Commitment to Excellence Award

So a couple weeks ago Kelvin came home with a huge grin on his face.  I smiled and asked what was going on.  He just kept smiling and told me that he got an award. 

"You got an award? Really? That's great love! What is the award for?"
"It's a Commitment to Excellence Award."
"That's sounds like it was a great award to get."
He then pulls out this 6x8 beautiful glass plaque and shows me.  I gasp because they don't just give out plaques for awards.  Ususally it's a certificate that you get to post in your cubicle.
"Um...Wow....So tell me more about this award."

He then proceeds to tell me that this award is given to someone who has been nominated by students, teachers, and managers and is only given to ONE student...out of about a hundred....all over the country!!!!!!  So basically, out of his entire OLDP class, he was the one to recieve this award.  It is a pretty prestigious award! They even had a ceremony at work for him, and his boss came from Dallas to give it to him personally.  Needless to say I am beeming with pride at my incredible husband.  He is really making a name for himself at Lockheed Martin and I am not surprised.  He is an incredible man.

When I first saw this, after my initial shock, I looked at him and said you love this because of the dragon on the top don't you.  He smiled and just said "yep"!  He thought it was pretty much the coolest thing ever on an award.

 

He also recieved his degree for finishing all his OLDP classes from Drexel.  He's one happy boy!

 

*If you don't already know from previous posts, OLDP is a leadership development program that is hard to get accepted too and they only accept a certain number of people from hundresd of applicants.  When you are accepted you complete a 2 year program that includes Masters level classes and week long training courses twice a year.  You are more likely to be promoted quickly having gone through this training because they teach you what they want in management for the company.

General Conference

Our church has a meeting twice a year where the Church authorities speak to the world called General Conference.  This meeting is broadcast via Internet and Television so those not in direct attendance can still hear the voice of the prophets.  The first Saturday and Sunday of October was that event! 

We look forward to General Conference everytime it comes around.  It's always so inspiring and uplifting and there is always something for everyone.  While we obviously don't get to listen quietly like we used to, we still got enough out of Conference to make it a spiritual weekend.  Kelvin had the fun idea to put up our tent in the house and set the door opening toward the TV so our "tents were toward the temple" like in King Benjamin's time in the Book of Mormon.  We had a lot of fun with it.  I would have put lots of blankets down and such, but it didn't get cleaned out the last time we used it.  Oops!  So we put chairs in there instead.  The kids had a blast, especially Lydia.  They were all sorts of excited about having the tent in our house.  It was a little big for our small apartment so we did end up taking it down after the first session on Sat, but it is still a tradition that Kelvin would like to continue.  I think it's fun so I have no problem with it.  Next time I think I will make sure it's cleaned before conference so we can get super comfy with lots of blankets and pillows.

Jason was not happy because Lydia kept closing the tent door so he wasn't able to see mom and dad.

After we took the tent down, we made a little fort for Lydia so she could watch a movie on the laptop.  It was perfect because she was mostly quiet through conference, was excited about her little fort, and still felt like she was close to us.  It worked out great!

Hawaiian Girl!

One day while we were in Lydia's dresser finding clothes to wear, she spotted her grass skirt that my parents brought back from Hawaii for her a couple years ago.  She immediatly grabbed it and put it on.  Then she went for her lei and ran to the living room and picked out the movie "Lilo and Stitch".  I laughed as I watched this all happen.  So I put on the movie for her and got out my camera.  She didn't disappoint. 

The foot tapping and hand clapping is her imitating the dancers in the beginning of the show.

Concentrating on the moves so she can remember them.

Lall-y

Recently Lydia discovered the movie Wall-E.  As she is learning more and more words and phrases everyday it is so fun to hear her say things.  I love the way kids speak and say things how they can without the full pronunciation or grammer.  It makes my heart happy.  Well, Lydia is definitely in this category of pronouncing things her own way in her sweet voice.  It's so fun to hear and I will definitely miss it when she grows out of this stage. 

Her pronunciation of "Lall-y" with inflection just like on the movie. She also calls M&M's, num-y-num's.  It's great!

She is always playing with her belly button. It's hilarious!

Yes, can still get shy!

 

She is always crawling around the house being a doggy.

The Duo

Jason and Lydia are quite the best of friends.  Usually Jason wakes up before Lydia but then has a bottle and goes back to bed for a little bit.  Lydia is then up and we play for a bit until Jason wakes up.  When she hears him she jumps up and excitedly says "Mommy!!!  It's Jason!  It's Jason, mommy!  I go get him."  She then runs to his room with shouts of "Jason!  Good morning Jason! You sleep well?"  Well, Jason gets all sorts of excited when he hears Lydia calling for him and when he sees her coming to get him.  All morning long he will follow her wherever she goes.  It's so fun to have both kids so close in age.  Trust me, it gets REALLY hard sometimes and quite caotic, but it is still so much fun!  They will be great friends all growing up.  Life is so much fun and exciting with the two munchkins running around.  We love these two more than words!

Hanging out together watching a movie!

Playing around!

I can always count on Lydia to help me feed Jason.  He will always eat when she feeds him and she is always ready to help!

Table Walking

Before Jason could walk on his own, he would walk with us holding his hands.  That gets a little hard on your back bending over while the kiddo was having the time of his life.  So he came up with a different way to be able to walk but not have to rely on us.  It was ingenious really!

He would push this table all over the kitchen.  It was hilarious!

Science Fun!

I've been trying to find things to do with Lydia that will excite her little mind.  I've wanted to do crafts but she has a very short attention span and will only color for about 2 minutes and I mean only 2 min!!!  That girl is very busy so it's been hard to find anything to do.  But last month I was on pinterest and found a great activity that would definitly keep her little mind entertained.  Sure enough it kept her busy for about 30 min which is amazing!  I knew we had found a win/win situation here. 

Simply sprinkle a cake pan with baking soda and then color vinegar with food colors and let them play!  The pin said that you should use a dropper, but I didn't have one so I used a basting brush which worked well.

 

Making all sorts of shapes in the pan.

 Sha had a blast and loved watching it all fiz up and the colors mix together.

 

One of the other projects we were able to do was to make a card for my mom.  She loved tracing her hands to make a flower bouqet!  My mom loved it.

 



Lockheed Martin's Family Day

In September Lockheed Martin had Family Day.  It's the one day that he gets to bring his family to see what he does.  They take weeks preping for it to get all the classified material hidden so they only do it about once every 5 years or so.  This year was actually celebrating the 100th anniversary so it was even more special!  We all got a free backpack with water and it came in handy to collect the free things they were giving away.

It was so good to actually get to see where he has been working.  We went to the Dallas site which Kelvin says is so much cooler than Lufkin.  We saw the vehicles they had made and were being used in the Middle East, prototypes of new rockets in the works, a rocket demo, machines the size of a basketball court, etc.  It was very cool.  What was so great for me was the fact that I actually got to see the cubical that he worked in for a year and a half.  That may not seem like a big deal to most people but I have only ever been able to see where he works from the outside.  I will never be allowed in except on special occations.  There is too much sensitive information there.   So for me to see where he would sit and work was awesome!  Camera's were not allowed in the plant so we took a couple pictures in front of the site.

 

Also that weekend, Jason took his first step and also climbed up stairs for the first time.  It was the funniest thing.  I saw him watch the kids go up the stairs and then he headed toward them.  I knew he was going to try to climb up and so I followed to watch.  Sure enough he started to go up.  I called to Kelvin and grabbed the camera. We got out of his way and let him go on his own. Kelvin stayed behind in case he fell and I got a picture from above.  It was so fun to see him climb a flight of stairs as if it was something that he had done before and was no big deal.



Jason

Jason is 8 months old and you would never know it.  That kid seems so advanced for his age.  Most people have a hard time believing me when I tell them how old he is.  They usually guess about 1 or so.  He is in 9 month clothes and just keeps growing!

He started to walk when he was 7 months and 2 weeks old.  That's a whole week earlier than Lydia!!  CRAZY!!!  I don't know what it is with my kids walking so early but they both have.  I had to post a video of him walking because people didn't believe me when I told them he was. 

He is very thoughtful about things.  You can tell that he takes time to think things out.  When he would take a few steps he would then stop and make sure he had his balance right and then move forward.  Lydia never really walked, she started running and kept moving until the momentum ofher head being in front of the rest of her body was too much and she would topel over.  She was funny that way.  Not Jason!  He will take his time and make sure he gets it right.  Not just in walking, but with everything.

He is very sweet!  He loves to cuddle, give kisses, and really likes to be tickled.  His smiles will melt your heart and he can be selective to whom he smiles if he is unhappy but mostly he give everyone great big smiles.  You can tell he has an amazing spirit about him.  We love this little guy so much and he loves us a lot!  He has been mumbling "mama" for a little while and I was glad to have my name spoken first this time around. 

Life is so much fun with this little guy around.  We are very blessed.

Lydia

Lydia has been growing up so fast I don't know what to do.  She is learning so much and talking really well. 

We potty trained her the week Matt came and she did AWESOME!!  She got it in half a day.  I didn't want to train her yet because I know my child and knew that she would end up getting bored with it and would chose to play rather than stop to go to the bathroom.  After a couple days that's just what happened.  She wanted to play rather than stop so we were cleaning up a few accidents for a couple of days.  It was only bad a couple of times but more annoying because she knew how to do it, she just didn't want to.  But after a week of her hating having wet underwear all the time, she has been just fine.  No accidents since those few days and she is getting tons better at giving me advance notice so she can hold it for a little bit if we aren't right next to a bathroom.

She LOVES the zoo!!!  Especially the alligators and the komodo dragons.  She has loved the alligators since we moved here and talks about them all the time.  She tells me how she wants to go swimming with them.  She also loves seeing the lions, tigers, leopard, and komodo dragons.  Luckily we have a family pass to the zoo and go about once a week sometimes twice.  It is really a pretty good zoo for a small town.

She is so sweet and loving.  While she does run around and make a lot of noise and mess, she is such a sweet girl giving me lots of hugs and kisses and telling me she loves me out of the blue.  We have a fun little banter we do where I will tell her "I love you" and she will say "I love you" back.  Then I will say "I love you more" and she will say "I love you more" back.  Finally I will say "I love you most" and she will again say "I love you most" back to me with lots of hugs and kisses.  I love my little girl.  We have lots of quiet moments together when I sit and hold her and we will talk about the movie she is watching or a toy she has.  I can tell she really responds well to that quiet time together and I love and cherish those moments. 

Lydia is not a huge fan of sugar.  Most kids want sugar all the time but she really doesn't.  Sometimes when I offer her a cookie she will tell me she doesn't want it.  She loves her fruit though.  Strawberries are her favorite and she has just recently discovered oranges and loves those!  Funny thing, when I was pregnant with her, I could not eat enough oranges.  I would eat a giant costco size bag in 3-4 days.  They were my one craving with her.

 

My adorable baby girl!  She is growing up so fast I can't believe it.  She is wearing a dress that her Nana gave to her last year but didn't fit until this year, but has become a favorite of hers.

The roof on our apartment was being replaced and she was facinated by the tools and shingles they were taking up the ladder.  

She has started the dancing and singing everywhere you go phase and I love it!

Unfortunatly this is the only picture we got of Matt while he was here.