Birthdays, t-ball and babies

All right! Tristan is at pre-school, Alex at summer school, Lainey is watching Dora, and Emme is sleeping, so I might actually get this done!! Here are just some pictures of things we have been doing. I have forgotten to take pictures of a lot of things, but oh well.

Lainey had her three year-old birthday! Yeah for Alaina! She is such a fun little girl to have and is so sweet and stinking cute that she has us all wrapped around her finger!  When Justin started work up here, he said that I had to take a video tape all day long so he won't miss any of the cute things she does! She is always saying funny things and loves to copy Tristan and whatever he is doing. Which means that in addition to being a princess, she also really likes guns and swords. She is a pretty tough cookie and tells her brothers what she thinks and can get pretty bossy to Alex. But who can blame her? She is so cuddly and affectionate and smart and I love to just hold her and squeeze her. She likes to run around in underwear, but oftentimes runs to the door when someone comes with nothing on at all. She doesn't seem to worry about what we think, unless you say that you are sad. Then her bottom lip quivers and about goes off her face, and she will start crying really hard unless you can reassure her that you aren't sad anymore, now you are happy. She loves nursery and calls it her "other church" and loves to read books. She is so self-entertaining, if she is not bothered by her brothers she just plays and looks at books on her own and takes toys and makes up stories about them and has them all play together. If you check in to see what she is doing she says, "I'm just playing with my toys." She loooves to play pretend and dresses up as something all the time. In one day she may be a puppy, a kitty, Tigger, a bee and Dora. And she will sing songs on demand that she just makes up. Usually it is just the same words over and over, but it sure is cute! The other day Danny said, "Alaina sure is in a cute stage right now." 

"Yeah, but she has been since she was a week old," I said.

"True," said Danny, as he watched her bounce on the trampoline with her little curly pigtails.

   Here are a few pics from her birthday party. She had lots of fun, was thoroughly spoiled and has talked many times since about her "pink cupcakes."

Ummm... I can't find the pictures of Tristan's birthday. We took them and I remember seeing them on here, but now they are gone. I will take more pictures of him and then tell about his birthday.

Here is Emme all dolled up for church. She is our little doll. She loves her brothers and sisters and will wait to eat, even if she is really hungry, if they are talking to her. She is sooo good and happy and content and takes really regular naps and bedtimes, for a 3 month old. She loves to zoom around in the air or be thrown up high, and talks and jabbers to you a lot, if you will jabber back. Danny says he thinks she is going to be like her Mother, as in she will talk a lot. That's fine with me, then I will have more people to talk with! She is cute and fat and roundy and I love to squoosh her and kiss her and start missing her when she takes a long nap.

Alex, a.k.a. SpiderMan

Alex came into the dining room the other day with Emme in his arms. He had gotten her out of her crib on his own and was bringing her into me. It was kind of scary. But actually, he is super good with her and loves to play with her. Mostly he says over and over in his super high voice, "Hiiii Emmmme!"

Alex started t-ball last week and really quite enjoys it. It is a special needs group of kids, so there are no outs or anything. This is pretty much how it goes. They hit the ball, then run as fast as they can to first base, with the bat. Then they bounce up and down while waiting for the next kid to hit it who knows where and run to the next base. Meanwhile, in the outfield most of the kids are playing in the dirt or maybe have left the field altogether, while a few are gathered around close to home base to try and get the ball when it is hit. Each kid has a "buddy" on the field and Tristan keeps asking if he can be Alex's buddy. (You have to be at least 12.) Of course, Alex's favorite part is just hitting the ball, or maybe catching it. When he is outfield he gets a little ansy, or when he is waiting to hit. But at least they all get a turn. I think Alex's favorite part may be his hat. He always wears it at home when he is playing with the ball and bat.

Eventually he decided he didn't like the mitt, as it was too hard to keep in his fingers. (It's not like there are many fly balls to catch.) All the people who help are super nice and it is fun to see all the kids. Some are soo sweet and cute and Alex acts like he knows one boy, though his parents and I can't find any way that they would. But they give each other hugs and shake hands and Alex looks for him when he is not on the field. I wonder........

Daddy taking a nap with spanky pants. I can't think of anything cuter than a little roundy baby holding her toes and chewing on them and rolling back and forth.

I love their little round twinkly toes!

I am going to have to go wake her up just to kiss her!! Okay, maybe not.

 Phillip has been visiting and maybe if he is ever here and not sleeping I will get a picture of him! We've been playing outside and on the tramp a lot lately and we had a garage sale last weekend. (Made $150!!) And I think that's all for now!!!

Two Great Testimonies

School is out!! And though it hardly seems possible, that probably means I will be on here even less. Yes, I know that all my loyal fans out there (all three of you) will be heartbroken, but it must be. I do feel so insanely busy, just like there is no end in sight of all there is to do. All. The. Time. I am going to have to make better use of my mornings (meaning getting up earlier) and my evenings (meaning going to bed earlier).
  But I just wanted to take a quick minute and share what I thought were two really cool testimonies from our ward. One was Sister Bithell, who I just love, and she was telling about being in Salt Lake Memorial Day weekend. I missed part of her testimony (thank you, Emme) but the jist was that while at their hotel in the lobby, they saw President Monson! He was visiting with some youth and she said he took so much time with them all. They just waved hi to him, not wanting to take his time, but she said he came right over and talked to them for at least 15 minutes! He asked all about them, where they were from and what they were doing here, etc. She said that he was soo kind and that there was such a glow about him and that she had such a strong impression that he was truly the Lord's prophet on the earth.
  The other testimony was last month, and it was Sister Murdock, who you know I love to death, too. Her and Frank had gone to Utah for the funeral of Frank's old mission president. She went to the restroom, I think, and when she came out someone said, "Oh, you just missed President Uchtdorf!" She was trying to find her way back to where she had come from and got a little lost and was passing by the chapel or the foyer, can't remember which, when she saw a little ways off President Monson! She said that he was surrounded by about 10 to 12 little kids and that they were all gathered around him in a circle. He was talking to each one and would pat their heads, or touch their cheeks as they all gathered around him. She had tears in her eyes, as she said that as she looked on that scene, she felt just one person removed from our Heavenly Father and bore her testimony that she knew he was the prophet on the earth today.
  They were both just such neat testimonies and really touched my heart. I wish I could remember the details better.  But I know that as they bore their testimonies, the Spirit was so strong in the room.
  I have been reading President Kimball's biography, and it is so interesting and he is so humble and sweet and hard working, despite being beset by sooo many health issues. And he spends soo much time counseling individuals and those who seek his advice and help. I just can't get over how much time they spend serving and how non-stop it is. It really makes me appreciate our leaders today.
  Anyway, I just wanted to share those with you! That's all for now, but someday I will actually post pictures of Tristan and Alaina's birthdays!

All because I washed my windows

We finally had warm weather in Idaho for a few days and I finally got my front windows clean. As proof of how sparkling they are, we have had several birds fly straight into them already. Inspired by my cleaning, I decided to take a few pics of the kitchen, like I am always telling myself I am going to. Then, inspired by that, we ran down to Home Depot and finally bought new blinds for the kitchen windows. Happy day! So in honor, I thought I would do a couple of pictures of how our kitchen looked when we first moved in.

It wasn't horrible, but it was definitely wanting some updating! The different colors of paint were put there by me, trying to figure out what color to put in the kitchen. I didn't use any of them. I think I will do side-by-side pics, to make it look better! I think you can tell the difference between the befores and the afters.

 Not "done", but a lot better. It was really hard to change the kitchen with the kids running around, and having to clean up everything every night so we could use the kitchen again the next day.

One of the things we will do someday, is to replace the black dishwasher with a white one. But as long as this one holds out, I guess we will live with it. I would try to make it look better, but it is really old and I think won't last much longer anyway. I think it will look a whole lot better when we get a white one.

One of the very best things we've done was to replace all the old brown doors with new white ones. But the best of all was the french door going to the deck. It lets in so much light and makes it easy to know when the kids or the cat want in!

And here is a picture of the old blinds, as we tried to get them back down. They were so broken and we couldn't raise and lower them. It is soo nice to have new ones!

I should have turned off the light over the sink, but I didn't realize that until it was too late. And I am too lazy to try and take more pictures right now. I think you get the idea of what they look like. A lot better, that's what. And they look a lot better on the outside of the house, too!

To end this post, here are some funny things the kids have said:

Alaina is very aware now of "Mommy milk" and always says that she has "Lainey milk" and pretends to nurse toy rabbits and dolls and things. The other night Danny was getting her dressed for bed and she said, "I have Lainey milk, and you have Daddy milk!" Danny told her that no, Daddies don't have Daddy milk. She looked confused and asked, "Do you have cow milk?"

"No," said Danny.

Now thoroughly confused she asked, "Do you have apple juice?"

We have a set of little laminated dolls that represent good and bad behaviors. For example, there is Rudy Red and Greedy Green, or Bully Brown. This morning Tristan woke us up, very upset. Apparently Alaina wouldn't share a toy with him. He came into our room yelling, "Lainey's not being Polite Paula!!"

If Hannibal Lecter had children..

Whew! I am soo tired today! I just want to go curl up in my bed, that I haven't made yet. And that makes it seem all the more appealing for a nap. Mmmm... nap..... But instead I will try and catch you up on a few of the things that we have been doing here. So here goes!

Per my blog title, don't these look like Hannibal Lecter's children? They did this themselves and said that they were Hopper, the grasshopper off of Bug's Life. I think they look scary!

Alex scooted Emme up in her chair to watch him on the computer. Then he got up on the chair to dance like the animated Santa that he watches on YouTube. Danny hates it when he dances to it because he looks so silly. If Blogger will ever let me put videos on here, I will put one of him dancing to the Santa. I think it's hilarious. You can see that Emme is quite fasinated by it.

Tristan came running in yelling, "Lainey's naked in the sandbox!!" She likes to be naked a lot, and it took some convincing to get clothes on after this.

This is how we found Alaina sleeping one night. Doesn't this look comfortable?!

Emme is getting sooo big! She likes to lift her head and shoulders up when she is laying down and loves to watch her brothers and sisters. She smiles soo big whenever she sees Tristan. Probably because he talks to her all the time. She takes baths in the sink, because she is scared of the tub and screammms when we put her in there. But she just barely fits in the sink now. She is such a happy, contented baby and is so patient when I can't get to her right away. She does little giggle laughs and is a little flour sack.

She also loves to be flown around like an airplane. And she loves to lay on her back and have you sing to her. She coos back and tries her hardest to sing, too. She has really liked singing since she was a few days old. I'm sure as she gets older and becomes more discriminating she won't like my voice so much. But for now she sure does!!

I think this shows how cute and roundy her cheeks are. :)

She is always playing with her hands!

She thinks they are so cool!

This is a lot of pictures, but it was hard to decide! Sorry so many are blurry!

Alaina naked again, but at least this time she is wearing a shirt and cowboy boots, the only important items of clothing, anyway.

It was soo windy yesterday and Alex was flying his kite in the front yard and just about had it up in the power lines. So after dinner we took them all to the church field and flew his kite around.  It was so easy to get it to fly, the kids basically just stood there and up it went!

You can kind of see in this picture that Alex lost his front tooth, the one that stuck out funny. He fell off the chair, doing his Santa dance, and hit the tooth. I still had to pull pretty hard, but it finally came out. Good thing, too, because the new one is already coming in!

Do you see the kite way up there? That was all the string it had, but I wonder how high it would have gone if it had more string.

Walking home. Danny made the kids hot chocolate while I tried to mow the neighbor's lawn. Well, there aren't any neighbors there right now. Did I tell you it goes up for auction in July? Scary, 'cause whoever moves in will be our next door neighbor. Anyway, I couldn't get the mower to work right, then Justin pulled up from work, fixed it, and then mowed it for me. Wasn't that well planned on my part?

On a final note, did I tell you about the kids' cd that they listen to in the car? It has cute little songs, like Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and so on. But there is one song on there and these are the words to it- "Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home. Your house is on fire and your children will burn." And that's all the lyrics, sung about 4 or 5 times! Doesn't that seem strangely morbid for a children's cd? Especially when I hear Tristan walking around singing it. "Your house is on fire and your children will burn."