Shawn White

Gage loves Shawn White.  I'm not sure exactly why, but he loves to watch the X-Games and the Olympics and he really just thinks Shawn White is a cool guy.  So when we heard that he would be coming to Wade's work for a health fair we totally sighed up and bought tickets for Gage!

So a few weeks ago Gage and Wade had their special Daddy date to see Shawn White.  Gage had to submit  questions, but  his questions weren't selected.  I think he asked why you have to eat healthy to snowboard, or if he likes to eat vegetables...something to that effect.  They had a good time walking through the health fair and getting all kinds of free stuff.  He came home with Multi-Care frisbees, a pedometer and a fake cast for his finger.  He also told me exactly how much sugar was in the coke that I drink..and that it is a "lot mom, you probably shouldn't drink it!".  Nice!

Anyway - then they headed to the auditorium to listen to Shawn White.  Wade was totally impressed.  Gage really listened to every word he said.  He talked a lot about peer pressure, standing up for what you think is right and being healthy.  He told some great stories that Gage still loves to tell us.

One thing Shawn talked about was how he keeps his hair long, even thought it isn't the cool thing to do.  That sometimes you need to stand up and do what you want.  When Gage was telling me this I was worried that Gage would want to start to grow his hair out...but then he said to me, "Mom, that is why I like my hair flat and short.  Because I like it that way and that's fine!"  YES, totally fine with me!

Wade took the picture with his phone (so it's not that great) and it looks like they are really far away, but really he was super close to them.  The only disappointment for the night is that some kids got to meet him, and some kids won snow boards, but Gage didn't get either.  He was pretty happy with this fake finger cast though. And he had a blast on his special date with Dad.

february snow

We got some snow last week.  It's been really cold temperatures lately too!  I am so bummed because my flower were starting to come up in the front yard, so I'm hoping that this doesn't kill them all.  The kids on the other hand, have loved the snow...no matter how small the amount.

Because of the snow we had two days of 2 hour delays at school last week...combined with Monday off, meant lots of time to relax and play in the morning.  One day Gage and Noah built Lego ships and insisted on taking them out to the snow for a battle.

Avery took her littlest pet shop toys for the battle too.

 Eli, of course, took his fingers.

And right before these tricky little ones thought they were pulling a fast one on mom, I made it inside and shut the door!

Happy Snow Day!

Sunday Photo

Avery likes to spin whoever is sitting in the rocking chair every night at bedtime.  She waits until you sit down, comes up to you and asks with her innocent little voice, "Ready?"  Then she holds on to the side of the chair and runs like a maniac making you spin until you are sick.  Gage and Noah think this is grand.  Wade and I on the other hand, not so much.  Eli, like everything else that happens, he is just along for the ride.  In this case, literally.

Tonight I'm off to decorate a skateboard birthday cake for a certain almost 7 year old who is celebrating his birthday tomorrow night!
Good Night!

6 Months

Today, a mom at Noah's swimming lesson asked me how old my baby was and it took me a while to realize that WOW...Eli turned 6 months old yesterday!

Really? it's been 6 months this little happy man has been part of our family!? We can't imagine life without him! (And I can't believe it's been 6 months, where did that time go??)

At 6 months Eli can almost sit up on his own.  He rolls when you lay him down to play.  He loves to lay on his back and eat his feet.  He still is loving sucking on his two fingers!  Eli is the best baby, he absolutely loves to eat baby food.  He gobbles it up better than anyone else in our family.  He kicks his feet and smiles when he gets to eat "real food."  The funniest part is when he eats, he sucks on his fingers until he sees the spoon of food coming for his face, then he pops his fingers out, takes the bite and then sticks those fingers right back in.

Eli is a talker - he has really started to coo and babble at us.  He has also started to really scream when he is mad!  Sometimes at night I have to really concentrate to figure out if it's Eli crying or Avery!  Here is a funny story about Avery and Eli sharing a room - Just this morning Avery woke up and was yelling at us that she wanted milk.  She kept screaming "Daddy Milk!  Daddy Milk"  It was 5 am, so we were trying our best to ignore the little princess.  Then her screaming woke up Eli..who then in turn started to cry.  Then Avery started to yell, "Stop it E-I.  Stop it E-I.  Milk Daddy.  Milk!  Stop it E-I!"  Oh the joys of sharing a room....We were laughing so hard!

Really, Eli is such a happy camper.  He smiles and loves to do airplanes in the air.  He loves it when his mommy is holding him.  He tires to pull my hair and then giggle and hide in it.  He is ticklish under his arms and has the best giggle around.  To tell you how good his temperament is, this six month picture I took, he smiled from the first shot!  With most of the kids, I have to take about 20 photo's to get a good one, but not Eli, I stopped with only 5 pictures!  What a good boy!

When he has tummy time he mostly just rolls around, but without crawling, he somehow can scoot and move around.  He reminds me of Avery when he does this.

I can't say enough how happy baby Eli is.  His smile makes us all light up and we love him bunches!
Happy half birthday little man!

Additions

It's been almost 6 years since we left Utah and left Gage's pet goldfish behind.  The poor boy.  We promised that we would fill his tank again and get another fish ASAP.  What parents we are...we gave him three siblings instead!

After begging, pleading and asking numerous times we finally caved this weekend and bought the boys two fish.

Noah's the all gold fish is appropriately named Boba Fett.
Gage's, the white, black and gold fish is still unnamed.

Sunday Photo

Yesterday we had Sunday dinner at Grandma and Grandpa's house.  After dinner there was a surprise waiting for us in the garage....one of the best toys ever...a BIG BOX!

Big box + Grandpa's pocket knife = play house!

After a group shot including Eli, things got a little out of control in the little cardboard house.

 During all the wrestling, Gage declared it "THE BEST DAY EVER!"  The night was finished off with ice cream cones and then a late movie as we headed home.

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I also couldn't resist snapping  a Sunday photo of my three little handsome men yesterday after church!  Check out those smiles.  I love these little dudes!

Birthday Girl

Our spunky little Miss Avery Ann turned 2 years old on Saturday!  When I was pregnant with her, I told Wade,  that I would be okay if we had all boys.  Then we had Miss Avery and she wrapped us all around her little princess fingers.  Even though I mostly post about the mischief she gets herself into, she is one smart cookie, and such a joy to our family.  Despite getting sick Sunday, she had a fantastic day Saturday!

I tired to surprise Avery with this special skirt for her birthday.  I found in on clearance and she didn't bat an eye when I put it in cart, but when I got home she quickly found the shopping bag, took of her pants, shoved them in the bag, put on the skirt, twirled around and declared, "DONE!"

I let her wear it that day, and then had to hide it until her birthday.  She was so excited she wouldn't take it off.  She wore it with her rain boots, and part of the day, with Noah's swim suit underneath.  Don't ask me, she's a girl and starting to dress herself.  We are all headed for trouble!

We let her open presents from the boys and us around lunch when Wade got home from work.  Gage picked out a pink pillow and some hair bows and Noah picked out a Littlest Pet Shop for her.  She thought this was GRAND, until Wade walked in the door with our present - a Little People Doll House!  I don't know who was more excited - Avery or the boys! (or myself, I actually am excited to finally have a kid who will play with Little People!)

That evening we had my parents and our friends the Bells over for a small party.  Avery loved sitting by her two favorite Daddy's and opening presents.  (Some background - Avery is not only in love with little Linkin, but Doug too.  He had facial hair just like Wade until a few weeks ago.  Avery calls him Daddy and sits with him at church.  When he showed up at church with his face shaved she wouldn't talk to him and kept giving him dirty looks.  I think she has forgiven him, but not completely until the goatee is back.

This picture almost deserves it's own post!  HOW FUNNY!  Can you even see Avery? Nope, but Doug and Wade look pretty darn excited about a pink shirt and pink pants.

After presents we headed for McDonald's play place for dinner.  The kids had a blast running and acting crazy!

Oh - and the cupcakes!  A princess can't have a birthday without cupcakes!  Avery picked out chocolate cupcakes and strawberry frosting.

Avery ended up having a great birthday.  We love her bunches!

At two years old some of her favorites are:

Color: pink

"Pink blanket" or "blanket" (her black with stars and dots fleece blanket)

Show: da-da-da-Dora.  She runs around singing that all day long!

A brown bear she has named Baby Bear

Shoes - especially her rain boots

Dresses.  If I dress her in pants and she sees a dress she try and put it on too

Baby Eli - she loves to smile, talk to and play with Eli.

Dancing

Starfall app on mommy's phone

Cats

Helping cook

Rocks

Reading

Singing and humming

Happy Valentine's Day

Love is in the air.  

I found this under my pillow last night.  

I can't imagine who my "seekrik amier" is but I bet he is pretty darn handsome! 

Sunday Photo

I didn't forget and took this Sunday photo right before bedtime.  Avery had her birthday yesterday (post will come tomorrow).  Then she woke up this morning with a fever and had a small seizure.  Fever stink.  She's pretty happy as long as she's got medicine in her.  Poor girl.  Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

Lego's

My boys love Lego's.

I find them everywhere.

This is proof.

Rainbow

We live in Washington. = We get a lot of rain.  This week we've been blessed with a lot of sun shine too, which means rainbows!  We were excited the other day to see a double rainbow behind our house.  My pictures don't do it justice, you really could see every single color.  It was big, bright and clear.  The kids really wanted to go hunt it down!

Check out Avery - the little cutie.  We lifted her up so she could "grab the rainbow!"

The amazing thing is how long the rainbow lasted. From when we first noticed it to when I finally saw it go away had to be at least 30-40 minutes, basically it was there from about 5:00 - until dark.  It really was fun to see it last that long!

Between the first picture in the post and this picture, 20 minutes had lapsed.  Amazing!

Avery's Baby Book Deal!

Click here to view this photo book larger

As some of you might know, I only scrapbook the first year in a baby book for each kid, then everything else goes in a family album each year. While I paper scrapbooked Gage and Noah's book, I decided to try my hand at digi-scrapbooking Avery's book. I finally finished it last fall. 

I was pretty excited about it, but printing 75 pages was going to be expensive... 

Printing one 12x12 page at Costco is $2.99. A 8x8 page is $1.49. Sometimes you can find deals on different sites too, so my plan was since I already had the pages done, they would just sit in my computer until a good deal came long. 

So I waited... and today...just 2 days shy of her 2nd birthday(WOW!) I got a promo code for 50% off 12x12 photobooks on Shutterfly. 

I quickly uploaded the 75 page book and within minutes had it all organized and put together! I also had a free shipping code(woo hoo!) I ended up saving over $75 - and even more if I would have printed them individually at Costco! 

Happy Good Deal to me - and Happy Birthday to Miss Avery Ann!

Sunday Photo

Have you seen Avery's dress? I found it on clearance at Target last summer.  It was super cheap. Then I saw Lily on Modern Family wear it, I think it was the Hawaii episode.  That show is too funny.

It's Super Bowl Sunday.  We are watching it, but aren't crazy about either team.  Some of our good friends moved to Pittsburgh for residency and she said that their little girl has been praying for the Steelers all week.  Too cute, so I'll cheer for them.

Also, Super Bowl Sunday 11 years ago, Wade asked me to marry him.  Happy (kinda) Anniversary to us.

56 little reasons

Today is the first of February. The month to celebrate love!  

I sat down last night and made this little love jar for the kids.  

4x14 days=56 little reasons I love them.  

Because no one can hear too many reminders of why they are loved.

"Love is the very essence of life. It is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Yet it is not found only at the end of the rainbow. Love is at the beginning also, and from it springs the beauty that arched across the sky on a stormy day. Love is the security for which children weep, the yearning of youth, the adhesive that binds marriage, and the lubricant that prevents devastating friction in the home; it is the peace of old age, the sunlight of hope shining through death. How rich are those who enjoy it in their associations with family, friends, and neighbors! Love, like faith, is a gift of God. It is also the most enduring and most powerful virtue."

— Gordon B. Hinckley