Saturday, March 31, 2012

Easter Bunny

Well, you know I had to torture my children by taking them to see the Easter Bunny. As you can see here, Finley was not about to go see that thing. I had to coax her very much, but she finally broke and stood near him. She was petrified!
I love Finley and Channing staring him down here! But look at the girls.....they finally came around and look super cute not crying!

Happy Boy

Well after years of dreaming of a riding lawn mower, Matt finally got his baby! He was more than excited to have a riding mower for our big lot - mowing last year was for the birds!
He hooked up his wagon and made Chloe test out the sturdiness.
Happiness is........

STAYCATION!

Matt had a week off......yes, you heard me correctly.......a week off!!!! Yipee!!! And boy did we ever need time with our man! We decided that we could not do everything that we needed to get done that week, but we were going to spend the week doing lots of fun things with our kiddos! It has been a long year getting settled and we haven't done too many family fun events. So we dedicated this week to the kids! Day 1 of our staycation was Channing's birthday party.

Day 2 was painting the garage! Yes, this was a to do item, but we only had a half a day, so we stayed home.
Day 3: I took Channing to the Dr.'s for her 1 yr. check up (21 lbs) and Matt took the other 4 kiddos to the old house to do some yard work, have a picnic, and go to the park. I got to run some errands as well.
Day 4: We took them to the pool. They had so much fun! They have been wanting to go swimming for a while. And check out the girls' suits! I bought Channing and Finley their suits a couple weeks ago and didn't even realize that the girls had such similar suits. They looked awful cute! I was going to take a picture of them in the pool, but when I got out of the pool, Matt decided not to watch Finley and she was drowning so I had to put the cameras down and jump in and save her - oh yes, she was right in front of the lifeguard! She was only scared for a little bit. We finished the night off with dinner with some friends and then some more friends came over and we had a bomb fire. We love spending time with the Blows and Townsends!
Day 5: Zoo Day! It was an absolutely beautiful day. We had such a relaxing time with our kiddos - they really are quite amazing. Here I am trying to pose the kids in front of the huge sleeping gorilla....it wasn't working out so well!
Harper climbed on absolutely everything he saw. Any rocks, trees, statues, you name it, he scaled it.
Channing loved the giraffe! She kept trying to stick her fingers in his nose. Finley was on lettuce patrol. She would go get a bunch for everyone to fee him - she would not participate. The big kids barely fed them.
The navigators! We just let them take us around the entire zoo. It was really fun having them guide us.
Matt and I laughed that we are watching our kids grow on this statue. We have so many pictures on this lion.
Channing loved the carousel. She laughed and thought it was great......the first time. The second time we went on, she was done. I love watching all their firsts. There is just something so amazing about their little smiles when they experience something new.
Seeing that the big kids didn't care to feed the birds last time, the lone ranger decided that she could do it this time. She did really good. The birds weren't so hungry so they weren't swarming us. We had to go find a bird that would eat some.
Of course Finley was told she was too little to ride alone, so I get suckered into riding the train.......Choo choo!!
They all rode a pony. Finley looked absolutely cute on it! She is so little but acts so much bigger. She is a dynamic child.
Harper kept saying he wanted to go into the lizard place on the map. We have actually never been in here and they really like it. Channing loved watching the fish! She just stood and banged the glass. It was a magnificent day!

Day 6: Fishing, feeding ducks and picnic at the park.
Fifi loved looking for the ducks ;)
Chloe
Carly
Harper - and no one caught a thing!

All in all some great memories and great quality time.

Happy 1st Birthday Cha Cha!

1 Year already?! This sweet angel came to us a year ago and she has been the best blessing! This girl is so sweet, funny and just plain loveable! She has a terrific smile and the best laugh ever! I can't believe she can walk (has been able to for a while now) and is just another person! No more baby!! It makes me so sad how fast they grow the first year. We celebrated with a birthday party at our house. It was fun to have almost everyone here (we missed you Chris, Reilly, Reagan, and Paul). It is so fun celebrating life!

Of course her cousin had to lavish her with some love! It is so cool how cousins work. They may not see each other much, but when the do, they all love each other so much and absolutely love spending time with each other.

Channing loved everyone looking at her and singing happy birthday to her. She had the biggest smile. And she was the very first of our kids to actually "dig" into her cake! No one else got messy, but Channing dug her little paw right in and shoveled it in her mouth.
This is a pic of her cake - with the little paw print in it :)
Holding her still was quite difficult. I really don't have a ton of pictures of the day, but Grandma Kay was able to entertain her for a bit with the balloon!
Opening presents.....it was interesting until she opened the crocs, then she just wanted to walk around and chew on them!
And here she is with shoes in hand, all done doing presents!
And of course, this is what it ends up looking like at the end of any family get together.....everyone, everywhere - I love it!
Happy Birthday Channing Hope~ We love you so much!

Highlights of our Days

My itty bitty girls! These two are so special! I love how Finley takes care of her baby sister. She is so sweet and helpful.
This is what it really looks like when we try to take pictures!!
My Boy - he has a tough job, but he sure is great at taking care of us!
This is what happens when Daddy comes home. He is a human jungle gym and someone ALWAYS gets hurt!
Channing loves to ride in the jeep! She fits perfectly in it and loves when the big kids push her fast. Her laugh is just a belly roar when they give her rides!
My crew!
The kids love sitting in the swing with Channing. She will put her little arms up for them to hold her and swing her. She even puts her head down and enjoys the ride. This swing was a great investment - yes, there are dings in the wall (currently getting patched), but they have a lot of fun on it.
It is serious business when it comes to the Ipad. Harper makes sure Finley knows all the ins an outs!

AHHHHHHHHHHH!

My lovely photographer Harper took this amazing shot. I think it captures the sure essence of my daily life! Yes, I know the blog has been neglected. Everything around me has been neglected! I think I am one of those cool magician guys that can get all those plates to spin on sticks and my goal in life is to see how many sticks with plates I can get spinning!! Right now I have: homeschool (and I will tell you this much, if you think being a stay at home Mom was busy, nothing compares to a stay at home HOMESCHOOLING Mom!), trying to maintain this house with 5 kids whom I can clean and turn around and it is even more messier than the few seconds before, carting my babies to lots of fun things (Sparks, choir, dance class 2 nights a week, and now soccer 2 days a week), taking a class to renew my teacher license, working diligently on VBS stuff (I know it is in June - but it takes from January to June to prepare) - including working on another blog for VBS, some extra lessons for the folks going on the Africa trip, still trying to get stuff done in and outside of this house, and right now that is all I can think of. So needless to say I'm feeling a little like silly putty pulled thin in every direction. But......I enjoy every bit of it, so that is why the blog is a little slow lately. I am happily working on all these projects.