Fun January Activities

The end of January was full of fun activities! We spent $415 on diapers and wipes (to be fair, they were on sale at Costco, and we got enough for 3-4 months and 2 kids), and we finally realized that having an ever-changing routine may be our new routine. I'm a fan of organization, efficiency, and a schedule. 3 kids has pushed us over the edge into chaos, but we have a lot of fun with our chaos. Here is one morning when the kids were playing with Legos, so I decided to add a learning element to their game. For about 20 minutes we sorted the Legos onto colored sheets of paper, but Olivia's interest greatly outlasted Carter's. It would be fair to say that she has her mother's organization gene, and he has his Daddy's fun gene :).

Later that day, Makenzie got her first bottle! It was another forgotten milestone, I usually like my kids to try a bottle of pumped milk between 1 and 2 weeks. It's very important to me to have the ability to leave and have my baby take a bottle, so we periodically give them one from birth. Kenzie took it like a champ, and has since spent every Friday at Amber's with the other kids. What a great time!

We also took our first family walk! It has been very cold through the winter, so I have stayed home with Kenzie while Alex took the kids on walks. This day was less windy, so we went along. The walk started well, with O on her bike, and I pushed C and M in the stroller. However, about 2 blocks away it looked like this. Alex carrying the bike, me pushing an empty stroller and carrying Makenzie, with C and O walking, finding rocks, and filling up the stroller storage :).

I don't want to forget all the Kid Quotes from this month. We get a lot of kids feeding off each other, so I have to work hard to write down and remember at least some portion of these funny conversations. This usually means that I post them to Facebook. These are the posts straight from my page in January:

 Olivia's logic to help Carter during dinner: 'Carter, eat your vegetables! They help you grow! Cuz if you don't, you will stay the same age you used to be'

And one of our first attempts at a joke... 'What did one door say to the other door? ... I'm going to slam into your face!' I couldn't help but laugh at that one, which caused the room to be full of 'slamming' jokes for about an hour.

Not really a Kid Quote, but sometimes it feels like Alex is a kid in a dad body, so I'll include it anyway. 'When you are discussing spring travel plans and your husband 'invites' you to take the kids on a trip the last weekend of April' Thanks babe!

It's hard to explain what a 'tom-boy' is without enforcing gender stereotypes

'What do you think a tom-boy is?'
'I don't know, so I asked you (we get this answer a lot) but Teagen is a boy and Elli said she is a tom-boy. Elli is a girl.'
'You're right, Elli is a girl. A tom-boy is a girl who likes to play with boys and do things that boys like. What things do boys do?'
'Boys like to go to work' (At this point I knew the 50's gender roles are already implanted in her...so I just went with it)
'Tom-boys usually don't like to wear dresses. I love to wear dresses, so I'm not a tom-boy. Are you?'
'No, I like dresses.'

Not sure if it's a parenting fail or not, but it's definitely insight into my preschooler's mind, and may be the first time she's ever not wished to do and be everything her older cousin is

And finally, Olivia's newest aspiration: 'When I grow up I want to be a mommy...so I can just make lunch and watch shows and go on dates and stuff. Dad's have to go to work but mom's can watch mommy shows while we take a nap.'

We love watching cousins at their sporting events! Really, we are always ready for a party and love to cheer on our talented cousins. This day it was Kade's basketball game. Carter was dancing while Kade made some crazy moves to keep the ball in bounds.

I had to steal this picture to prove that I actually do exist! Thanks Amber!

A while back I saw three of these cute bracelets and thought it would be fun for all the older girls to have matching cousin bracelets. It's so fun for me to celebrate these girls and the friendship that I hope continues to grow throughout their childhoods.

We had lots of fun smiles and faces from Makenzie, some new games on the trampoline, and then we tried a science experiment! We have done this before, it's a kid favorite, and I love that I always have everything on hand. Baking soda + vinegar + food coloring = happy kids

It's become something of a birthday tradition for me to take the girls out for a shopping day! This was the second time I took Elli, and we had a blast. I love hanging out with this sweet girl. She is a great friend to my kids, and always very aware of the feelings of people she is with. It is so sweet to see her helping someone be happy or to learn something new, just to help them feel better. Happy 7th Birthday Elli!

Towards the end of January, I finally remembered to do a mini photo shoot with Kenzie in my own baby clothes. Olivia wore them when she was little, and Kenzie was quickly growing out of that size. She wasn't thrilled with having her clothes changed this particular morning, but she's beautiful nonetheless.

At the end of the month, we got to spend a morning with Teag! We love this kid and his enthusiasm for life. Having him at our house is always pure fun. He and Olivia have finally figured out a system and are usually able to get along! I thought their position for watching this movie was adorable :)

I had to steal some pictures from the joint Elli/Teagen birthday party! The super blue frosting wins again!

Dance Recital

January brought Olivia's 3rd recital, and the first this year. She lives for these days full of primping and makeup and treats. She has already started asking when she gets to wear mascara again...is she a girl or what?

Recital days are pretty busy, with a dress rehearsal in the morning, home for lunch and back for the recital in the afternoon. The kids love waiting backstage, because Moms are all too willing to give them treats and movies and crafts...whatever they want to keep them clean and happy!

As with last year, the dress rehearsal was full of staring around with a blank look on their faces. I figure if you have five 4-year-olds on the stage, they are going to look cute no matter what, so I just pull out the camera, snap away, and don't worry about it.

Between the rehearsal and the actual recital, we went home for lunch.  We also had a mini photo shoot. I'm always amazed by this girl and her gorgeous face. It's almost good that she won't smile sweetly, because the pictures turn out beautiful anyway.

This time, O was dancing to 'My Favorite Things' from The Sound of Music. One of my favorite movies of all time, and the music is amazing. The whole show was Broadway themes, it was great!

After the show pictures turned out a little goofy. By the end of the show, we had one infant who was hungry, two VERY poopy kids, and a little dancer who was tired, hungry, and not feeling the photos :). We made it through with only a few tears, got the diapers changed in the car (thanks Amber!) and made it to dinner. That being said, my camera had the flash turned off, so I tried to edit the pics but they turned out goofy colored.

After the recital, we went to the Village to try some of the permanent food trucks. I think The Village has the best collection of restaurants of any place I've been. We have tried about half of them, and not been disappointed yet. Walking in, we happened to see a huge truck with a special license plate! He was so cute about posing, I don't think he had any idea what it said :).

Some fun pictures from the rest of Mary and Gary's visit. The kids were into getting swaddled and cradled just like Kenzie. Naturally this turned into Grandpa holding Olivia holding Carter holding Kenzie :).

Carter LOVES carrots. I just never want to forget the 5 day span when he always had to be carrying around a couple baby carrots and would slowly eat them throughout the day. He also ate about half a pound of carrots one day when I wasn't paying attention...silly kid!

One night everyone worked together to give me the night off when Alex was working! It was so nice of Mary and Gary to not only make dinner, but also accept the 'help' that is so overabundent in our house :)

We try to do an outing every time we have visitors in town. This time we checked out the Boise Aquarium! It was really fun, and the kids are getting so much more adventurous! They still wouldn't feed the fish, but Carter touched a sting ray, and Olivia...was grumpy the entire time :)

We know it's time to go when the belly button makes an appearance :)

We had a great visit, and can't wait for the next one!