Phil, the 1st Grade Flamingo

Phil has spent the entire year visiting all the kids in his 1st grade class. He came to visit us for a few days this week and has had a great time. We took pictures and Caleb wrote in Phil's big travel journal about his time with us. Caleb sure has been a fabulous host! Here is Caleb entertaining his guest..

 Phil enjoyed a bike ride with Caleb.

 He really liked the playground equipment.

 He thought the slide was cool, too!

 The bubble wall was fun.

 But I think his favorite activity was climbing the rock wall.

Thanks for visiting, Phil!

Table!

 We have been looking for quite a while and finally found a table that is big enough for our growing family. (Plus, with the sale promotion the store was having we got the matching server, too!) This table can extend to seat up to 10 comfortably. Looking forward to hosting meals in the future!

District Wide Art Show

 We found out this year that Caleb's Monet Impression that he did in art class was submitted to the district wide art show. We went down to see it and were so impressed with all the creative things that students come up with. We are so proud of you, Caleb!

Aaron's Project

This year the 4th Graders have been studying Colorado. They have each chosen a location of significance in Colorado to do a report on and they have been working on it for the last month. His written report was done at school, but his visual project was to be completed at home. Aaron wanted to build a model of the fort, so here it is. I think it turned out pretty well. Good job, Aaron!

Mouse "Abuse"?

I'm not entirely sure, but I think that maybe this treatment of Levi's beloved Mickey Mouse qualifies as "Mouse Abuse". Maybe it's just an incredibly ingenious mouse trap. Either way, I think Levi's having a good time. (even is Mickey isn't!)

Trees

We have had such beautiful 80 degree weather today that we decided to spend the afternoon planting some trees for our yard. The green leafed one is a flowering pear (non fruit-bearing) and will have little white flowers on it in the Spring. The othere tree is a flowering Plum (non fruit-bearing) and has reddish purple leaves all year round with little pinkish flowers in the Spring.

Snuggling with Tractors

Yesterday my parents were out for a drive and dropped by for lunch and to see the kids (that weren't in school.) Grandpa gave Levi these John Deere toys he had picked up for him. Levi enjoyed them all day long and when it came time to go to bed he wasn't sure he wanted to put them down. Here he is in his evening snuggle with dad, hugging his new toys from Grandpa. Thank you Grandpa, Levi loves them!

Life with Levi

There are many reasons why I absolutely love being a mom and adore my kiddos. There are also many reasons why being Levi's mother is so very exhausting. Rest assured that this 10 second clip is very much what the rest of my day looks like. 

(In case you can't tell, he's chasing our poor dog around the house with that dump truck.)

The recent escapades I haven't filmed are:

standing on top of the stove

cleaning the bathroom walls using a toilet brush and water from the stool

standing on the kitchen table to swing the chandelier

removing all the door stops in the house and bringing them to me in a bucket

dumping buckets of sand over siblings heads

using a yo-yo as a lasso to swing over his head

hiding in the cupboard giggling while Mom searches desparately for him

taking a pretend nap in the dog crate

insisting that he is a chicken and "bawking" for hours on end

helping himself to the lunchmeat in the refrigerator

(and my personal favorite) 

 refusing to get his jammies on while insisting that "Me Cute Me Diaper" while strutting around doing a dance

I love my little Tazmanian Devil, but I really think I need a nap. :)

Matt is 35!

Matt turned 35 this week. I think overall he had a pretty good birthday, except maybe when the kids were amazed that there were "SO MANY candles on that cake" and when Aaron asked if we were trying to set the whole thing on fire. We love you Matt!

It's a GIRL!

Yesterday I went in for my 20 week ultrasound. Our little baby looks perfectly healthy, weighing in at just under a pound. We were excited to learn that Baby #5 is a GIRL! All of the kids are pretty excited; it is what they all wanted. Kellie is especially happy not to be the only girl anymore, too!

Easter 2012

Happy Easter!

Easter Mantle

The kids have been looking forward to Easter and were pretty excited to see the Easter decorations go up. Here's our mantle. Kellie wanted me to take a picture so everyone could see (to quote her) "how pretty and PINK everything is!" She's all about the pretty springtime colors.

Spring Break Wrap-Up

Being sick over Spring Break is not much fun, and so we had to find something fun for the kids to do in our own home. We decided to unpack the sandbox and get some new play sand. You can see Matt in the background, staining our fence. He was working hard while the rest of them played. :)

Levi liked to pretend he was Godzilla and stomp over everything the kids built.

By the end of the week everyone was well enough that we made it over to the ZOO to visit the animals.

(Unfortunately this is the last picture we got before the batteries in my camera died!)

We also spent some time on Saturday visiting with my brother John and his family who were visiting from Idaho. Again- I didn't get pictures, darn it. Oh well, I guess memories are more important than pictures anyway!

Spring FEVER

Well, Spring has sprung, we're on Spring break and my kids are sick. Spring "Fever", indeed. Levi started us off with sinus infection and ear infection- after 7 days of antibiotic he is going back in to the doctor this afternoon because his fever started spiking up again. Caleb was struck down this weekend with a nasty cough and ear infection to match. Kellie has not yet been to the doctor, but she is sleepy today and has started a cough of her own. Aaron, so far is pretty good. (We'll keep our fingers crossed!)

Since we can't go out and play and see our friends we decided to have a movie day.

 Current movie of the moment:

I think I'll go do a little bit of disinfecting while the kids are watching. Wish me luck!

...and this is what happens when you come back 1/2 an hour later to check on everyone:

 (Poor, sick Levi...):(

Welcome Spring!

We decided the best way to celebrate the 1st week of Spring was to plant some flowers to put on our front porch. Here's my little worker bees! Levi and Caleb loved putting their hands in the dirt. It was such a great project for a bunch of boys; a job that you're supposed to get dirty doing! Happy Spring!