Oh Mr Sunshine

It was such a nice day out today. I took the kids out to play and realized this was the first time since Porter was a newborn that he had been outside longer than walking to the car or from the car. It has just been too cold-or not a good enough reason to go out.

He loved the fresh air! He also enjoyed the grass and the leaves.

He thought they were delicious!

He is not sad in this pic-just showing me his bottom lip. He is always pulling faces lately and this is one of his favorites. Have I mentioned I love this kidd-o?

Z's Birthday Gift

One of my favorite people that I have met in Klamath Falls (or anywhere for that matter), Suzanne just celebrated her 50th birthday and we went out with some of the girls for dessert at Applebee's last night. Such a great night of laughter and fun with some of the funniest people on this planet. I made her a birthday calendar, somewhat like the one's I made for my family for Christmas-but changed the pages and cut it in half. LOVED the end result. I will post the pages on my craft/scrap blog so you can see them all. I also made her some note cards with some 7gypsies music paper-because this woman is the most talented, musical person I have ever had the priviledge of knowing. Simply incredible. So Happy Birthday Z-have a great week in Utah!

Goodbye Joe Bum

While looking at my previous post 'Munchkin Love' Chad pointed out to me that Bekah is always, as he put it 'Barbie picture perfect' and Topher always looks like 'Joe Bum'. I know. It is my own selfish reasons that my kid looks like Joe Bum-I LOVE his long hair, and I know it is not the most flattering to his perfect cuteness, but when he gets his hair cut, he looks so much older and less like my baby, and I love how soft it is. Well I knew once again it was time to cut the cord, I mean hair. BEFORE: I had to bribe him with a cookie to sit still for me while I cut it-whatever works! AFTER: Yes I know it is a huge improvement. Maybe now he will look more 'Ken doll picture perfect'.

Warning! Walking, Talking, Hormonal imbalance living here!

Being busy is not the main reason I have not blogged in the last couple weeks.......It's mostly because this kid has had his adolescent butt parked in front of the screen with face book on for the last month, Chad is at work tonight so I got a turn on my computer while he is using Chad's lap top.My baby brother who is now almost 16 (yikes!) has moved in with us and will be staying until the end of the school year. There are pro's to having him here;

• Free babysitting-heck yes!
• Him sitting in the car with the kids while I run into the store-double heck yes!
• A night off from dishes once in awhile (even though it is like pulling teeth to get him to do it)
• Endless hours of fun tormenting him about anything and everything
• Endless hours of fun for my friends who have caught on to the fun of tormenting him
• Endless hours of fun for my daughter who loves to torment him with plans for his 16th dinosaur themed birthday party, complete with a visit from Barney. (You can't tell me she's not an evil little genius-she hasn't broke character with it-saying if he doesn't have a dinosaur party-his birthday will be canceled! Ha ha!)

The cons are few and far between;

• He got an old truck to fix up with Chad-so that means even more talk in this house about things like timing belts, radiators, spark plugs and other completely boring items that make my eyes glaze over
• His general teenager-ness that makes him believe that he is always right, we are always dumb and his life is on the verge of falling apart if things don't work out exactly the way he has planned
• His constant need to be connected to technology of any sort-if it's not my computer, he has either an i-pod or phone attached to his head-come on read a book, and get the heck off my computer!

Love ya little bro!

Mr. Charming

This little boy has not only his mama smitten, but every person he comes in contact with! It might be the huge blue twinkling eyes, or the big dimply grin he gives you when you say hi, or maybe it's the perfect little boy hair with the swirl in the back. Whatever it is, people LOVE this baby. What he's doing now:

• He is now scooting around the house and getting into everything.
• He gets up on all fours and pushes off until he gets what he wants.
• He is eating anything and everything and is very good at it.
• He has the pincer grasp down-(you know thumb and forefinger together to pick stuff up).
• He gives kisses when you ask for them and pucker up-while very wet and open mouthed-still pretty dang great. (Then there are the times when he just attacks my face and I get small hickeys on my chin-so it looks like I've been beat).
• Sleeping in his own bed at naptimes and at night, which is something I hadn't done with my other kids until they were older. (He usually comes into our room between 5:30-6:30 and then sleeps till about 9-heavenly little creature!)

Sweet Sweet Day

Valentines Day was so much fun this year.

We went out to dinner with the Appah's and then went back to their house to play games with them and the Stewarts.

We ate delicious chocolate cake, and ice cream had a lot of laughs playing Cranium.

I am really grateful to have such fun friends where we can all be ourselves and have so much fun together.

It was a crazy week. We (Suzanne Stewart, April, Rachel (April's sister) and I) were in charge of the Adults only Valentines dinner for our ward.

We made it so cool and romantic-loved it-but so much work!

We did a formal Chinese restaraunt and the night before we spent about 5 hours hanging fishing line with paper lanterns and twinkling lights.

All the tables were decorated formally with china, stemware, tablecloths, cloth napkins, centerpieces-the whole nine yards.

We made all the food for it, I made this delicious angel food cake that Suzanne's aunt gave her the recipe for that I will have to make again-soooo much better than store bought! I also made the Thai lettuce wraps for the appetizers, yum!

 

The young men were all dressed up with long aprons like waiters and seated and served everyone-it was like the real deal.

 

Suzanne's acapella group sang and were just fantastic.

These pics I stole off April's blog-it was awesome-by far the best church function I had ever attended or even heard about!

Saturday morning we had a primary activity-and although it was pretty low key-it was still a stress hanging over me until it was done and over. Love the primary!

 

SO when Valentines evening was finally here-we were able to celebrate for more than just being in love-which of course is enough of a reason, but it was so nice to have had such a busy, hard and yet so successful weekend over and finish it off with such a great night.

Munchkin Love

The kids had a fun little Valentines Playgroup on Friday.

It started off with a bunch of us going to the Children's Musuem, which was much better than expected. There was tons for the kids to do and we could have stayed a lot longer but we had other plans.

After a couple hours playing there we went over to the church and we had lunch and decorated cookies. Yum!Then all the kids made a little Valentines bag and then they all exchanged Valentines.

Even Porter had fun laughing and terrorizing his friends.

Shooting Tickety Tock

Chad took the Airsoft guns out the other day and Topher was all over it. I am a lot apprehensive about Topher enjoying guns and all, but in this house I'm afraid it's inevitable, Chad is going to want a little hunting buddy.

So I let Chad teach him, it's probably a good thing to teach him early and make sure the lessons are engraved in his brain, so that by the time the real guns (gulp) come around he is VERY aware of gun safety and how to properly use them.

He learned how to aim and pull back the trigger, he had a hard time cocking it(is that the right word?). so he had to have daddy's help, but he LOVED it!

While going over gun safety with him, I told him he shouldn't ever shoot anyone or any animal and he replied.

 

"We just shoot tickety tock, right mom?"I can see the resemblence between the target and tickety, so I replied, "Right Topher."

Silly kid!