She is so helpful and just naturally thoughtful. When her daddy mows the lawn she always runs off to get a tall glass of ice water for him. She is so helpful with Kode and Ruby, sometimes a little too helpful. Whenever I need to change Ruby's diaper she says, "Mom can I undo the straps and pull down"?
Lyda is the queen of "owies". Every time she gets any sort of an owie, big or small, she lets everybody know. And she'll take a band-aid with medicine on it please.
She loves to sing and lately loves to whistle. She makes up little songs all the time and she belts out the Reflection song from Mulan with me too. She takes pride in the fact that she can whistle now and I think she's gotten to the point now where she doesn't even realize she's doing it.
Sometimes she wakes up in the middle of the night and she comes to find Steve or I and she just seems uncomfortable about something. Nine times out of ten she just needs to be directed to the potty. We think its pretty funny that she just can't quite get there and back to bed without it being a distressing thing.
Speaking of toilets. . . she is the slowest potty user EVER. I can't tell you how many times I've had to remind her to focus on finishing up and getting out of the bathroom. She sits on that potty and sings and talks and I don't know what else.
When she sees her daddy after work, she runs to him, raises her arms and opens and closes her hands while saying, "uppies daddy, uppies", something she has said since she started talking. He picks her up and she squeezes him tight. And while she's there, she assesses his face and lets him know if he has "roughies" and to go shave or if he is "smoothy".
Lyda loves tickles. Every night she wants tickles on her back before bed. She gets so sad if tickles are not a part of the nightly routine. She smiles so big when we tickle her back, arms and tummy. And she even goes so far as to direct our hands and let us know where she wants us to tickle.
When Lyda is really sleepy and trying to fall asleep, she gently tickles the palms of her hands. My favorite is when she is falling asleep on the potty in the middle of the night and she's tickling her hands. So funny.
We love our sweet 5 year old who is growing up way to fast!
Kode:
This kid keeps us laughing. A few months ago he found his sisters old boots that are a few sizes to big for him still, and he began wearing them all the time. And when I say all the time, I mean to bed even. More than once I have snuck into his room and pulled his boots off while he slept. He lost one of the boots for a few weeks and so he just wore one boot and one flip flop, or whatever shoe was available. There is nothing cooler than those boots. Fortunately they don't look too girly because he wears them everywhere I'll let him, and that includes church.
Kode believes that he is Avatar Aang, and don't you tell him he's not. He is Aang and I am reminded when I accidentally call him Kode. I'll say, "Hey Kode" to which he replies very quickly, "I is Aang", so I correct myself and then proceed with the conversation. He has given everyone in the family an Avatar name. Dad is Sokka, I am Toph, Lyda is Katara, Ruby is the generic water tribe baby, which has been shortened to just water tribe baby, and yes our car is even named Appa after the flying bison. Kode calls us all of these names and he doesn't skip a beat. I will truly be sad when he stops believing he's Aang.
He is also obsessed with super heroes. Super Duper Heroes to be precise. He bring us blankets all the time and wants them tied around his neck so that he can fly around. He also uses a flying stick to get around. This is either the stick from the sliding glass door that we use to lock it, or an attachment to the vacuum cleaner. Steve has also taught him how to stand like a super hero, with his fists on his waist, and to wave like a super hero with one fists on his waist and a very aggressive wave. There are few things cuter than that.
While I don't love that he argues with me, they are pretty funny conversations that we have. For instance, one time he was crying about something silly so I said, "Kode stop crying" and he got mad and said angrily to me, "no, you stop crying". When I try to correct him or tell him not to do something, he almost always flips it around and tell me to not do, fill in the blank. It's hard to discipline when smiling.
Kode is a funny little singer. The songs he knows the best are Twinkle Little Star and Happy Birthday. He is always a step behind everybody else and he rocks back and forth while he sings. It is one of the cutest things I've ever seen.
When he goes to Grandma and Grandpa Crandell's house, he always puts on a pair of blue rubber gloves. I don't know what his obsession is with this, but he always wants them on while he's visiting. I think it all comes back to the super hero thing.
Kode likes to dress himself now. He changes his clothes often throughout the day. For some reason he ends up with his clothes on backwards more often that not. Same with his shoes, ninety percent of the the time he puts his shoes on the wrong feet. The one thing that he purposely puts on backwards is his underwear because the biggest picture is on the back and who wouldn't want that up front where you can see it better.
We joke sometimes that Kode would have made Hitler proud, because he is just such a cute little blonde haired blue eyed little boy. And to top it all off he sometimes speaks like we imagine a little German boy would, "It'sh mine toy". His "s" comes out like an "sh" and he used to speak so slowly, kind of caveman-ish. So one day Steve and I were trying to teach him to say "no" in German. So we were asking him questions that we knew he'd say "no" to and told him to say "nine" instead. So later that night, Steve told him to go sit on the potty before bed to which Kode said, "no". So Steve grabbed the top of his head and turned him to look at him and said, "Do you say no to your dad"? and Kode said in reply, "Nine".
We love our Kode who is so darn stubborn and sensitive and precious all in one package.
Ruby:
Funny, funny baby. Our baby growls. From the moment she gets up in the morning she starts growling at me. Its like we live with a little wild cat or something. She growls when she wakes up, is eating, playing, getting a diaper change, etc. Sometimes we'll growl back and forth at each other. She thinks its a pretty fun game.
She has a mobile above her changing table that plays music. She figured out how to turn the music on. So every time I lay her on her changing table, she'll reach back and try to find a button to turn on the music and then she's happy and can focus on pulling the mobile apart from overhead.
She is the walker assassin lately. She is all over the place in her walker and you better watch out or she'll take out your ankles and man does that hurt. I've gotten to the point where I defend myself with the back of one of my feet cause the bottom of my foot can take more abuse than my poor ankles. She is constantly running into the kids and getting into things that we wish she wouldn't. Her favorite things to destroy are video tapes that are left out and today she figured out how to open the dvd player. Dangerous. Her other favorite place to hang out is the fridge when it is open she hurries over and checks things out.
Ruby is such a happy baby. We've always said that she smiles from head to toe. She is pretty shy too. When people smile at her she hides by burying her face into my shoulder and she pushes her toes into my stomach like she's trying to climb up me. She makes some pretty funny faces, especially when a noise scares her, like the vacuum or dad's car. Her sister loves to make her laugh and when she laughs too hard, she ends up with the hiccups.
She is a little dancer. The moment she hears any sort of music she starts bobbing her head back and forth and tries to move to the music. Whether its the tv, a cd or just somebody singing, her little body starts moving.
Her favorite thing to play with is her brother's hair. Not that I blame her, cause have you seen that kid's hair. The double cowlicks make it go everywhere and it just looks so fun to play with. If he gets his head too close to her she starts grabbing it and squeals with joy. She loves it and it is so funny to watch. He is a good sport about it too.
Right now she is so noisy. She is screaming and squealing and just trying out her little voice. Fortunately she is happy while making these noises, but it sure makes Sacrament Meeting a little difficult.
She is such a good sleeper. Everybody's third child should sleep as well as she does. What a blessing. She goes right to sleep when I put her down and unless she's sick or cutting a tooth, she sleeps all night. And to top it all off, when she wakes up in the morning she usually hangs out happily in her crib for about 30 minutes or so.
We love this baby. Can't believe its almost been a year and we can't imagine life without her.
