Update On The Boys!!!

Since I did an update on Ella Bean for her birthday I thought it might be nice to also do a little update on the other 3 "hoodlum's" as Ga-Ga calls them.

Jack - 4 1/2 Years Old

- Jack is such a character...seriously. He still loves his character toys and plays with them all the time. He's always using the pillows and blankets to make Pride Rock for his Lion King characters. 

- Jack has been learning a lot in school and is getting so much better at his fine motor skills. His cutting ability has greatly improved this year. 

- Jack is still sleeping with his No-No and has to be covered up by me at night. If Daddy covers him up he will actually uncover himself so I can do it. He also requests that I sing him this special song I made up for each of the kids every night. 

- Jack is going through a tough time right now with lying. He does it without really thinking about what he's saying. We are really working on helping think about what he's saying before he says it. We are also working on his tone of voice as well.

Owen - 6 Years Old

- Owen believes he is a Ninja from Ninjango City and he shows us his Ninja moves quite frequently. 

- Owen is such a big boy. He got a LeapPad 2 for Christmas and he wants to get some more games for it so we told him he could earn points to get games by doing stuff for us. I came up with a list of jobs he can do for me and when I ask him to do them he'll get a point as long as he doesn't complain. So far he has 6.5 points. 

Zeke - 8 Months Old

- Is starting to each more and more solid food. He loves Cheerios and strawberries and has started to eat some cheese. He loves to chew on lots of other foods, but sometimes he spits them out in chunks. 

- Zeke has his first real cold...poor guy has such a runny nose. 

- He is crawling, but it's such a funny crawl. He is also such a lazy bones...if a toy that he wants is 2 feet from him he'll go after it, but 3 feet is just too far! 

Valentine Crafts!

 On Valentine's Day I gathered the kids around and we did two crafts. The first craft was to make homemade paint so we could actually do the second craft. I had each of the kids pick out which color they wanted to make and then that was the color they got to use for the second craft.

 The homemade paint was really easy to made it was only water, flour, dish soap and food coloring. It was really hard to take pictures and deal with 4 kids when there's paint involved so I only took these two. 

The Valentine craft was courtesy of Pinterest. The top says, "From the bottom of my heart.." the middle says, "To the tips of my toes..." at the bottom is says, "I love you!" 

It was a bit crazy doing this with the kids and trying to not get paint everywhere, but they turned out so cute!

Ella Bean Is 3!!!

It's actually hard to think of Ella as only being 3. Both Michael and I feel like she's older...which is quite funny since just a few months ago we were concerned that she might be behind in a few areas due to her hydrocephalus. This girl doesn't let anything stop her...she's AMAZING!!!

On to the stats!!! 

- Ella is a chatty girl! She can talk your ear off. The funny thing is she's the most chatty when she first wakes up in the morning or from her nap. As the day goes on she tends to use more noises than words to communicate. We are constantly saying, "Use your words!" 

- Ella still naps everyday. She usually naps for about 2 - 2.5 hours from 1:30 - 3:30. 

- Ella is now using an alarm clock. A few weeks ago she was getting up at all hours of the night and turning on her light and opening and shutting her door. It was driving us mad! Enter alarm clock...she now gets up every morning at 6:45 to the "beep beep beep" and she knows it's okay to come out of her room. 

- Ella is doing well at potty training. She is getting to that point where it's not new anymore and she's getting a bit lazy. She's wonderful when we are out and about. When we are home she's fine if I keep track of her and ask her if she's keeping her panties clean and dry. The weekends or when we have people over are another story. Whenever we change our routine and get busy things go bad. 

- Even though Ella isn't technically in school yet she does participate with homeschooling at Miss Kim's on Monday's and Friday's. She loves to color and cutting is a passion for her. She can also count to 12. Her favorite part of school though has to be getting to choose a song to sing at the end of school. 

- One of Ella's favorite things to do is put on her clop shoes, throw her purse over her shoulder, push her baby in her stroller and "go bye bye"! 

- Ella is still and I think will always be an emotion rollercoaster! She is her mother's daughter!!! 

I'm looking forwards to this next year to see how Ella grows and what she learns.

Ella Grace you are beautiful, smart and you bring such joy to everyone you encounter. Mommy loves you to pieces...my precious girl!!! 

Happy Birthday Ella!!!!

Taekwondo Testing!

About a month ago Ella seemed interested about going into Taekwondo with the boys...even though she wasn't quite 3 yet I let her. She did really well, but I wanted to see if she would keep it up before totally committing to let her go.

My friend Kara gave us this uniform for Ella...she's so cute!!!

Tuesday was testing day for the kids so I figured that we needed a group shot. 

Lined up waiting for Miss Kelsey to start the testing. 
 

Jack doing his high blocks
 

Owen got a "good job" from Miss Kelsey for being the first to remember that she wanted them to come to the center of the room. 

The boys did great and they will be getting their new belts. Of course they were disappointed that they didn't get them that night...patience is SO hard! 

Take Seat!!!

 The other day I brought in the Fisher-Price Laugh and Learn chair. I got this at a garage sale for $3 when Owen was a baby. It has definitely gotten tons of use at our house. 

 I have no idea was is going through his mind right here, but this picture cracks me up!

Zeke still flops all over the place so sitting on the chair was a challenge. I had to catch him from face planting a couple times. After that he started balancing himself by putting his left leg back for support. 

 

Cute handsome boy who is totally wild about mommy! 

 

And just for fun...here is Jack at 9 months sitting in the same chair! 

 

Scraggle Tooth!

Zeke's fourth tooth was actually one of his side teeth. A few days after this picture his other top front tooth came in. In probably less than a month he'll have another one if not two more teeth. Thankfully he's a pretty easy teether!

Elephant Toothpaste!

Last week we did another experiment from our bag of goodies. This time we made Elephant Toothpaste. I'm pretty sure Jack is showing how big elephants teeth are in this picture. He's such a goof! 

After emptying a liter soda bottle we had the container for our toothpaste. Add a few more ingredients such as warm water, yeast, peroxide, dish soap and food coloring...

Tada...elephant toothpaste! It even smelled good because of the soap

Owen is obsessed with all things volcano so this was right up his alley. After the toothpaste finished oozing out of course we all had to put our fingers in it. I didn't really think about the food coloring part so we all ended up with blue fingers!

Indoors & Outdoors!

Yesterday was the only day this week that we didn't have anything scheduled! It was so nice!!! It felt like all the kids knew it was a day to enjoy and enjoy we did! First I brought out some blocks that had been put away for a couple weeks and the kids had a great time with them. I love how putting toys away and then bringing them out again makes them feel like brand new toys.

Owen made a rocket launch pad...the football was his rocket.

Blast Off!!!

I built a house and then Jack made is look "more fancy"!

The girls had got into the craft cabinet and gotten their aprons on. Silly girls! After playing inside it was time to go out and take advantage of our nice day.

While the boys were off being boys playing on the "mountain" the girls just wanted to RUN!

Go Logan go!!!

Then I captured the cutest picture of these girls!!! Love this picture...love these girls...love that they have each other and a friendship that really is more like sisters than friends. 

Side note: This is my 2000th post!!! Wahoo!!! 

Crawling In Action!

Zeke Man is on the move!!!

Kim's Baby Shower!

 Last Saturday I was the co-host for my best friend Kim's baby shower. Kim is due with her third child...a girl...any day now. I'm actually hoping baby girl will be here by the time this posts on my blog.  

We had the shower at Kim's parents house. It's a GORGEOUS house. Caroline Kim's mom had the food table set so pretty and the drink bar was so nice as well.

There was also this table in the hallway set up for guests to write their name and address on an envelope so Kim could send them a thank you card later. Also Kim made up these super cute baby food jars filled with M&M's as treats for guests.

 Something I forgot to take a picture of was the table in the other room where the ladies got to make baby girl a headband. Seriously this little girl is going to have a different headband for everyday!

Partygoers visiting while Kim checks out all the headbands that were made. Also half of the stack of gifts.

More guests and the rest of the gifts. Kim was blessed with lots of cute baby girls outfits! 

Kim and her cake that I made. She did the cute banner though. I just noticed you can't even tell she's almost 9 months pregnant here!! Can't wait to meet and snuggle that baby girl!!!

Science Experiements!

Another one of Owen's birthday presents was a book of science experiments and some of the ingredients needed to do them. 

 

It's been fun looking through the book and figuring out which one we want to do next. So far we've done the fireworks in a jar and the Mento Geyser. 

Excited to do the Mento Geyser...or as Owen kept calling it, "Metro Geyser". I think someone's seen Megamind too many times!

Jack was pretty stoked too! 

 

There she blows!!! 

 

It actually lasted longer than I thought it would. 

 

There was barely any soda left in the bottle. That didn't stop us from drinking what was left. We also ate the Mentos too! The funny thing that I wasn't expecting was that the soda was totally flat! I figured it be less bubbly, but nope it was absolutely flat! So if you like flat soda and don't want to wait just drop was Mentos in the glass....don't forget to stand back though!

We Don't Believe In Gun Control....Nerf Gun That Is!

 On MLK JR day we headed to the mall and to let Owen use two of his birthday presents...a gift card to Target and some cash. He ended up picking out this bolt action dart gun. It's not actually Nerf....it's some other brand. You can pump it up so the dart will shoot farther and the best part is it has a scope with the cross hairs!!! Owen has wanted one of those for a LONG time. It was only $17 too! 

Daddy has been having some fun shooting with it as well! He's just a big kid!

Did I mention he was shooting as a pink cup on his son's head! Owen is amazing and super trusting. He didn't even flinch or close his eyes!!! 

 

Scary!!! Daddy did end up shooting Owen in the forehead once, but he wasn't hurt. A couple shots later and he got the cup. Then the tables were turned....

 

Yeah Daddy wasn't so trusting!!! 

 

He ended up not being able to watch at all. Of course Owen nailed him in the head a few times and then Daddy was done!