Hairstyles

Ali has decided she loves doing hair, and mine is the only hair around this house (besides her own, which is hard to play with), so I get to have fancy 'dos a lot! And sometimes she even lets me do hers:)

Waiting

Jake and I spend a lot of time outside lately waiting for buses to come and go, and at least one of us doesn't mind one bit!

Animal Lover

This girl loves animals. She wants a furry pet so much, but until we give into that, she tries to make do with her stuffed friends.

Eli's Helmet

Eli always come in after riding his bike so I can help him take off his helmet, and then the helmet often finds it's way onto his baby brother's head!

Magic Logan

Logan put on an awesome magic show the other day, and of course he had to dress the part. I thought his looked rather dashing!

First Day!

First day of third grade and all day kindergarten! Everyone was excited, and both before and after school were kinder and more thoughtful to each other than they had been since maybe the first day of summer! Change is good:)

DVD Thief

Our DVDs may survive Jake's babyhood...then again, maybe not.

The Summer of Legos

This summer should be known as "The Summer of Legos." The kids played with legos for hours every day. They found some awesome books at the library that give ideas of things to build with the bricks, and they have come up with the most amazing creations!

Logan is showing off his dragon and his graveyard (complete with a tomb that opens to reveal a ghost):

Eli built a ship and a house:

Ali has a cottage that hinges open and a mini race track (complete with cars, flags, risers for the fans, etc):

Here is a shot of some of my other favorites of the summer (from left): a centaur, a billy goat under his bridge, a robot, an animal, furniture, and two mini tanks. They've also built star wars characters like R2D2, palaces, monsters, bugs, vehicles, and so much more!

Finally!

At 15 months Jake finally decided he could hold his own sippy cup! He is lucky his mom was determined to keep him alive until he decided that food and drinks are good!

Cook Ali

This summer Ali has learned to make grilled cheese sandwiches and scrambled eggs all by herself!

Picky, Picky

Jake is a SUPER picky eater which means I often give up trying to feed him when I know he's still probably hungry, which leads to him begging food from his siblings (even though they are eating what I was just trying to feed him) who, luckily for him, are happy to share. 

I try and distract him by letting him hold things while I'm trying to get him to eat, one of his favorites being the whisk. He has found that the whisk can hold food in between its wires...great, another reason for him not to eat: it's more fun to play with the food than eat it!

Nonfiction

Logan has always loved nonfiction books even more than fiction ones  (which always blew my mind), and now that is carrying over to what he watches too; his favorite thing to watch these days are World War II documentaries. He started watching them with his dad sometimes and now watches them on his own whenever he can.

Jake Loves to Read

I've never known a baby who likes to read as much as Jake. He will sit for as long as I am willing to read to him, and being read to is the one thing that always quickly cheers him up. Sometimes I can even get my big kids to help distract him with books and the sight of it never fails to make me smile.