Singing Primary Songs!!

Here are some adorable videos.... We sing these songs before going to sleep, and bit by bit I have backed out so that Rychen sings most of it himself. His pronounciation of words is so funny. Risking irreverence, one example is how he says "this is my sacred booty" instead of sacred duty.

"I am a Child of God" song


"I Love to See the Temple"


By the way this makes going to bed all worth it. It's an hour-long process... eat, nurse, brush teeth, change diaper, read scriptures, say goodnight to animals, say prayers, sing songs, a round of "I'm tired," "me too," "okay then roll over and go to sleep please," a few minutes of silence, then "I want talk about amimals," "we'll talk about animals in the morning." "Where mine teddy bear?" okay we forgot teddy bear... "Please rub mine back." "Okay I will rub your back, no more talking, let's go to sleep now."

Catching Up

Alright it's been a while...life is busy but here are some random pictures from the past couple weeks.


Remember that "blasted train set"? Well the rain got the better of it (I'm glad) and the tracks all fell apart, so now we just play with them inside... so Rychen had a lot of fun building train tracks all across these alphabet foam puzzle peices. Yes, Rychen, NOT Rychen Parker. Here's the thriving metropolis:





Also Rychen coloring pictures to send to uncle Peter on his mission:



Here is Rychen P. posing at our favorite farm, in front of hundreds of melons!! We bought probably a dozen cantaloupes that day, and they lasted only a few days!




And last of our random photographs, this is Rychen's vegan pizza creation. He took such pride in it that he took like 8 pictures.

I DO IT ALL BY FELF! Videos

Can I just brag about my brilliant, adorable cutie pie? He does puzzles on his own but what's better is hearing him sing along to Courtney's (Rychen's sister) music. His favorite is the "See me song" but it wasn't available. This video highlights his puzzle abilities more than the singing, so I will try to capture him singing later.

FYI,
The script is: "I need this one. Also. (sings along) This one also. (sings) I do it all by myself!"



(By the way, this is Courtney's song "Sun in Every Skyline," one of my favorites. www.courtneyjonesmusic.com, myspace, itunes, rhapsody, cdbaby.)



Here's another video of him jumping on the trampoline, singing "Teddy bear, teddy bear, turn around. Teddy bear, teddy bear, touch the ground." Awww! I taught this to him because he has a teddy bear that he just LOVES! He usually sleeps with it, but if not, he'll wake up crying and say, "Teddy Bear??!" It's basically the boy equivalent of a doll. Teddy bear does everything with us. He eats food, he sleeps on a pillow, he nurses, and he watches us play. And he even juiced veggies once!

My Little Chu Chi Face!

Oh my gosh I have rediscovered the most hilarious, classic soundtrack song! Does anything compare to these odd characters, the mindless lyrics and cute choreography? Take notice, the husband is trying to kill the wife various ways throughout the song! And my favorite line is "wilts me down like meltedz spudder [melted butter?]"

And Rychen P. LOVES this song! He always asks me to put on "Chu Chi Face."

I met a *celebrity*!

So I went to a temple recommend interview with the stake president, walk through the door, and see this face - I know I've seen this face somewhere! But I didn't know where. The chair next to him was the only empty chair so I sat by him, and he made friendly conversation. So I couldn't hold it in! I asked the dumbest of all dumb questions: "You look so familiar...are you on TV or something?" I really didn't think the answer would be yes! But where do you go from there? He's an actor, but how do I ask him where I've seen him? Well luckily we were in an appropriate context (the stake center) so he said, "You're mormon? You probably know me from The Buttercream Gang." Oh yeah!! It was PETE straight off the Buttercream Gang, how many years later, and dare I say matured past his boyish metabolism.

HOW COOL IS THAT?

So right then and there the Stake pres. comes out to call me into his office. Shoot! I actually said, "Can somebody else go first? I just met a celebrity!" Gosh I am such a dork! I had enough time to say, "What brings you to Monmouth?" and he said something about a company he's working for (no, I don't think it's an acting company in Monmouth, LOL).

So as soon as I got home, I looked him up, and yeah, he has more of a resume than most Feature Films for Families actors. Small stuff, of course, lots of sitcom appearences, including Family Matters which very episode just so happened to be on tonight! It was cool to watch somebody whom I had just met a few days ago in person. Look him up, his name is Michael D. Weathered. And apparently he's in my stake!

New Clothes!

We got some new clothes for fall, but Rychen P. refuses to wear them... He has grown out of all his clothes, so we replaced his entire wardrobe in one fowl swoop. He gives us a hard time every day when we try to get him dressed, whining for "Bubba clothes," which have been donated, so even if he wanted to squeeze into them, he can't! I have to think up all sorts of tricks to get him to wear his new clothes. (This is only one of his many OCD quirks)

Here's a picture of him before church on Sunday, wearing an outfit that a friend gave us. And eating breakfast simultaneously. We tried to get him to do a thumbs-up sign for the camera, but he really doesn't get it! Gosh he looks so grown-up in this picture with his hair like that! (Dad gels it for church, pretty nifty!)

Lehi Nehi

We started reading this "picture scripture" book to Rychen P. a few months ago, and also Grandma Gremlich gave us some church board books. I thought I'd have to push them on him, but Rychen P. loves them! He always asks to read his "Lehi Nehi" book, referring to the picture on the front cover where Nephi builds the boat. (It's so hilarious how he calls it that. It always makes me think of Knee-high stockings. Ha!)

And how convenient that the front cover is of that? Rychen P.'s favorite primary song is Nephi's Courage. So we look at the picture and sing, The lord commanded Nephi to go and build a boat! etc. At the chorus, Rychen joins in. He practically yells this: "I will Go! I will DOOOOOOOO!" with his fist up towards the sky.

I'm so thankful that Rychen has his curiosity about scripture stories already. A couple Sundays ago, he sat while I read the words to an entire Church History board book. Now he recognizes pictures of Joseph Smith. Yay :)

Puzzles, Blocks, & Clifford!

Rychen P. is so into puzzles right now, it's awesome! He can do a 20-30 peice puzzle all by himself, but I can't explain how. Who knows? We sit and watch him, who knows how his brain works? It's all trial and error. We've tried to teach him how to see the straight edges, or how to match up peices of the same picture, but he doesn't get it! He just tries to fit peices in and finds a way--and then MEMORIZES it! The next time he does it, he'll just put the right peice exactly where it needs to go. He's so brillliant.

(p.s. Where are his pants, you ask? I promise I do dress my child. We had just gotten home from the library, where he had a HUGE accident! We had to change him in the car - can we say Yuck! - and it took like 20 wipes to clean up. Ah, the joys of motherhood...)

So this puzzle craze all started with a little book of Spot puzzles a couple months ago, and then a friend gave us this Clifford puzzle (which is very, very worn now). Check out all the Clifford stuff, Rychen P.'s favorite character (he also knows Dora but mostly Map, and Spiderman).

We also bought these blocks for him, which he loves. So this past week he's just been switching off, blocks and puzzle. (It's a new puzzle with like 50 peices, a U.S. map. He doesn't do that one by himself yet.)

Anyway I thought this way funny. This afternoon, Rychen came home from work and got down to do blocks with him. I ended up distracting Rychen P. for ten minutes or so, and Rychen just kept on building. What a cute husband! Here's his brilliant architecture.