We had visitors!!

Randy's brother, Dale and his wife Audrey and their daughter Madison came to visit those of us in NY over Easter (March 28 - 31).  It was so great to have them here. The first 4 pictures are from our trip to the MOST ( a hands on science museum geared for kids).  We spent a lot of their first full day here trying stuff out and looking around.

Aunt Audrey helping Sophia climb the rock wall.  This wall you climb horizontally not vertically.

There were a number of fight simulators.  All the kids loved having their turn to try them out.  Madison is patiently watching Sophia while Dale looks out for Luke.

Everyone also took a turn digging for fossils, Henry and Timmy are having a try here.

I already posted a couple pictures of all of us celebrating Alex's birthday.  After the celebration we dyed Easter eggs.  Everyone got involved.  (Sophia, Audrey, and Alex)

Alex patiently helping his little brother, Timmy.

Uncle Dale helping Henry, while Madison and Sophia dye eggs, too.

I helped some too. Here I am by Alex helping Tim.

Here are our Easter eggs in all their glory!! You can see some are stripped, we put rubber bands on them when dying them, which left white strips. Them some of the eggs were re-dyed to color the strips (An idea from pintrest that worked!).  They turned out beautiful!

Easter morning, after church with their Easter loot.  (Alex got arrows, Sophia a Skylander, Henry got Green Lantern and is also holding his chocolate bar, Max got a Skylander, Timmy got a firetruck, and Luke got baby food. For those of you over 12, skylanders is a video game that requires action figure)

Luke checking out his 1st  Easter basket.

I could not get Luke to smile, apparently he is terrified or very surprised by the whole Easter thing.  ( A little side note, these are actually the day after Easter. Monday I realized I hadn't taken any pictures of Luke by himself on his 1st Easter and I felt bad. So I dug his Easter clothes out of the dirty laundry, dressed him up and took some pictures.  I was going to keep it a secret but thought, nah, let's be real.)

March Birthday Boys

Henry turned 4 on March 13.  Here he is that very day with the balloons Uncle Dan and Aunt Wanda sent him. When we opened the door and the deliveryman told us they were for Henry.  He jumped up and down saying "Yes! Yes! Yes!"   He and the rest of the kids have had so much fun with them.

Opening his gift on the 13th, (it was Eye Brawl from Skylanders).  We kept the rest of his gifts for his party on Saturday.

Originally EyeBrawl was going on the top of this cake.  Then Henry wanted strawberries on it, but we didn't have any.  So we went downstairs together to get starwars guys and ended up choosing pirates instead.  Henry had definite ideas about how the toys should be arranged.   He told me excitedly, "Me wove it!" (Me love it).  When the older kids came home from school he happily showed them his cake.

A large part of the group  helping Henry celebrate. (l-r) Max, Randy, Sophia watching Henry, Timmy, Dale, Kathy and Alex.  Rebecca, Randy's co-worker came and is holding Luke at this point.

Alex requested ice cream sandwiches made with chocolate chip cookies, for his birthday celebration.

With his bd gift from all of us.

Watching Alex open his gifts.  Alex was lucky enough to have his cousin Madison, Aunt Audrey and Uncle Dale here to celebrate with him.

This year Alex's 12th birthday landed on Easter. Aunt Kathy made Alex an apple pie, just for him .  He wasn't able to shoot his arrow much because it rained most of the day. But there was lots of time for video games and other fun.

Beaver Lake

The 2nd weekend of March we decided to help Alex complete a 5 mile hike for an advancement requirement for boy scouts. As a family we did a 3 mile hike.  We took some breaks and Randy carried Timmy and Henry on his shoulders for quite awhile but Tim and Henry walked a lot more of it then I thought they would've.  The trails were still very snowy and a sled would've worked great, but we didn't have one with us. Here we go.

See any resemblance?  Timmy and Dad.

Alex with his hiking gear.

A little break.

Sophia had the camera and so took a self portrait.

Henry kicking snow in the  water while we take a little break.

At the end of our hike we found an unexpected surprise . . .

a Nativity!

Alex and Randy went on a 2 mile hike (to finish Alex's 5 miles), while the other kids and I ate a snack and played in the kids area at the Nature Center.  On their hike they came very close to a grouse.  It even followed them for a while.

They also came very close to 3 deer. 

The First Weekend in March

Way back on March 1st Luke got his first tastes of baby cereal.  Everyone wanted a turn feeding him.  (Henry didn't want his turn until the camera was put away.)  Sophia and Timmy were curious enough to try it themselves. Neither of them wanted a second bite.

Sophia taking her turn.

Max having a turn.

I thought this picture was posting first, but it didn't. Randy gave Luke his very first bite.

This is what he looked like after his first bite.  Actually for about a week and a half he gave me this look while eating.

The next day, Saturday, Alex had his first pancake breakfast fundraiser for boyscouts.  See him hard at work.

There he his taking our drink orders.

Aunt Kathy is such a trooper.  We all love her! I was so thankful she was there to help me!!!!

The next day on March 3 we made our ginger bread house! Better late than never has become my motto.  Back in December the day we left for Iowas our sweet neighbor brought the kids this ginger bread house kit.  It just seemed we didn't have an opportunity to put it together until now.  I'm so glad we went a head and made it because the kids had a great time doing it.

Lucas is 5 months old today!

Here he is, now a  5 month old.

Checking out his hands. ( New pants, not to make a fashion statement but because he wet through.).

Smiling some more.  And last what he sounds like now.

Winter Break

This week was winter break for the school kids.  I didn't get the camera out nearly enough, but here are Timmy, Sophia, and Henry trying to pop bubbles Alex was blowing (on Tues.). I had heard if it was below freezing and you blew bubbles they would freeze.   It didn't work for us, I'm guessing it needs to be colder than 20.  But the kids had fun anyway.  (And yes, they're in their pj's outside.  It's good to be on break.)

After popping bubbles the Sophia, Henry and Timmy played in the snow, until Timmy left our yard and had to come in. Then not too much longer Sophia and Henry came in saying it was raining!  Sophia made many snow angels.

Henry was so excited to be outside.

The swing set even got quite a bit of use .  Timmy cheesing it up before zipping down the slide.

Tim and Luke hanging out.

There was plenty of video game time.  Max takes his turn while Henry and Sophia watch.

Alex playing Mindcraft, it has become almost all he and Max are able to think and speak about.

All the little monkeys having a pancake breakfast one morning.  The kids also took turns having friends over.  And got along amazingly well enough on Thursday to cooperate and work together making 2 different forts. We ended break with a very fun outing for cub scouts -  snow tubing!!!  We left the littlest 3 with their wonderful Aunt Kathy and headed out in the snow to do some sledding. It was a blast.  It seemed Sophia loved it the most of all. Everyone cheered, smiled and laughed as we zoomed down the hill at Four Seasons.  It was a great way to end to end their break.

And today Lucas rolled over!! Yea ! Another great highlight to end winter break.