Cousin Sonya!

Sonya's here! The whole Arp family came for Christmas break...but because of the snow and crazy season times, I've only managed to get pictures of Sonya :) Simone is also here and as cute as can be, and of course Nichole and Nathan (they're cute too). But Alex and Sonya really hit it off this time, they're right at the perfect age to really play together. Nathan is an AMAZING uncle, and he played in the snow with them and Jodi's little boy Owen...they're favorite activity was being pulled on the sled!

Sonya's on the front, Al in the middle, and Owen hanging on for dear life on the back :)

Alex Picks Up and Lydia on the Move

Here is Lydia on the move! She is quite the scooter now and is very happy about it. But being on the move, Alex's toys are now within her reach. Today, Alex got upset that Lydia had scooted over and was gumming his play tools. When he was informed that he should pick up his toys if he didn't want Lydia to play with them, he promptly picked up everything in the family room!
The other night, Alex had a late bedtime, so dad cut the Christmas story a little short. Alex went to sleep but was up a few minutes later. When dad went to get him, he said, "Hey! You didn't finish the Christmas story!" Nothing gets by Alex!
Alex also thinks that Santa makes the best angel in the nativity scene and that the 3 wisemen brought gold and Frankenstein for the baby Jesus.

quilt

Lydia is officially crawling now! I was going to get a picture of her actually crawling, but she's asleep right now and you never never never wake a sleeping baby! And when she's up, because she's crawling, I don't get the chance to write on the blog!
And the next part is for Jenn, but the rest of you can read it too! the pictures below are of the quilt I finished (finally!) ACtually, it's not totally finished...but it will work until I get the chance. It's on our fireplace, which doesn't work anymore. We decided to make it a sitting area, it's right next to the kids play area and if we didn't put something soft on it it would be just a matter of time before the sharp brick edge causes stitches. Dave said I could just whip up a quilt :) I like his confidence in me. And I'm glad it looks christmasy, but it will be up all year long.

Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving! Dave's little sister Michelle and her husband Daniel came to visit from Texas, so we spent a lot of good quality Mauger-time. Of course we ate a ton of food, and we even had a beautifully delicious breakfast with mom and dad Rozeski that morning, just to fit a few more things into our growing bellies.
Just our little family took an amazing trip to Casa Bonita. They had all the lights up for Christmas, it was amazing!


This is the usualy picture of me acting like everything is happy while the kids are barely hanging in there...they're not very good with pictures :)
We also took Daniel, Michelle, Jaynie & Gary to see Dad's firetrucks. Alex tried to show them the ropes, but no one can beat Papa Ed talking about his firetrucks. We were there for a couple hours and they were giving the GRAND tour!
Daniel was the only one brave enough to try on the bunker gear, with oxygen mask and he even tried to fireman carry Michelle. She was trying to be dead weight here :)
That's about it! Pretty slow but peaceful thanksgiving. I didn't do any cooking, so I'm pretty grateful for that! Oh, and we caught the mouse (before the company came) and Alex is even starting to feel better (he's been really sick for about a month). So we are very grateful for MANY things :) Happy thanksgiving everyone!

Mice

I want to tell you a quick story about Al. WARNING!!!!! This might give you the willies or just gross you out...read at your own risk! We just recently watched Ratatouille, about a mouse in a kitchen, and Alex likes mice now. Well, I found out we have a little visitor in our home! Yup, a mouse. He's really small and very smart. We put traps around and caught him that day, but just on the back leg. He wasn't dead so Dave decided to take him out and "finish the job". I don't think he really thought it through because as soon as he let him loose the mouse of course scurried away into the wood pile. Dave came in saying he was really fast and went to the wood pile to die. Guess what? I found him in our house the very next day!!! He was peaking over the couch.
So, last night we decided we'd find out where his home was and put poison in there...we're getting desperate. We found his home but couldn't find the mouse. It's an old outlet box that the old owners had all of their cable TV cables coming out of. We don't have cable so we just taped it up and put a couch over it....I guess that was wrong. Anyway, Alex helped us look all night for the mouse, and then he even helped us close the box up properly. We thought he understood that we didn't want the mouse here in the home. But, for prayers last night Alex prayed (the usual thanks for home, grandparents, etc.) and then he thought for a little while and said "please bless the mouse". I guess he thought we just wanted to find it and help it, not kill it.
Poor kid. And since we're pretty sure that Heavenly Father listens to his prayers we're guessing the mouse will now be our permanent pet. rats!

Trivia

Question of the day... What is on Alex?

Here are some clues that he gave me

1. My legs hurt

2. I need to fix my tummy

3. I look like daddy

Here are some clues that I knew

1. He was supposed to be taking a nap

2. He was very quiet for about 10 minutes

3. He played the piano after I heard him get up for a few seconds.

These were my guesses...shaving cream, mayonnaise, the white cream makeup from halloween, Desitin, marshmallow cream, lotion...maybe face lotion, and of course anything that I didn't realize that we had in the house until he actually put it all over his body.

Luckily, he's almost three so he gladly retraced all of his steps for me...it was only on the couch and piano. I'll give you another clue, his carpet in his bedroom won't be getting diaper rash for a very long time. I guess he started with the "rash" on his leg and then decided he could look like Dave when he shaves. He did a good job, nap time was over quickly today :)

Halloween!!!!

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Pretty scary huh? Lydia actually loved her costume, it was totally wet with drool by the end of the night and Alex, as you can see, got into character really well. I'm pretty sure it's the thesbian in Dave that Al has, but he was really good at acting like a scary ghost. He even made Great grandma run in fear (which if you've seen great grandma walk, that's a really large feat!) We carved some pumpkins, and neither Alex or Dave would actually put their hands in the pumpkin guts...where's their spirit? But they turned out well. I hope everyone else had a great halloween and I'm looking forward to all the ghoulish pictures!

quickshots

Alex decided that he needed some "scripture power" this morning. He just kept turning the pages and saying "word of God". It's so weird to me that he knows so much about church things, but I like that it seems so natural to him. Thank goodness for Dave's example!

I also got to see my old roomate Anne!!!! It was so fun to see her again, she was visiting a friend here in Colorado and I picked her up from the airport and had a really late breakfast...maybe more like lunch :) We had fun talking about the past and all of our fun roomies, and what life will be like in the future. She's living my dream of getting her graduate degree in Speech Path...maybe one day!

Georgetown

Dave and I were itching for a little vacation, and after looking through all the travel books we realized that we have a wonderland here in our own Colorado backyard! It was the last weekend for the Georgetown Loop railroad and turned out to be beautiful! Enjoy the picutres!

We even got wet from the steam, the fall colors made it gorgeous and it was perfect weather. We're so lucky!

I can drive!!!!!

I was waiting for a really cute picture of me behind the wheel before I posted this blog, but I rarely look good for long and DAve wasn't fast enough with the camera :) But, I can drive again! IT's been 4 1/2 months and I've only cheated twice :) Not bad huh? We're all very excited, Alex didn't want to come home today after driving to the grocery store, so we didn't! Ah, freedom!













I had a really intense sharing time presentation where our teacher threw away a whole cake that I gave her...if you want the lesson I'll tell you the details later. Anyway, all the primary kids were shocked, some almost cried. I knew the cakes would be thrown away so they didn't really taste that good, and I had Alex help frost and decorate...this one he started eating, with the gross frosting and everything! This also was put in the trash before too long! :)













Alex just wanted a picture with him and Lydia. Man, she's tough! She just lets him hug and cuddle but she only smiles at him from a distance. Dave is doing fantastic, we're all really excited for fall!

Action shot

here she is! She learned how to roll from her back to her front, and is starting to like her belly more and more, she hasn't rolled from belly to back yet, so she does get stuck :)

Moab

Hello!!!!! We just had a fun trip to Moab with the whole Mauger family. We only got a few pictures of Michelle and Daniel (and Michelle's eyes were closed) and then we forgot the camera on the bike rides. So it just looks like it was a vacation with our little family, but really, the whole crew was there!

The first picture was when I was camping and Alex decided to get ready in his bike riding gear (dave's), unfortunately he didn't get to go on many bike rides. The one he went on was in a trailer and Lydia screamed in his ear the whole time...poor kid.

The next is outside of our hotel, which we got to know really well. The heat made us stay outside and play "throw the ice cube" games in the parking lot :) Alex LOVED that!

The last two are on a hike to delicate arch...it's a classic. Al did great and was only carried about halfway, and Lydia could've kept going forever!

I love the last picture except the arch is a little sloped so it looks like Dave and I are leaning to the left. Oh well! just tilt your head!

Kiddos

Every sunday is really hard for Alex and Lydia. Alex never gets a nap and Lydia rarely gets one because she's so stimulated by all the grandparents and surrogate grandparents. After we got home from church they both climbed up onto me and in about 2 minutes this was the scene...poor kiddos. Of course as soon as I started snoozin' they both woke up...darn!
This is an outfit Aunt Linda gave to us, Lydia is now finally big enough for the hat, but she's too long for the outfit, so this was the pair together for the first and last time. Thanks Aunt Linda! While I was cooking dinner Alex kept saying, "Lydia, Lydia, bakersman" I turned around finally and saw this! It's a measuring cup, but I have to admit, it does look like a bakers cap :)

smiles

Yea!!!! We finally captured a couple smiles for everyone! Each day she's smiling more and more, no laughing yet, but we feel it's coming on soon!
Grandparents and parents are the most excited about the smile. Alex really doesn't care, but he's pretty much a ham all the time, so she smiles at him a lot.
This last photo is a full body shot, because she's so darn cute and we thought you folks out there would like to see her fat thighs :) Hope you all are doing well!!!

I don't know where Alex got this cowboy craze but here he is! He puts on a plastic cowboy hat that's about 3 sizes too small, sits on his horse and says "giddy-up" and "ride 'em cowboy!" Those are the only two phrases I know, so he's pretty limited. He is also learning to dress himself, that's why his shirt is on backward. A few more Alexisms... he loves the old church hymn "come thou fount of every blessing", but he calls it "come thou fountain". We're just happy he likes good music! He also really likes Lydia, sometimes a little too much. When he gets really close to her face I say "give her space" and he says "where's space?" and looks around. I guess when you take it literal...he'd love to give it to her, but he doesn't know what or where it is!
Other than proud parent stories, we've got nothing! Life is good here, I'm starting to feel better and Dave is still loving work. Oh, and Lydia slept 6 hours straight last night!!!! Yipeee! We were in heaven!

Baby Blessing

Lydia was blessed on July 1st in our ward. It was really nice to have both grandparents there...it would've been nicer to have all of our family, but summer time is a hard time to get away, as we found out already! We braved the heat to snap a few shots right before we had to run to our various callings. That's why we look so rushed. And Alex is wondering why we're not going straight to nursery - his favorite part of the week :) I hope these pictures make you who haven't seen Lydia want to come and hold this little sweetheart...we'd love to share if you can make it!!!

Baby Lydia

Hi everyone!!! WE've really been trying to take pictures of Lydia, but there's no way we can take as much as we have of Alex. The first picture is her with her ridiculously large pink bow...so girly. I thought it looked so funny I had to take a picture of it.

When I was talking on the phone with Melissa Lydia was crying and Alex went to her crib and took her hand to calm her down...it was so cute I had to take a picture! Sorry Melissa for not giving you 100% attention on the phone! :)

And this last picture is a great shot of what she looks like now. She just turned 1 month on Friday and is starting to get a little chub. She has a little bit of Alex in her, but not completely, we're excited to see her grow.

Other than Lydia and the emergency rooms, we're pretty much the same ol' Maugers. Dave likes his job and wants to go on vacation, and it's getting really hot here in Colorado! Alex is loving summer break having Jaynie and Marty to play with all the time. I can't drive so I love it too! Keep in touch!

I know the pictures might be a bit overwhelming!!! I decided today was a great day to catch everyone up on the Mauger happenings. The first picture is Alex sneaking some fresh baked sugar/cinnamon bread. He has eaten the whole candy coated top already by the time I caught him, and his face was so cute I thought I'd snap a photo :) WE were gonna give those to our friends...oh well.

The second picture is a month early, this was about 2 days ago, so 36 weeks. But, I'm already large and the red dress was there, so here it is! I tried taking a picture from the front to show everyone how skinny I look from the front compared to the side. But, the red dress isn't that flattering and it made me feel fatter than the side picture!!! Impossible? I used to think so too :)

The last three pictures are our home improvements. I painted our bedroom wall red. It only took 2 weeks of texturing and then 5 coats of paint....but it's done! WE love how it turned out. WE feel quite posh now. The big sand pile in our driveway is for Alex's new sandbox. Dave hauled about 35-40 wheelbarrows of sand to the backyard and as you see the finished product it looks magnifique! Alex loves it, and he calls it "my rock". Now Dave is sore, I'm large, and Alex is living happy! Love you guys!

Kendra, Dave, & Al