God's Valentine

This is how the jam happened to land in Elsie's yogurt one day. It thought it was so cute I had to take a picture. Life is full of reminders of God's love for us. I admit I'm often too busy and distracted to stop and take note, but I couldn't miss this little valentine!

Noah is 3!

I'm a little late posting for Noah's 3rd birthday. Mike and I are a little shocked that our "baby" is 3 years old now! For the first time in almost 9 years we're not buying any diapers!
So much has happened in these 3 years. Noah has turned out to be our most "spunky" of the 4 kids. His intensity is so much fun and definitely adds to the challenge of parenting. This boy is full of life!

Noah and his "brudder". Noah LOVES "Destin" (he can say Weston but calls his Destin out of habit). Most of their time together is spent playing Daniel Boone or soldier or some other fierce game. Although they're over 5 years apart in age, they really love and enjoy one another....well, most of the time.

It's hard to believe Elsie was only about 20 months old when Noah was born. They are now really starting to play well together and I frequently hear them giggling over some shared joke from another room. From the day he was born Grace has been Noah's biggest fan. She loved to help take care of him and hold him. She is such a nurturer. I look forward to seeing what their relationship will look like as they grow into adults.

Being a 4th-born child, Noah is definitely parented very differently than Weston was. He really didn't play with baby toys for very long, but started playing with the older kids as soon as he was able to toddle after them. He's definitely big for his britches sometimes. At about 2 years old he considered himself on the same level as his 7 year-old brother :) I love this picture! Noah was such a butterball baby!

Hard to believe our baby is 3! Notice his gun is tucked into his cowboy boot and he's holding his horse "Oosta".

My mom made an awesome "Bob the Builder" birthday cake for his party! Noah started planning his birthday party months in advance.

Mike and I took Noah out to dinner at Red Robin for his birthday. You can tell he was excited :)

Passport to the World!

I'm well aware I've got a lot of blog catching-up to do. :) Until then, I'll just post this picture from today. Weston and Grace are holding their passports to explore the world! We'll be "visiting" one country every few weeks over the course of our homeschool year. I issued the kids their official passports today before starting our study of Mexico. The kids had to apply for their passports by filling out applications and writing me fake checks.

We'll have to keep the blog updated on our adventures!

Grace colored this pic today. We bought Noah some Superman pajamas the other day, so I guess she had him on her mind. Other than the duck-like feet, I think this is a pretty good likeness. :)

Motherhood Is Application

Motherhood Is Application
Click on link above to read about applying the gospel while in the trenches of mothering little ones.

Finally!

We finally upgraded to a digital camcorder! I know...silly. The upgrade became inevitable when our old Hi8 camcorder wouldn't eject the tape. I finally got the tape out only to have a mysterious camcorder part fall out in my lap. It was definitely time!
I thought I'd post a few videos of Grace pulling out one of her teeth. Brace yourself....it's very dramatic. :) Our preferred method for pulling teeth is the floss-tied-to-tooth-tied-to-door method. No waiting around with dangling teeth here!

Weston is 8!

I can hardly believe we have an 8 year-old! Soon I will post a few "progression" photos from Weston's 8 years on earth, but for now I'll just post a few birthday photos.

I can't believe I pulled this one off. It was fun to make, but I'm not ready to take the cake-making reigns from Memaw Mary. Sorry Mom, you're not off the hook ;)

No more babyish birthdays for this boy! We're talkin' weapons and camo!

It was only after I frosted hundreds of tiny grass blades ONE AT A TIME that my mom happened to mention there was a special grass decorating tip. Gee....thanks mom.

Noah kept poking his finger into the frosting while I was trying to pose. He is very focused on sugar.

Mother's Day Cards

I had to post my Mother's Day cards from the kids. So cute and creative. Mike said Weston was totally peeved that Grace was copying his idea. She sat and copied with a little smile on her face while he loudly protested.
These cards were delivered to me in bed in bed on Sunday morning along with a yummy breakfast of eggs, toast, OJ and coffee. I think Joy got to me first and woke me up with a wet snout in my face. :) Pretty fun way to start Mother's Day (the cards and breakfast, not the snout)!

This is Mr. Noah's card. I'm sure it took him about 2 minutes, but he was very proud of it.

Grace's card. I guess I should have put Weston's first since she copied him. If you can't tell, it's a coffee mug with a flower growing in it.

Elsie's card is me in a tutu with roses all around. I was particularly impressed with her roses. Her picture is a little hard to see because she had folded it into a teeny-tiny little square and stuffed it into an envelope. It's a little wrinkled.

This is the original coffee mug with a flower. I love how coffee is splashing in the mug. Weston pays attention to detail in his drawings.

Mini-Vacation to Long Beach, WA

Our family took a 3 night getaway to Long Beach, WA this past weekend. Mike and I decided we would take the kids away on a fun trip after all the stress of house-hunting and our house purchase falling through. We had a great time exploring the peninsula in the sunshine! Although the beach was fun, the highlights of the trip were the two hikes we took to the Cape Disappointment and North Head lighthouses. The photo above was taken in Dead Man's Cove on the way to the Cape Disappointment Lighthouse. It was this beautiful little cove with rocks to climb on and driftwood to explore. It was definitely a highlight of the trip.

This is the North Head Lighthouse. We couldn't go inside, but the views were pretty.

This boy loves to be outdoors. Sometimes I'm amazed at how he can entertain himself for hours with sticks and dirt (or sand).

Noah loved the sand too. Oregon is perfect for winter hats and bare feet!

It was fun to drive on Long Beach! We even passed other vehicles and horses on our way into town.

On Sunday we played at Fort Columbia. We explored the bunkers and hiked around the beautiful park. The bunkers are pretty creepy, but I'm sure the men stationed here during WWII were thankful for them.

Sunday was also the Loyalty Day Parade for the Long Beach Peninsula. We sat for a few hours and watched the parade. The kids were more excited about the candy than any of the marching bands or clowns. My favorite club that marched was a group of people from Portland called the "Get a Life Marching Band". They appeared to all be in their late 50's to 70's. I found their webpage and this is how they describe themselves, "We were all in high school or college marching bands. We still haven't gotten over it. We'd rather miss a note than a meal!" Their 2011 slogan is, "We don't need good taste to know what tastes good." I'm still not sure what the eating has to do with marching bands and drill teams, but they were having tons of fun so I guess it doesn't matter. In fact, they seemed to be having way more fun than the junior high and high school marching bands and drill teams. Noah waved at everyone marching by. We're talking hours of waving. He's quite the friendly guy!

A break from hiking to enjoy the daisies.

Mike and I agreed we could have stayed on the peninsula for a week and kept busy. What a beautiful part of Washington! We look forward to visiting again someday!

Happy April!

This month started out with a bang when Noah fell and hit his head on our couch leg, making for a quick and bloody trip to the ER. Three hours and six stitches later we were back home with him happily licking an ER Popsicle! One week later Mike and I snuck into his room at night and took his stitches out ourselves. He turned over a few times but didn't even wake up for the procedure :) We figured it would be easier to do it ourselves while he was asleep than to head back to the ER where he would inevitable freak out and fight. His owie healed up nicely, but he'll have a good scar to show for it.

Showing off the stitches!

Here's a recent photo of our sweet puppy, Joy. She is very affectionate and loving with our entire family. She's always up for adventures with the kids, and she's good at including herself in whatever we're doing.

Weston and Grace are currently playing YMCA indoor soccer on the same team. The team is 1st and 2nd graders, but they allowed Grace to move up one level for our convenience. So far, it's been a wonderful experience and the kids LOVE it. Weston even go to be a star on Saturday and scored 5 goals in one game!

We decided to make some Spring/Easter cookies today. I saw the recipe in a magazine made with pretzels and yogurt coating, but I decided to make the little nests out of Chow Mein noodles with melted butterscotch chips and peanut butter for a coating. They turned out pretty cute! I'm not sure Noah actually assembled a complete cookie. I do know he ate at least 2 Peeps, 5 eggs and 1 nest!

Grace Hannah

Elsie Noelle

Finished product!