Claire is 1!

I wanted to take some pictures of Claire to document her turning one.

This was the first picture I got of her. It pretty much sums up how she felt about the whole photo shoot. 

Her favorite thing to do with her shirts these days.

Johnny wanted in on the photo shoot action. He's a cutie pie.

Claire's favorite foods: spaghetti, macaroni and cheese, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, chips, anything sweet or chocolate. Most foods really. (Thankfully).

 Loves: baths, doing whatever her brother is doing, peek-a-boo, singing Patty Cake and Old MacDonald has a farm, and being around people- especially family.

Oh I love this picture. It is a great illustration of the hate part of their love/hate relationship. :)

 

Recent developments: walking (yay!) and babbling nonstop. She knows how to say Mommy, Daddy, what, hi, mama, dada, and she tries to mimic lots of other words she hears.

It's love. Best big brother ever!

 

Claire is such a happy, fun, energetic, lovable girl. It's hard to remember life before her and I wouldn't want to. We are so blessed to have her in our family. WE LOVE YOU, CLAIRE!

Claire's Birthday!

My baby girl turned 1 on March 20th! My how the time flies. We celebrated her birthday with an owl-themed party with family and a few close friends. We had spaghetti for dinner and then pink cupcakes for the guests and I made Claire her own little pink cake to destroy. Whereas I had to shove cake in Johnny's face on his first birthday to get him to try it, Claire had no qualms digging right in.

Johnny was concerned about what she's doing to the cake.

 

She loved the whole experience!

 Happy Birthday Claire!

We sure are lucky you are in our family!

Kid Stories and Updates

Johnny says some of the funniest things. We are always astounded by Johnny's extensive vocabulary and the things he comes up with. And Claire is just the happiest, sweetest little baby. She gets so excited and loves to play games with everyone and be the center of attention. Below is a video of her favorite game to play. She'll usually play with anyone if you start it but her favorite is to play with Daddy. She doesn't laugh as hard for anyone else.

She is so close to walking! She'll take up to 10 steps at a time. She is just SO cautious. She could totally walk everywhere if she just let herself. But you can see her start to think about it and then she'll just sit down and crawl.

We took the kids swimming at the Rec Center and it was a big hit! We had so much fun, I think we're going to make it a weekly thing.

Claire was moved up to a big carseat. I think she's a fan. :)

Valentine's Day balloons with cousin Lola! 

Johnny LOVES the group Pentatonix so we took him to their concert in SLC on February 17th. It was an hour and a half concert and he lasted an hour before it got too loud for him and he wanted to leave. But he loved it and he loves when people ask him about it.

Johnny walked up to my dad and said, "Can I have one drink? I'm not asking for a hundred drinks. Just one, okay."

Another time Johnny walked towards my dad saying, "Daddy. Daddy." My dad responded with, "I'm not your dad. Your dad is downstairs." Johnny responded with, "But you are a dad. You have kids just like Marcus has kids."

 Johnny laid with his head on the couch and his feet on the ottoman and said, "I'm a drawbridge." Grandpa Gilson asked him what a drawbridge does and Johnny replied, "It opens and closes."

 I heard Johnny yell "Help!" from the other room and when I ran in he said, "I was stuck on the couch."

Me: "Oh, really?"

Johnny: "Yeah, like this." He then lays on the arm of the couch and says, "then I wiggled around and got free."

Me: "Oh, I'm so glad!"

Johnny: "Yep! That's my story. It's called the boy who got stuck."

 My niece accidentally scratched my eye a couple weeks ago and so I asked Johnny to kiss it. After he kissed it I said, "Thanks buddy! You're so great." To which he responded, "I know. I'm a good kisser."

 Johnny asked our friend Mani what a bully is.

Mani: "It's when someone is mean to someone else."

Johnny: "ohhh.. so like mommy is a bully..."

(He did retract that statement later and told people I wasn't a bully)

My brother and sister went back up to school in Idaho and he was telling his Gilson grandparents about it. He said he was really sad his Aunt Shelby went back to school and then said, "Sad means you miss someone because they went away. It's okay to be sad. But I can still be happy."

He is wise beyond his years.

Grateful

Over the course of the last week, I have come across two separate blogs about women who are enduring some pretty awful struggles. Ashlee's, (you can read her blog here), husband was murdered by the husband of the woman he was having an affair with, leaving Ashlee a single mother to their 5 children, the youngest being six weeks old when her husband died. Caroline, (you can read her blog here), and her husband Nick had a son who was stillborn at 38 weeks and exactly one year later Nick got into an ATV accident and passed away. Reading these stories makes my heart hurt for them and their struggles. But I read them anyway because they teach me so much. These women are so incredibly strong! They have relied on the Gospel and Jesus Christ to help get them through their extremely difficult times and you can see the hand of God in their lives. I feel my testimony being strengthened when I read their stories and their sacred moments that they share. They remind me how precious life is and how blessed I am to have a wonderful husband by my side and two beautiful, healthy children that I get to spend every day with. I highly recommend reading their stories. It has changed my perspective on life. I find myself often feeling down about things in my life that I have realized are not a big deal at all. I have so much to be grateful for and I am better able to recognize the Lord's tender mercies in my life. May we all strive to find the blessings in our live and the things the bring us true joy!

Setting Goals

As everyone knows, January is a time when everyone sets resolutions for what they'd like to do for the new year. I've been thinking a lot about goals lately as our family is reaching some big milestones this year. So here are my goals that I want to work on this year.

Healthier/More Active: I've been feeling really sluggish and unhealthy the last few months and it's about time I did something about it. I've been really working hard on eating healthier and less the last few weeks and I already feel better. I'm also getting a membership at the Lehi Legacy Rec Center so I can do some Zumba classes with my sister-in-law, go swimming with Marcus and the kids, and just be more active. I'm very excited about this!

Daily Scripture Reading/Journal Writing: I feel these go together because I like to have my journal nearby while I'm reading my scriptures so I can record feelings or thoughts that come to mind when I read. And I also really love the idea of recording this time of our life. The kids do so many cute and funny things and I want to have those things recorded. I had a really great habit of this going over the summer and somehow fell out of it so I'm determined to get back into it.

Make Quality Time with the Kids: The kids and I spend all day at home together. But some days at the end of the day I look back and think that I didn't spend enough quality time with them. They played their toys and watched their shows but I didn't interact with them like I would like. I'm determined to make sure I am involved in playing toys with them or doing activities that they really love. It makes me happy when they're happy.

Graduate from Law School/Get a Job: Okay so really this is Marcus' goal but it is also a family endeavor so it's something we're working on together. This is Marcus' last semester of Law School. He graduates in April and sometimes we can't believe it's almost here. And then a lot of the time we feel like we've been in school forever and it'll never end. But I am so proud of how hard Marcus has worked and I know it will really bless our family. We don't have a job lined up yet but we're starting the application process and we both feel really good that everything will work out. We will get a job and we'll move out of my parent's house to our own place and those are two goals we are very excited about! (Not that we don't love my parents and really appreciate them helping us out by letting us live in the basement. Really- it's been a huge blessing!)

So basically my goals focus around me being a better wife, mother, and person. I'm excited for this year and the growth and change it will bring to our family!

Happy 2014 Everyone!

My Public Service Announcement

Hello all you fellow iPhone lovers out there! I, like many of you, love the handiness of being able to just pull out my phone to snap a quick picture or take a video. It's so handy and awesome. And then posting it to social media couldn't be easier. So here's my public service announcement for all you users out there:

STOP RECORDING VIDEOS WITH YOUR PHONE VERTICAL!

Seriously, stop. Recording videos while holding your phone vertical cuts out most of the picture you are trying to capture. Even if your capturing your cute baby walking so you think you should hold it vertical since that's how they're standing- don't. It's wrong. You always, ALWAYS, hold the phone horizontal. Always. That is the way the iPhones are meant to record videos. I promise, you will get better videos by doing this.

RIGHT

WRONG

Thank you. And you're welcome. (You can thank my father for making this a pet peeve of mine).

Now go record those cute videos we all can't wait to see!

Quilting!

I want to do a post on Christmas morning but while I'm waiting to get those pictures from my dad, I want to talk a little about my newest hobby- quilting! I've started feeling more comfortable sewing and so I've recently completed two quilts ON MY OWN. This is big. Usually my mom does a lot of the work for me. :)

This quilt I made for my best friend of 12 years- Leah. Ten of those years we haven't even lived in the same state. She is awesome. She is always there for me even though we are so far away. I'm so lucky and grateful she is my friend.

Johnny really wanted this to be his quilt. He's pouting hoping I wouldn't take the quilt away to send to Leah.

My dear friend and former college roommate Kate recently had her second baby girl. Kate and Brock are those friends that it doesn't matter how long it's been since we've hung out, when we get together we pick right back up. I love that we have that kind of friendship with them and I hope it never ends.

When she had her first daughter in 2011, I made her the green and pink themed quilt below.

So when baby Norah was born, I knew she needed her own quilt as well. 

I love making quilts- especially for such great friends. Now I want to make some for my family members. Quilting is such a fun hobby!