Happy Fourth Birthday, Micah!

For Micah's fourth birthday we went to the Loveland Living Planet Aquarium located here in Draper. We were a little afraid we might have a hassle getting caught in traffic because a couple days before Ted Cruz's campaign had announced they were holding a rally at a school right down the street from here, but by the time we got there the rally had already started and the traffic had died down and didn't affect us.

My favorite was watching the penguins, they are quick swimmers!

Micah and Camden both say their favorite was the sharks.

Afterwards we went back to our house which is a quick under ten minute drive for lunch and an aquatic themed ice cream cake. Micah fell asleep in the late afternoon the day before and slept until 6:00 pm, which means he didn't want to go to sleep and he ended up staying up until 11:00 pm with me and helped me make his cake.

When I asked him a few weeks ago what he wanted to do for his birthday (like where we should go to celebrate) he said he wanted to put together a ride on backhoe and that he wanted a backhoe for his birthday. So I found him a ride on frontloader (close enough right?) and after we had cake grandpa and Dad helped put it together for him. Well, after everyone except Micah had cake. That evening I asked Micah how he liked his cake and he said sadly, "Good, except I didn't get to eat any." He had run off to play with his new toys and hadn't gotten any cake! Luckily we had leftovers so I got him some before he went to bed.

Micah at four is such a sweet little boy. He loves to tell people he loves them. He is all about trucks, and a little less about anything else that moves like planes, rockets, and trains. Camden has recently started to like playing dinosaurs, but Micah still just loves his trucks. 

I didn't want to rush him with potty training, so even though I started potty training a couple times in the past year, I backed off if he resisted. So he didn't actually get potty trained until a few months ago when he randomly told me one evening he needed to go pee on the potty, and then said the same thing the next morning again. He still had accidents, but it was a lot nicer than having to force him to to do it and he's doing pretty well going on his own now.

We just put up a bunk bed in his room in anticipation of Camden coming in to share a room a little while after the new baby is born. He likes his new big twin size bed (he was in a toddler bed before, which now Camden sleeps in in his own room, until the baby comes). He does home preschool where one of my friends and I switch off teaching them, focusing on a letter of the week. He's not super interested in his letters but he has started to learn some of them. He always says his favorite part of preschool is playtime when he just gets to play with his friend and the toys.

Julia's class celebrated the 120th day of school because 120 is a counting goal for the first graders (and these first graders can do it in English and Chinese).

I call this the Grandpa Wheat affect:

Julia dresses up like she is 120. I wanted to do her hair in a bun but she is currently anti me doing anything with her hair, even wearing a headband or a bow is too much to ask :) But she really likes to brush her hair while looking in the mirror and likes her short hair.

Another day she was supposed to dress up like a book character. She is a fairy from a Rainbow Magic book. She chose the fairy herself and chose what to wear to make herself look like the fairy. She was into the details like rolled up cuffs and rolled up pants and a belt.

It is starting to warm up- Hallelujah! I've felt like I've been stuck indoors all winter because apparently me being pregnant makes me not like the cold at all so I never went outside unless I had to. I took the boys to a small wetland preserve that is less than a mile from our house. All the plants were still dead, but the ducks were there!

Camden loves doing puzzles. He also loves me to take his picture or video (and give me a cheesy smile) and then have me show the picture or video to him.  He talks so much lately and it reminds me a lot of Julia at that age. I'm constantly thinking how adorable he is with all that he says.

We were looking at this book the other day and I pointed to the milk and asked Micah and Camden what it was. They both said at the same time, "Horchata!"

They all three love books. This week was literacy week at Julia's school and they had a competition to see which class could read the most minutes each day in each grade level. Julia was reading for two hours a day. She read a few Rainbow Magic books, an American Girl book, some other random mermaid book, and a whole lot of Harry Potter. She is currently on the fifth Harry Potter book, which is like 800 pages long so she had lots of reading to do there. She was extra motivated to read this week, but on a normal weekday she will still read for 1/2 hour-1 hour before she goes to bed and occasional all afternoon after school if she is really into a book. Her class won one day out of the five days of the competition (there are four 1st grade classes, so I guess it was good for more classes to be able to win the prize- donuts!)

Zoo

We went to the zoo on Friday with Robert. Our zoo passes are going to expire next month, and Robert had still never been to the zoo with us. In fact, he's never been to the zoo in Salt Lake City and doesn't remember the last time he went to a zoo. So even though it's busy season, he took the morning off and join us on a beautiful Friday at the zoo.

They have a baby giraffe! Willow was born less than 2 months ago, and is just getting her chance at be outside these past couple weeks that the weather has been warmer.

Hill Air Force Base Museum

The Zoo

A random morning moment, Dad was playing a video game on his tablet and the boys were both crowded around to see what was going on.

 One afternoon after school we went to the zoo. It wasn't crowded and it often felt like we were the only ones there. Some of the animals were less active, but some were very much active. The polar bear was the happiest I've ever seen her.

President's Day Weekend

We went to the Provo City Center Temple Open House. The kids were not quite as excited for this open house (actually Camden was excited still) and this is the third temple open house we have been to in the past yearish. So I reminded them that it is a privilege to be able to see inside a temple and that I had only been to one temple open house when I was growing up.

We also went to see a new IMAX 3D movie at the planetarium, National Parks Adventure. Micah started off the movie by spilling a large soda all over the floor, but then he spent the rest of the movie on Grandpa Sandberg's lap eating popcorn. He kept taking off his glasses to see what it looked like without them. Camden on the other hand sat in his chair with his lemonade and popcorn and was mesmerized by the movie. He never once tried to take off his glasses during the show.

Julia and I went to the Norman Rockwell Exhibit at the BYU Museum of Art. Julia's school has an original Normal Rockwell hanging in their school library so I thought Julia would like to see some more art by the same artist. The painting is of Ichabod Crane and Rockwell painted two versions of it, a later more detailed version that the school has and an earlier less detailed one that was on display at the exhibit. The explanation next to the painting talked about Julia's school and how the students had acquired it!

Midway Ice Castle

We went to the Midway Ice Castle this year. These pictures make it look like it was really cold, and maybe it was, but we prepared in our snow clothes.

It was fun to look around and find all the hidden tunnels

Cute family picture? The kids started to get grumpy at the end. We couldn't get Micah and Camden to stand and you can see by Julia's expression she was done.

We stayed long enough to see the lights on.

January

On Dia de los Reyes on January 6 we went out to my parent's house and ate rosca de reyes. Julia found two baby Jesus's in her slice and Camden found one, which he promptly stuck in his chicken nugget and called it a boat.

Julia has been sick a couple times and had to stay home from school.

Camden was not sick but wanted all the extra attention that comes with sitting on the couch all day.

Julia catches up on homework

Camden loves to color

Little boy feet in my bed

These guys have the cheesiest smiles.

Painting with dissolved epsom salts.

their dried paintings