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!