Bath Time

Sunday nights we generally skip baths for the kids since they stay clean and inside all day. Howie wanted to take a "fun" bath with Luke tonight, so I obliged.

Howie and Luke had a lot of fun.

Jack joined a little later and now Howie and Jack are livin' it up in the bath. I'm glad Howie was smart enough to close the shower curtain to contain all the water. They were really splashing a lot!

Howie is absolutely the BEST big brother in the whole wide world!!! I'm so thankful for him and his willingness to help with his younger siblings, especially his little brothers. He's so responsible, caring, and affectionate. It's great.

(As I was typing this Howie started telling Erin that he loves her 1%. He sometimes has issues with Erin, but I know he loves her. If he keeps it up, he's going to make me a liar.)

Can you say O.C.D.?

Jack LOVES dinosaurs!

I cannot over emphasize this enough. He is either playing with them in the sandbox, playing with them inside, looking at them in books, dressing up like one, or watching a movie about them. He's even in the bath tub right now with them having a dialogue between Sarah and her Daddy from "The Land Before Time" movie.

Here they are migrating.

My Saturday Morning

While Howard has been away my bed has not been as lonely as one might think. I have these three handsome boys to keep me company. I'm not always this nice to let this many children in my bed at once, but Erin was at a sleep over on Friday night, so I was feeling a bit lonesome.

Sorry this picture isn't centered, I did crop it, but Jack was half way out of the picture to begin with. The flash was just a little too bright for them in the wee hours of the morning.

Lil' Paleontologist

The past few days Jack has been very into playing in the sandbox. That's all he wants to do. He takes his dinosaurs out there and buries them and then digs them up. I don't think he even knows what an excavation is, but that's what he's doing.

You can see how serious he gets. He can spend hours out in the backyard. Just last night I had to practically drag him in the house at 7:30pm because it was time for bed.

This last picture was taken with my flash off. It was dusk, but not dark. This picture was taken at the same time the others were, but my flash was on with the previous pictures. If anyone has a tip on how to have my pictures brighter (without being blurry or grainy) lease share. I hate our flash, it seems to darken everything around and behind my subject.

I Like This!

18 of these sure can make someones day a little brighter!

On Wednesday I made cinnamon rolls and shipped them overnight to Howard. They were still a little warm when they left OKC. That evening I received Howard's little surprise. A dozen and a half roses! I'll make cinnamon rolls more often if this is what I get! These last longer.

This evening I was trying to make dinner, feed Luke, and clean up the house before our home teachers came over. Luke was a little fussy that he wasn't getting my full attention so Erin stepped in to help (without even being asked). What a big help. This is definitely a change for her. She really hasn't been into babies since I've had Jack or Luke, so I'm glad she's taking more interest in them. One more thing...Luke loves cheerios and just started eating real bananas (not pureed). He is really enjoying the table food that I give him (it's not much, but he loves what he gets!)

Like the hat? The wind blew it into our yard in Okinawa...it's Japanese. If you look close at her nails we painted them during nap time. We bought 4 nail polish colors yesterday at Target (oh how I love Target!)

One more thing...

Howard and I are in the market for a new TV, so the kids and I went to Best Buy to browse and see what they had. When we were done there we went next door to Target and picked up some fall clothes for Jack and I and a few extras. Let's just say I'm banned from shopping for the next month or two (self imposed of course, Howard's not mean that way)...that's how much I spent! Once we were done (about an hour and a half later) we get to the mini van and I hear a noise coming from it. I left it on and running the whole time!!!!! Somehow in the commotion of taking 4 kids shopping with me all alone I forgot to turn the car off!!!! That's something that I could see myself doing when I'm pregnant...but I'm definitely NOT pregnant. Crazy huh?! Thank goodness my van was still there. Someone could have driven off with it! I'm still in shock over the matter and that was over 24 hours ago. At least it was just my keys and I didn't leave any of the kids in the car. Now THAT would have been bad! (That's actually one of my fears. It breaks my heart whenever I hear a news story about a parent forgetting their child in the car and the worst happens. What a tragedy.)

Have a great day!

So Stinkin' Cute!!!

Luke is really getting around these days and he's even taking it to the next level. Today he stood on his hands and toes with his cute butt sticking up in the air. The pictures that I have didn't catch him when his butt was highest, but he's just so stinkin' cute that I wanted to share. I was on the phone with Howard when he first started doing it and I described it to Howard as best I could, but here are some pictures for a better idea.

He was VERY interested in the camera!

He's crawling a lot farther now. Before he would just stay in one room, but now he can make into into the next. He can also go from a sitting position to crawling without smacking himself in the face on the ground.

Another funny thing today...as I was practicing the piano he crawled right under the bench to where the damper pedals are. It was a lot cuter than it sounds just reading it on my blog. I promise.

Crafting With Erin

Ever since I had my Super Saturday last week, I've been very excited do to some more crafting on my own. I'm really not much of a crafter, and I have only the bare minimum of supplies. Erin LOVES crafting and so I thought it would be a good thing for her and I to do together to get some girl time. Unfortunately one of the consequences for being such a good girl is that I don't spend very much time with her compared to the others. She needs less correcting, less homework help, and mostly stays out of trouble. With the boys, it seems like they have a monopoly on my time wit homework, discipline, and extra basic needs. Well I finally broke down last week and splurged on a bunch of craft supplies for her and I. My kitchen counter did not see the light of day for about 3 days straight. I'm so glad Howard wasn't here to complain about how messy the house got.

Here is Erin painting her tray. She was so happy to do a project with me. The messy house and chicken nugget dinners were totally worth it last week.

Erin made a fairy wand and tray for her little nick knacks in her room. I helped.

The next items were my project. Erin picked out the paper that I used, but I did the rest.

I bought her letters on premade MDF boards and traced the letters on scrapbooking paper. I painted the MDF letters pink first, then I cut out the paper letters and modge podged them to the MDF boards. After adding several coats of of the modge podge, it built up a nice lacquer. I hot glued the ribbon on and added a couple other embellishments to the letters.

I also decorated a cheap Walmart frame with the same paper as the N in her name. I added some blue rick rack and put her most recent picture in it. She loves it! $3 Walmart frames are good for something.

We are done crafting for a while, but my mind is busy planning what to do next. I think I'll work on the boys' room next.

Howie's Project

Late this afternoon, Howie found some acorns. When we got home from being out for a few hours he asked if he could "play with them" (his exact words). "okay, sure" I said. I started making dinner and I found him doing this...

PLANTING THE SEEDS

I don't think he got a digging permit, but I guess I'll let it slide this time.

Then she came along to help get the soil wet...

They finally caught me taking pictures.

But they just kept on working!

Howie and Erin got out the yard tools by themselves, so they also had to clean and put them away. They were a bit muddy, so bath time was BEFORE dinner tonight.

Super Saturday

Today was Super Saturday in my ward (for those of you who don't know what that it, a bunch of ladies get together once a year and make crafts while the husbands watch all the kids). I just wanted to show off what I made...

The first craft I made was a wooden plaque with vinyl lettering. I'm not super thrilled with the font of the words, but I like it enough to hang in the playroom. If you look closely, the c and h are together and look like a d. That's the way it came, I didn't do that.

This wasn't the best picture of my second project, but I love how Luke's little hands and Erin's knees are in the picture. They are "I Spy" bags. If the kids like them, I think I'll make 1 or 2 more. There's a laminated tag that lists the contents of each bag and the goal is to find them all. It's a lot harder than you think!

This was by far my favorite project. It's a magnetic board. Here's how to make it...take some sheet metal, modge podge, your choice of paper and ribbons, put them all together....viola!

It's a cute and useful magnetic board. The 4 flowers are magnets. I really want to make more, I just need to find out where to get the sheet metal.

The Boys' New Bed

I wanted to share with everyone the boys' new bed. Luke will join Howie and Jack in about 1 year when he's out of his crib. We also ordered drawers for under the bed and a tall dresser, but those are on back order until October. I'm just happy they finally have a bed and are up off the floor. Their room seems to stay cleaner that way.

I love how the bottom full size portion can be converted back to a twin size. It provides a lot of different sleeping options as our needs change over the years.

We decided on a space/rocket ship theme for their room, but we are still gathering cool items to make it awesome. I would like to hang the solar system from their ceiling, but I haven't gotten that far yet. Maybe Howard will paint when he gets home? Howie doesn't care, so we'll just wait and see.

We decided to get a full on the bottom because they love sleeping together most of the time and I thought that they would want the extra space. Boy was I wrong...Jack and Howie sleep on the twin together. I guess they like it crowded.

The Dinosaur

At Howard's request I recorded this video of Jack on the phone with Howard recently. Every time Jack gets on the phone with Howard, dinosaurs seem to come out of no where and send Jackson fleeing into his hiding spot. It's so funny. I prompted it this time, but normally I stay out of the conversation.

Playing Outside

It has been so nice lately that I decided to take Luke outside, just for his sake. We weren't out there to watch anyone else, just for him to explore a little. It was a bit breezy, so we kept it kind of short.

He hardly ever looked at me or the camera. There was always something flying around in the sky to catch his attention.

I had to be careful that he didn't eat the sand in the sandbox. I think he spent 3 minutes in it...just long enough to get some cute pictures. He'll be ready to play for real next summer.

If you look closely, you can see his lone tooth sticking out. So far I've been lucky...no biting yet. Knock on wood!

Bargain Shopping

One thing I dearly missed while in Okinawa was the Goodwill. We had a thrift store on base, but it was horribly overpriced. While out today I found several bargains, but Jack found this...new in the box. I wanted to say no since his birthday is coming up soon, but I just couldn't resist. He LOVES it!

It's so fun listening to him have the trains talk to each other. He is by far my most imaginative kid. I love listening to him talk.