It’s birthday time!

We’ve had a couple birthdays around here! At the end of January Spencer turned 4! Spencer is a fun, active, sweet, big boy. He tries hard to do what he should. He really loves his new sister Sydney and takes really good care of her. He didn’t request a certain kind of cake (except that it be chocolate), so this is what he got. If you can’t tell those are supposed to be Lego squares.

Ben’s birthday was a couple of weeks later at the beginning of February. He turned 7 years old! Ben is a good, sweet, smart boy. He really loves the outdoors and animals. He’s also really into science lately and wanting to do science experiments.

Ben decided he would like to have a solar system cake this year. I really have a good time trying to make different cakes for the kids. Some of them turn out better than others. I thought this one was cute. (Obviously my tray was too small to put the planets in their correct order, but you get the idea.)

Toothless

I think a kid who is missing his two front teeth is one of the cutest things ever! But Ben just happens to have the cutest smile of all! (Well equally cute with Emma when she had no teeth.) Something about that gummy grin melts my heart every time.

There is also a small bit of sadness for me that comes with losing those front teeth though. Once the new teeth grow in it seems like the child's whole look starts changing. Making them look so much more grown up. Officially passing into the big kid world. I know it’s the plan, and really I’m happy about them growing up, but it still makes me a little teary if I think about it too much. So for now I enjoy the toothlessness for as long as I can. :)

Feeding the baby

Now that Sydney is only on formula, the kids love to be able to feed her. And she’ll take food from anyone willing to give it to her. She is a healthy, hungry, growing baby.

Unfortunately for them they don’t actually get the chance very often – because I really love feeding her myself! Does that make me a bad mommy, or a good mommy? I’m still not sure. I admit that one of the parts of nursing I really like is that I’m the one who nourishes the baby – the only one. (Well maybe I don’t always love it so much in the middle of the night when I’m beyond exhausted and the baby wants to nurse every hour). But in general that is something that I secretly (almost selfishly) enjoy.

But regardless of who feeds her, she is doing really well on formula. Super really well. She is now the happiest baby on the block. And that makes for the happiest mommy. Which in turn makes for a happy family.

It’s Scripture Time

Adam thought we looked pretty cute all cuddled up together for scripture reading. I wish they always sat this still. :) Actually I am usually up stairs feeding Sydney and putting her to bed during scripture time. So Adam and the big kids do it on their own – yay Adam!

I’m only two months behind!

We had a really nice Christmas. On Christmas Eve we went over to John and Megan’s for dinner. Then all the cousins acted out the nativity, and we played songs with our chimes. It was really fun. We didn’t take very many pictures this year. Probably from lack of sleep/baby brain. When we got home the kids opened one present (pajamas), and we sent them off to bed.

The kids of course had a great time opening their presents.

Sweet Ben colored a fun picture on my present.

And Super Daddy took care of Sydney most of the day. She always loves to be held by Adam.

Adam’s parents stayed the night at our house and spent Christmas morning with us. It’s always fun to have Pa and Grandma here!

Then a little later in the morning Megan and John and their family came over. We all opened a few more presents and just hung out. Also Uncle Chey was here! Unfortunately I don’t have a picture, but it’s always nice that he makes the trip all the way here from sunny California!

Family Pictures

Before Christmas we took some family pictures. We decided to go to Adam’s work to do this. Emma took this picture for us as we were walking up to the Capitol Building.

The kids always love going to Adam’s work. It’s big, it’s beautiful, there are four different levels with stairs and elevators, there are cool places to explore, and there are even secret passages.

Each Christmas season a Poinsettia “tree” is put up in the rotunda of the Capitol Building. It’s maybe 20 feet tall (I’m really bad at estimating things like that, so I could be totally wrong). Also, I have silly kids.

And super cute kids.

And really great kids who love their baby sister!

 

Before:

 

After:

The boys:

The girls:

The kids all posed themselves for individual pictures.

Emma

 

Ben

Spencer

He took “photos” all day with the tripod. :)

We also stopped for a quick break in Adam’s office.

Aw, how cute.

Merry Christmas (more than a month late). :)

A few pictures

I have some random pictures that I wanted to post. I had planned to do them as separate posts, but obviously that hasn’t happened! Here’s Sydney getting a bath. She looks so different with her hair slicked down. She loves when I put the wash cloth on her chest – it keeps her warm. She always smiles at me when I do. She loves her bath, which is good since she regularly smells like old milk from all her spitting up. (She also loves to eat and often over-eats. Thus the spitting up.)

 

Ben is our outdoorsman. He loves doing things outside. So it was no surprise when he wanted to go out and play in the snow one day (even though the snow was a couple of days old and it had become pretty stiff by then). I checked on him every so often and watched him making a great snow man. I honestly thought the snow was too icy.

Each time I checked on him, there were more snowmen in the yard. I took him some carrots for noses, but the snow was too hard to keep them in place. You can see here four large snowmen, and there are a couple more out of view. Eventually he started making small ones (about 1 foot tall). All in all there were around 15. He was out there for a while, but he had so much fun! I love my out-doors kid!

 

 

I debated whether I should post this, but…I wanted to. And I could use a good laugh today. The other day I was trying to clean up a little. We have a cedar chest/bench by our front door that the kids keep their winter/school gear on. I noticed that it was out from the wall a little too far, so I pushed on it to put it back into place, and it didn’t budge. I looked behind it and saw a small ball back there. I pulled the chest out a little so I could reach the ball. As I did so I noticed another small toy or two. So I pulled the bench all the way out to get anything else that had gotten trapped under there. Here’s what I found…

Yes, that is a piece of french toast. Don’t be too jealous. :)