Vermin, Kings, Knights & Legos

This top picture is my niece Lily who masterfully pick-pocketed me while I was sitting on the floor playing with her... it was impressive... yes, that is my credit card. The boys have been really into playing kings and knights.  James is always the king, Noah is a knight and Ben is the princess.  Noah makes all of the Props out of printer paper, crayons and tape.  I tried to explain to him that the paper wasn't big enough to go around James's head... he ignored me... he had an obvious plan... no one seems to mind pulling tape out of their hair or off their faces, so tape it is! They continue to obsess about legos, this is a picture of one of James's creations for his "collection".

Audrey had another illness last week and has had frequent baths, but she still looks pretty happy about it:)  This week James declared that spring was here because he found a ladybug on the snow. "This ladybug is my best friend in the whole world" -James... he sat and talked to it for about 20 minutes while I got Noah from the bus.  When we got back to James I asked it he wanted to show the ladybug to Noah, to which he responded, "No, she's dead in the snow, never mind".

This bottom little guy was the surprisingly cute rat that ate all of our bird seed.  Hillary came to visit and brought us a live trap (truly I would have just killed it, but we didn't want to put a trap out that the kids would very likely get themselves into).  After many sightings and a few crazy scares where Hillary and I *may* have overreacted a bit (like when I picked up the bird seed container not knowing the rat WAS IN IT), we put the trap out and cleaned up the bird seed... after six days I had decided that he was gone due to lack of bird seed.... I was just too lazy to put the trap away.  One week later we were getting into the car early in the morning and James says, "Hey look, there's a cute little guy trapped in there".  Soon after him we caught two mice at the same time, so that trap works and since then we have been vermin free:)

Audrey Turns One!

Our baby turns ONE today!  She has had quite an explosion in her development over the past few weeks and is becoming such a fun little girl!  She crawls everywhere with her military crawl, she likes to get into ALL the cupboards, she can empty a container of toys in no time, and she just loves to "play" with whatever her brothers are playing with. Her specialty is taking every plastic bag, one at a time, out of the drawer... this then creates a slippery circle around her that her brothers have learned (the hard way) not to step on and bother her:) She has a great mullet happening with her hair, but the back is long enough to put in clips... the boys are so excited about this and will run to the bathroom, bring me the brush and a certain color of clip, and ask me to "fix her hair so she will look soooo cute".  It is really cool to see how they are responding to having a sister.  She continues to be such a happy, easy going little girl who is very eager to observe and explore everything around her. We love you Audrey and can't wait to see what the next year holds!!

Noah's Bowling Party

With turning 7 this year Noah decided on a "friend" birthday party at the bowling alley.  He was pretty excited that most of his good buddies from school could come.  I forgot to take some pictures of the actual bowling and I almost forgot a picture of the cake... oh well!  The kids all had a great time bowling, pretending to play video games, eating cake and opening gifts.  Thanks to everyone who came to help us celebrate!

Trey & Lily Visit and... We Get More Snow!

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This weekend Trey and Lily came to visit with Nannie and Grandpa.  We took the boys all to see the Lego movie again and I finally got to watch the whole thing.  The girls stayed home to nap with Gabe and Grandpa, and they seemed pretty happy about it! It is becoming almost impossible to sit on the couch or floor at our house without getting attacked, here is Grandpa trying to hold on to Audrey while the boys try to play with him;)

Also, we received more snow... It melted a bit in 24 hours, but this gives the general idea of how much snow we have... the kids think that it is funny to just walk over to tops of the fences...

Noah Turns 7 Years Old!

It was 7 years ago on this day that Gabe and I became parents for the first time.  As with everything, it feels like he has always been part of our lives and at the same time the 7 years have gone by pretty fast!  Noah continues to be a very sweet, thoughtful and helpful little guy.  He loves  his brothers and sisters so much and is always thinking of things he can do to help them or make them happy. His most recent favorite past time is to play with legos and his goal for the summer is to run in a "grown-up race".  He loves school and is doing well with math and learning to read. His favorite subjects continue to be music and art.  He has really thrived this year and has made some great friends through school, skiing, swimming and soccer.

The top picture is of James and Ben both working very hard making a card for Noah while he was at school. The pictures below that were the result of Noah's request for a group picture with James, Ben and Audrey... No one really cooperated, but what we did get was a very funny series of failed attempts;)  After school we had Noah's choice of supper which consisted of ham, applesauce, and quesadillas... along with the fruits and veggies left over from Noah's class.  This was followed by the spiderman cupcakes James and Ben picked out of our freezer;)  Even Audrey had a cupcake and everyone was very excited about the special treat.  We then let Noah open his presents from us and was thrilled to have new legos and a real building set.  All in all I think he had a great day.  He is now looking forward to his bowling party with his friends this weekend. Happy Birthday Noah!

St. Patrick's Day 2014

Thanks to Noah's Kindergarten teacher last year, we had to set out a leprechaun trap.  Last year it was easy to convince him that that was something you just did at school... I had presumed that he would never remember it for this year... He definitely remembered and was quite upset that he hadn't made a trap for school.  His only requirement was that the trap be made from our recycling, so it did turn out to be a fun project. He didn't catch a leprechaun, but the little leprechaun did make a mess with the special St. Patrick's Day cereal:)

Fire and Ice Fest 2014

 

Well, we survived the last week and that is all I can say.  After James, Noah and Audrey had the GI illness all about a week apart we had really put it out of our minds... until Wednesday afternoon...  Gabe and I both got it 12 hours apart.... the last several days have been a blur;) The picture above with the overflowing bowl of cheerios was the result of Ben trying to pour himself the second bowl of cereal...

Last week was Dr. Seuss's birthday celebration week at Noah's school.  Each day was a special day and Wednesday (pictured here) was "wacky Wednesday".  Noah's class had a competition to see how many books they could read during the week and it was amazing to see how all the kids in his class really got into this.  They had reached their weekly goal of 60 books after just 2 nights!  As a reward they had a special party at the end of the week.

Thursday was Noah's "student in the spotlight" day.  Each student in the school gets a month to be recognized so that other students may get to know them better.  They are recognized at an assembly at the beginning of the day and have to stand up and say something about themselves.  Noah's was, "a special skill I have is skiing". It was really cute!  Later that same day was also his last day of the ski program where he earned the award for "sweetest helper on the hill".  We are very proud of him!

This past weekend was Farmington's Fire and Ice Festival.  There were a host of cool winter activities for the kids to partake in.  Sledding, tubing, snowman decorating, a hay maze (James's favorite), ice sculptures, horse/wagon rides, cookie decorating, s'mores and fireworks.  The kids really enjoyed themselves despite several bumps and bruises (James's face took a bit of a beating from sledding).  The highlight of the day was getting to see the Lego movie! The kids loved it and daily ask when we will get to go back again.  

This movie has really created what we can only describe as "lego mania" at our house.  For the past month all anyone wants to do is play with Legos.  All three boys sat at the table and played little legos for 2 hours they other day..... it was unreal..... no fighting, less asking for tv, I am not sure what could be better.  They love the little legos, but after we pulled three pieces out of Audrey's mouth we have scaled back the use of those and they have happily transitioned back to the duple (bigger) legos.  Even Ben loves to create things with them.  This picture is a bit blurry, but a good representation.  James made this model of me... "She is the strongest man in the world"... I choose to take it as a compliment because he seems to really like it, but I definitely see the irony that it seems to be modeled after the villain "President Business" who insists on routine, order and following the instructions in the cities.... hmmmm... touché James:)

On Sunday morning we took James for his first skiing experience.  He was more than a little unsteady, but absolutely loved zooming down the hill with Gabe.  Noah was so excited to have James skiing too and tried hard to teach him all he had learned this year;)