Spring???

Look what we woke up to this morning:

May is just around the corner. It won't snow in May. It won't. Right??

Not-So-Little JD

Here are a few shots of the quickly growing JD. He is not quite crawling but gets on his hands and knees to try. I almost don't want him mobile since that means he'll be getting into stuff and the gates will have to come back out. Although, I do think he will be happier when he can get where he wants faster. He rolls where he can. He can sit by himself for long periods now and has gotten to sitting by himself once or twice.

He babbles a good bit and can now wave "bye bye". And boy, can he eat! I mean EAT! The baby food stage is usually one bite in one bite out...but JD eats two jars of baby food plus cereal and sometimes yogurt at each meal. Not mention various crackers and cereals while he waits for us to get it ready. None of the other boys ever ate that much. He is starting to develop his own tastes too and if he doesn't like what you give him...he'll spit it right back at you. (Jerry loves that!) He doesn't get the cup yet, but he loves to play with it!

Getting ready for bath...

Doing baby push ups...

Bye Bye!

M&M Cookies

What do you do when you get four big bags of M&Ms for 58 cents at CVS? Make cookies! They are really good. Here is the recipe:

1 cup margarine

1 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup white sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 large bag (14oz) plain M&Ms

Cream margarine and sugars, add eggs and vanilla. Add dry ingredients and half of M&Ms. Drop on greased cookie sheet, placing remaining M&Ms on top of each cookie. Bake at 350 for 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Makes about 3 dozen cookies.
*Helpful hint: use a flat cookie sheet-they didn't rise for me right the first time I made them when I used the cookie sheet with a lip*

Here are the cookie chefs checking on their creation. The oven at the old house didn't have a window so they were enjoying watching the cookies bake through the window. Even Hayden was a good helper putting the M&Ms onto the cookies. Although he was more of a "one for me, one for the cookie" type of helper.

Oh Wesley!

When I walked into the kitchen Sunday morning to get breakfast started this is what I found:


Wesley put his big, stuffed Bob the Builder on the chair in the kitchen by the computer. But that's not all...Bob was wearing Wesley's bathrobe! Guess it was a little chilly surfing the internet in the wee morning hours! Later, when I showed Roz the picture she thought it was hilarious. I guess I'm not the only Wesley cracks up! Although, it makes me wonder what else he was doing while I slept a few more minutes...maybe I don't want to know!

Sunny Days!

The sun is out and the weather is warming up...time to get out the sunglasses. Eli asked for his sunglasses on Saturday and pretty much has worn them since. (Except for meals and bed when we make him take them off!)


Of course, JD had to give them a try as well! Being cool is serious business!


Notice something interesting in that first photo? The twins have started to pick their own clothes out in the morning. They almost always pick different shirts. And a few times now they have wanted to wear the same shirt two days in a row. Well, not the same exact shirt but the one that matches the one they wore the day before. (Hope that makes sense.) As hard as it is for me, I've been letting them assert their independence.

Backyard Fun

The boys have been enjoying the new backyard. I have been enjoying that I can send them out there and not worry about where they are! The weather is slowly warming up. We do have a few spots in the yard where water seems to get the grass a bit soggy and of course the boys enjoy playing in just that spot. The other day when I told Justus, and his toy cement mixer truck, to stay out of the mud he told me: "But Mom, I need that mud to mix concrete!"


Buck is really enjoying his freedom as well. He did escape once when the gate was left open but has stayed put otherwise. He does perimeter checks each time he goes out. He also will "race" you if you start to run. He wins every time!


We worked on the garage a bit today and can now get both vehicles in the double door garage. It is a tight fit for the big van, especially in height, but it does fit! The third stall is full of bikes, toys, and other junk. We need to build some shelves in there before we can really organize it nicely.

I got some of the room by room house tour finished. It is over in the sidebar if you want to check out the little slideshow. I still have to take pictures of the lower level but it is a start for now at least.

Junior Prom

Last Saturday was the Junior Prom. Roz went with her friend, and fellow Piggly Wiggly employee, Jeff. They along with 8 other couples rented a small bus...Roz called it a "party bus"...to drive them around a bit, take them to dinner, and then to the dance.

Following the dance, the school has a post-Prom party to keep the kids entertained and out of trouble. After the post-Prom party the gang headed to Denny's for a late night/early morning snack. Roz was shocked at how busy Denny's was in the middle of the night! A few of Roz's friends then came home with her and spent what was left of the night.

Here are a few photos that I took at our house when Jeff picked Roz up. Roz has a bunch more from her camera and her friend's cameras. I'll try and get her to share a few group shots with me so I can post them here to share.

Here is Roz:



Roz and Jeff trying to figure out the corsage:



Roz and Jeff:

Clowning Around

This week was Clown week at AWANA. After attempting to print some clown masks off the internet, we decided we'd just use washable markers to make clown faces. (There are some pretty scary looking clown masks available to print.) We did print some blank "birthday" hats though and decorated them for the clown hats. The results:

Here is a message Wesley wrote for me to share with you...

Moving Day(s)

This is the first of a few posts to get you caught up on what is going on with us....

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Here are a few shots from moving day. (A bit overdue!) Overall the move went very well. The weather cooperated. We had plenty of help (THANKS!) and the dual trucks worked great. We did end up having a few odds and ends in Grandma's garage but not a lot. Just a few big, bulky things like the patio swing and grill. The first truck was the largest you can get (it was almost as tall as the house!) but the second was only a 15 footer. If we would have rented two big ones we would have had room to spare. We unloaded the little truck first since it was mostly garage stuff anyway and then went back and picked up those odds and ends. We were able to get both trucks unloaded and turned in by Friday evening.

That's a BIG truck!

Empty for now anyway...

Tuesday night when Jerry was driving the boys up to my mom's I found a puddle in the basement. After blaming the dog for a few minutes, I realized something was wrong. Some of the boxes we had stacked were wet (including the one with the photo albums!) but I couldn't tell where the water was coming from. When Jerry got home and checked it out he figured it was the drain pipe for the kitchen sink but we couldn't actually see the leak. We called the plumber first thing Wednesday morning. You know you have a problem when you tell the plumber what's going on and he says, "Um, that's not good." So Wednesday afternoon while we were loading the truck the plumber was taking a sledgehammer to the kitchen wall. Thankfully, it was inside the cabinets. He was there about 2 hours but got the job done. That pipe was there over almost 60 years and had to choose that moment to corrode. The hole was almost the size of a dime! When I saw it I was surprised we didn't have more water in the area below the leak. After the plumber left brother-in-law John patched the hole for us and Jerry put the basement paneling and ceiling back together. Once the drawers were back in you couldn't even tell. We were a little worried it might delay closing if the plumber couldn't get it done but it all worked out!

Love me some demolition!

I do wish I would have had a day or two to clean the new house before we started moving things in....it just would have made things a bit easier. The new house wasn't too bad except for the kitchen. The fridge especially was BAD! Since the loading of the trucks went so well, cleaning the old house went pretty quick.

The first day he was in the new house Justus cracked me up. JD spit up and I asked to him to hurry and get me a burp cloth. He ran off to get one and came running back to ask: "Where's the baby's room?" Yeah, I guess it would help if you knew that! Then this past week Eli and I went to run an errand and drove past the old house. He starting yelling..."There it is Mom! Our old house is still there!" I don't know what was going through his little head as far as what had happened to it!

We're still here...

...we've been busy getting things settled around the house. We made a LOT of progress this weekend. I'm almost ready to take pictures and put together a new room by room "tour"!

The boys are enjoying the new house, especially the backyard! They even have some new neighbor friends to play with. I'll share more later but just wanted to let you know we haven't fallen off the face of the earth!