February 2015

Posted on March 4, 2015 by Kathleen

I love the little smile on Thomas’s face. He finds such joy in toy cars. Isaac was a car lover too.
I couldn’t resist this one. Thomas really wanted his nails painted one morning so I tried to distract him with My Little Pony tattoos because those are so much more masculine (his favorite pony is Rainbow Dash).Nicole wanted Twilight and Rarity.

Ila and Thomas after a bath. They’re so cute and funny with their silly towels. There’s something I love about having all five of my kids in one picture.
We took the kids to the circus. It was the first time we’ve ever gone. It wasn’t exactly what I expected. I imagined a magical performance, but the performance was really cheesy, the music was awful and too loud. I actually felt sorry for the animals having to endure such music. Before the performance and during intermission they sold tickets for face painting, elephant rides, pictures with tigers, and pony rides.

We brought Grandma and Grandpa with us. I love the facial expressions on the children. I didn’t take many pictures of the the performances, but I did take this one of a bunch of performers dressed as Elsa from Frozen with one Anna in the middle.

The first act involved a lot of tigers. It wasn’t super impressive and I thought they were a little excessive in the amount of tigers. The last act involved the elephants and it was possibly the best act of the night, despite the fact that one of the elephants was relieving himself most of the time they were on stage.

I asked the kids afterwards which part was their favorite and some of them said dancing in the dirt. I could have saved the price of admission and just brought them to a dirt pile, but hopefully they’ll have a lasting memory of something fun we all did together.

Nicole filled this bag with Bugles and oranges. She often has reasons for the things she does, but she’s often not very good at telling them to me what they are. She assured me that she was not packing her lunch.

I’m not including pictures from Thomas’s birthday celebration since those pictures got their own post, but here are a few more pictures from when we went to Jump On It for his birthday. The quality of the pictures isn’t that great, but here they are none the less.

Every Saturday, Charlotte and her best friend take piano lessons from our neighbor. We have a standing rule that if both girls get their chores done before lessons, they get to play together. After Alyssa arrived, Charlotte changed so that she’d be wearing something similar.

Thomas wore a tie for the first time. I tried to take a picture of him, but he was being a little squirrely and trying to cover up his tie.

Thomas opened his last birthday presents on the Sunday after his birthday at Grandma and Grandpa’s house: These girls are the best of friends.

I love how Charlotte and Ila are cheek to cheek in this one.

I can’t resist snapping a picture when I find a pile of my kids all cozied up together. This was a bedtime dance party. I should have taken a video, Nicole had some great dance moves!Thomas thought it was hilarious to put a bowl on his head.
Nicole created this picnic, a jar of peanut butter, a gallon of milk, and a package of Ramen noodles. Thomas and his best friend, Ian. Nicole got a dollar in the mail from her grandparents. For some reason she thought it needed to be cut out.

After I read to Thomas each night, I often tease him that it’s time to “brush your ears” or “brush your nose” and he corrects me and says “no, brush your teeth!” The other night he had an idea which he thought was really great and he stuck his toothbrush in his ear and then on his nose.

Ila and Thomas like to play Starfall together. Ila will use the computer and Thomas will use the tablet and they’ll try to do the same little games and songs at the same time. Grandpa babysat for me while I went to the school to help out in Nicole’s classroom. When I came back they were playing memory together. Thomas playing with his best friend

Isaac and Charlotte writing up valentines. Charlotte has been experimenting with hair things. She has doesn’t always agree with my advice about where you should place bows and other hair accessories.

I took the kids to the park with some friends. Thomas ran straight to the puddle first, so that he could splash in it.
Next Thomas, Ila, and Ian ran past the playground to the duck pond. They actually spent more time at the duck pond than the park. They kept going back to look at the ducks and throw little sticks in the water. Here they are running back to the ducks with a hand full of bark in their hands. Consuming their valentines loot:

Aunt Heidi’s Birthday:

The birthday singing was bad. . .

but the cake was good!

I love the smile on Thomas’s little face. His friend, Ian was giving him rides on his tricycle.

Nicole drew a picture of the Rainbow Queen and Rainbow King playing with yo-yos. She was quite pleased with her drawings.Nicole, Thomas, and Ian went with me to pick out some roses.

Nicole helped her dad plant the roses.

After some tree trimming, Thomas wanted to make the alphabet out of branches.

My kids and their neighbor friends watching a movie together:

Once a month we have FHE (Family Home Evening) with Zach’s parents. They tell the kids stories about their ancestors and sometimes the kids behave.

These three have such fun together. Sometimes Zach’s cat observes the fun.

Nicole loves to set up elaborate scenes. A part of me is pleased to see how neat and orderly her arrangement is, the other part of me knows that this is about to be a big mess that she’ll have a hard time cleaning up on her own.

This was Nicole on the night of the first grade program. I saw her during one of the practices and she knew the songs well and was such fun to watch. The night of the performance she couldn’t sit still and didn’t want to be there. She was chewing on her clothes and laying all over the stage, she didn’t even sing her favorite songs. We took her home halfway through the performance, she said that she was tired of the program. I was a little discouraged about it.

This vision of Nicole in the back yard made me smile. She’s wearing her big brother’s boots and her sister’s ridiculous bike helmet.

Ila and Thomas: Nicole was pretending she was a baby and decided that she’d look more like a baby if she cut all of her hair off. I don’t think it even occurred to her to think about the fact that her hair would still be cut off when she was done playing. I caught her in the middle of cutting her hair. In addition to what you can see in these pictures, she also cut big chunks off throughout her hair. She was sad about the haircut when she realized that she was giving herself “a boy haircut.” She burred her head into the couch until I found her a hat to wear.

Charlotte, Alyssa, and Haven (Alyssa’s sister) drawing together:

Isaac still loves to try to create things out of anything.
Thomas and Ian dueling:

I love that my kids have so many friends in the neighborhood. As a girl who grew up in the country, it’s pretty cool to live somewhere where my kids have such easy access to playmates.

We discovered that we can mostly cover up Nicole’s haircut with a headband. I took her out shopping for more head coverings later that day.

After all the springlike weather we’ve been having, Mother Nature felt she needed to remind us that it is technically still winter!

Nicole was trying to beautify herself. Can you see the faint pink and purple above her eyes. I wonder if she was trying to compensate in some way for destroying her hair.

Luckily we did go out and buy some headbands that stay in a little better than this one:

Thomas loves using ridiculously long straws.

Transplanting some of our starts. They are growing inside until the weather is better. We’re doing some experimenting with growing food in movable tubs.