HAPPY BIRTHDAY ELLI !!!

I can't believe my first baby is 7 years old today. She is getting so big and so smart! She is so creative and fun. I get so excited when I bring home a new craft for her (and me) to do. Here are a few pictures of her growing up.

9 months old

almost 2 years (baby Ben in background)

4 years old

today - 7 years old!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ELLI !!!

What time is it?

Ben is so funny with time. He doesn't get it. He has always had trouble with 'yesterday' and 'tomorrow'; he still won't say 'tomorrow' he says 'next day'. Or if he does say tomorrow, it is for a few days away. And if we say we are going to do something in a week or a month, forget it. He wakes up in the morning and is so disappointed that we aren't doing it today. I try and explain but it just doesn't make sense to him. Then he will try and explain it to me and I am equally as confused as he is when I explain it to him. A few days ago I was saying something about 'last night' and he said, "Mommy, the last night is the night before you're dead." He also mixes up 'breakfast, lunch and dinner'. It is so weird to me that a 5 year old still gets mixed up with those. I'll say "What do you want for lunch?" and he says, "You mean breakfast, we already had lunch." I try and try to help him understand, even breaking up the word breakfast, "After sleeping all night you 'break' your 'fast'." but he still can't figure it out. Is he dyslexic? Or do a lot of kids have this? I guess he'll just have to rely on his looks to get into college. :)

Ben's photography/modeling skills

This is what happens when Ben gets a hold of the camera:

Easter Sunday

Easter Activities

Baby Addie

Yay! Our first full family picture on our blog!

This year we didn't do our city egg hunt. My kids aren't aggressive enough for those. This is always what happens: we get the kids up and hurry to get dressed, hurry to eat, hurry to get a good spot right in front, wait in the cold wind for it to start and then when it starts, they get pushed around and 30 seconds later when all the eggs are cleared off, we see the five eggs that we collected and we hear them announce the winners of the bikes (which is never us) and then we get in our car and wait for 30 minutes to leave the parking lot. I know I'm mean but we just didn't feel up to all that this year. So we went to my parents for their annual hunt. The odds are better for my kids to actually fill their baskets with delicious candy for me to eat.

We did color Easter eggs though. I never take pictures of us actually coloring the eggs I've noticed. I think it's because I'm so excited to "help" the kids color them that I just never think of getting the camera until they are all colored. Anyway, it was fun. So here is a picture of Elli eating the eggs. We had a fun experiment with adding vegetable oil to our dye and we did it on purpose. (Okay, It wasn't on purpose. My brain wasn't working and I put vegetable oil in when I meant to put vinegar.) But it really turned out fun.

Hello Kitty Baby

This was Addie's Halloween costume from last October. We went for a walk yesterday to pick Elli up from school and it served a new purpose of keeping Addie warm and protected from the wind.

4-wheelin'

It was so nice yesterday. A high of 61 degrees. Though it was still a bit windy. This is Ben giving his cousin Ollie a ride on his 4-wheeler. He really loves his cousins. And he really loves his 4-wheeler.

Are you going to cut that?

We are trying to grow Ben's hair out longer so that it lays down in the back. It seriously grows straight up. But me and Brian don't know how to do a long hairdo without making it look like a mop head. I was trying to get a good picture of his mop last night and he would look at the camera and then when the first flash would go, he would take a bite of his nectarine and start laughing hysterically. I took like 15 pictures and in all of them he was eating and laughing.

I just had to post this picture. I love my little Addie! I've been thinking she has been teething lately but there are no teeth to prove this suspicion.

Elli's Art

For the past few days Elli has been creating an art wall in our kitchen. She gets in these moods every once in a while. The first few things she hangs up I'm like, "I have an idea, let's hang these up in your room!" But she just shakes her head like that is crazy talk and keeps creating. The thing is she cuts out each little piece of paper and tapes them separately to the wall, so if we ever remove them they will come apart and be ruined. So I feel like I have to leave them up for a while because she puts so much work in to making them. They really are cute but I wish they were on a separate piece of paper so that after they've hung for a while, we can put them in the filing cabinet. Here are some close ups:

Each line of the swing set is taped up separately and the dog and person, including the collar and leash. She cuts out the paper, carries them over to the wall and makes the picture onto the wall. One more:

Each sun ray is taped separately. So if you ever come to my house and there is paper all over the walls and you think you just walked into a preschool or something... Nope, it's just my little artist/decorator at work.

Current Read

So, I'm reading The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. It's a former Oprah's Book Club book. Some of Oprah's books have a sort of shock element to them so I'm a little worried for what is to come. But so far it's pretty good. It takes place during the 1100's. It really takes you to a different world. I picture in my mind the setting of the movie 'Robin Hood' w/Kevin Costner and 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail'. I told that to Brian and he said, "So, it's a comedy?" I was like, "No, just the setting of that movie is what I picture." It has 900 something pages and I'm only in the 100's. I've had it for 1 week and I only have 2 more weeks before it's due. Ahh! I'd better get reading. Anyway, I'll let you know if it's worth reading.

The Shins - Pink Bullets

Elli likes to watch this video. When we hear this song in the car, Elli says, "Hey Ben, this is the one with the cows!" I love the song and it wasn't available to put in my playlist so I'm putting it on like this. Sorry, you may want to push pause on my playlist at the bottom in order to hear this.

Little Beethoven

Here is Addie playing on her little piano. She loves to slap the keys. Do you notice her little brown hair is falling out? It just keeps getting thinner and thinner.

Cute Benny

The other day after I had just given Addie a bath and gotten her in her jammies, we were looking at how clean she was and how good she smelled. Ben was giving her kisses all over her cheeks and he said, "When Addie takes a bath, she loses all her kisses and so I have to give her some more."

A day in the life

I thought it would be fun to track one whole day. Sorry it's probably boring but I'm doing it anyway.
8 AM - wake up, take a shower
8:30 - feed Addie. Brian already has Elli and Ben dressed and had them eat breakfast. Yay!
Do Elli's hair. Make sure everything is in her backpack. Get shoes, coat, and backpack ready.
9:10 - carpool comes to take Elli to school. Blow dry my hair. Put Ben's shoes on, get coat and backpack. Buckle Addie in her carseat.
9:25 - take Ben to preschool. Drive over to the church to help set up for our Relief Society Enrichment tonight. I am on the committee. Put up tables and chairs, set plates and silverware.
10:30 - come home. Addie falls asleep on the way. Whoops - I forgot to eat breakfast. Pour some cheerios. Start cutting banana on top but half way down, it's bad. Try another one. Half way down, it's bad too. Must have been on the bottom of a box. Pour milk and eat. I need to bring some brownies to Enrichment tonight so I start making them.
12:00 PM - Pick up Ben from preschool. Get home just in time to take out the brownies. Talk to Ben about school while he licks the brownie beaters. Make him lunch. Dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets and V8 strawberry-banana juice.
12:30 - start a load of laundry (normally I do laundry on Wednesday and Saturday but I didn't do any last Saturday so we're way backed up.)
12:45 - Addie wakes up. Feed her. When she's all filled up, she's so happy and Ben comes over and talks to her for a while. He keeps kissing her cheeks and I keep looking to see if the brownie mess on his face gets transferred to hers.
1:00 - I eat lunch. Mini corndogs and peach yogurt. I know, the corndogs sound gross but doesn't the yogurt balance it healthily out? Addie sits in the Bumbo and gurgles.
1:15 - Put in a children's music CD. Uh-oh! Diaper blowout! - change Addies outfit. When she's all clean, me, Ben and Addie dance and sing some songs until the CD ends.
2:00 - Make frosting for the brownies. Let Ben lick the (different) beaters. Okay, I lick one.
2:15 - Put Addie down to sleep. Check e-mail. Ben comes over and wants to draw on the computer.
2:25 - change laundry loads. Clean up kitchen from brownie mess.
3:20 - check on Addie. She's awake! That was too short of a nap but I needed to get her up anyway. Buckle her into her carseat and drive to the school to pick up Elli's carpool group.
3:45 - come home. Get snack for Elli and Ben. Yogurts. It has to be the 'whipped orange cream' flavor for both. I'm not a fan. Feed Addie.
4:15 - sit down to watch some Oprah. Dr. Oz is talking about eating healthy. I really enjoy my Skor candy bar as I watch.
4:45 - call my friend Leslie while I start cutting up some strawberries. Have a short conversation; it's dinner time in Texas! Cut up more strawberries, oranges, apples and nectarines for a fruit plate to take to enrichment tonight. Of course Ben and Elli have to sample some of the fruit.
6:00 - feed Addie. Play for a while. Watch her play her toy piano.
6:20 - Brian comes home. Change into a dress and put makeup on to look cute. Put my glasses back on and look un-cute again.
6:40 - load up the brownies and fruit plate into the car and head over to the church. Help get last minute things in order. Wow, there are a lot of brownies and fruit being brought! We have dinner: baked potatoes, salad and fruit. Next is dessert: brownies and ice cream. We have a guest speaker. Lynde Mott, an LDS artist, talks about fashion in the 1800's and how she makes her paintings historically correct. She likes to paint pioneer women. It's pretty interesting.
9:15 - help fold chairs and tables. Go into the kitchen to get my things. My fruit tray is loaded up with other people's fruit, along with some of mine. I only wanted to take my leftovers. Oh well. I find my brownie tray. ...ONLY ONE BROWNIE IS GONE!!! I am never making those brownies again. From now on I am making the box kind. Those are the ones that got eaten. They have about 50 leftover potatoes and they want everyone to take some. So I load up my full cookie sheet of brownies, my full tray of fruit and my baked potatoes and head home.
10:00 PM - Brian has Elli and Ben in bed. He has also folded and put away all of the laundry that got washed. He is my hero of the day. I try to find places in my fridge for all the food. Addie is just waking up for one last feeding. Feed her. Come back to the kitchen and tidy up a bit. Sit down and reflect on my crazy day. It's not usually this busy during my day but when it is, it's like a whirlwind.

Baby Food

Addie had her first real baby food. She loved it. She ate it like a pro!