's too cold to go outside...

Play dates with friends...

Violet is crawling everywhere and can now climb the stairs (oh boy). She absolutely loves her big brother and loves to climb on top of him. Just touching him will be enough for a giggle most days.

Jaxon knows his Spanish alphabet very well and can now write his name (when he's in the mood). This actually surprised me a bit, considering we've never really practiced that much. Just casually when we're drawing together. He writes it all by himself. For those of you who are wondering, we're focusing on the Spanish alphabet first, since that's his first, and dominant language.

On a typical day, Jaxon can be found playing with these toys:

They are the only toys that he plays with. They are, "Christopher Robin y su familia y amigos". They're this group of Little People/Mega Blocks people that he's named Christopher Robin, Daddy de Christopher Robin, Mama de Christopher Robin, Paco, Granjero Jose, and Girafa (sorry for the lack of accents). If these figures ever get lost, it IS the end of the world. And they can end up in the most random of places...

 Jaxon always joins me for my morning exercises...

And it's usually followed by his favorite story, "Winnie Pooh Recibe el Invierno". He loves it because it has hot chocolate and cake in it.

 I'll often make him some hot chocolate after reading it.

Rapunzel, Rapunzel...

We have been very blessed. :)

Pi Day 2015

I've really come to love Pi Day because it's become a firm tradition that's unique to our family.  This year we invited our friends, the Deckers, over again and ate pizza "pie", followed by dessert pie.  We had Key Lime, Banana Cream, Razzleberry, and a Reeses Pie. So much food. So many leftovers. So many hours of exercising leading up to this very day (and following). So worth it.

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Next year I'll have to think of some fun math activities for the kids to do during the day.

Violet's Lovely Locks

Violet was born with a lot of hair. And it just keeps growing. The other day, Travis was reading to the kids about a girl who donates her hair. He jokingly told Violet that she could probably do that right now if she wanted to. The longest part of her hair touches her shoulder blades. She's now almost 9 months old, and this is her hair in its natural state:

I know it's common for most babies (with enough hair) to have little ponytails, or even pigtails on the top, but this is ridiculous.

This was taken a few weeks ago

Ponytail in the back...

She gets tangles pretty easily, especially in the back. You try detangling an 8 month old's hair. Not fun for anyone. Thank heavens for conditioner.

Cute all around. :)

Valentine's Day 2015

I'm loving how Jaxon's getting old enough to actually remember traditions and get excited for holidays. That makes every holiday extra exciting for me.

Jaxon's name spelled in cookies. Don't worry, we made more than the 4 cookies over in the corner...

We went on a nice family walk, decorated sugar cookies and took them to friends in the ward, and Jaxon made a great Valentine's Day card for Travis. I think he got a little carried away with the scissors, but he needs the practice, so I let him go for it. There was barely a card left to give to daddy. :)

We then had our traditional, candle-lit, lasagna dinner and yummy cheesecake (if I do say so myself) for dessert.

 Seeing how much fun Jaxon has with these traditions just motivates me to think of new ones we can begin while our family is still young. I love it!