K - ra

KEARA ELAINE MOORE

If you have read previous posts you would know that Keara recentlyl celebrated her birthday. At 2 she is not terrible, but quite a handful. Recently, her vocabulary and understanding seem to have exploded. She uses all kinds of words and decently put together sentences. When she hears a new word, she'll repeat it and use it a few times in a phrase and then she just logs it away until she finds a use for it. She has also become a copy cat. It could be any random thing you do and she'll observe and then proceed to do the same.

She is still super tiny, at 22 lbs, but long and holding her we can feel she is going to be too heavy to hold all the time like we are used to. Her imagination has also blossomed, with the help of some new toys that encourage it. Her imagination has also spread from helping mommy around the house with different things. She got her sticker chart (she could spend hours playing with 5 stickers) and so therefore has become a great helper.

She loves oatmeal! And sometimes I wonder if she is a hobbit. She will eat cold cereal with me when she first wakes up and then when Cheri gets back from a walk an hour later, she'll have second breakfast and steal Cheri's oatmeal.

I showed her how to have a tea party with her new dish set and now she loves it! All her babies, and piu piu (subbing in for the missing baby with the single blonde locke of hair) always join her. And then afterwards she of course wants to wash and dry them.

One of the greatest things to watch is how she loves her baby sister!!! Her ears are great and so when we are all down stairs, she'll be the first one to hear Taryn waking up and insist we go get her. She has learned to speak for her quite well, informing us what Taryn wants and needs in a matter of fact tone. Though we still have to warn Keara about being gentle we know she can't wait for Taryn to grow up and play with her. Of course we don't think it'll be like Keara imagines it will be. She won't be able to just boss Taryn around telling her what to do. Taryn can be just as stubborn and will probably match Keara in size when that time comes.

T - ryn

TARYN NOELLE MOORE

Her 4 month anniversary having come and gone, she is beginning to develop more and more her own personality, and she lets us know it!

For those of you who haven't had a chance to get to know her. Taryn is quite the talker. At church people comment that she is getting bigger and louder. She likes to talk most when daddy has to hold her while mommy teaches sunday school. She loves smiling and talking face to face with people, though Cheri says she is becoming a mamma's girl. She's about 14 lbs and we know that's not a lot, but when you're used to Keara weighing in at 14 lbs around the year mark, it seems a lot to us. She eats a ton of rice cereal at night and has always taken her meal times very seriously.

She likes her sister well enough, even though Keara can scare her now and then. She also likes to be held upright, when she isn't she will arch her back until you move her. She rolls over from her tummy to her back and best of all...She's a THUMB sucker!!!

Okay, so that's not really a good thing. Pros and cons; she can find her own thumb and calm herself vs she won't take a binkey when she can't find her thumb.

Bring on the rice!

Check out my Slide Show!

Redemption

Keara turned 2 years old on the 28th of March. And Cheri was determined to have a better party (and more importantly a cake) than last year. Plus, it meant a lot more to Keara this year to have friends over.

Artwork courtesy of Sunny and Tauna.

She had about 10-12 friends come over for activities like painting, jewelry making, bean bag tossing, and tie-die shirting. We had a lot of help from Brent and Sunny's family keeping the kids attention at the various activities. Tauna and Chris delayed their leaving just long enough to be a part of it. And Grandma and Granpa Moore also got to be there.

But the important part to this party was to make up for last year's cake. Only a few of you have seen a picture of it, and thankfully fewer of you saw the actual cake...there is a reason for it. I had the genius idea to make a lego cake since that was one of her favorite toys at the time, but we did it last minute, like we do so many things, and didn't have a good frosting or enough. So, this year, with an idea from Chris and some help from Tauna and the internet Cheri put together this beautiful piece...

Inside there is a layer of ice cream and crushed oreos!

I don't know how much Keara fully understood but we do know she got the idea that it was a special day and that she was a reason for it.

Return of the Egg Races!

We had a full house for Easter this year. Brent, Sunny, and their family came over from Denver and Tauna, Chris, and Claire made the trip from LA. And seeing that there was an overwhelmingly Hicken influence present, we made sure to hold the annual After Easter Egg Races!

In front of the Mesa Temple

Had I known this was the case I would have designed an egg more suitable for winning the championship. Instead my orange egg fell apart have way through the race. I think Tauna had something to do with it, she was putting the pressure on me and was determined to win it (I have the battle scars to prove it). Instead while we were busy getting in each others way during the final heat, Brent sped away to victory.

Fortunately we were able to grab some footage of the action. As some f you fellow Demingites will note, it's almost as intense, though more exciting, than the Duck Races.