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.

Our kids have no chance

Christian and I both grew up watching the Star Wars movies. Like most of our generation we loved them and they became a staple in our lives. We have now past that on to our kids, showing them the original trilogy and eventually the prequels.

They have taken to playing Jedis. Running around the house with light sabers defeating the Sith. The other day we heard some giggles coming from behind us, where the kids were playing. We turned around to see what was so funny and found that they had created..

Darth Squidgy, lord of the babies

February Outing-Sledding

I have a confession I am not a winter person. I would be very happy to move to southern California and happily live there for the rest of my life. I am not a fan of the snow. I have never been downhill skiing and the one time I went cross-country skiing I laid down in the snow and told my family to leave me there. Com'on give me a break I was a fourteen year old girl, drama is that age's middle name.

The kids have been after us to go sledding though and when there was still snow on the ground Monday morning the decision was made. We all bundled up and headed out. There was just one little problem...we didn't have snow gear for the baby. In our defense we figured he wouldn't be older than nine months and he wouldn't be outdoors much. So we put on some warm clothes and wrapped him up in one of my scarfs and went out. Yes, once again I will be expecting my award for mother of the year at any moment.

So there we were a mom, a boy, and a sled.

We didn't get a picture of him at the bottom but the first run he didn't seem to mind so much. That may be because I lifted him up as the snow came into the sled so it never got on him.

James had a ball. He was a trooper coming up and down the hill.

We decided that Laine could go down with Matthew next. Yeah again mother of the year board please look at that application, I know I am your winner. Matthew hated that run. There was a lot of crying after that, so like every good parents we took him down again.
After that we did bundle him and put him in the car where he feel quickly back to sleep.

The rest of the outing was followed by a lot of sledding and a lot of fun.

Yeah, I may hate winter but after this outing it might be growing on me a little bit.

Valentines- Bradley style

Growing up my mom always went all out for Valentines day. There was heart shaped french toast in the morning, heart shaped peanut butter and jelly for lunch, heart shaped meatloaf for dinner, and of course a heart shaped cake for dessert. This was also on top of the awesome boxes she helped us make and the wonderful valentine treats we would find on the front porch every year.

So I am not my mom and not nearly as creative or talented as she is. I also hate French Toast so there was no way I was making that for my kids. I did however want my kids to have great memories of valentines day. So we got to work.

Saturday afternoon we sat down with the girls to make their boxes. I have no art talent. I might have existed once, I remember winning a few ribbons in art while in Kindergarten, but that talent was replaced with awesome baking skills instead. So the kids were on their own for the boxes. Good thing that they are both awesome artists.

Christian and I covered the boxes with paper and cut the holes then the girls went for it.

Eve decided that she wanted a Harry Potter themed box...

This is only one side. The other sides featured- Hagrid, Dumbledore, and another Harry!

Laine decided that she was going to go with a Star Wars theme-

She had planets and Luke on the other sides. It also had a Star Wars poster that my mom had found for her.

Then it came time to making the special Valentine's food. I was able to make the heart PB&J without a problem. But what to do for breakfast. My inspiration came at eleven the night before...

Pink Scrambled eggs with heart shaped toast. It was a hit! Christian got the eggs but with heart shaped sausage.

Dinner I slacked off on as the kids just wanted their traditional babysitting meal- Mac & Cheese.

So yeah Valentines ended up being a great day for the kids. They loved the cookies that arrived on our front porch thanks to an awesome neighbor and they came home on sugar high that lasted well into this morning.

So yeah that was that. The rest of my day was filled with laundry...

and a nap, and scrubbing a kitchen floor, and vacuuming, and dusting...

and then finally an awesome date with my husband. I may not have been able to recreate the awesome valentines day that we had as kids, but I think our kids had just as much fun!

Seven months!!

So some how times flies a lot faster after Matty's birth than before. He is a big seven month old and into everything you would expect a seven month old to be in. He is pretty much all smiles and blabbing like there is no tomorrow. He loves his Gerber puffs his body shakes with excitement anytime we pull them out. He is not quite sure how to get them into his mouth but he is working on it. His sibs love helping them eat the puffs though. The other day they fed him about a cup of the puffs...a bit more than we were hoping they would do.

He loves to eat though. He loves bananas in any form and would eat them in any meal if he could. He loves to play with any toy he can find and he is our good scootcher. That kid is fast too. He moves so fast too. From one end of the room to the other at lightning speed. Of course that keeps me on my toes as we try to keep him out of the cords we have not yet baby proofed. Of course there are times he is mad at us for making him cross the room for the toy or person he wants and he lets us know. Those times are usually accompanied by screaming as he pushes himself across the floor.

He is a good boy though and we are looking forward to the exciting adventures this month will bring