Week ending 2-26-17

Another normal week of school, baby-sitting, violin and band, chess tournaments, and cold snowy weather.

Sunday: Makenna wanted her picture taken after watching home videos of Madalyn at this age wearing the same dress. 

Then Kaitlyn wanted her picture taken. 

Anderson unloading the silverware. 

Every time I pull out the camera he sticks his hand out for me to take a picture of his "ouchie", the burn from 2 weeks ago. 

Tuesday: Anderson and Samuel enjoying a granola snack. 

They're starting to play together more and I love it. 

Sticking out his hand again. 

Talking on the phone like Daddy. 

Wednesday: Samuel ready to play in the snow. He doesn't believe in long sleeves or coats. He says, "But, I'm brave." One day several weeks ago the snow had melted but it was still cold. Spencer ran out barefoot to shoot a few hoops. I told Samuel to put his shoes on and go play outside with him. He said, "But Spencer doesn't have shoes on." Without thinking I replied, "Well, Spencer's brave." Now every time I tell Samuel to wear long sleeves or get a coat or shoes he says, "But I'll be brave." Even sitting around the house we're all wearing our warm winter sweaters and he wears the same 2 t-shirts and says he's brave, he doesn't need to wear warm clothes. 

Anderson watching the snow. But as soon as I pulled out the camera he stuck his hand out again. 

I had to distract him to look at the snow so he'd stop showing me his ouchie. 

Friday: Andy sticking out his hand while I take a picture of our family gathering. 

This is Nathan and one of his little sisters. 

Chatting at the table. Some of Nathan's uncles and cousins came from Florida to snowboard. I wish I could go to Florida to enjoy the warm sun. 

The cousins playing games in the basement. 

Saturday: Eating peanut butter right out of the jar. Andy had stuck out his hand when I started to take the picture so I waited and then I got one with his mouth wide open. But it made me laugh. 

I worked on picking out baby clothes to make a memory quilt. I had no idea what I wanted it to look like but my sister-in-law is helping me. I think it'll look like this with a border between all the clothes. The top left corner is Nathan's and mine. Then Kylie's, Madalyn's, etc, down to the new baby who hasn't worn hers yet. Each child has a square and will have their name on it.

Week ending 2-19-17

Not many pictures this week. I guess we just did the normal stuff: school, constant housework, grocery shopping, and a lot of baby-sitting jobs for the 4 oldest kids.

Monday: Samuel and Anderson having breakfast on the floor. 

 I can't believe we didn't take any pictures of our Valentine's Day. The older girls had school until 1 and then baby-sat afterward, so I guess we didn't do as much as we usually did. Nathan and I did go to Einstein's Bagels for breakfast with gift money, I made red heart pancakes for lunch, and we had heart shaped pizza for dinner. Kylie and I also made some delicious truffles. Other than that, we were pretty busy.Alexis baby-sat in the evening and the other older kids had standards night. Nathan worked late and I put the little kids to bed.

Friday: Kylie was gone baby-sitting all day and the rest of the kids played office. I love it when they all play together. This is an old favorite game where they all have a desk and write notes to each other and answer their plastic phones. Ignore the rest of the playroom. It has little doll houses and accessories all over it. 

Sunday: Playing nursery snack during their weekly play church. Some weeks playing church takes longer than the real church--~4 hours. They do talks in the chapel and lengthy primary sharing/singing times, lessons in their classes, and nursery. I love watching them play each week with all their dolls. 

All day today Kaitlyn reminded me of Kylie when she was little. I didn't get a good picture of her long curls, but it reminded me of this one I took of Kylie when she was 9. They're both wearing the same hair tie, which happens to be the same hair tie I had as a teenager.

Kylie, November 2009

Week ending 2-12-17

Monday: Four kids listening to "Mrs. Piggle Wiggle" on CD while coloring. They listened for a whole hour straight and the rest of the house was quiet. 

Samuel pointing to all the letters of the alphabet while singing. 

Alexis made this activity book for him for Christmas and he loves to do it for school. 

Tuesday: Makenna turns 5! Here she decorates her cake. 

At 4:00 we met my cousin (literally. The first time I met her I was a kid and only vaguelly remember. This was the first real meeting.) and my aunt at Denny's for dinner. They very generously treated us and were so much fun to get to know and talk to. The kids were perfect and loved eating out. The last time we went out as a family was 4 years ago after finding out Samuel was a boy. This time was to celebrate finding out the baby is a girl. 

Afterward we went home for cake and ice cream. Here is Makenna's finished masterpiece. Her nickname is "Muffin" and there weren't 2 "N's" for Makenna. 

Our sweet little breech baby. We're so glad she's in our family. 

Hanging out and eating cake. Kaitlyn photobombing with her doll. 

Makenna got a little dress for her doll. 

My mom got her a tricycle from Kid to Kid and we wrapped it in a blanket. I guess I didn't get a picture after it was opened. She loves it and it was actually warm enough for a few days to ride it. 

Wednesday: Anderson LOVES to vacuum, although he generally gets it stuck in a corner. 

Anderson kept climbing onto Lexi's lap while she was at her desk doing school, so I told her to bring her over to our preschool class. He clung to her and screamed and it was like a mom dropping off her kid for preschool. It was so funny. 

Last Sunday Spencer was carrying Anderson on his shoulders in the basement playroom when Andy reached up and touched the lightbulb. There aren't covers on the lights and they are small tube 'N' shaped lightbulbs so he burned the underside of his middle finger and the top of his ring finger. There were big blisters that popped and then are taking a long time to heal as he plays in the sandbox and won't keep a bandage on. But it doesn't seem to bother him too much. This picture was taken Thursday.

Friday morning after breakfast Nathan and I were talking and then I said, "I'm going to go brush my teeth" and headed upstairs. Nathan said, "I am too." I walked into our bathroom and said, "Someone beat you to it." Anderson had the toothpaste in one hand and was sucking on Nathan's toothbrush with the other. The timing of it was so funny. I don't know what Samuel was up to.

Anderson playing in the rain with a parasol. 

Friday night I went through our boy shoes up to Andy's size. There's a shoe drive for children in Burkina Faso and I'm happy to donate these to it, but wanted to take a picture to remember all the cute little boy shoes and memories we had. Some of these have logged a lot of miles. Saturday I went through the baby boy clothes. I can't believe we won't have any more baby boys. 

Week ending 2-5-17

Last Sunday: Playing primary. 

Alexis makes an adorable pregnant singing time leader. I wish I were that cute. 

The primary kids (baby dolls) and teachers (Kait and Kenna) 

Thursday, February 2: Groundhog's Day. It's very disappointing that we can't find it on the news here. In NC it was live and showed it between 7-7:30am. We loved watching the groundhog come out and look for a shadow while we ate breakfast. We still have our tradition of cream of wheat with peanut butter groundhogs in it even if we can't watch the event live on the news. 

Makenna's groundhog. (The 3 girls took pictures of each other and their bowls.) 

Kaitlyn with her groundhog.

Alexis with her groundhog. 

 

Thursday night: Anderson took the bowl of green beans off the table and put it on the floor. 

Then proceeded to eat them. 

And eat them. 

While everyone else was eating groundhogs (or whistle pigs) in a blanket.:) 

Friday: Eating our traditional stromboli dinner for Julianne's birthday. We used to take it to the park and then visit her grave, but now we're 2,000 miles away. It was a lonely dinner as Nathan was working late, Kylie and Madalyn went to their aunt's house, Spencer went to build snow caves with the scouts, and Thomas and Samuel were at a neighbor's house. Just these 4 left.

Saturday: Madalyn and I made this piano cake for her 15th birthday. 

She is the sweetest girl and we're so glad she's in our family. 

Just after blowing out the candles. 

Reading a card Kaitlyn made for her. These are the "lyn-er" girls. 

She got some gloves, earphones, hairbrush, piano music, and pedometer.