Happy Kids

I just had to put these pictures up because it show the kids being nice.  Bradley and Britton have a love/hate relationship.  She loves him, usually, but isn't always the softest person.  Bradley loves her, usually from a distance, but is starting to develop a complex about kids touching him because of her influence on his life. But the other day I was making lunch and Britton was watching a movie on the computer when Bradley woke up from his nap.  Britton offered to "hold" him on the chair and he was happy there.  I had to take pictures to document the fact there wasn't any screaming.

 He got my nose!  Britton thinks it is great when Bradley voluntarily touches her, usually.

Such love, especially when you notice that her focus is on something else.  But look, they can get along.  I'll have to remember this the next time they are screaming.

Easter

I feel so incredibly on top of things at the moment.  Don't worry, I'm sure the feeling will pass.  The week leading up to Easter we were lucky enough to have Brandon's family come visit us.  Of course I forgot to take pictures for most of the time they were here.  I can blame some of that on sickness, I was running a temp one night and spent most of the next day in bed.  But we did have a little Easter egg hunt with the kids on the day William had early release and I did get pictures of that.

 Britton found an egg, Don and Yuri did a great job hiding the eggs.  There were only a few that were just a tad high for the kids to reach.

 William's haul.

 Caitlyn's eggs.

 Britton was very excited, can't you tell?  So excited her expression looks pained.

 Bradley demonstrated how he really isn't a people person.  He doesn't always tolerate people, but I must say that he does it to everyone.  Even on occasion to Brandon.  He is a mama's boy, especially if he thinks mama is leaving.

 I wanted to put this picture because Bradley is looking at me and smiling but notice that Haley, Britton, and William are not.

 Yuri made these awesome star balls for the kids with treats inside.  The Easter bunny was nice enough to put them in the baskets with the rest of the treats.

 Right to the bubbles.

 A new coloring book, yay!

 The kids all scored new coloring books and crayons, sidewalk chalk, bubbles and a little candy.  And they all got up without the aid of Brandon's alarm.  We had to get an early start so we could go chase the Rabbit.  We went to the grand opening of Teton Running Company, a new running store in town, and they had a mile fun run complete with an Easter Bunny.  The kids thought it was fun that we were chasing the Bunny.  Brandon ran with William and they finished around 11 minutes.  I pushed Bradley and Britton in the stroller and ran with Caitlyn.  I let Britton run the last little bit and we finished around 13 minutes.  It was a bit cold, I'm not sure why I thought we would have a warmer Easter at the end of April, and I think the cold added to the walking breaks.  We also got some door prizes and Brandon was just excited that there is finally a nice running store near us.
Saturday night we did Resurrection rolls again, but I forgot to take pictures this year.  I was lazy and used frozen Rhodes rolls this year.  What can I say, they were on sale and I really didn't want to make dough.  But the kids had fun wrapping the marshmallows in the dough, we had a great retelling of what happened to Jesus after he was crucified, and the kids were excited about the rolls in the morning.  Caitlyn was a little upset that the marshmallow was gone, apparently she forgot about what happened last year, but it is very cool to break them open and see they are hollow.

Sunday was actually very nice, you would never guess we had snow two days before, so we thought we would take some pictures outside.  So here we are all dressed up.  I did mange to find something in the same color scheme so I would match the family.  And I must say that I still hate shopping.  Oh well, the kids look cute and that is what matters right? Right.

April Fools

I know that this was almost a month ago, and I was going to try and stay on top of things, but better late than never.  April Fools was at the end of William's spring break and Brandon took the week off.  I made the mistake of showing him this and he thought that we should try it out.  So here are the fruits of our labor.

 Spaghetti and meatballs

These actually looked way more realistic than I thought they would.

Carrots and peas, Mashed potatoes w/ gravy
We took most of these over to the station, there was no way I needed these in the house.  The kids thought they were fun, but it did take them a little bit before they would try the spaghetti and meatballs.  I don't know that we will be making these next year, but they were fun.

March

One more month to do as a big block and then I just might be caught up.  Once again, you could just look at the pictures of the cute kids.  But I guess I'll tell you a little about our goings on.

Bradley can sit all by himself.  Now, I'm not sure exactly when this happened (the poor fourth child I guess) but I thought I would get photo proof.

Look at the handsome guy, sitting so well and without pants.

I love his little grin, and the dimples oh the dimples.  Working on teeth but nothing for March.  But check out the hair, we just might get a blondie.

When taking a picture of the baby we must take a picture of everyone else.  In this bigger shot ignore the mess in the background.

Britton has enough hair for braids!  If you can get her to sit still, she did really well this day.  Unfortunately the front isn't quite long enough to stay in all day.  Caitlyn on the other hand has hair to the middle of her back.

Leprechauns left us a tasty treat.  Rainbow cupcakes!  Those pesky leprechauns made them huge too, don't know what they were thinking, so we couldn't share them and had to eat them all ourselves.  The kids weren't all that disappointed.

The next pictures are kind of an Easter preview.  I keep giving myself projects, a couple of baby blankets for family (hey family, Brandon said you guys have to stop having babies but those are his words not mine) and then I came up with a great idea for Easter.  Skirts for the girls and ties for the guys.  The ties came about because we found a ties for William at a boutique and Brandon was in love with it, said you can't get ties like that anywhere.  He was thrilled when I told him that we could get a pattern and try to make some.  So we found a pattern, it even had a pattern for a tie for Brandon, and then I made him pick some material cause he is picky about tie patterns.  I wasn't real rushed about it because I had two months before Easter but I finished and Caitlyn really wanted to wear them to church so they were tested out a month early.

What cute kids, if I say so myself.  I'm not sure why Bradley looks like he fears for his life.

 Brandon helped him tie his tie, he was really excited.  And do you see the gap in his smile?  The other front one is loose and he really hopes that he loses it soon so he can stick his tongue between his teeth.

 Clearly it isn't really warm enough to wear this outfit.  She added the arm warmers herself.  I put the flowers on the shirt so it would be more than just a plain white shirt.  She was very excited about the flowers.

 We clearly need to talk to her about her cute face.  Unfortunately I didn't get her flowers as close together on her shirt.  I didn't notice until she was wearing it and I'm to lazy to fix it now.

 Aren't I cute?  Now I don't have to rush out and search through our kids clothes boxes to find the small tie we bought for William.

Brandon was really happy with his tie, but I do have this word of warning, it was forever long.  So if you get the tie pattern from The Ribbon Retreat just know that you probably don't need the entire extension for the Big Daddy tie.  Brandon had half his tie tucked in his shirt.

So there you have it.  March completed.  I will try to be a little better about procrastinating, but I'm not going to make any promises.

February

Another month, more happenings.

 Another day of snow, after melting before, and I decided to make some peanut butter playdough.  I found the recipe at Our Best Bites.  The girls had fun, William had fun after school, and it tasted delicious.

Oh the concentration.

Oh the love, he was good for about a minute before he was squirming.  Caitlyn loves Bradley, and he does love when she gets near him.  It might be his obsession with her hair.

Brandon made an appointment for me to get a haircut, he is no longer allowed to talk to people at church, and I thought i would see how my hair would react to being short again.  When I last cut it short it didn't go well, this was after I had William. It seemed that the curl took a vacation and I wasn't sure if it would ever come back.  When I had Caitlyn I was diagnosed with a low thyroid, prescribed medication, and the curl seemed to come back.  So I thought I would try short again, and Brandon seemed to be okay with it.

 Ten inches or so off, donated to Beautiful Lengths, and I really like it.  Brandon does too.  It is actually shorter now, the first cut was long enough that if it didn't work on it's own I could curl it.

February was also birthday month for me.  It feels so lonely, everyone else is in the last half of the year.  So it is a good thing that my extended family has a ton of February birthdays.

Sometimes breakfast gets messy.  And sometimes the house too, just ignore the laundry in the background.

Brandon likes to fish, but he doesn't actually like fish, go figure.  He took William ice fishing a couple of years ago, but since then William mentions at least once in the winter that it was fun to go ice fishing.  Well this year there was a free kids ice fishing day, so Brandon signed up the three oldest and they had a great time.

 Checking the lines, I'm not entirely sure what Britton is doing.

 A tiny fish.  Caitlyn caught 4 or 5, although the number seemed to get bigger every time she told the story.

 Another small fish.  William caught 9 fish, but it was all catch and release cause they were small.

Brandon claims there was supposed to be a fish in the picture.  Britton insisted on holding it, squeezed it, and even kissed it.  The kids had fun, ate some hot dogs, chili and hot chocolate.

January

I cannot believe how long it has been since I blogged anything, so you are going to get very short blow by blows.  But there are some picture so you could technically just look at the cute kids and skip the words.

Caitlyn requested an igloo in the backyard.  After being told that we didn't have enough snow, Brandon agreed to make the pile of snow in the front yard bigger and dig a little snow cave.  Caitlyn and William were very excited and it was a good thing they played while they could because it melted in the next couple of days.

They spent the afternoon in the cave, Caitlyn wasn't so sure about coming inside.

Bradley is by far the most maneuverable of the four kids, he rolls he spins and then he finds himself under the piano bench.  And he is so happy, can't you tell?

William went to a birthday party where he got to wear his Cat in the Hat costume and so everyone had to try it on.  Bradley in the Hat was of course adorable, but for some reason this was the favorite way of wearing the hat.  So there you have January in a nutshell, minus the hair cut and donation but there aren't any photos for that until next month.

Happy New Year

The New Year happens to be my favorite holiday, or at least in the top three.  We didn't do anything real huge on New Year's Eve because of course Brandon had to work but we did manage to have some fun.

Bradley figured out how to roll from his back on the 26th of December, he rolled from his stomach in November, and has been rolling around the house since.  I found him crying under his bouncy chair and of course took a picture before I rescued him.

We did have a sad moment, we said goodbye to Alyssa.  It was her last day at channel 8 so we took her some brownies and said goodbye.

The kids stayed up late (9:30) watching a movie with popcorn and orange soda.  They did pretty well, there was only a little whining when it was time for bed.  Brandon and I watched some of a movie after he got home and then watched the ball drop.

Now for my favorite part of New Year's Day.  In my family we have a tradition about the New Year's Fairy, but if you ask my dad it is the New Year's Spirit and the Flamms have a New Year's Elf but it really is the same thing.  On New Year's Eve you leave a shoe out and on New Year's day the shoe is filled with goodies and you get a new book.  Isn't that the coolest thing ever?  One new book guaranteed a year.  I forgot to take a picture of the shoes, we got an assortment of chocolates this year, but the kids were so excited for their books.

 Checking out her new Fancy Nancy books.

 The first four Encyclopedia Brown books, he had them all read by Monday night, a child after my own heart.

 Britton wasn't too sure about the whole thing, until she found the candy.

Bradley can't actually feel anything with the socks on his hands but he did try to eat the book.  And of course we don't have to be on the waiting list at the library for The Lost Hero even though we were up to number 23.  Hope you all had a wonderful New Year, now it is back to the school routine.  William slept in almost every single day of the two week vacation.  So it should be interesting getting back into a schedule.