Ride 'em Cowgirl

This is Aubrey's first time with braided hair. She wanted to be like Kari, so she managed to sit still enough for me to do it.

A beautiful reminder of God's promises

The good thing about this crazy Oregon weather is that sometimes you get to see these. It was much more brilliant in person, as you can imagine. Kari is especially into rainbows right now (aren't all 6-year-old girls in love with rainbows?), and it was fun see her so excited.

Kids will be kids

Two large bags of freshly shredded paper proved too strong a temptation for these two small children. We left the room for, literally, one minute, and this is what transpired. Quite the clean-up with this one. Had a nice paper fiber dust cloud going, too.
(I organized and purged my filing cabinet a while ago, but we missed shredding day at Greg's work.)

Switcharoo

Today was the big kid-room re-org. I've been putting it off, but Greg decided this was the weekend to do it. We have had a VERY long day of furniture moving (read: Greg moving furniture and me asking him to move it again), making up beds, and moving kid stuff around. Kari's old twin bed has been at my parents' since we got the bunks, but with number four coming in less than 3 months, we needed to bring it back over and somehow squeeze it into our already crowded house. We put it in the same room as the crib, and for a couple months Kari gets to have her own room, something she's pretty excited about. Trying to figure out how to configure the room was a bit of a jigsaw puzzle, but I think we finally have an arrangement that will work. (Big "thanks" to the Wilsons for taking our kids for the morning so we could work uninterrupted!) There's still quite a bit of work to do, but at least the children all have a place to lay their heads. Two of the three are snug in their beds, fast asleep, but Aubrey has had a more difficult time adjusting to the new arrangemennts and her new bed this evening and is hanging out with us on the couch. It's our bedtime, so hopefully she'll go to sleep soon. During the hour+ we tried to keep her in her bed, she managed to get a major goose egg on her forehead. She had a run-in with Kari's door (natural consequence?). It'll be a real pretty bruise at church tomorrow. Here she is hanging out with Daddy and making us smile while the other kids sleep.

Take-your-dad-to-school Day

Greg took a vacation day today to go with Kari on her class field trip to Old McDonald's Farm. Kari was SO excited to have her dad come to school with her. From the report I heard when they got home, it sounds like they had a really good time.

He was assigned a group of seven girls. Here's his crew.


















Kari's teacher holding a pygmy goat for them to pet.


















Brushing the cow.

Signs of Spring

It hasn't really felt much like spring yet, but we have evidence right outside our door that spring is indeed here. A robin decided to make her nest on our house, and yesterday Greg peeked inside and saw these. The bird's first choice for nest location was on top of our light fixture right next to the sliding door in the back. I didn't like that location much (afraid she might attack my children when they tried to go out--not sure if robins do that, but we didn't want to take any chances), so we kept taking down the twigs and debris she kept bringing. She finally gave up after a few days. We weren't outside much that next week because of the rain, and by the time we noticed her new location, she had already built a full fledged nest. Aubrey will get to awaken to the sound of baby birds one of these days, as it's right outside her window.

Ride, Kari, Ride!

At the end of last summer, after many, many attempts at teaching Kari to ride a bike, I was pretty convinced that she would be riding with training wheels until she was 12. However, on Saturday afternoon Kari surprised us by asking Greg to take her training wheels off. She was ready. Here's the exciting progression:
Greg awkwardly trying to run alongside, holding on to help balance
freely running alongside, no contact
Kari feeling confident enough to go it alone, and Greg happy to be done running up and down our street.












proud, training-wheel-free Kari
















While not completely in control, she's got it down. We went over to the local middle school track this afternoon, and she rode fast and furious, hair streaming behind her in the wind. Only had one major wipe-out. She ran into Joel on his bike and took a tumble with legs flying over her head. Joel somehow escaped unharmed. After a band-aid application, Kari got right back on and rode some more. She loves that she can go "so, so fast!"

Happy, scrubby kids

I got my camera back but haven't used it much. I haven't had the time or the energy lately (been needing more naps again) to do much blogging. Here's a recent one of our rag-tag trio from this last weekend.
Aubrey is the epitome of "2" these days (perhaps another reason for not as much blogging), a bit of a mess--messy hair, messy face, messy clothes--and constantly asserting her will. This weekend she unrolled half a double roll of TP into the toilet. You can imagine how that worked out. Today she found Kari's art set with non-washable markers and decorated her arms. They'll be pink for a couple of days. She really does give the best hugs, though, and she's so stinkin' cute right now that it's difficult to be mad at her for long.

Snaggletooth

That's what we've been calling her for the last few weeks, lovingly, of course. She's had quite the smile (and quite the attitude lately, too, which we've been working on. Is it a 6-year-old thing, a girl thing? Maybe it's just Kari? Parenting is tricky.).
Anyhow, the front baby tooth that has been hanging sideways next to the big tooth coming in sideways finally came out!









Isn't she getting grown up?






















This last one was from the first photo session attempt (prior to snack time--why did I even try?) and doesn't show her teeth, but I like it. It's very Kari.

Saturday Yard Art

I knocked my camera off the coffee table today and broke something in the lens. Boo-hoo! I took it in to see if it's fixable, but until it's fixed/replaced I have to take pictures from afar because I only have the long lens now. I always thought the kids would be to blame if my camera broke, but it was all my fault. I can blame it on pregnancy clumsiness, though, to make myself feel better. I'm pretty klutzy these days.
The kids have been experiencing outside-play withdrawal and had fun today decorating our property with chalk. I think it's been two weeks since they've been able to play outside without sloshing around in the mud. Greg wasn't especially happy about the front yard rock artwork or the mailbox artwork either, so they were re-directed to the back yard.















They decorated the garden path instead. Isn't it lovely? As you can see, my garden has no green in it--no weeds but no seedlings either. That would be due to the torrential rainfall, hail, and cold temperatures we've had the last couple weeks. I unknowingly planted on the last warm day we were to have for a while. At least I only planted three things in the ground. My peas are starting to come up, so I just have to replant two of them. I'm pretty sure I'll have three eager little replanters when it's time.

Easter Sunday

Here we are just before church.
















figuring out the cool, new Zhu zhu pets from G&G (FYI: the label that says to keep it away from long hair is there for a reason. Aubrey got tangled up with her new "pet" and got an unplanned, but unnoticeable, hair cut)












Watching his new pet run around in the kitchen. Joel changed out of his Easter clothes as fast as he could; he's not much for dressing up, even if it's just a polo shirt. He's all about being "comfy."
















Egg hunting





Reading with Grandpa

Pre-Easter activities

Dyeing eggs
We had some bluish/greenish hands after we were done, but we had a good time doing it.

Making Resurrection Rolls
We had Sam, Maggie, and Miles with us Saturday morning, and we attempted a cooking activity
while they were here. We had empty "tombs" when we were done (the marshmellow rolled in butter and cinnamon sugar in the middle of the roll dough melts in the oven, and you're left with a hollow roll). They were pretty tasty.

Nooo, Mom, I'm not tired!

Oh, yes you are! Here you are at 3:30pm asleep in the crack of the couch with your sisters running and screaming all around you. This is what happens when you go over a week without a nap when you still really need one every once in a while. This explains the many tears today, too. You and Kari had an hour and a half of "rest time" in your room, and you waited until now to zonk out. Crazy boy. Hope you feel rested (and not grumpy) when you wake up!

A few moments of peace

Times like these make this mom's heart happy. All three kids busily engaged in play AND not fighting! Yesterday the girls had Joel playing dolls (they had baby dolls and he had a panda bear), and today he had them playing trains.

We love the wooden train tracks and wooden Thomas trains, by the way. Joel's got a decent-sized collection now between garage sale finds and gifts. It's provided hours of entertainment. I love that it's so durable. Little sister can step on the track, and it doesn't break, which also means it'll still be around for little brother (still yet to be named) when he's old enough to play.