My Kids

I hate throwing things away that my kids have made for me, but I also can't stand clutter.  I took a picture of a couple of things my kids recently made for me to put on here so that I can remember them without having to keep them.

Rebecca made me this nice card for Valentine's Day right before we went to Disneyland:

outside

inside

It says, "Roses are red, violets are blue, flowers are sweet and so are you. I am glad we are going to Disneyland.  Love, Rebecca"

I had a rough night with William a few weeks ago, and I felt pretty bad about myself after he went to bed.  So when I made his and Rebecca's lunches, I put little sticky notes in them that said, "I love you, WIlliam," and "I love you, Rebecca."  He didn't quite understand his note and brought it to me after school.  He said, "This is for you, mom."  I said, "No, WIlliam, that's for you.  Can you read it?"  He said yes and smiled about his little love note.  Since then he's written me two love notes.  This is one of them:

I spilled water on my other love note.  That one had little pictures on the back of it.

In the car on the way home from the store the other day, William did this with his grocery store stickers:

"I'm a pirate!"

"I'm a bug!

Silly boy.

The other day I glanced down at Braden in the shopping cart at Target and found him doing this with his toothpaste:

And here's happy little Lia, smiling for her dad who I think is her favorite:

I love these cute kids.

Easter

For Easter this year, our ward primary organized a Saturday Easter egg hunt for all of the primary kids.

Get ready...

Go!

Braden was excited to get a Darth Vader egg.

You can see it a little better in this picture.  It's the green one in his basket.

On Sunday we went to our 2 o'clock church.  We went over to Kevin's parents' house for dinner after church, and the kids did a small Easter egg hunt over there too.

I hope everyone else had a nice Easter!

4 Months

Lia is four months old today. She's started doing a lot of new things in the past month.

She likes to hold her hands in front of her like this.

She also likes to blow raspberries. She does it all day long some days, and it's so funny:

The first raspberry is from me, but the rest in the video are coming from her.

She HATES baths. She is my first baby who hates having a bath. She actually screams when I put her in the water. Kevin came home one night and thought I had left her alone for a while because she was screaming so loudly. He found me in the bathroom giving her a bath.

Other than bath time, she still rarely cries.

She won't take a binky, and she'll only take a bottle from Kevin.

She's been sleeping through the night pretty consistently for a while. She sleeps from 10 or 11 pm to 6 or 7 am. She'll only take cat naps during the day, but I don't mind as long as she sleeps all night.

My brother gave us a Baby Bullet blender when she was born, and we blended some bananas for her to try yesterday.  Lots of alliteration in that sentence. I think she liked the bananas okay, but she would only take a few spoonfuls.

And that's my Lia at four months.

I can't forget about Braden!

I'm posting this from my phone. That's a first. I rarely get on a computer anymore since I'm always attached to a baby.

Braden turned 4 on March 2nd. He really wanted some Sonic the Hedgehog action figures and to go to Pump It Up. We got the action figures. Unfortunately we waited until Friday to call Pump It Up to see if we could come in for free play on Saturday. That's when we found out that they are closed for free play on Saturday and Sunday so that they can have birthday parties on those days.

We ended up taking all the kids to McDonald's with a Playplace on Braden's birthday instead. With that and Disneyland (or more importantly Cars Land), he hasn't even mentioned Pump It Up.

At McDonald's with ice cream on his face.

Here he is with William and his new cousin Jaxon.

Happy birthday, Braden!

One More Comparison

My mother-in-law posted this picture of Lia on Facebook with my sister-in-law Laura.

Lia

Rebecca

Rebecca has dark eyebrows and Lia has light eyebrows, but other than that, they look so similar to me!

3 Months Old

Lia turned 3 months old on the 10th.  And she has two new cousins who arrived in February and the beginning of March.

Avery Rose Black was born to Shane and Emily on February 20th.  She weighed 8 pounds and 1 ounce.  She has a ton of pretty blonde hair.

Jaxon Phillip Pollock was born to Kody and Melissa on March 5th.  He weighed 9 pounds, 11 ounces!!  And he has a ton of dark hair.

You can see in this picture that four-day-old Jaxon is not much smaller than three-month-old Lia.  He is a big boy.  And two-week-old Avery is about the same size as Jaxon.

And here are the three tired mamas with their babies.  Emily the blonde does everyone's hair, and we've all been missing her since she's been on maternity leave.  

Other than two new cousins, Lia has some other new things going on at three months.  She coos at anyone who is paying attention to her, and she'll also give you a big smile.  She's awake for most of the day now, and for daytime naps, she takes one long nap (like 4 or 5 hours long).  At night she'll usually sleep at least one 6+ hour stretch, which has been so nice.  Hopefully she'll keep doing that.  She still looks just like Rebecca as a baby.

This is Rebecca at about 4 months.  Is it possible for twins to be born 8 years apart?

We love having this little lady around.  She does something almost every day to make all three kids laugh at her.  She's so much fun.  

Disneyland 2013

Disneyland was offering a discount on their three day hopper passes this year through March 11, so we decided to take advantage and go from March 4 to March 6.

This little Minnie Mouse slept most of the time and ate when she wasn't sleeping.  

We caught this Minnie Mouse in Tomorrow Land after I took these three on Space Mountain.  Her line was super short, so we got a quick picture with her.  Kevin must have been on another ride with the baby.

William and Braden rode Aeriel's Carousel while I took Rebecca on California Screamin'.  We spent most of this trip split up since the baby couldn't go on most of the rides, and Braden still wasn't tall enough for a few.  The only ride William was too short for was California Screamin'.

We all loved Cars Land, but Braden especially loved it.  We went to Disneyland Monday and Wednesday and California Adventure on Tuesday, and all Braden could talk about on Wednesday was going back to Cars Land.  It's set up just like Radiator Springs, and the Racers ride in there is awesome.  

We took full advantage of the Stroller Pass policy this trip.  Kevin would go on a big ride with the older kids, and he'd show the attendant in front of the ride that I had to stay behind with a stroller.  They gave him a stroller pass that he gave me when he got off the ride.  I got to use it as a Fast Pass, and I got to take one other kid with me.  So our kids got to ride their favorite rides twice.  I love that they do that at the two parks.  Even though Kevin and I had to split up, we each got to ride the fun rides without waiting in line two times.  

It was so nice to finally be back at Disneyland.  We hadn't been since Braden was a baby.  We were told by a friend that California Adventure was torn up for a good two years for Cars Land and other renovations.  I guess it's nice that we missed all of the construction.  I love that place, and I hope we get to go back again soon.