First bike ride, last preschool program

As mentioned in a previous post James got a brand new bike for his birthday. He decided to take it out for a spin this last week to see how it worked. 

 James loved it the first day. When he got on the next day however it was all tears and screams that echoed around the neighborhood and later appeared in stereo as we attempted to teach Eve to ride without her ever faithful training wheels!

It was a big week for James. In addition to his bike riding experience it was also time for his last preschool program.

I have a confession to make here- I extremely dislike attending preschool programs. I also dislike attending kindergarten programs (we sat through one twelve hours after James' program, it was like being caught in one of the circles of hell). Yes the kids are all cute and and they try to out "scream" each other while singing. There is nothing like hearing "If we hold on Together" being belted out by five years old boys, each trying to see who can be the loudest.

James was super cute though and I was very grateful the show was just his class and not the whole preschool as it has been in times past.

 Here he is getting ready to sing Proud to be an American.

I did have one complaint about the program. It started at eight o'clock. Who starts a program for preschoolers that late. There were a few kids breaking down in tears half way through. Who could blame them it was past bed time!  James held strong though and smiled his way throughout.

Just a little picture here to show that somehow this child inherited my dancing skills.  He kept looking at his friend Henry (the little boy in the red striped shirt) to find out what to do. Of course James would then do it with the wrong foot or step the wrong way. I found it to be adorable.

After forty minutes of singing, dancing, and retelling of The Three Little Pigs, they brought on the finale- Black light where they sang and hummed Octopus's Garden.

The next day we headed off to Kindergarten orientation. I think this kid is growing up way to fast!

Easter Weekend!

We had a busy Easter weekend and a ton of fun! There was egg hunts, yummy treats, lots of grins and smiles. 

We started out Saturday morning with a Bradley family egg hung organized by Michael and Mel.  The kids had so much fun looking for the brightly colored eggs and the adults also enjoyed looking for the harder camouflaged eggs. 

 James looking for more eggs.

 Laine hoping that there was an egg in the tree.

 Eve with all her brightly colored eggs.

Later that evening we had Grammy and Poppa over to dye Easter eggs. Everyone had a lot of fun and we only dropped one!

The next morning the kids were excited to look for their eggs. They got up super early and had to find their assigned colored eggs. Matty's was right in the middle of of the floor. I put him down on the floor in the hallway and he took off as soon as he saw it. He then spent the rest of the egg hung pushing the egg around the floor.

 James had a lot of fun searching for his eggs. Some were easy...

 ...and others were hard.

 James was actually really nervous that one was hidden in the fireplace. He was concerned that we might have started a fire in the fire place and the egg would have burnt. Funny thing is, we've never had a fire in that fire place in the two years we have lived here.

Then it was the moment I was most dreading and anticipating of the holiday- picture time.

There needs to be a little history here.  Two years ago was our first Easter as a family. Christian and I had gotten home from our honeymoon the day before. There were no Easter clothes, plus it was also General Conference so no church to attend to buy Easter clothes for. So no picture. Last year when I tired to take Easter pictures it was a horrible experience. We couldn't get one picture and it ended up with several of us in tears.  So this year I was super worried, turns out that I didn't need to worry about it.

James was so super handsome in the suit he picked out himself. We kept telling him he looked like Uncle Adam when he goes to work.

Eve loved her butterfly dress we found for her. She loved that it twirled.

 Laine decided this year she was too old for frilly dresses and so I took her to Old Navy where she picked out this very pretty ensemble.

I had the hardest time finding an Easter outfit for Matty. Everything was pink and purple and just not what I was looking for. I found this outfit tucked away in a back corner! He looked stellar in it, he looked even better later in the evening when he had pink marshmallow all over it.

Happy late Easter everyone! 

James turns five

We had a big birthday in our house on Monday. James turned the big five.  He is a delightful smart little boy.  He is reading third grade books before entering school. He is writing very well (except that he can't seem to remember that the same word should fit on the same line and words should have spaces between them) and his teachers have been working with him on basic math. He is also a very funny boy. He goes around the house all the time saying "I'm silly." and then he will do something very silly.  He is my big helper around the house completing chores and shadowing me. He is also the best big brother always making sure his little brother is taken care of and loving to be with him. 

James started his special day insisting that I take the a picture of what he calls his monkey statue.  Below is the picture of James as the monkey statue, 

James got to have whatever he wanted for breakfast (chocolate cereal), for lunch (McDonalds, they have a playland), and dinner (spaghetti and meatballs).

He also decided that he wanted a Cars strawberry cake.

 We had a small party. James picked two friends that he wanted over. I was so happy that he chose his cousins Atty and Boston. I love that he is close friends with his cousins.

 He got some great presents including the bike he had been asking us for the last two months.

 He really liked the light-up Spider-Man helmet too.

James is a bright happy boy and we are so lucky and grateful to have him in our family.

Matthew- 9 months

Time just flies by and I now have a this three toothed, crawling, standing, edging his way around furniture baby. He is also eating big boy food. The way that kid piles away bananas, grapes, meatballs, french toast, puffs, cheerios, blueberries...well let's just say that he eats a whole lot. He loves spaghetti and meatballs though, fits right into this family with that love. He also got his first taste of watermelon on Sunday and thought that was probably the best thing he ever ate. 

He is growing quickly and is always on the move. I don't think he can sit still for even one second. It has been fun to watch him grow and discover new things every day.

Of course this growing and moving has made it difficult to take his picture so after many attempts we finally had to put him by his current favorite toy the plastic eggs to make it work. 

Matt also enjoys many other things. He loves banging on the piano and will stand up on his tiptoes and reach for the keys. He finds it even better when his sisters will lift him on the piano bench and he can properly reach them.

I say that he is our big boy but he is still very little when compared to averages.  We took him for his nine month check up and though his is in great health he has only gained a half pound since his last appointment. He is now sitting at  17.12 lbs and 26.75 inches putting him in the 5 and 7 percentiles respectively. So I am wishing I had his metabolism and torn between hoping that he will grow and relieved that I don't have to buy him new clothes anytime soon.

What happens when mom looks away

Life is always crazy in this house. It is to be expected when there are four spirited kids running around. Nothing is more crazy than first thing in the morning. Even when I get up before the sun I still find myself scrambling to get everyone ready, fed, and out the door to school, down for a nap, or off on morning activities. 

When nine finally rolls around it usually finds me still in my pajamas scarfing down a yogurt and feeling like I just ran a marathon. Some mornings though I am able to find a minute or two. A blessed moment when children's hair is done, they are fed, and at least those leaving to school are dressed. I take these moments to indulge in something wonderful like making the bed or doing the breakfast dishes before lunch.   

Of course in these moments the kids are left unsupervised and it is when I walk into these moments a few minutes later that I just grab the camera and smile and then wonder how they can make such a mess in the five minutes I wasn't in the room with them. 

Here is what I walked into about a week ago...

The kids decided to pull all of James'  stuffed animals and blankets down and created a "King Squidgy" throne.  Matty seemed enamored of the hat.

Then just yesterday I ran into the other room as a crashed echoed through the house. Sure enough a basket of plastic eggs were not put away after dinner the night before and Matthew had found the their colorful allure to enticing and decided that he must have them all. He was quite pleased with himself.

The other kids later began grouping these eggs by color and size.

I love these mornings. They may cause more work and more headaches I still love that I have four lovely, brilliant children who love playing with each other...plus I do have time to make the bed. 

March Outing- Planets and Kites

James has been waiting and waiting for his turn to pick the family outing. He has been talking about what he was going to pick and where we were going for weeks. Due to scheduling though we had to keep pushing his outing back. Finally we found a Friday that the girls had off and that Christian was able to only work a half day. So we packed everyone up and headed out to the Planetarium. 

I remember going to the Hansen Planetarium as a girl. For one of my birthdays I got a pass and I made very good use of it. I remember going to the star shows and then looking at the displays. I miss the old planetarium and the displays but the kids love the interactive displays. 

We learned about....

Clouds

 Telescopes

 Matthew was just happy we figured out how to make his stroller sit up so he didn't have to lay down the whole time.

 We also learned about the Mars Space Rover

 And Mars itself. I am pretty sure the kids were channeling aliens then.

We were having so much fun we didn't want the outing to end. Off it was to kite flying. We stopped at a local store and found kites on sale for 50% off. I ended up getting the kites for $2.00 each- what a bargain!!

It was a lovely windy day and perfect for kite flying.

James was a pro flier with his Spiderman kite.

 He was such a good little flier but then his kite got eaten by the building and once rescued decided to go and get caught in the trees. We had some tears but then it was better.

Poor Eve lost her kite first. She decided to drag it on the ground and two dollar kites don't last too well when that happens. Pretty soon there was a tear up the middle and it was declared unflyable. She had fun though helping everyone else fly the kites and playing on the play ground.

Laine's was the one that had a hard time getting the kite up. She has a really long tail that kept wrapping around the string. Once she got it up we gave her some tips on kite flying. She was keeping up with the best of them. 

I know people throw about the phrase "perfect afternoon" often but this truly was a perfect afternoon. The sun was shining, the kids were laughing, and it was just relaxing. I wouldn't mind repeating it again and again and again. 

Matthew-Eight months

Our little Matty boy has gone through a lot of changes this month. If I hadn't noticed before it was shown while I was trying to take some pictures this morning. See we started against the pillows, where we always take the pictures, and then he was off.

Look mom I want the camera!
If you haven't noticed we have a very mobile boy now. He has taking to crawling like a fish to water, that is, of course, unless he is mad. When he is mad he just will cry while crawling to his objective.

His other new trick...

This standing thing worked out when I actually wanted him to hold still for a picture.

He is such a good boy. He has a smile that just lights up his whole face. And boy can this boy pack away food. He eats two tubs of food for each meal and then packs away some gerber puffs and rice rusks. He also likes it when mom, dad, or poppa will slip him a little treat like tastes of Aunt Amy's cup cakes or mom's zucchini bread. He also likes hanging around his cousin Ezra who likes to share his food. I think he would attack even more food but the poor boy has no teeth.

It is funny. I feel that the first six months of this little boys life were so long but the last two have just flown by. Christian thinks that has something to do that I am finally getting a good night's sleep...most nights at least.

Matty is adored by his older brother and sisters. They love that they can play with him now and he is responsive to what they say or do.

So welcome new crawling boy...just don't walk to soon.