Our Little Joys

A quick update on the girls:

LiNziE (Lou Lou)

Linzie will be one in 3 weeks. I can't believe how fast this year has gone. She is such a funny girl. She loves to laugh and yell. We sometimes joke that she is a pterodactyl (SP?) because of her pierce screeching yell that she makes when she is happy. She also loves to tease. In church two weeks ago, she stood up to look over the bench and would look at our neighbor boys and then hurry and hide her head behind Jared's shoulder. She would peek out at them and then duck again. She did that for about 1/2 hour and loved every minute of teasing them. Linzie is not quite walking, but can move from one thing to the next with no problem, as long as her finger tips can reach. I think she will be walking any day. Linzie loves food. She will eat anything, and quite a bit of it, if she can feed it to herself. She has recently become very attached to a soft yellow blanket and has started to give hugs. She wasn't a very cuddly baby, but now when we pick her up, she instantly give us a big hug and will rest her head on our shoulder. We can't get enough of her hugs or her super sweet, cheesy smile.

Linzie still only has two teeth, but has learned how to open a container of Gerber puffs with her teeth. She really knows how to put them to good use. Linzie loves Kenzie and Jared. She can't get enough of either of them. Yesterday, she was in her seat at the bar when Jared go home. She heard his voice when he walked though the door and turned around and started to squeal until he came and gave her a hug and a kiss. She always wants to be where Kenzie is and Kenzie is great to let her tag along (we'll see how long that lasts!). Kenzie is also good to let me know when Linzie is doing something she shouldn't. Very great at this stage of life. :)

KeNzIe

Kenzie is growing up so fast. The other day she told someone she was 4. Really, she is 2 going on 4. She is such a loving girl. She insists on giving a kiss and a hug to everyone before she leaves them or before we go to bed. These pictures of her are pretty typical. In one, she is cradling Mary from our nativity set and in the other, she has her doll, Macey, zipped in her coat to keep her warm because Macey also needed to go outside.

We laugh every day at the fun things Kenzie says. She has an incredible sense of logic and is very observant. Like all kids, she is such a sponge. I sometimes just cringe as I hear me coming out of her mouth. She is regularly reminding Jared that he needs a coat before he goes outside. Right now she is in the "why" stage, which really makes you think about things. She wants to know "why" about EVERYTHING!

Kenzie has supersonic ears. She is always quite concerned about loud noises. She hates them! We have to be careful though, because she hears everything. There is no whispering around her. She hears when Jared opens the garage door in the mornings and will get up to watch him leave and then come running into me. Today she came in and told me, "it was calm in my room this morning. The wind wasn't blowing." Yes, the kid hears the wind and worries each night that it will blow. And darn it, we live in Spanish Fork, so most nights and mornings it blows. I was glad it was "calm" this morning, but don't really know where she learned to use that word. I have really got to do better at writing down her funny quotes, because daily there is something that makes us wonder if she really is just 2 1/2.

She loves to talk on the phone and does a pretty good job of carrying on a conversation. She can't get enough of reading books and has really started to have fun with Linzie now that Linz can get around. They like to get in the toy box and laundry basket together. Kenzie will get on her belly and army crawl with Linzie and try to race her. She is a great big sister.

If you ask Kenz what she wants for Christmas, she will say "a titchen" (kitchen). If you ask her what Linz wants, she will say, "Two girls want a titchen. Kenzie and Linzie want titchens." If you ask her what we should get for someone else, she will say a "titchen". That is the only thing she can think that anyone could possibly want! Her new favorite book is the Polar Express. She has a great sense of what is coming up, but everything that has happened in the past happened yesterday.