Levi singing

When we visited Grandma and Grandpa recently, Levi was going to sing for them. We never remembered to have him do it! So here is a song. In Primary, they've been learning the song "Praise to the Man." It has lots of big words in it, and Levi gets most of them - but instead of "ascended to heaven," he says, "to send him to heaven." Caleb is in this, too, but he's not so public about singing, although he knows all the words.

Ian, March and April 2011

Ian had an exciting few months! It's pretty exciting to turn 8. He got to start going to Cub Scouts, which he LOVES! He has the Wolf Handbook memorized, I'm pretty sure.

Ian was baptized by his dad in March. It was pretty special to have both sets of grandparents make the trip to be here. We're glad he chose to be baptized.

Ian got to share his day with Ellie. Since our ward has each family plan their own baptism, we had Ellie blessed at the same time.

Ian loves Ellie! And she loves him! She will always laugh and smile at him. He likes to talk to her.

Ian entered the science fair at his school, he and his dad researched things about Mars.

Ian's aunt and uncle and two cousins came to visit, for business, and let us come swim at the hotel pool. Once Ian finally let go of the side, he had a fun time paddling around the pool.

This is Ian receiving his Bobcat (at a very cold and windy outdoor pack meeting!). He was beyond excited! Now he's working hard on the Wolf requirements.

March and April 2011

I'm very behind on updates on here, but I'll try to catch up. March started out very snowy. Very. It just kept coming! This is the side of the driveway where we piled it - one side, that is. The other side has a huge pile, too.

Our front yard, cars, all buried. Luckily the neighbors didn't need to drive these cars.

Group picture! Clockwise from top, Ian, Levi, Ellie, Caleb.

April Fool's Day. I tried to trick them with mashed potato-frosted meatloaf cupcakes, but Caleb wasn't buying it that we'd really have cupcakes for dinner. I got them on the juice, though - it was jello. It took a while for them to figure out why it wouldn't come out of the straw!

Easter egg hunt. It was pretty sunny that day.

My cousin made these rolls last year, "resurrection rolls," and I thought it was a great idea. The boys helped wrap the roll dough around a marshmallow, and then you bake them. When they're done, they're hollow, the marshmallow is gone. Hopefully they got something out of the object lesson. They tasted really good!

Coloring eggs.

That's some of the basics of the last two months, I plan to do an update on each child, as some exciting things have happened! Another day.......

February 2011

Some things that happened in February......

Ellie grew! She was about the size of this bear when she was born. At 4 months, she was 8 lb, 12 oz and 20.75" long!

Ellie tried out her new chair, now that she is getting a stronger neck. She likes it sometimes, especially if Ian is talking to her!

Ian read a lot - he loves to read!

We hatched some (toy) turtles (sorry, Laurie, that it's taken us so long to do them!).

Ellie tried cereal for the first time, she kind of liked it. But she mostly pushed it back out with her tongue.

Lots of stories were read to little boys......

We got LOTS of snow! I don't know the exact totals, but in a two week time period we shoveled 12" off the deck one day (and that after several inches had already melted) and another 9" a few days later. This is the enormous pile of snow that was shoveled off half our driveway (there's another pile on the other side), a driveway that has a car parked on it.....

And, most exciting of all, Ian turned 8!! This is him, in the birthday hat his dad and brothers made him, seeing his cake for the first time. He said he just wanted a rectangle cake with a math problem on it. He kind of wanted a party with friends, which he didn't get, so he planned a game to play with his brothers instead. He's very excited to be old enough to get baptized, and to be in cub scouts!

January 2011

Somehow Ian's picture turned out sideways, I have no idea why, or how to fix it. He loves Ellie! He always wants to kiss her and hold her, and always talks to her in a high baby-talk voice. It's cute. He is still loving school, he just finished a project about Ancient Egypt that was interesting. He likes math and science best. He has some circuits that he loves to play with, and he and his brothers play "Toy Story" all the time.

Caleb is always trying to get on Daddy's shoulders! Or climb on his back, or something. He's a climber. He loves to tie things up, I am forever untying knots or tying rubber bands on strings. He loves to play "Toy Story" too, and fireman, and construction worker, whatever - he's always pretending to be someone else. He's happy to be back home, and not going to preschool. He had fun there, but is happier at home! He doesn't like to go places, if I ask if he wants to come with me somewhere, he will say, "if it's cold outside I will just stay home."

Levi loves his stuffed friends! He takes good care of his baby doll, he tucks her in and feeds her (her name is Ellie). He sleeps with all the stuffed animals he can find. He loves to pretend, too, he and Caleb play and pretend all day long. One minute they are kings, the next construction workers, and then they're hanging up their Christmas lights. He has quite an imagination.

We've been doing some preschool activities in the mornings, and one day we were using yarn to figure out long and short, and they had the idea to put them all end to end and see if they were as long as the yarn. They were pretty close!

Ellie is definitely well loved!

Ellie is almost a month past her due date. She's over 8.5 pounds! She has awake times every day, where she is pretty happy. She also has a fussy time at night. She makes this cute little face sometimes......

....and, she's starting to smile! She is doing it on purpose now, although it's still hard to get a smile out of her. She is staring to "talk" also, when she's looking at you. She can be very intent on looking at you sometimes. She's mostly a happy little girl, and we're glad to have her around!