What's Up?

The life of a family of seven is busy, busy, BUSY.  Here is what we have been up to lately...

Tanner and Ashlyn had a Spring piano recital where they got to play the festival pieces that they had learned and memorized.  Even though we moved away, we still came back and performed at the recital.  It was good to see all of our old friends again!

At the recital the twins were both awarded with a ribbon for performing at their first year of piano festival and they also both earned a composer statue of Beethoven.  Their teacher had an award system throughout the year where the twins could earn "composer bucks" for various activities such as practicing the piano for five days a week, learning facts about their composers, and listening to pieces by their composer.  The twins both worked very hard and had more than enough "composer bucks" to buy their Beethoven statue (one of which Charlotte broke the next day... curses on younger siblings... it reminds me of the time that Annie broke her little birthday porcelain doll from Grandma F... good times!)

Ian has had his hands full helping me take care of his younger siblings.  He absolutely adores his baby brother, a big part of that is that everyone says that the baby looks like him and he is as proud as a papa.  He can make Bronson smile by giving him kisses and he thinks that is pretty great.

Proud big brother Ian

Ian is also very fascinated by the camera and if it is out, he wants his picture taken.  This is one of those moments when I got the camera out and Ian posed for me.  He also loves to take pictures and we have made a game of camera scavenger hunts for Ian where he has to find items to photograph for every letter of the alphabet, or different colors and shapes.  We have even done rhyming scavenger hunts.  He is a very smart boy.  We just took him in last week for the Kindergarten screening and they told me that he scored above average in every area.  Smart little guy... he didn't want me to take him to the screening, he wanted to ride the bus... he is so ready for Kindergarten. 

Last week, Zac was able to take the oldest three to a monster truck show.  Ian was in absolute Heaven as we had only been to one monster truck show before and it was when he was one.  He had so much fun and so did the other kids.

These are some pictures the kids took with the camera.

While the big people were at the monster truck show, I was home keeping the two little monsters busy... don't be fooled by this innocent face...

Charlotte is world famous for her mischief, including constantly climbing in, on, and over the baby swing.

She refuses to let me dump water on her hair any more, so this is the solution she has come up with, we call it the "mermaid swish" and she thinks it is so much better than getting water in her eyes. 

I looked out the window the other day and saw her bouncing on our dog Maggie.  Poor dog, just sat there and patiently took it.  Note the big girl underwear on Charlotte!  A big part of our time this month was spent potty-training this girl, but we are finally there and she even stays dry at nights and during naps!  Hooray!

The snake river is a blocks walk from our rental house.  There is a nature walking trail and we spent some time as a family Monday night throwing rocks in the river.  Every time Charlotte got one in, she would get so excited and cheer.

go

This boy spends most of his days smiling and cooing at us.  He is the happiest baby you have ever met and doesn't give us one minute of trouble.  He got his two month shots last week and has almost doubled his size weighing in at 11lbs 7oz.  The doctor declared him healthy as could be, then stuck his poor little legs with about 5 shots.  (I still sniffle and wipe back tears every time one of my kids have to get shots... it hasn't gotten any easier.  Let's just hope they never break any bones or have anything more serious happen!) 

When he is not smiling, he is snuggled up tight snoozing in his car seat.  The boy spits up so bad, that I get nervous laying him flat on his back, because I don't want him to choke on his spit up?  Am I paranoid?  So he still sleeps propped up in his car seat and he seems pretty content about it... plus it just makes it that much easier if we need to go somewhere, we just grab the car seat and go!

And as for Zac and I, we are now land owners in Thomas, ID (about 10 miles outside of Blackfoot very close to Snake River High School).  This picture is a satellite image of our newly acquired 5 acres.  Our land is the left half of the vacant field.  I can't wait until our house starts going up in the next couple of weeks.  We are so stoked!