March

Tyler lasted about 4 nights before Brady kicked him out.  I know some of you have been wanting to know.  He started to claim the room was his and wanted to bring his clothes down there and play in there.  That was more than Brady could take.  It's been fine.  Tyler doesn't wake up when Gabe wakes up, which is usually only once a night, if he wakes up.  Gabe's pretty good at going back to sleep on his own when he's not sick or teething.

One day Tyler was laughing a little about something and he said, 'This is my lower-case laugh."  Of course I had to ask him, "What does you upper case laugh sound like?"  He said, "When I laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh."

I was feeding Gabe one day when I noticed Tyler with some AA batteries.  I asked him, "What are you doing with batteries?"  He replied, "Putting them in my socks."  Of course my next question was, "Why are you putting them in your socks?"  As he spun them around with a menacing but incredibly cute smile on his face he said, "These are my weapons."   

Isaac has started to not want to take naps as willingly as before.  He has figured out that everyone else keeps playing without him.  Some days I'll let him stay up, but then he wants to fall asleep at about 5 o'clock like he did on this day.

Isaac loves all sports.  He loves to throw balls of any kind, as well as cups, plates, trains and any other toy.  We try to get him to stick to the soft balls, but quick reflexes are a must around here.  One day he wasn't feeling very well so he was sitting with me.  He said to me, "Watch football."  I don't usually choose to watch football, so I changed the channel to something I wanted to watch thinking he wouldn't really care.  Isaac was not happy with me.  He said, "Not football.  Watch football!"  He's pretty adorable when he's mad, so of course I immediately changed it to football.  He was very happy after that.

We have a small soft football that he likes to play with.  One night he was holding it vertically and saying, "Rocketship!" before throwing it up in the air over and over.

He discovered Brady's old basketball jerseys so he wore those around constantly for a few weeks.  One day out of the blue he said after looking at his jersey, "My basketball, so AWESOME!"

 

 

Isaac loves to wear socks.  He had a couple of pairs of Mickey Mouse socks that he especially loved, but sadly his feet have gotten huge so they got a bunch of holes in them.  If he's not wearing socks at bedtime, he  insists he gets some on before bed.

He's still picky about his clothes.  There's some clothes he just refuses to wear.  Even if he's been ok with some clothes, he won't want to wear them another time.  It's hard to know with him some days.

After he hurt himself one day, I kissed his owie and said, "All better."  The next day, he hurt himself again and came to me saying, 'Blow it off."  Apparently, that's how he remembered it.  I was holding Gabe and his owie was on his foot, so it would have been difficult to kiss it.  I did as instructed and blew on it.  Now whenever he hurts himself he wants me to "blow it off."  It makes me smile each time.

I borrowed a bumbo from a friend of mine.  Of course, Isaac had to try it out.  

Gabe turned 6 months old.  Two days later his first tooth came through.  His second tooth followed right behind the next day. 

 

He got to try some solid foods.  He's smiling in the picture, but he wasn't too sure about it.  He started out tricky to feed.  He was constantly pushing the food back out with his tongue.  He's finally getting the hang of it.  He still makes a giant mess.  He puts his hands in his mouth, or gets his socks off and puts those in his mouth.  He gets distracted by the other kids so he'll end up smearing half of his mouthful all over his face and shoulders.  

 

Gabe's getting bigger and bigger.  He started rolling around more.  He growls a lot.  When he sleeps he snores, which he gets from his dad.  My sister is convinced I snore too, but I can't imagine that's true.  My granny always said a lady doesn't snore, usually right after she woke herself up after dozing off in a chair.  He also sleeps with his eyes half open.  He might have gotten that from me.  I've never seen it, but apparently I sleep with my eyes half open.  One night I was holding Gabe while he slept.  He was snoring away with his eyes half open.  It was pure cuteness.  Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera.  One of these days I'll be more prepared.

The first time I became aware of my amazing ability was in high school.  I played the flute in band and every year, the older kids in band would go on "band tour."  We traveled to a couple of small schools where we played a few songs for them, then slept on a gym floor.  (Our band teacher Mr. Mouw, was awesome.  During one performance, one of the boys who was also in choir sang a solo.  He sang "When Irish Eyes are Smiling".  When he introduced the guy singing it, he made up this story about how he was an exchange student from Ireland. We all just played along and he never told them the truth.)  Anyway, it took a few hours on the bus to get to the schools, so naturally I fell asleep at one point.  When I woke up, I was surrounded by people staring at me, including Mr. Mouw.  As I "came to" he said, "Phew.  You're not dead.  Your eyes were open and it scared us."  After that, I learned to sleep with my head down against the seat in front of me.  

Of course when I take pictures of Gabe, everyone else wants their picture taken too.  This time it was Tyler and Andrew.

The youth in our stake (In the LDS religion, we're organized into wards and stakes.  We attend a particular ward based on geographic location.  In Utah, that means the boundaries are only a few blocks.  In other locations, it could be many, many miles.  Each stake is make up of about 10-12 wards.) are going on a "journey".  It's basically a short, three day trek that somewhat replicates the journey some pioneers made to come to Utah.  The stake leaders are calling it a "journey" because it's not the traditional "trek".  For example, they'll be serving real meals, not actual rations.  Each participant needs a bag, so I helped sew a few of those.  I made ten of them.  I'm not sure why anyone may care about this but I took a picture of one of the finished bags, so now you get to read about it.  Sometimes it's nice to remember I get something accomplished amidst the chaos.  

Last year was the first time I'd heard of Pie day in March.  This year, it seems like everyone was talking about it.  I was actually on top of it and made chicken pot pie for dinner and chocolate pie for dessert.

A couple of years ago Tyler got a pop up Thomas for Christmas.  I made sure to get it big enough for everyone to play in at one time.

It's very fun to sleep in as well.  Tyler and Isaac like to get it out and spend a few nights in it once in a while.

Gabe's content to sleep in his crib.  He'll probably join his brothers in a couple of years.

After I put Thomas away, Isaac was insistent that he sleep under his bed.  I finally let him sleep there for a nap.  I truly thought he wouldn't actually sleep there the whole time. He did though. As you can see, there's not much room.

Easter was in March this year, which means Easter egg hunt at our house.  I started buying candy months in advance.  I had lots of help stuffing the eggs.  

They eat some candy along the way, but they have fun.  This year I got a bunch of change to fill the eggs with as well.  My mom also gives me a bunch of "gold dollars" for the eggs.  I usually take charge of those.

We also dyed eggs.  Mia dyed half of her fingers as well.

Of course I had a few extra kids over when we dyed the eggs.  

We ended up doing four dozen eggs.

Gabe played happily in the high chair.

On the morning of the big hunt, all of the kids helped "hide" the eggs.  They found lots of good places.

Currently, we have a collection of campers.  One is my brother's, one is now Lance's brother's and this awesome motor home is ours.  Lance got it from someone for free.  That was probably too high of a price.  It needs quite a bit of work.  It's a real beauty.  The eggs add a little pizazz to it.  

 

This year I hardly had to do anything for the Easter egg hunt.  I bought the candy, then my kids stuffed and "hid" the eggs.  And they still enjoyed hunting them.

Of course it's tradition to take a picture of everyone before the hunt squinting into the sun.

They all found plenty of eggs.

My mom's always very festive for the event.

Brady made sure Isaac got lots of eggs.  Then he raided them for the candy he liked as well as the change.

Someday, we won't have random cars, ladders and trailers full of used atv and dirt bike tires, but today is not that day.  Plus, it adds to the challenge of finding the eggs.

Chloe tried on Grandma's bunny ears.

Here she is with her cousin, Madi.  

Chloe got a hold of the camera and had fun taking pictures of people.  

I think I might know who Lance will look like in about 44 years.

One day, Brady and his friend Max and his cousin Jenna got to work building a fort with the random pieces of play set, a couple of saw horses and other random sticks from around the yard.  They're quite creative.

A while back they put up this tire swing in a tree.  

A few months ago, my nephew attached this slide to the tree house.  My brother was up from Arizona for a funeral.  His son is very smart and loves to figure things out.  He came in and asked me for a hammer.  When I asked him what he wanted it for, he said he wanted to put the slide on the tree house.  I said no, since I didn't really want a hammer left outside for Tyler to get a hold of.  Before I knew it, the kids were telling me the slide was attached to the tree house.  Somehow, my nephew found a few nails, and a big rock and pounded away until he had the slide nailed to the tree house.  

Mia learned how to blow bubbles with all of the gum from the Easter egg hunt.

She's quite proud of herself.

Chloe's a little boy crazy.  I was boy crazy from a very young age, so it doesn't concern me too much.  I very distinctly remember trying to kiss a boy on the back of the neck while standing in line for the bus after school when I was only in Kindergarten.  I really hope that poor boy doesn't remember though.  He was not very excited about the attention.  We have some magnetic darts that go with a Christmas tree dart game.  They also work very well on our exterior doors, so they get used year round.  Chloe discovered, they "write" on one of the doors.  You probably can't see what she wrote, but it says "Memethest is in love with me."  Memphis is a boy in her class.  She talks about him a lot and loves it when he pays attention to her.  It sounds like she's pretty sure he likes her too.

Now you know some of the exciting adventures at our house for March.