Random cell phone pics

Lyla got into some make-up.. :)

Too many things in the picture make me smile to just talk about one :)

Lyla and Lucy play with their play-dough on the deck.. went out there to find Lucy STANDING on the table, THROWING play-dough everywhere and LAUGHING hysterically. Really I should have taken a video.. it was adorable. And so naughty. But adorable wins. ;)

Superman

Brock loooves superman. So much that now everyday he begs me fix his hair like Superman. I love him!

Brock

Few things Brock has said this week that I have to write down before I forget... (really, an entire book could be written with all the crazy things he's said.. I love how his mind works)

I was sitting in the kitchen helping Brodey with is homework and Brock marches out all serious and says, "Mom. God makes us in Heaven, then we BUST OUT of your belly (hand motions), then we grow from little to big (hand motions again). Right?" I tell him he's got the highlights down and he just nods his head and walks away. So random.

A couple of days later he came home from school and he's chatting away about his day.. I was half way listening as I'm changing a diaper.. then he says, "we learned about food and sex today from Mother Goose." Suddenly he had my full attention.

me: "you learned what? From who??" (Mother Goose??? Really???)
Brock: "Well you know, I like peanut butter."
me: "yep. what about the other thing?"
Brock: "Sex. You know, bees."
me: (kinda stuttering at this point) "Like birds and bees?"
Brock: "No mommy, birds aren't sex! Bees and dragonflies. Did you know dragonflies are the faaaastest sex??"
INSECTS! ha!! Whew.


He prays before bed and always thanks God for everyone in the family by name. Lately he is also, very seriously, been thanking Him for eyeballs. Thank you God for mommy's eyeballs, for daddy's eyeballs, Brodey's eyeballs, Bean's eyeballs, Sushi's eyeballs and for my eyeballs. Every night. Eyeballs. I love the things that stand out to him.

Caught up!

YES! Finally, after two straight days of blogging, I am caught up. I hope I never get that far behind again! Whew.

Few things:

I went to Brock's parent teacher conference last week and she was again singing his praises: "...so well behaved.... plays so nice with his friends... so polite.. works so hard... always obedient...." I was of course shocked (super proud, but shocked). Then she goes to say that she asked him if he's so well behaved at home and he whispers (with a smirk), "no.. I am crrrrraaaa-zy at home." I laughed so hard! At least he's honest.

Took Brock to the dentist and overheard this:
Dentist: "What is your name??"
Brock: "Brock-y"
Dentist: "humm.. Brock-y, do you have any brothers and sisters?"
Brock: "Yep, Brodey, Beans and Sushi"

Brock is still REALLY traumatized over frosting. He runs screaming when I put Lyla in cupcake pajamas, has asked me several times if I'm going to put frosting on Lucy's birthday cake next week.. and today when I told him it was Uncle Myles' birthday he got a horrified look on his face and asked if Myles was going to eat frosting. I bought him a "frosty" from Wendy's and he wouldn't eat it because he thought I said "frosting" and he couldn't stop thinking about it. Poor buddy. I wonder if he'll ever get over his queasy-ness to frosting!

Lucy's new favorite things: emptying the dishwasher onto the floor, and playing in the toilet. When we bust her and she hears us coming she really starts splashing.. it's almost like she's trying to jump in there. So gross. Even grosser... Jeff doesn't think it's gross! Last time she did it he wasn't even going to change her wet shirt! Gross.

Beans sometimes says words with all her letters mixed up. And it's so cute that I never correct her! (I know, terrible.. I can't help it) My favorite right now is: Pa-chack, would you ever know what she was saying??? Chapstick! I love it.
She also loves to have her fingernails and toenails painted. Also loves playing in mud and jumping on the bed.

Last night Brodey sat down and read a whole book to me. HE read to ME. Amazing. The book was: How do Dinosaurs Get Well Soon. (Thank you Clint and Kristin.. it's still a favorite!) I'm so proud of him and can't believe he is reading! And loosing teeth left and right, and according to our giant ruler.. he seems to have grown 3 inches since school started. 3 inches!

Anyhow.. can't end without a picture! Jeff found Lyla like this last night... asleep with her feet on the floor and her head on her bed!??? Sweet girl.

FOUND!

Found that pesky USB cord. It was on top of the refrigerator. NOW I remember that I put it there so the kids wouldn't run off with it... go figure.

Anyhow.. no time for updates since we are on our SIXTH day of a pesky stomach virus and I'm up to my eyeballs with puke laundry.. but hopefully this weekend I'll have some time to update the last 6 weeks!

In the meantime...

Right before Brock got sick the first time he was complaining of "smelling frosting". The smell was making him sick and we couldn't find it anywhere. I thought maybe he had something sugary on his face so I kept telling him to wash his face. Then he threw up. So for the past six days every time we hear him yelling, "I SMELL THE FROSTING!!!" we come running with a bucket. Isn't that weird?? If I wasn't so tired of vomit, I might even think it was funny. Maybe later.

Good news is he seems MUCH better today. Only "smelled the frosting" once and other than being weak and not wanting to eat anything, he seems much more like himself now. Hoping to be 100% tomorrow!

Trampoline Fun

Oh brothers

Jeff went a little stir crazy during all the snow days so he painted Lyla's room. Again. And started it at like 5pm.. so of course she couldn't sleep in there that night. I told the boys Lyla was going to sleep in their room with them and they were SOOOO EXCITED. They even made her a little bed. They laid her pink blanket over their toy box, grabbed a pillow off the couch, put a coat on her (???), covered her with Brock's "camo" (that's what he calls it) and even boxed her in with the US map off the wall and Lucy Rae's push toy. They take such good care of her!! Truly unbelievable how long she stayed there like that. Of course I had to move her to her sleeping bag on the floor... but I'm proud of our boys for being so creative and loving her so much.

2011.. off to an interesting start.

* Lyla is 2 years old and really wants to potty like a big girl... several times a day she'll say to me "I haf-ta go potty, I haf-ta go potty!" To which I always reply "Great! Go in your diaper!".. Jeff says I've already lost the Mother of the Year award (one week in) for that one. Honestly though.. picture me in the back of the grocery store with 4 kids and a 2 year old bladder. No chance I'll make it to the front of the store in time to cram everyone into a nasty public bathroom, help her with her pants while balancing the baby on my hip and preventing the boys from touching any nasty thing they can find. Is potty training really that big of a deal??

*We have been very fortunate with kids who sleep REALLY WELL. In bed by 8 and normally we don't hear a peep out of them until at least 7am. So I know I shouldn't complain when we hit a bad night.. but man.. it's like they plan it or something! Last night Brock had a bad dream and I had to go hide the Curious George stuffed monkey that was "making him" have bad dreams at 4:30am. Then at 5am he called me in there because he was "all sweaty".. Lucy woke up after that squealing and wanting to play. After finally getting her back asleep, I accidentally overslept and woke up to Brodey covered in puke.
Me: "Brodey, when did you throw up??"
Brodey: "Last night"
Me: "You woke up, threw up and then went back to sleep??!"
Brodey: "Nope, I threw up before I went to sleep."
Me: "Was I sleeping???"
Brodey: "Nope, I could hear you guys talking"
Me: "????? Why didn't you yell for me??"
Brodey: "I did once but you didn't hear me so I went to sleep"
Me: "In your puke??!?!?!"
Brodey: "Nah.. I put my pillow pet over it."

Wow. And this was no small amount of vomit. I was all over him and on every pillow/stuffed animal/blanket and piece of bedding on that bed. Jeff checked on him before bed but I guess he couldn't smell it because Brodey was laying on top of it. Boys.

* Lyla was sitting across from Jeff the other night asking for some "ass cream". Over and over and over. Poor Jeff looked so upset and kept asking me why she was saying that. "Ass cream" to Lyla is "ICE cream" to the rest of us.

2011 should be a pretty exciting year for us! I can't wait!

Random things that still need to be documented :)

Every year we take the kids on a "tour of trees" to see every family members Christmas tree. I only had my camera for our stop.. but I'll get more pics from my sister from the other stops.

While making cookies one night Lyla was upset that I was too busy to paint her fingernails. I turned away from the oven for a second and found Jeff painting them! Daddy of the year.

This is our Elf. Brock affectionately named him "Mr. Hunkel" ?????? Brodey is a little freaked out by him and hides from him. Brock will sit in front of Mr. Hunkel all afternoon carrying on the funniest conversations. In particular I overheard him say, "Mr. Hunkel, will you please tell santa to put some candy in my "sock-ing", my mom ate all mine." :/

Again.. daddy of the year. All four in his lap is not an uncommon occurrence.

Lyla and I were baking cookies AND popping popcorn one morning.. she was so excited she found this little spot to sit and watch both! (I know.. very odd outfit)

Middle Children

I asked Lyla the other day who her best buddy was, without pause, she said, "Bwocky".

Just some fun pictures

"See my silly bands mama??"

"You see 'em??"

Lucy Rae snuggling with Brocky on the couch

Fun Friday

I'd been promising the boys we would play on their school playground one day after school. The weather was perfect on Friday, so the girls and I got out to pick them up and we had fun playing and I got a few cute pictures.

Brocky get's those little stickers for sharing or being nice to his friends.

Then we went home and had a few races while waiting on daddy to get home!

Footy Jammies

Is this the last year Brocky will fit in footy jammies??? I hope not.

Siblings

Sibling love

Brock thinks that now that he is 4 he is qualified to carry Lucy around the house. I disagree. Our compromise is him getting to "hold" her in his bean bag chair.

I love her face.... I'm fairly certain I make that face a lot when Brock is talking to me. Kind of a mix between "Huh??" and "Wow!"

Lyla loves to sit on the counter while I make dinner or lunch or washing dishes or even unloading the dishwasher. She'll come stand next to me and say "I jump?".. that's what she calls sitting on the counter... jumping. Even though there is no jumping.. just sitting.

Sometimes she sits over on the island with Lucy Rae

My grandfather made me this baby cradle when I was little and my grandmother painted it. Lyla LOOOOOVES this cradle. She puts her babies down for naps and is soooo sweet tucking them in with the blanket my grandmother made. She also uses it as a stroller and pushes her babies around the house... it makes a horribly annoying loud noise since it doesn't have wheels and isn't meant for pushing. But she doesn't care.

Today she thought it would be fun to put Lucy in the cradle. She kept say, "sssuuuccy, rock.... sssucy rock!" so I put her in there and took some pictures. Lucy didn't seem to mind... this might be the best sharing they do with the cradle so I'm glad I documented it!

Popsicles

Thank goodness for Popsicles, if not for them we would probably NEVER go outside during the summer.

4 year well check...

Brock did great for his 4 year well check. He did everything asked of him... jumped on one foot, touched his toes, knew all his colors and shapes, knew that he should eat when he's hungry and get a blanket when he's cold. When asked to draw a picture of daddy he said, "well, how about a picture of Cooper?" and drew a very handsome picture of his cousin. She said he was "advanced" because he drew a body and not just a head with arms and legs. She was extra impressed when he went on to write his name, Brodey's name, Lyla's name and Lucy's name. Smarty pants!
He also had a vision and hearing test. The nurse had him cover one eye and then pointed to pictures for him to name. Little stinker kept peeking and using both eyes. The nurse didn't catch him and I was too busy laughing to let her know. Oh well.. he sees fine! :)
He was very brave for his shots and only cried a little. Tough guy.
He weighs 35 lbs (50th percentile)
and is 39.5 inches tall (50th percentile)
She estimates he will be between 5'11 and 6 feet tall as an adult. I'm 5'8... so weird to think of my little Brock ever being taller than me!
Here's a few pics I took with my phone....

He was being so cute I was almost in tears just thinking about how fast he is growing..