Plus 1

In the past month Emmy has made some big transformations. She went from being a baby to being a toddler. She is walking around everywhere and her communication is progressing rapidly. You can now talk to her and she seems to understand you pretty well. This has led to some interesting interactions. Recently Alixa has been trying to get her to say things, so when Emmy will point or sign that she wants something Lix points to her own mouth and says “Say it with your mouth”. Unfortunately, instead of saying it with her mouth Emmy will now make a signal and then sticks her finger in her mouth repeatedly. It is pretty funny.

 And now that Emily has turned one and is leaving so many of her cute baby characteristics behind Lix has once again entered into her baby hungry mode. In a likely-to-fail attempt to steer her off that course Jarom signed off on the adoption of a different new family member, a 1-year old Siamese cat. A family in their old ward moved and couldn’t take her, so she has moved in to the guest room at our house. We are only a week into this little experiment, but it is going pretty well. The first few days she basically wouldn’t go near anyone, which is understandable considering we pulled her out of her home and everyone she knew. She is still a little skittish, but has warmed up to everyone (including the kids). Jenna and Bo decided she should be named Jasmine, but we are lazy and just call her Jazz. She is a very good cat and we think she will fit in quite well here with the rest of the gang.

Summer is off to a great start here. It is hot and sunny, which means hanging out at the pool all the time, but isn’t yet into the 100 degree days of July and August when you don’t want to do anything. Jenna got some tennis lessons from Mimi and Opa and has been enjoying them. I don’t see Wimbledon in her future quite yet, but she has a good time playing and her instructors are a lot of fun. She is also starting swim lessons, and is learning different strokes and techniques this year and is doing really well. It’s like she had a state champion swimmer donate her genetics or something. Bo is also doing swim lessons this year and enjoys them. He is learning to float on his back and learning to kick and hold his breath under water. Emmy isn’t learning to swim yet, but she does enjoy putting floaties on her arms. They are just giant pretty bracelets to her. Lix spends most of her days trying to figure out how to apply sunscreen. This is something that you might imagine she would be good at by now, but it seems like once a week there is a story about forgetting to put it on or not realizing that SPF 5 does nothing or some other brain fart that caused her to burn.

 So stylish

 Emmy sometimes gets tired of watching Dad teach lacrosse

 Lots of pool time makes for a sleepy Bo. You gotta catch z's when you can.

The family took a road trip up to Kansas City over Memorial Day weekend to visit the Rosses and the Calls, some of their favorite people from their time at BYU. It has been about 6 years since the last time they had seen them, so there was a lot of catching up to do. Now the trio of families has 9 kids, so much of the weekend was a zoo. The kids enjoyed the rolling hills and general greenness of KC, and had a great time playing with the other kids and jumping on the trampoline. The parents had a great evening out sans children one evening and everyone got to visit Cabellas for the first time. The kids thought the stuffed animals were the best thing ever. It was basically as good as the zoo, but with a giant gun section. The long drive home didn’t go as smoothly as the ride out, probably because there wasn’t a fun vacation on the end of it. Emmy spent about the last 90 minutes of the drive screaming at everybody, which was awesome.

 Jenna caught a fish (It is in the pic, trust me)

At Cabellas 

Jarom is still doing some private lacrosse coaching with the Ogdens. He has been getting requests from some other kids and parents to expand his client pool. He isn’t interested in doing that right now, but it is nice to know that if he gets fired he can fall back on something. The whole family went to watch one of Zach’s games last week and he scored 3 goals. Every time everyone looked over at Jarom and told him what a good job he was doing with him. I guess Zach doesn’t get any credit.

As payment for his time and expertise, Rob offered to install new lights in the kitchen and family room. Alixa could not have been more excited about this little home improvement. We put in 8 can lights, removed the awful fluorescent light in the middle of the kitchen and replaced it with three hanging island lights. We also got a new chandelier to go over the table. It is all very bright and looks much nicer.

Shortly after the installation was completed Alixa’s parents moved from their apartment in McKinney into a rental home here in Frisco, right next to the FAC. Alixa is very excited about the ability to easily drop the kids off for sleepovers and playdates with Mimi and Opa. Sadly, now that they have more room her parents decided to Indian give their kitchen table that we had been using for the past few years. So some furniture stores were visited and Alixa settled on a table from Costco that she and Jarom assembled. It is very big and not round, so it changes the feel of the kitchen significantly, but we are very happy with it. Now Alixa just wants to paint the cabinets white and she says she will be finished with the kitchen.

 Bo caught a fish too

 

All ready to swim

Lix is doing Whole 30 during June, which basically means she isn’t supposed to eat anything that is processed. It has been challenging because it means she has to cook every meal and can’t grab anything on the go, but she continues to lose weight and keeps getting healthier. Jarom has tried some of the things that she has made and they have all been amazing, even the whipped cauliflower that she used instead of mashed potatoes. She and Jarom also signed up to run a half marathon together in October, which is fun in theory but not so much in practice. They still have another month or two before they have to start really training, which is nice. It’ll be good for Jarom to have a competitive goal though. Alixa wants to break 2 hours and Jarom just wants to be able to beat his wife. Please don’t repeat that last sentence out of context.

 At the color run 5k she ran as a start to her half marathon training