Ethan

 

Here's Ethan, almost 10 years old now.  He is such a sweet, tender hearted boy.  He loves school and is making new friends.  He is a Lego Maniac!  I love his creativity!  He also draws so well, and is amazing with origami.  I'm very excited that he is beginning to really enjoy reading now.  Spelling is a strong point for him, his teacher has even placed him in an advanced spelling group.  

Baseball is definitely his strong suit, I am one proud Momma in the stands!  He is definitely all boy, holes in the knees of most of his jeans, not the fashion statement kind either, the honest to goodness, rough play made ones!  Ethan has a very definite sense of style that seems to be all his own, and I like!  He's a pretty cool guy!

Grace

 

 

 

This young lady is hard to capture, I try, but fail, I should have had her hold a book, maybe!  She is growing into a wonderful young lady, she is now 152 months old, well, about 12 1/2 is more appropriate, but she is still my baby!  I am so proud of her, she is so good at school, straight A's, working so hard to stay on top of everything. 

She has a beautiful singing voice and is a member of the Kansas Youth Chorale.  Grace is such a huge help to me, I really don't know what I would do without her.  I love that she lets me in still and just talks and talks, about everything; books, friends, school, I know the older she gets, the fewer these times could become, I treasure them.



 Next month she will be starting track, she's not really ever been that interested in a particular sport (mostly books) long-term, maybe track will capture her interest.  She is so strong of mind and confident, and has such good taste in friends, books and music, so strong in her faith, I really can hardly wait to see what she becomes.  Well, that's not true, I CAN wait, these kids grow up so fast!

And The Winner Is...

Oddly, from all the suggestions I got, it ended up being a completely even split, with only one of my new haircut pictures getting one more vote than the rest.  It was #3, so, I actually am going to work into that one, but I need to loose the bangs and ease Rob into it a little, so I went with #1.  It looks pretty much like the picture, so I'm happy!  Here it is, the new haircut...

Circus!

Tonight we went to the Arab Shrine Circus.  

We have never been before, so this was a big deal for us.

 I'm pretty sure Rob and I enjoyed it as much as the kids did!  

It was WONDERFUL!  

We are BIG into spending money on experiences, so we did go all out for this one!  Elephant and camel rides were a MUST, and well worth it too, it was so great to see the kid's faces having such a good time! 

Faith's new found love of horses made it impossible to leave without a pony ride!  The Shetland Pony in the show captured her attention from the moment it came trotting out.

We went an hour early, actually, that was when the doors opened, it was great to get there early, there wasn't quite the crowd yet, and we visited pretty much everything going on before the circus even started.  I HIGHLY recommend that!  Lines can be such a hard thing to understand for little ones!

Air brush tattoos!  Grace and Ethan thought this was coolest thing that they had ever seen!

Grace got a lion's head.

Ethan got a viper.












Faith got a lion's head like her big sister.

Face painting!  I have to admit that it took some restraint on my part to not have my face painted too!

Zachary, the leopard!

Faith, the beautiful butterfly!

One of my favorite moments of the evening was when, in the dark, while changing acts, the acrobats were swinging, getting warmed up, and Zach said, "Look, Mommy, chimps!".  The family behind us and in front of us laughed out loud! 

Faith and Zach LOVED "Mater" from Cars!  The motorcycle way above the ring was the boy's favorite of the night.  We were all in awe of the elephant that could stand on a ball!  There is so much to see at the circus, we could have gone two or three times, just to take it all in!  I'm so glad we could do this with the kids!  It was such a wonderful time of smiles, laughing and memory-making experiences last a long time!

Washing faces before bed was such a sad time, but like the good kids they are, all of them sugar crashed into their beds, and not 10 minutes after, all were fast asleep!  

A Challenge

Here's a fun challenge that I just saw, just in time, I might add!  It's a pinning challenge, go HERE to read all about it.  I hope I win!

Spring Decorating

 

I'm definitely getting a little "Spring Fever"!

The house is getting all dressed up!

This is one of my favorite spots.

The eggs are paper mache, I left them brown,

 because I liked the natural look of them.  

The holder is actually a candle holder that held votives, 

a few of them broke, I love how it turned out!

so I had to find a new use!

This is the wreath that I made for Christmas with a poinsettia, 

but I only pinned it on,

 that was I could use it any time of the year, 

just by swapping out the flowers. 

More decorating to come!

Daddy's Home

Rob is working a lot of overtime, A LOT, tonight, after working a 13 hour day, Zach and Faith, tackled him!  One on the front, one on the back.  He's going back in at 3 AM for another 13 hour day now, but Daddy made the most of his hour with them, total quality time, and they went to bed happy campers.

Sweet Boys

We are really enjoying our Thursday's with Eliza and Simon.  All the kids have such a great time playing,

I really love seeing their interactions and hearing their sweet sounds of laughter. 

Zach is such a big helper and plays with Simon while I lay the girls down for naps, he is so careful with him.  He plays some pretend game that sends Simon into laughing out loud, that is  

THE BEST SOUND EVER!  

After naps, I asked Zach if he wanted to feed Simon his bottle, he a little more enthusiatstic than I think he meant to be, considering the look he gave me.  He sat one of the living room chairs, I propped him up and handed him the bottle.  He did a great job, and Simon really seemed to like it.  They kind of just stared at each other for the longest time, Zach had a big smile, it was so precious!

Beautiful Day

Today, the weather was so absolutely beautiful!  This morning, before I took the kids to school, we opened the front door to leave and heard a robin's song!  It felt and sounded like spring!  How could your day not be great after that? 

This afternoon, after we got the kids from school, we all went to the park across the street, have I mentioned just HOW great that is, living across from the park here?  FANTASTIC!  Anyway, just seeing the kids run into the park was great, sun in their hair, ponytail bouncing away!

Ethan brought the soccer ball, which was really fun, I haven't played soccer in a LONG time!  It was really fun!  I am already sore!  In a rare event we even got Daddy to come over and play with us!  The kids had such a good time, I made the mistake of letting him spin the merry-go-round, and almost got sick, the kids thought it was a hoot though!

After enjoying the park, we all came home with fresh air in our hair and Ethan helped me cook dinner, followed by a fun trip to Cold Stone Creamery, everyone had their own special creations, I had the cake batter, I've never had it before, it felt very naughty, since I get yelled at for licking the spoon when I make a cake (raw eggs and all that).  We got home in time that I could read four books, instead of the normal two, to the kids before bed, so they thought that was pretty great.  I really couldn't have asked for a better afternoon and evening! 

Potty!

Faith has been showing signs of readiness for potty training, so today, we began!  Not that we haven't tried a few times, but this time I think we are really ready!   And the operative word being WE!  
She is using Princess Pull-Ups to start with, which is a method I've not used before, but honestly I don't have the energy to clean pee and poo for the next several days, AND, I got the Pull-Ups for $3 for a HUGE bag on clearance and I could use a coupon!!!

 I am very happy that she does feel the wet with these particular Pull-Ups.  So far today, we only had one accident!  Mommy is SO PROUD!  Faith is SO HAPPY!  I am doing a sticker "chart" which consists of a piece of paper hanging on the fridge with 4 sheets of stickers to choose from, if she pees in the potty she picks one sticker, if she poos, she gets two, totally simple, but, so far, effective.

The Whole Tooth?

So here's the whole tooth truth and nothing but the tooth truth (seriously, had to!), so the story goes, the older two kids were visiting their dad in KC and wanted to do some mattress surfing down the stairs, this idea was over ruled by their step mom and a movie was suggested, so somehow in watching a movie, Ethan fell off the couch and his face bit the hardwood floor, resulting in this....

OH, THE IRONY!

Later on he even cut his lip on a jagged part of the now broken tooth!  Thankfully, there was no lasting discomfort or and problems with heat or cold, so it didn't ruin their trip to The Great Wolf Lodge. 

This morning, even before school, where he would either,
A. Face some embarrassment over the missing fraction of a front tooth, or 

B. Get to show it off to all his buddies (I'm not sure which),

 we went to see the dentist who said they could fix him right up and in one hour we saw this...

We can't tell if there are other cracks anywhere that we, or the dentist can't see, so, time will tell.

For now, it looks great, and you definitely can't tell, he will have to be very careful because it is more fragile now, something I would hope he takes seriously, but I don't have too high of expectations!  He's a boy, after all, maybe it would give him some "street cred" if they just filed it down a bit (if it breaks again)?

It's Raining It's Pouring!

When it started to rain today, Faith went and got her rain boots!  She loves her froggy rain boots!  While I love a sunny day, I have to say, on a day when I really didn't have to go anywhere, the rain was really a great excuse to hang out at the house with Faith and Zach and get in some reading to the kids, snuggling, looking out the window, watching the rain, and even some dancing!

They LOVE to dance!  We played Just Dance for Kids on the Wii, and I was worn out WAY faster than them, of course!  We have played it before a few times, and I forgot what a great time it was, so I think it may have to be a more regular occurrence! 

What are we reading lately?  The kids and I are reading Ranger Rick and Highlights Jr.  Our next door neighbor got us the Highlight's subscriptions and it's been so fun!  I have always wanted to get those, I just loved to read them in the doctor's office as a kid, and I'll admit it, I've been know to do the hidden puzzles even as an adult! 

I am reading, in my spare stolen moments, the Hunger Games trilogy.  I'm ready for the third, Mockingjay, and I don't have it yet, so I'm waiting (in agony) to finish it now!  Grace and I are GREATLY anticipating the release of the movie, The Hunger Games now.

I'm also VERY grateful to our neighbor for a new Magic School Bus movie today, I got a whole hour and fifteen minutes to myself!  Almost unheard of!  It was really nice to get a couple things done uninterrupted!  Thank you Jim!

The next rainy day, if you don't have to run all over, or go out at all, just call the day for rain, and have some fun inside instead!

New Haircut

It appears that I change my hair frequently, I have also had two babies in that time, which for me, means my hair has grown seriously fast, well, it grows like that most of the time anyway, but gotta love those prenatal vitamins!  Weight fluctuation is a part of my likes and dislikes of some hairstyles, it's not the long hair making my face look thin, I was at my thinnest in eight years in that one, a little size 8!  Boy, I'd love to wear those jeans again!  

I digress, the cause of this post is to hopefully get feedback on the new haircut I want to get, the appointment is scheduled and I need to choose something to shoot for!  Oh, and then I can blame you all if I don't like it!  Just kidding!  So there are four that I like to choose from, leave me a comment, Facebook post, email or text of what number you would choose! 

 

It's been about eight years since I had this haircut...

Now I've had this style or something similar for a few years now...

Before that there was this style...

Then, before that, there were no bangs....

And before short hair, there was LONG hair, down to the middle of my back and longer...

 

New haircut #1

New haircut #2 

 

New haircut #3

 

New haircut #4