Family Update

Man, summer is just flying right on by!  I can't believe that it is already August!  We have had a fun summer, although it has felt short between me being in school, our 10 day trip to Colorado, Malea breaking her leg, etc. But with these last few weeks left I'm trying to pack it full of all the last minute fun before it starts to cool down.

Here is a little update about what has been going on:

Malea

This is very late, especially since she is starting pre-school again in like 3 weeks, but I couldn't help but post these cute pics from her last week of pre-school back in May.  Teacher Lynda is so awesome and we are so excited for Malea to go to pre-school for another year (and then Kindergarten....I can't even fathom that yet.....).  For the end of school they got to do a fun little water day.  We took her teacher a potted plant (that Malea painted) and a gift card as a thank you for a great year. 

Malea got her walking cast on the 31st, which has been sooo much better!  She can get around on her own now and doesn't depend on us to do everything for her.  We've actually been able to go to 7 peaks a couple of times, go to the park, etc.  The trick is trying to keep her cast free of sand, grass, bark, etc. ;)  

She just seems so grown up lately.  She is very talkative and asks A LOT of questions, the most common one being "why?"  I try to be patient with it though and explain things the best I can, because I figure that she will learn the most that way.  Sometimes her questions will be real doozy's, like the other day when she asked how the stars and planets were made (?).  She also has a very vivid imagination, which is great but is also the source of a lot of fears.  She has been having trouble sleeping lately, probably with no help from having a big bulky cast on her leg, so hopefully that will improve when she gets it off in a couple of weeks. One of the cutest things she has started doing lately is singing along to things, like movies, tv shows, etc.  We have the movie "Lion King" in the DVD player right now in our van and she loves singing along.  She will even tell you to stop singing if you try to sing too. :)  She has also started showing interest in learning her letters, which has been fun especially since that will be the main focus of pre-school this year.  She has even started practicing writing some of the letters on her magnadoodle.   

Isaac

Isaac is just as busy as ever!  He sure keeps us on our toes but he is so much fun. I can't believe he's going to be 2 in a month! He has really been progressing with his speech and has become a lot more communicative in the last couple of months.  Its hard to remember all the words he says, but here's a few that I could think of: Mama, Dada, Mommy, Daddy, hot, uh-uh, oww, uh-oh, this, that, what's this, what's that, and he does a lot of animal sounds.  He understands most of what we say though, which is good.  He also knows where most of his body parts are and will point to them ("Where's your head? belly? feet? etc").  I got him on video the other day "talking", which is basically just saying "dee doo doo dee doo doo" over and over but trying to sound like a big boy.  I will try and post it if I can figure it out. :)  He has also started doing the cutest thing, which I have been trying to get on video but to no avail, where he will show you something like a toy or a stuffed animal and then tilt his head to the side and say "awww"....oh my gosh its the cutest thing!  I hope I can get catch it on video soon.  He is very in to "Cars" cars, trains, tractors, etc.  If we are driving in the car and you hear him start to scream/squeal, it means that he sees either some kind of farm animal or a truck, train, tractor, etc.  He is still a crazy climber, and never ceases to amaze me when we are at a playground with his amazing balance and coordination.  I'm starting to wonder if he should be a gymnast someday!

I love this boy's smile!

 

Hanging out at Gma Vicki's (with his wild curls pre-haircut)

  

Silly kids

Us

Well we have been spending a lot of our crazy summer on the house hunt, which has been fun, exciting, stressful, frustrating, all wrapped in to one big ball of fun!  I think we have finally found the winner, and (if everything goes according to plan) we will be closing on August 18th (yay!). The house is in Springville, less than 5 minutes from my mom and probably only 10 minutes to the nearest Cafe Rio (what else do you need? ;)).  There are still a couple of things we are waiting to hear back on with the sellers, but its looking pretty good!  The house we want is a little bit of a fixer-upper, but we don't even care because we are just excited to have something of our own.  I will do a whole separate post about the house once everything is finalized. :)

For the 4th of July we went to the Grand Parade in Provo in the morning (which was important not to miss since we were out of town for the Art City Days parade back in June).  After the parade we went over to my mom's to swim and to eat food, and we made the traditional American flag cake.  Then we took the kids that night to watch the Stadium of Fire fireworks from the MTC field.  We decided that we probably won't be doing that again any time soon, because not only was it hard to keep track of the kids (mostly Isaac) in that big crowded field while we waited, but the traffic getting home was absolutely horrendous!

I love this picture of Isaac (I wish it wasn't blurry though :/)

 Keith chasing around Isaac who didn't want to stay put (as usual)

  That's it for now from the Walker clan!