Back in Cedar City

We now officially live in Cedar City, Ut. We have not lived in Cedar our entire married life of 6 years. We are so excited to be back close to family and have already had so much fun. We will be in Cedar for a year before we move again for residency. 

We live in a cute 3 bedroom house on the East side of town and we are really enjoying the house and especially this part of town. We are close to many parks, Coal Creek, the creek trail, the library, and Lin's. We have always spent much time outside playing and this location has a lot to offer. 

We are part of the 1st ward and attend church in the "Rock Church" building. Levi knows we go to the rock church and I'm hoping he knows it's still the church of Jesus Christ and not the church of rocks. Levi has told me already that he has friends in nursery and that he likes going to nursery. 

Just about every day after the boys nap when it is the hottest time of day we eat an otter pop or two in the backyard. We also usually have the pool or sprinkler out to cool off in.

Malachi is very attracted to mud. He seems to always find it if there is any to be found. We live next to an empty lot so we have plenty of dirt/mud to play in.

I usually clean when the boys are asleep, but one day I decided to wipe down my bathroom really quick while they were awake. I noticed an odd silence and when I checked on the boys they had gotten out a box of cereal from the pantry and both had their mouths and hands stuffed full. After putting the cereal back I went back to cleaning and few minutes later there was an odd silence again (my boys are usually loud when they play). I found they had snuck the chocolate milk mix from the pantry and were shoving handfuls of mix into their mouths. One boy alone probably would not do it, but put the two together and they egg each other on.

 I then had to sweep, mop, vacuum the little chocolate mix footprints off the carpet and bathe the boys. 

We've learned the creek water is warmest to play in in the evening. I run a few times a week (while pushing the two boys in the jogging stroller) along the creek trail. Often times we've tried to play in the creek in the morning and the water is too cold. The boys love to play at the canyon parks where they can explore and find rocks, sticks and dandelions. Most things they pick up end up floating down the stream in the park where they watch it go down. Levi loves to walk through a dry creek bed and go through the tunnel that goes under the trail. We often follow the creek bed to the river and he pretends we're going on a bear hunt (like the We're Going On A Bear Hunt book).

Malachi loves the rocks around our house. I've found a lot of black widow spiders around the house and have been a little hesitant to let the boys roam and explore around house, but I can't really stop them. I've been trying to get rid of the black widows and have killed a lot, but I'm now noticing baby black widows all round the house. I'm starting to obsess about them, but I guess I have to realize I can't eliminate them and I hope my boys don't get bitten.

Levi is all about having fun. He laughs loud and gets excited easily over simple things. He will even tell me "I'm so excited". He is a fun kid to be around and his joy radiates all around him. And on the flip side, he also gets very grumpy and will growl and scream at me if things don't go his way.
 Levi has begun to say "how come?" all the time. I'll give him an explanation and he will say "how come?" to that too. I've finally started telling him "you tell me" and he likes to give his reason for things.  Another common thing he says is "what will happen?".
I have taught him what it means to obey and he's told me a few times "Sometimes I obey, and sometimes I choose not to obey". 

I absolutely love Levi's run. He has short little steps and his arms flail all about him. Brings a smile to my face every time I see it. He loves running up and down the ditch at my parent's house while he floats his boat down the water.

We were at the canyon park one evening playing in the sand with our sand toys and hauling water from the stream to play with too. When we were cleaning up and getting ready to go I noticed Levi's shorts sitting on the sidewalk. As I asked Levi why his shorts were off I noticed his underwear was on the sidewalk sitting by his shorts. He was bare bummed at the park and we were right in front the pavilion where a big party was going on. He told me his clothes were wet and he did not want to wear them wet. We've since had a talk about not letting people see us without clothes or just in our underwear. He likes to play with the blinds in my bedroom and open and close them and I frequently have to tell him to shut the blinds because I'm not dressed and don't want people to see me in my underwear. I was folding clothes on my bed one day and he shut my window blinds and told me "we don't want people to see you folding clothes" in the same serious concerned tone we use about people seeing us in our underwear. I got a good laugh :)

This morning as I pulled Malachi from his bed I noticed Levi was in the bathroom. I asked Levi what he was up to and his response was "leave mom, Malachi is hungry, go feed him". Levi never tells me to leave so I knew he was up to something he thought I would disapprove. A few minutes later I went back to the bathroom and Levi had the sink clear full of water. (He just learned how to plug up the sink). He was watching the water go down the tiny little drain hole at the top of the sink. He was so excited to see the water go down the drain. He still has a fascination with drains. In fact, we went to the swimming pool yesterday and he spent quite a bit of time peering into the drains that run all around the outside of the pool!

Malachi seems mellow, but it is deceiving because Malachi, just like Levi, is very stubborn. Malachi is able to entertain himself easily and is usually content meandering around checking things out. At the end of the day I often feel like I don't give him as much attention/time as I should because Levi demands my attention and Malachi is content by himself. Poor guy. 

Malachi is a really good eater, but he has become so picky lately that he won't even try most foods I put in front of him.

 He is teething and is working on cutting 4 molars right now.

He will often hand toys to other kids for them to play with. I'm not sure where this came from because Levi always swipes his toys and rarely hands Malachi a toy to play with. 

When Levi is in his room throwing a fit and crying/ screaming it upsets Malachi a bit. Malachi will go over to Levi's door and touch the door and I can tell it distresses Malachi. Oftentimes Malachi will stick his fingers under Levi's door and they will play back and forth under the door.

Malachi is a bit sensitive. If someone (other than me) tells him a stern "no" or to stop doing something he will run away and burst into tears and acts like he got his feelings really hurt. 

One cute thing he has started to do is rub/grab his head any time it gets bumped.
He also jibber jabbers quite a bit. He only says a few words, but he jabbers all the time like he knows exactly what he's saying. I love to hear it!

A couple days after we moved to Cedar, Adrian had to leave for a rotation. He was doing family medicine at the clinic at the Bullfrog Marina at Lake Powell. He did 10 days on, 4 days off, 10 days on. He came back to Cedar during his 4 days off and stayed at Lake Powell the rest of the time. He took my car for the first trip and left me with his tiny eclipse with the two kids. We were very crowded in his tiny car :)

 He got to see mainly urgent care stuff. The thing he did the most was stitches. 

He sent me this picture one day saying he made buddies with the park rangers and they gave keys to the only gym around, which happened to be at the fire station. 

He also spent one day with the coast guard on their boat. They pulled people over in their boats and Adrian said he learned a lot about the rules/regulations of boating.

The owner of the clinic took Adrian for an airplane ride over Lake Powell. The owner was also a pilot instructor and he let Adrian sit in the pilot seat and help fly the plane!! Here's the plane they were in.

Adrian is now convinced that he and I need to get our pilot licenses and a small airplane :)

When Adrian got back from his rotation the boys were like leeches to him. Each one would get very jealous  if Adrian gave attention to the other boy.