A new baby Girl!

My youngest brother Michael and his wife Emma had a litle girl the day after Thanksgiving. She is so cute. They named her Kate. I wonder what it would be like to have a girl?
Such a cute clan of McInelly's. Kate has two older brothers who will be oh so protective I'm sure. Mike said Jack, her oldest brother, talks about protecting Kate all the time. He's only 4, isn't that so cute!

The McInelly's get to come to Washington for the summer and we are soooo excited! Mike has an internship with Microsoft and so the whole family will be up here for a great Washington summer!

It's been a great fall!

I should've never written "hold me to this". That was just a preconceived notion...well not that I knew I would neglect our blog for this long, but life just happens and I wasn't very good at documenting on time. So I will attempt to catch up! We've had a wonderful fall starting with wonderful unprecidented sunny weather.
Here is Brody and Chase cheering Blake on while riding Chase's bike. Chase just took it upon himself that he was done with training wheels and basically taught himself how to ride in one day. After seeing the older boys doing it, Blake wanted to try it and do it just like the other boys.

Here are the kids in Chase's preschool. We went to Huntamer pumpkin farm. We do a co-op so every 6 weeks we host the kids at our house. It's really fun and all the kids are so cute.

We decided to try homeschooling this year with Brody. But he does go to a few classes at ORLA. It's a school run by the Olympia School District that is really organized for homeschooling families generally. Brody attends a reading class on Mondays, then an art and computer class on Wednesdays. He really enjoys it. Here he is on the playground between classes.

Kristi, my bestest friend since sophomore year of high school, and I decided to take a girl's trip. We drove up to Seattle and stayed in a hotel for a night without kids!!!! We shopped and ate (Cheesecake factory twice--I had the red velvet cheesecake 3 times! I actually brought a slice home to Chris but ate it before he could! It's shameful, but once you eat that cheesecake, you will understand!) The girls night out was sooooooooooooooo much fun! We laughed so hard and talked and talked and talked. Kristi is really like the sister I never had. I was telling Chris how I was a little embarrassed as I realized how quickly I fell back into that "single" phase....meaning, life was all about me and what I wanted. Anyway, reality hit when I came home and I hugged my kids and they said, "what did you bring me?" Ahhhh, nothing, but I have a lot of stuff I brought home for mommy! Hee heee! It was fun to be selfish for a day and a half! I told Chris I want to do it every fall. He said you should go more than that! Done! You heard it folks. It's documented. Chris was very good to take the kids for me and let me have a moment to myself. He's a great husband and father to our kids. I didn't worry about them for one minute. I knew they would be having a blast together.

A great fall....

Here we are the day before Thanksgiving with all this wonderful snow! Our kids were in heaven. After the snow was gone they kept pulling the sleds around anyway, and Brody says, "Mom, we need it to snow again!"

Cousin Olivia came down to play with us a couple of days before Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving day was one of the best Holidays I've had so far since having kids. So, holidays are of course great, but with young children, sometimes holidays tend to be hectic and chaotic and anything but relaxing. This Thanksgiving Blake took a nap during the feast and the kids even let us finish most of our conversations! It was so much fun spending time with my family. I'm so thankful so many of us live close to eachother and it's possible for us to get together often and share traditions and great memories together. In this picture the kids are listening to every work Uncle Zack is saying.

Someone's going to get hurt....but luckily no one did. The kids had so much fun playing together. I love how each year there are more cousins coming to the family. I love a big family and having lots of cousins. The more people who love and care about you the better eh?

We took Brody and Chase to "Tangled" the Disney movie about Repunzel. It was VERY good. I highly recommend it. This is the best pic I had. Sorry Chase! We went the day after Thanksgiving and thanks to my mom, we didn't have to bring Blake who wouldn't sit still for any show. He's not into them yet.

It's been a great fall!

Blake is really getting into an "exploratory" stage as Chris labels it. I will post another picture of him climbing onto the counter and then into the top cupboards. He is into EVERYTHING, and fast. I can't leave him alone in another room because I'm wondering what kind of danger he is getting himself into.
For example, this picture is when I was in the laundry room and he came to me with a bag of cheetos. The last thing I saw was him walking away from me. The next time I looked at him, only about 30 seconds later, he had walked over to his high chair, and climbed up into it and sat himself down and poured out the cheetos. The tray was on already, which I'm not sure how he managed to get up and over that overhang. He was sitting there as if he was saying, I was hungry so I made myself a snack.
Lately, Brody and Chase have discovered my scarves. I think they look like fancy sheperds.

Hold me to this!

So, I've been slacking on blogging. I want to have this for our family history, so I'm saying out loud and to you all. I am committing to blogging once a week. I will try and do it Sunday nights. So, I'm giving you all permission to nag me if I'm not keeping up with my committment. A little intervention might be neccessary. I will thank you later I'm sure!

So, here are the sweetest children sleeping. I love Chase's hand so carefully placed under his chin. Chris discovered this and came to me and said, "you gotta come up here and look at how Chase is sleeping."

We documented Brody as well. He sleeps on his stomach at least half the night.

They are such good boys. We are so blessed to have them in our lives. I was leaving Costco with all three of the boys in the cart. The employee checking our receipt says, "How wonderful it is to have these children. They are such a blessing." I looked at him and immediately my eyes got glassy. I said, "I know. It is a blessing. I think about it every day."

Brody's 5th Birthday

Brody chose an Iron Man theme to celebrate his 5th birthday this year. Chris set up an elaborate "Iron Man Training Center" which included army crawling under a canvas tarp, target practice with velcro balls, bouncy ball hopping through flags, soccer kick into a goal, and shooting out fire with a water gun (just candles folks). I failed as the photographer of the event. I didn't even get a picture of the birthday boy "training". Maybe because I was corralling 12 kids, including a 1 year old (that would be Blakey-boy).

Here is Chase shooting the water gun. Here we are at the table eating hot dogs, chips, and fruit.

Brody's friends included: Seth, Chase, Paul, Gavin, Jude, Lucas, Cross, Calvin, Rhett, and Ava.

Here is a video of the birthday song blowing out of the candles. After you watch Brody, watch the friend on his right. It made me chuckle.

It was a great party thanks to Chris. He is a fabulous Dad. I appreciate all the effort he makes to be close to our kids and raise them with love and compassion. Brody had a great time and he felt really special.

Blakey-boy

Blake is such a good little guy. He has been such a joy to have in our family. He has red hair and it's starting to curl a lot in the back. I can't bring myself to cut it, because I think it's so cute curly. He's starting to have a true mullet! His dad is proud! Blake hardly ever complains about anything. (Except for when I put him in his car seat lately.) He just lets the older boys do whatever to him. He just watches them intently. He is also starting to stand a lot and I'm hoping he will be walking soon. He has had a constant cold it seems like for the last 2 months. The doctor says he just keeps catching every virus that's coming around.

"Stop, in the name of love, before you break my heart, think it o-ooover!"

Brody is constantly entertaining Blake. Even today, when I was tending Chase, who scraped his tummy while climbing a tree, Brody was helping Blake. Blake had been whimpering and Brody stepped right in and pretty soon Blake was laughing like Brody was the funniest thing ever! Brody's a good boy like that.

Chase is 3!!!!

Chase turned 3 today! It hardly seems that long ago that he came into this world. I remember it well enough though. We barely made it to the hospital! I remember screaming at Chris to drive faster and faster because I knew we didn't have much time. We made it to the hospital and Chase made his debut four minutes later!

What a character Chase is. He has an infectious smile and laugh. He is full of personality too. I love having him in our family. He and Brody are best friends and they play well together. I always tell others that it's easier to have more than one child because they entertain each other. Chase is a delight to us...most of the time.

It sure is fun to have birthdays. Today we had breakfast for dinner as Chase requested. Then we had grandma Jeanne, Papa, and grandma Sheryl over for cake and ice cream. It was fun and I think Chase felt really special. He also got phone calls from family and cousins. He was really excited to have someone calling for HIM!

Presenting the "spiderman red cake" at Chase's request. I had fun decorating it the night before. Red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting! Yummy!

Here is a video of Brody and Chase entertaining Grandma Sheryl and Daddy today.

"I'm so glad we found this!"

Chris said let's go to a hotel. How could I say no to a getaway? Yipee!!! So, I packed our things for two nights and when Chris got home at 4:00 on Thursday night, away we went to Seattle. We stayed two nights in a hotel across from Lake Union and we had such a fun time! We went swimming, ate too much, and spent time with family. It was a great mini trip for us as a family before we had to say goodbye to dad for a whole week. Chris had to fly off Saturday morning to Deleware for work for 6 days!

When we first arrived at the hotel, the kids ran to this cool fountain.

We went swimming A LOT. It was Chase's first time swimming "all by myself",well...with the water wings of course. It was a step up for him. While I could possibly take all 3 kids by myself, I'm not sure I'd attempt it yet.

There is a great little trolly-train that we jumped on right in front of our hotel that took us right into downtown Seattle.

We had a gift certificate from Chris' brother and sis-in-law to Cheesecake Factory. YUMMY! We had a great time. We even got some delicious cheesecake to go! (This was our best family shot; our waiter had some serious shakes going on...hmmm?)

We met up with uncle Matt, Aunt Bri, Olivia, Uncle Zack, Aunt Carrie, and Dylan at Bucca di Beppo. A restaurant we have been hearing great things about for years. We finally made it, and boy was it Goooooooooood!!

We had such a good time that we decided we need to come again and again. It's fun to get away from the normal routine and not have to drive too far to do it!

Puddle Fun

For Christmas, we gave the boys some kid friendly remote control cars called morphibians. They float so they can go on land or water. It was a downpour this afternoon, so we took the morphibians out again for a drive. They are really fun for the kids, and apparently dads too.

Brody and Chase together with their morphibians.

Two handsome redheads watching the action.

Here is a video. Sorry, the quality is bad, and very bright. I'm still figuring this camera out. It's not complicated I'm sure, it's just that I'm technologically challenged. It's embarrassing to admit, when one of my brothers graduated in electrical engineering and another in graphic design. I didn't get that gene I guess.

Are you opening a preschool?

As I was standing in line to buy our craft supplies at Michaels, a lady behind me said, wow, it looks like you are opening up a preschool or something. Well, I'm not, but in an effort to cut out shows completely, I stocked up on a bunch of craft supplies. My kids, particularly Brody, have behavior issues after watching shows. Whether it's t.v. or computer, it's the same. He just has a hard time controlling his emotions after watching some kind of show. He's rude, and ornry, and cries at the slightest frustration. It's like he's a completely different kid from the regular Brody. So, I cut out shows and have tried to replace the time with crafts. This day we worked on B. Here are Brody and Chase with their bumble bees out of a "B".

Valentines Weekend

I promised the boys we could make valentine cookies for their friends in the neighborhood. Here we are with Lucas Petersen decorating the cookies that the boys actually made all by themselves. They rolled and cut out hearts. Most of the icing went into their mouths instead of on the cookie. Oh well! It was chaotic and fun! I think I ate about half of the cookies and the neighbors got a few of what was left!

After cookie decorating, they needed to do some male bonding stuff like throwing mud against the fence with spatulas and cooking utensils. Kristi and I didn't even care how dirty they were getting. As long as they were outside. The noise level of 5 boys kinda gets to us. (Kristi has Lucas and Henry. I'm sorry I didn't get a picture of all 5 of them together)

After the Petersens left, Chase and Brody were pretending this hanger was a boomerang and posed for a second to let me take a picture of them. They are getting the hang of posing I think. They like me to take their picture and then they run up to me and say so enthusiastically, "Let me see me!"

Picnics, Parties, and SUN!!

It was actually sunny out today, so the boys spread out every blanket we have to make a comfortable picnic to eat lunch outside. Grilled cheese, blueberries, and carrots were on the menu. Grilled cheese is usually the request around this house for the past few months.

We have a neighbor friend named Jayden who Brody and Chase love to play with. It was his birthday this afternoon at Charlie Safari. It's a childrens play center with air inflated jumping houses, a complex jungle gym, slides, and video games. The boys were in heaven. We were there for over three hours! We came home and ate dinner and then the boys went to bed and crashed!

Chase is leading the pack!

Party continued.....

Here's Blake in the baby area of Charlie Safari. He learned how to sit up in December and now he is crawling up everything! He is changing so fast! I want it to slow down, because it seems like it's going by too fast. I guess I'll just have to have another baby! Hee hee!

The boys found the arcade area in the back, and I had a hard time pulling them away from it! They loved the motorcycles especially.