Lego's at Barnes & Noble

Barnes and Noble had a lego building event. It went along with their story time and the release of the Lego Movie. Since Akoy is obsessed, we decided to go! He pretty much loved it! He kept asking to buy all those new big lego sets, but we convinced him to stay with the ones they gave us that were free. The kids loved it. They gave Lily some duplo ones to play with. She felt special.

In his zone. He loves Legos!

Wandering around, being crazy.

Uncle Bryson's Mission Call

A week ago, my little brother Bryson (i know, 2 brysons=confusing) got his mission call. He is still in High School. It is so weird with the date change. Bryson turned 18 last september, so he was itching to put his papers in. I can't believe how fast he got his call. He turned them in and a week and a half later had his call!
He had sooo many girls come over. I didn't even know he liked girls ;) We face timed Brooke and had the whole family together. It was so fun watching Bryson open his call.

He will be serving in Korea! He gets to learn Korean. crazy! We are so proud of him. He is the last of my 5 brothers to go on a mission. He will leave June 11th. Brayden and Bryson will get a couple months together after Braydens mission.

Bryson Gregory was on his way home from Idaho after taking the Bar. We facetimed him. Since he was getting home late we just hung out at my parents. My kids staying up way past their bedtime but I loved hanging out with just my siblings. All the kids just played downstairs. We are so pround of Uncle Bryson {Murdoch}!

Graham 4 Months

Our little "gammy" is 4 months. Lily can't quite say her "R" and it comes out Gammy. It is really cute in her voice. Graham is continuing to grow every day. About once a week we are in awe in how much he has changed.

Weight: 16lbs 10oz-66%
Length: 27.2 in 98%
Head: 42.5- 67%

Neither of my other kids were tall. Maybe Graham will be tall like my brothers! :)

-he had his first double ear infections. they were not welcome! He wouldn't smile and was horrible. He had a cough and runny nose and it was so sad to see him sick. Luckily he seemed to perk up after the medicine kicked in.
-Discovered his fingers. He loves sucking on them. Usually 3 of them, sometimes 2.
-Wears size 3 diapers. He has a history of blowing out. Being on an antibiotic did not help. He was having multiple blow outs. I'm so glad he is off that stuff. Most of poop (sorry TMI) ended up on his clothes but sometimes it would venture on the floor or myself.
-Started to giggle more and more. At first it was more of a grunt. It almost sounded like he was in pain trying to laugh.
-I still haven't got him on a good schedule. He usually has a few naps during the day and one long one in the afternoon. He sleeps really well in the carseat when we are out and about. LOVES being swaddled. He won't sleep without being swaddled. He usually wakes up between 2-4 times a night. I really need to work on that... :) He still sleeps with me a good part of the night. We are slowly getting used to the carseat in the crib. I need to get him out of that as well...
-some of his nick names are, Gammy, bubbles, graham oh graham,
-Started ROLLING OVER a week and a half ago. He can go both ways. Sometimes that dang arm gets in the way but he is totally rolling over. BEFORE 4 months. He started rolling off of an ottoman and luckily I caught him before he fell off.
-Loves all attention. He just lights up when I start talking to him. He will "talk" back to me and just smile so big. Sometimes I feel like he doesn't get enough attention and is just a growth on my hip. I've been trying to be better about giving him attention.
-We seem to get a lot of comments on his 'big eyes' He still needs to grow into them. They usually have a good amount of white on top. Just a curious guy!
-We introduced rice cereal and he loves it. He eats it so well.

He liked tackling the bear

He has crazy eyes

Can you believe he is already growing up so fast?!

Akoy- 4 1/2

Akoy passed his four and a half mark a couple weeks ago. For journal purposes, I wanted to remember a few things about him at this age.

Akoy is absolutely and utterly obsessed with Legos. He liked legos last year but it started growing around his birthday. Slowly it grew more and more. Christmas hit and he got a few more sets, and his own room. BAM, lego central! He likes to build "ships" We probably have at least 20 around the house. Some have guys, some do not. I like looking at each ship, each ship is almost mirror images of each side. If he does one thing, then the other side has to look the same. Just a little OCD about it all... Every once in a while I can't find him, he will always be in his room. I try and make the kids have some quiet time every day. His usually involves Legos. I went and helped in his preschool on Valentines Day, during free time, he played with the teachers legos. I kept trying to get him to play with other learning games, but I wasn't getting very far. He loves his legos. After Bryson finishes the Bar Exam this week, I am hoping we can go see "The Lego Movie" I'm sure Akoy will love it. He loves watching all the different Lego movies on Netflix.  

His reading is getting better by the day. It was so fun to watch him progress and start noticing different things. He gets overwhelmed if there are more then a few sentences on each pages, even though he can read it, he freezes up. "I can't  do it" often is said, until he realized he can. We have made a couple book store trips and we hang out and read a couple books. I bought him the Bob 1st grade sight words set one day. He read all 12 books that first day. I need to look into a library card and start taking him.

Akoy is usually a very good helper. He likes to sing songs to Graham in order to help stop him from crying. Akoy and Lily are definitely siblings. They fight a lot. Akoy gets very upset when lily "reads" a book. Apparently she doesn't know how to read so she can't read books. He is very possessive over his belongings. He does not like to share very much with her. He is a quirky kid. He loves sleeping on the floor. No clue why! He often puts socks on his hands. I think his mind is constantly going and has a hard time calming down and shutting down. One night he put on a beanie, scarf, and a few other things.

We started him in Gymnastics. He has loved it. He has wanted to do it for a long time and we finally caved. Bryson did it growing up and he wanted to be like his dad. He loves going every week and learning new things.

Along with other kids (hopefully!) Akoy loves his screens. Since moving to Utah we have been introduced to TV. The shows just keep coming on! It makes it so hard to turn off the dang tv! ha!  I've tried and been mostly successful taking screens away when he really looses his temper and hits/kicks his sister. Lets be realistic, most kids do that right? Some of his tempers tantrums get loud and aggressive. We are working on that. :)

Overall, he is a great boy. He loves to impress us. He has loved living with Grandma and Grandpa. He has quickly found if mom says no, go ask grandma. Luckily, my mother in law has learned that "no" word. She is still a grandma and likes to make the kids happy. That is okay, after all she is a grandma! They are supposed to be nice!

As I have looked through the last 6 months worth of pictures, I think Akoy has grown out of the selfies phase. I guess he only did that in 2013. After all, that was the word of the year! (for some reason, these pictures are not in order.. oh well)

He was asleep, just opened his eyes in reaction to us putting him on his bed from the floor