Chocolate Smiles

We celebrated Isabella's 5th birthday in Indiana. Isabella and Grandma Dixie made a chocolate cake with chocolate icing for the occasion. We had a few slices left, so a couple of nights later I gave a piece to Sabrina. She (obviously) smeared it all over her face while eating it. We thought Sabrina looked quite cute, so then Isabella smeared chocolate on her face also. I have to admit that I think they are the cutest chocolate smiles in the world!

Quiet Week

Sabrina and I are enjoying a quiet week.

Saturday, July 5th Brett flew to Minnesota for his annual fishing trip. This year's trip is a little different. It is a canoe trip instead of staying in a cabin/lodge. Three of our nephews (ages 21, 17, 11) went this year. Orion is counting down the years until he is old enough to go.

On Monday, July 7th the kids and I drove four hours to Taos, NM. My parents have rented an A-frame cabin for the week. We visited the Taos Pueblo on Tuesday and hiked a little on Wednesday. Sabrina and I drove home Wednesday afternoon.

So ... since Wednesday it has been just Sabrina and I in the house. It is nice and quiet - good quality time with my youngest which she rarely gets at this point in her life. I did have high hopes for everything I would accomplish while the other kids and Brett were away, but I've spent too much time socializing.

I did get one big task accomplished. I cleaned out the basement of most of the baby *stuff*. I sorted through all of the baby clothes, blankets, bottles, onesies, sleepers, etc., etc. I sorted everything into three piles - consignment, my brother (no pressure, Mike ;-) and everything else. My cousin (who doesn't have any kids yet either, but is married, planning to have kids sometime soon and lives in Denver) drove down today and took the everything else bags. There were about a dozen Target bags of clothes for nine months and younger. An entire bag of socks - I'm not sure why I had so many socks. She also got Hunter's crib, the infant carseat and the baby bathtub and various other things. Her husband probably fainted when she got home with all of that stuff; he's not quite ready to have kids yet.

I have to confess to being a little sad to see this era end. I'm kind of on the fence about having more kids, but Brett is very happy with four. To see all of the baby stuff leave the house is really admitting baby times are over for our family. I suspect that since the day my brother was born (I was almost four years old and completely doted on him.) I have LOVED babies -the younger and littler the better, so for me this is sad.

Of course, I don't have too much time to be sad because my toddlers and two elementary kids keep me busy and shower me with love!

I have been growing my hair out since last summer - mostly out of laziness. I wanted to be able to put my hair in a ponytail and not worry about it. Last fall I figured since my hair was getting long I might as well grow it out long enough to donate to Locks of Love. Today I got 12 inches cut off. It feels great - light and cool. I liked having my hair long, so I might start making this an annual (or every 18 months) donation.

My week of quiet has come to an end. Sabrina and I picked Brett up from the airport yesterday and today we're driving two hours to pick up the rest of the kids from my parents. It will be good to be back together as a family.

Matching Dresses

So the girls were dressed in matching dresses today. (This might surprise some of you because I am NOT a dress-the-kids-matching mom.) As a matter of fact these are the only matching dresses the girls own. I didn't buy them together even. I bought Isabella's dress last summer at a consignment store. Isabella LOVES dresses, so I keep her closet as stocked with them as we can afford. This spring (9 months later) I was shopping at the same consignment store with my visiting college friend. The store had the matching dress in Sabrina's size. Because I like these dresses so well, I couldn't resist. I thought Isabella would be thrilled to have her little sister in a matching dress. Well, Isabella being the "cool cat" that she is, didn't even smile when I brought Sabrina's dress home. Finally, this morning I asked Isabella if she would do me a favor and wear the dresses to church, but only church; she didn't have to wear it all day long. Isabella reluctantly consented. I had to seize this chance to take pictures. The pictures aren't very good because I couldn't get the four of them to cooperate and I didn't have the patience today.
I like this picture because it shows the girls' personalities, at least at this moment. Isabella is a "cool cat" that doesn't let anything or anyone phase her. She leads her own life; she thinks. Sabrina is just so proud of her physical abilities - she can stand on her own, she can walk behind the walker or with someone's help and she can almost keep up with her siblings.
I was very close to giving up on getting this picture. It is the best of the bunch.
Isabella uses this wagon/walker as a wheelchair. She sits in it and rolls the wheels along to get places. She has been known to spend an hour in this wagon rolling herself around the house. Isabella got a little bonus today because she didn't have to roll herself; Sabrina pushed her. I wonder how long Isabella will be able to get Sabrina to do the manual labor.

I wonder what big sister wisdom Isabella was imparting on Sabrina here.

Weekend trip to ABQ

At my encouragement, Brett planned a training trip to Coeur d' Alene, Idaho, so the kids and I took the opportunity to visit Albuquerque. The last weekend of May/first weekend of June we drove six hours to my parents' house.

In reality it was my ploy to have additional adults for the weekend and not be with the kids by myself. It was a great trip to my parents' house. Friday morning we went to play miniature golf. Really Mom, Dad, Orion, Hunter and my Grandma golfed. Sabrina is (obviously) too young. I helped with Hunter and managed Sabrina. Isabella got in some sort of a funk and refused to play; she just kind of walked around the course near us.

The golfers - Dad, Orion, Mom, Hunter, Grandma
My mom bought some Legos at a garage sale. She said they were for Orion, but I really think they were for her.
Mom put a kiddie pool on their deck. The kids had a blast playing in the water.

My parents and a pair of their friends took the kids fishing at Shady Lakes. It was a great place to guarentee the kids would catch some fish! All of the kids got to reel in at least one fish.

Sabrina hung out in the stroller after her nap in the ergobaby carrier. The fishing trip was a great day for everyone!

Hunter's 3rd Birthday Bash

For Hunter's birthday we had a family dinner with my parents at It'z. This is a new place in Colorado Springs; an updated version of Chuck E Cheese with a much better buffet for food!!

Hunter had a blast at his birthday dinner. We ate pizza, pasta and salad. Then we used a hot cinnamon twist for a birthday cake. Hunter smiled SO big at his birthday candles and loved opening his presents, but the best part of the affair for Hunter was shooting baskets!!

The last picture is of one of Hunter's presents - a bubble blower.

Father's Day

What can I say except I think my kids have the best dad in the world. They are incredibly lucky that their dad LOVES being with them; he loves to do things with them - gardening, hiking, coloring, reading, wrestling, walking home from the bus stop, volunteering in their classrooms, racing with them and many more things yet to come. The kids (with my help) took their Dad out for lunch at Red Robin. We bought Brett a fire pit for the back deck. I'm sure we will get many evenings of enjoyment out of the fire pit this fall!!

June Random Snapshots

Sabrina has started walking behind the red wagon - the same way the other kids started walking. She gets a little demanding at times grabbing one of my fingers from each hand insisting that I walk with her. I don't have a picture of this, but she is also starting to get mad when I put her down. If she doesn't want to be put down she stiffens her entire body and throws her head back. I'm used to it now, so I just catch her head and lower it down. She pitches a good little fit for a few minutes.
I like Isabella's candid smile in this picture. Most of the time she is a hard kid to get to post for a picture - even though I think she is so photogenic.

Sabrina started sitting in the high chair at the kitchen table with the rest of us. She likes being part of the gang. It has made it hard in restaurants because she wants to be at the "big" table.
Orion with his gummi tongue. (see here for explanation.)
My latest tactic for toys left all over the house is to put them in the tub in the guest bathroom. The toys are then off-limits until the kids do enough chores to earn them back. It isn't working all that well, but I haven't come up with anything better. So ... all of the kids' costumes were in time out. I was watching my college roommate's two kids for a couple of days. Her little girl brought her costumes the second day I watched them because she and Isabella love to dress up. She and Isabella realized they couldn't do enough chores to earn back the costumes in one day. Anyway ... when my boys saw the new costumes they decided to have a dress up party with the girls. The picture above is about the best blackmail photo I've ever taken of my boys.

Here is the whole group (clockwise) - Isabella, Hunter, Orion, Hayden (who pleased his dad immensely by refusing to wear a princess dress), Olivia and Sabrina.Brett's Uncle Aubie is a master woodworker. He has made wooden toys for years. During our latest visit to Indiana in May, Aubie gave each of the children a toy. They are true treasures.