Lyla

Remember the box for his head??

Well here it is....

I was in the laundry room and turned around to this standing behind me. Scared me a little. (he made this on his own)

And some other photos from quarantine day 5....

Buzz Lightyear and naked boy made me a cake...

It's my birthday!!

Just a few pictures from my birthday on lock down. (by the way, he never had mumps, the test came back negative after a full week of being stuck at home)

hi baby..

I took this opportunity to have Lucy wear a few of her soooo cute bathing suits. Why not??

Turns out being stuck at home with these 4 little cuties isn't such a bad way to spend a birthday!

Kids are funny

Brodey is full of questions. And they come at the most random times... last night he looked up from his dinner and asked (with such a serious face): "Mom, tell me the truth, are you an alien?".

A couple of days ago in the car he asked what Heaven looked like. I told him I didn't know and he says: "Do you think it will be all yellow? Yellow just all over the place?" I heard him ask Jeff the same question tonight while I was bathing Lucy.

He came running down the stairs the other day and said: "mom! I need a box!" Me: "for what?" Brodey: "to make a tv for my head." (as he's holding out his hands as if to say, duh mom.. what else would I use a box for???)

Lyla is talking more and more. My most favorite thing she says right now is "I yuv (love) you" she kind of sings it... soo cute. She continues to love to sleep. Every afternoon when it's getting close to nap time I'll ask if she's ready for a nap and she'll say "yesh" and run to her crib. When I get her all tucked in she'll point to me and say "I yuv you!" in her little singing voice. Then I when I get to the door I'll look back and she'll be pulling down her bumper pad so she can see me with out lifting her head and point to me through the crib rails saying it again. "I yuv yooouuu!" Even as I'm walking away in the hallway she'll be yelling it from her crib.. "I yuv yoooouuu!" It's enough to make want to go running back in there and hop in that crib with her and snuggle her all afternoon. I yuv you too Lyla beans.

Lucy on the other hand... not a big fan of the sleeping. She's doing okay at night.. usually only waking up once... but NOT A FAN of napping. At least not in her crib. She likes to be held or in her swing. I wish I could be more accommodating for her, but with 800 loads of laundry to do, a million dishes to wash and someones gotta vacuum up all that sand the boys keep tracking in (do we live at the beach?? It's like having all the drawbacks and none of the perks). But I do get to sneak in some snuggle time with her.. all that other stuff can wait. She smiles and coos and snuggles that little nose into my cheek and she wins. It is just ridiculous how cute her short little arms and tiny little hands are. She's losing all her dark hair so she's got a crazy little hair line going, not to mention a rough case of baby acne... but she is still just totally beautiful. I yuv you too Lucy Rae.

Brock is just as crazy as ever. I took him to the doctor on Monday because he woke up with a large, painful, tumor-ish thing near his ear. The doctor suspects mumps (even though his been vaccinated)... I suspect the other option she gave me.. something about a saliva gland.. can't remember exactly. Anyhow.. I have to wait on the test results before I can leave the house with him. So tomorrow, on my birthday, I'll be waiting on clearance from the CDC before I can go out and celebrate. Definitely didn't see that coming. Until then we are in lock down at the Culp house. Weird, I know. (but I will say I was BEYOND impressed with how well he did for the blood test.. three vials of blood and he held still and fought back the tears for the whole ordeal. Such a tough kid. The lab tech said she normally has to call in at least 2 nurses to hold down kids his age.) Anyhow... in the meantime I'm watching him jump off the couch and run around the backyard. I would bet a large amount of money on him not having mumps... but I will keep him in quarantine for a few more days to be sure.

Pretty baby!

Lucy started smiling sometime between 3 and 4 weeks old... but I never have the camera handy! Anyhow, here she is almost smiling... she gets kinda nervous when I stick this big camera in her face.

Acworth Beach

That's right friends, I said Acworth Beach. We were sitting around Saturday afternoon and thought it might be fun to let the kids swim in the lake after dinner. Of course you can't really make last minute plans like that when you have four kids, so we ended up at the lake with only Brodey in a bathing suit, no blanket to sit on, no towels to dry off with, no stroller to push Lucy in... but we did have juice. And the camera. And a random set of water wings. And we had SO MUCH FUN. I love this family.
Here we are loading up in the truck... looking at these makes me wonder what I was doing taking pictures when I could have been packing up some beach essentials... oh well, next time!

Brodey can swim like a champ, but here in the very dirty murky water of lake where we wouldn't be able to see him if he went under, he wears water wings to make me happy. :)

No pictures of Lucy... I had her in one arm and the camera in the other... I tried a couple of times to take her picture by holding the camera out, but I missed every time. Sorry baby!

Oh, and did I mention we had no dry clothes to ride home in?? Both boys rode home naked in their car seats. We all know they loved it.

Waiting

Brock and Lyla waiting on their play date buddies. (try to ignore the sad state of our front yard, Jeff has since fixed it. Quite the yard boy!)

Zoo Atlanta!

How fun to have great friends that can get you and your herd of kids into the zoo for FREE?? Thanks Ann, Logan and Cooper! We had such a great time! The weather was perfect for a day at the zoo... we saw every animal, played on the playground twice, rode the train and had a picnic lunch. This is only the beginning of our summer adventures with the Carr family!

Pretty sure I've never seen a more beautiful blue eyed baby than this little guy...

Preschool Graduation

Jeff went into work late on Friday so we could all go to Brodey's graduation. We have had such a fun experience with this Preschool... so sad it's already over. Brodey always looks so big to me at home, but standing up on stage with all his little friends and singing all their cute little songs he seemed so so little. We love him so much and I'm sad this marks the end of him spending most of his time at home with me. Graduation ended with them singing 'Kindergarten here we come" about learning all their ABC's, 123's, xyz's and then they all yelled "WE ARE READY!!". Little too much for me to take... I had only cried a little up until that point. ooh, it makes me cry even writing about it almost two weeks later!

All the graduates....

Lucy couldn't believe Brodey is now a graduate!

Brock and Lyla loved all the songs and did really well sitting still, waving and clapping.

After all the singing, we picked him up in his classroom, thanked his fabulous teachers, and headed upstairs for the cake and lemonade reception.
it's heartbreaking how grown up he is!

How cute is he???!!

Brock was soooo excited about Herbie parked outside.. if you know Brock you know this was the most exciting thing that has ever happened to him!

We are so proud of you Brodey!!

Play Day

This is Brodey's very last week of Preschool. I'm not ready. That's a different story.
Today they had "Play Day"... all the families spent the day at the school playing games with our big preschoolers. They had jumpies, popcorn and lots of games set up in the parking lot. After all the games we had a picnic on the lawn. The kids had a BLAST.
Lucy hung out in the shade of her stroller... it was HOT out there today.