Family Time

 It is so fun to do stuff together as a family on the weekends, but sometimes it is too easy to just hang out and do nothing.  I decided that we needed to have a family day and get out.  The mall was having the Easter Bunny and so we took the girls there first.

Lizzy and Nellie were all about taking a picture with the Easter Bunny but Janie not so much.  I had to hold her to get her to be in the picture. 

After the Easter Bunny, we took them to a park that has some cement slides.  You get old boxes and sit on them and slide down..  It is really fun and you can get going pretty fast.  It is always fun to find something out of the ordinary to do with your kids.

Janie would only go with me, but that was fine.  We had a fun time.

Nellie found a sweet box that was really long like a train.  It really got going.  

Kevy is funny because he doesn't like to do that kind of stuff that much.  He was happy just to watch the rest of us and take care of Russ.

Little Man had fun just chillin with his daddy.  He really loves being in the baby bjorn.

Little poser.  I swear she does this in every picture.

What a cute little group!

After the girls got tired of the cement slides we went on a little nature walk.  There were a bunch of little trails to explore with a creek and lots of trees and plants.  There were a lot of mosquitoes though so we didn't stay too long there.

After the park we went to Claim Jumper for dinner because the two oldest girls had free meals they had won at school.  The whole day Lizzy kept saying "this is so much fun! Thanks Mom and Dad!"  I guess we need to do it a lot more.  Such sweet little kids!

All About Jane

There is so much to say about this little monkey!  We are so very glad that we had our little Jane and added a third girlie to the mix, it sure made it perfect. She is really the comedian in our house.  She says the funniest stuff I seriously can't get over it.  She still has that super darling voice that kids have a this age that you are so sad when they lose.  It is so hard to be mad at her because well, look at that face.  Could anyone get mad at that face?  Some funny things that Janie has said recently.  She is really funny and likes to call Lizzy "my big sis"  So much so that I was actually starting to wonder if she remembered Lizzy's name.  One day we were picking Nellie up at school and Jane said, "Are we picking up my big sis?"  And  I said that yes we were picking up Nellie and Jane said "no I mean the girl with the long brown hair."  Too funny.   She also was complaining one day when we went to McDonald's, we had only gotten cheeseburgers and Jane said "where is my toy?" so I said that happy meals cost too much money and she said "but Mom, Dad's got cash!"
Jane is such a little fruit and veggie girl,  She will climb up on the counter when my mom is cutting up veggies and just chow down, we are talking peas and radishes, peppers broccoli, carrots, you name it and she will eat it.  She especially loves oranges. When we have baby oranges around she could eat 10 in a sitting easy.  Everyday after I get Lizzy off to school Jane asks me to pack her a lunch,  she likes the same everyday, a fruit or veggie and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and then maybe something else.  She puts it in her little lunch bag and then eats it sometime that morning when she starts to get hungry.
Jane likes to be like her big sisters and do whatever they do. About a month ago she decided she wanted long hair like her sisters, so she cut it "long like my sisters"  We had to repair it and get it cut, hence why she has the hair she does now, but I love it now, it is cute and sassy and totally fits her.  In fact I have had so many people come up to me and tell me how much they love her hair!
One funny thing about Jane is that she has always been a really easy going kid, but for the past year,(and its getting worse) she has gotten very opinionated about her clothes.  To the point where there is nothing I can do to get her to wear certain things, and of course the things she won't wear are her nicest clothes, the shirt that she is currently on is her cherry shirt she got for Valentines Day from my parents.  She in fact is wearing it in the picture (big surprise)  She would wear it every single day if she could.  So silly.
Right after I had Russell Janie did not like me very much.  She only wanted Kevin, and it was really heartbreaking for me.  But thankfully she is over that now!  She told  her sisters "I get to stay home with my Mama!"  like it was the best thing in the world.  It made me so happy!  I seriously adore my little Janie lady! She is such a ray of sunshine in my life!

All About Lizzy

This is months too late, I like to do it around their birthday but better late than never.  Lizzy is my BIG girl.   I can't believe sometimes how grownup she has become.  When I was younger I thought it was funny how people used to say that kids grow up so fast.  And when you are a new mom, or a mom of a lot of little ones, the days sometimes seem so difficult and the kids seem like they will never get big and it will never get easier, and it seems like the next day you look around and your kids are big. That has really happened with my Lizzy.  I can remember so vividly the day she was born and now it has already been seven years.  I have really enjoyed having a bigger kid though, she is such a great help to me.  Lizzy has always been such a people pleaser and she still is.  She really wants to make Kevin and I happy and do all the things she is supposed to do.
 She has recently started taking piano lessons from one of my friends and the first week she was really good about practicing but then she has dropped off a little, like most kids I am sure, but I really think she has the desire to do it and she does practice when i ask her to.  She is also taking sewing lessons from my mom and she is so excited about it.  I think Lizzy is one of those people that wants to do everything and be good at it too.
She is still my little social girl and loves to make friends wherever we go.  If we go play at the park she finds someone playing there and makes friends with them.  She is a really really good big sister and is already mothering all the others.  Janie is very attached to Lizzy and calls her "my big sis"  Lizzy is so good at helping out with Russell.  If she hears him crying she is right there picking him up and carrying him around the house.  Lizzy loves to read and she is really good at it.  She is reading the Fairy books and she just loves them.  Lizzy is really excited about  turning eight this year.  She can't wait to be baptized and become a member of the church and receive the Holy Ghost.
This past year Lizzy has lost 6 teeth in about a six month period of time. She was pretty much gumming all her food for a while.  It was a pretty funny sight.  But she is starting to get a lot of her big teeth in now so now she can chew a bit better.
Some of Lizzy's favorite things are:
Singing, she loves listening to music and singing.  She loves the color purple. She loves dolphins.  Her favorite food is Hawaiian Haystack, her favorite treat is anything I make, she is so sweet and always tells me what a good cook I am and how good my meals are.  What a way to make a mom feel good. We sure adore our Lizzy girl.  How lucky the last 7 years have been to have this precious girl in our lives.

Valentine's Day

One of our favorite family traditions is to decorate Valentines cookies or cakes for our friends and loved ones.  This year I made some giant heart sugar cookies and the girls got to decorate them for their friends.  We decorated them on Monday, for family night and then on Tuesday, Valentines Day, we delivered them to their friends.

 It was way cute how they all decorated their cookies.  Lizzy was going to put 20 Hershey kisses on one, so we kind of had to steer her a different direction.

 Russ and daddy had fun just chillin, watching the girls.

On Valentine's Day, I wanted to make something special for the girls.  So I made them a really special Dinner with mini heart pizzas and a special pink drink and heart jello.  I decorated the table and put decorations and balloons out.  Lizzy was so thrilled with the whole thing and thought it was so special.  She kept saying "Thank you so much mom! You are the best!"  Nellie didn't seem to care all that much, she just kept asking when I was going to give her a present.  Big shocker with Nellie.  She also didn't touch her meal, and we discovered that she had eaten ALL of her candy she had gotten from school already in the short time she had been home from school.  We really have to be careful with Nellie because she will easily overdose on junk.  She has NO self control.  I of course didn't get any pictures of the meal but oh well, maybe next year.