Dirt!!

Isn't dirt fun to play in? Here are some pictures of Kitty and Blondie playing in the dirt as we try and get our garden ready for planting.


We are really good at growing rocks and weeds it seems...

Two steps forward, one step back...

Here are some pictures of Kitty & Blondie helping me weed the flower beds yesterday. Blondie takes the weeds that I have pulled and puts them in an empty flower pot to be thrown away. Kitty then comes over and takes the weeds from the pot and puts them back into the flower beds.

All better!

Well, Kitty's nose is finally looking better. She lost most of the remnants of scab last night in her sleep. Now she just has a little tiny piece left and a few little spots on her forehead. The rest of her nose has nice new pink skin. Maybe next week I can finally get her in for pictures!


Here are some pictures of the kids playing outside. It was a little cooler then I was expecting today, but it was still nice.

For some reason I can never get all of the kids to look at me at the same time while I am taking a picture. I think that's why children are given 2 parents.

Too bad DH has to work... :(

Caged!

Well, the truth has come out about how I am able to manage 4 kids under the age of 8... I keep them in cages.


Yesterday Kitty crawled under the stools twice and managed to stand up inside of the legs of the stool. When I went to get the camera to take a picture, Blondie said, "I'll go get in my cage, too." She then went and sat behind the legs of the other stool. It was pretty cute.


Then Kitty started to scream because she couldn't figure out how to get out of it...

Spring is back!

Well, it's nice and beautiful and spring-like again!My huge tulips in front of the house.

Kitty's nose

Well, Kitty's nose is looking even worse today. And then to top it all off she's got a little bit of a runny nose and I have to keep wiping it. The weird part is that on Tuesday when she got hurt, there was only a tiny drop of blood on her nose. She must have just barely scraped the whole thing though because now it's all scabbed over. She keeps rubbing it too and causing it start bleeding again.

Poor Kitty!

Well, it looks like we will not be getting Kitty's 1 year old pictures taken this week. DH took the kids outside to play yesterday while I was finishing up dinner and apparently Luke tried to carry Kitty and stumbled and fell on top of her. Now her nose is all scraped up and she has a big bump on her forehead!

Poor Kitty!
It really didn't look that bad yesterday...

Kitty's Birthday

I still can't believe that Kitty's already one!! She got a lot of clothes for her birthday and a few books and some small toys. After she was finished opening her presents she finally figured out how to do it on her own. She found a present on the floor that my parents had addressed to me and proceeded to open it on her own without any help.

I made her a chocolate teddy bear cake with chocolate frosting and she had a lot of fun eating it. I gave her a big piece of cake on a plate with a spoon and the first thing she did was pick up the spoon and then she proceeded to stab the cake with the spoon. Then she would lick her spoon and then she tried poking at the cake with her fingers. I think she was amazed that we gave her so much food all at once and in one piece. Usually I just give her little finger foods or food that is broken up in little pieces. (I will have pictures on Friday to put up)

Unfortunately I think that the cake upset her stomach because she woke up twice that night and I was on the couch with her most of the night (she kept waking up and crying out and then going back to sleep).

Good morning birthday girl!

Kitty finally woke up at around 10:15!

Spring is here??

Well, after last week in which we had beautiful, spring-like weather, it is snowing! M&M had to go back on-track today and I just assumed that the day would once again be beautiful. Well, we opened the door to see her off to the bus stop and it was starting to snow. Just a light flurry at first, but now it is snowing pretty good and we probably have at least an inch of snow already on the ground. So much for spring!!

Spring flowers in the snow!

I have been waiting for Kitty to wake up since it is her birthday today and she is still sleeping (it is almost 10 a.m.). She NEVER sleeps this late. I guess she is catching up on all of the naps that she misses during the week (she is by far our lightest sleeper). I can't believe that she is already 1!! Time sure flies!

The girls all looked cute in their Easter dresses yesterday. I was able to sew all three of them in less than a week! I'm still surprised that I was able to get them done. Blondie absolutely LOVED her dress. She is 100% girl and has decided lately that all she wants to do is wear dresses. Her dress was the first one that I finished (on Wednesday) and every day after that she had to "try" it on 2 or 3 times. She then would walk around the house twirling around and asking everybody if they liked her beautiful dress. She was so excited to wear it to church yesterday. Kitty had a hard time in her dress because she kept stepping on it when she was trying to stand up and would get frustrated. M&M looked very grown-up in hers and I think she really liked the style of it.

Spring is here!

This week has been difficult for me because I have 3 Easter dresses to make and all the kids want to do is play outside. I don't trust Kitty out there without me yet so she usually ends up standing at the screen door peering out the window and "calling" to her siblings. It's pretty funny. Kitty definitely loves being outdoors. Whenever I put her shoes on she gets so excited because she knows she gets to go out. Then when we come back inside she starts crying and throws a little tantrum.

Blondie finally decided that she likes the neighbor's trampoline. They got one of those big trampolines last summer and they don't mind if our kids play on it. Blondie has tried getting on a couple of times, but I think she's been scared with the other kids on it with her. On Wednesday I got on it with her and she had a blast! That was all she could talk about yesterday was how much fun the trampoline was and she kept asking if she could get on it.

DH finally went on his first bike ride yesterday. He rode about 15 miles. He has about a month to train for the 100 mile race in Oregon. Yikes! Hopefully he can get some good training in now that the weather is getting nicer. It would be nice for him not to die on the race.

First time blogging!

Well, this seems as good a place as any to try keeping a journal on the kids and life in general. Yesterday we said goodbye to the N grandparents. They spent last week in St. George and we drove down there on Thursday morning to spend some time with them. The drive down there was a little scary because we left during a small snowstorm that lasted the whole first half of our drive. We saw at least a half dozen cars that had slid off the freeway. Probably the scariest moment was when the car right in front of us started swerving back and forth and then slid off the side of the road. We also saw another car that was upside-down in the middle of the median.

Once we got to St. George we had nice weather (although it was a little windy on Thursday). We took the kids swimming at the condo and they all enjoyed it. Then we went to a dinosaur museum that has a lot of dinosaur tracks that were found when someone was digging the foundation for a house. It was pretty interesting, but the kids lost attention pretty quickly. Plus it didn't help that just about everything was within reach of their little hands with big "Do Not Touch" signs everywhere. M&M probably enjoyed it the most.

Friday we checked out of the condo and drove to Bryce Canyon on the way home. We spent several hours there and I think the kids all had a great time. It is a beautiful place to visit and the kids and I probably hiked at least a mile during the whole visit. I was really impressed with them all. There was no complaining from any of them which is a miracle (especially from Luke). Luke is usually the first to complain about being tired or bored (he wanted to quit trick-or-treating last October after only going a couple of blocks around the neighborhood).

DH says that he wants to look into buying a digital camera here soon so hopefully I will be able to post pictures more regularly after that. As it is right now you will all have to wait for our pictures of St. George and Bryce Canyon until I can get to the store to get the film developed.