The rest of the Aubrey news...& her Cousins!

First off, A cheery good day to ya'all!

...Even though we're cutting teeth again to add to the 2 on the bottom that came in several weeks ago.

Usually when Miss Aubrey wakes up she will lay there very quietly for long periods of time entertaining herself with her fingers and toes. Certainly a blessing for this busy Mommy. :)

She likes to do this...

When she is very happy she tucks her chin down and gives an exuberant little shiver and kicks her feet like crazy. :D

There is a video at the bottom of her in her jumperoo with Cousin Lala entertaining her. :)

And now for the Cousins...

We had a houseful of blessings this past weekend! Pretty much the equivalent of having a 5 yr old followed by 3 sets of twins...although technically each one of my kiddos falls somewhere between each of Sjo's.

Aunt Sjo can keep 7 kids under 5 quiet for a long time. :)

listening to bedtime stories. :)

So in age order that would be:

Phi-5yrs

Kate-4yrs

Aaron-4yrs(they're 4 mos difference)

Marcus-2yrs

Elliott-2yrs (3 mos difference)

Julia-1yr

Aubrey-5mos (8mos difference)

Fun, Fun, Fun!

Julia showing her ability to act like a perfect little lady.

Uncle E showing his ability to entertain 6 kids at once. ;)

The wonders of "Angry birds"! :]

A few glimpses of some of the kid fun!

These Days...

Well, life has been moving right along here without too much eventfulness. I'm at 29 wks now and getting purty big. Down to Drs. appt. every 2 weeks which makes it seem close to the end, although when i think of everything we have going on between now and then it seems far away. :) I was going to post a pic of me in the new dress i sewed but have yet to actually get a picture taken. I'll have to see how talented Miss Kate is with the camera, but for now no ME pics. :)

We also got the garden in FINALLY so we'll see if it survives the kids. the seeds have been walked over a few times but not dug up yet. So far 2 of my planter boxes with the herbs in them have been "accidentally" dumped. Kate has a habit of roaring around the deck on her trike and apparently miscalculated where her back wheel was. :D

So far the kids have managed to drowned both of the flower pots I planted on the back deck with their extensive watering treatments. So no flowers in them this year i guess. They have also filled the toilet with rocks twice this week, ate a handful of my tums ( at least once, maybe more than once) that I keep in the bedroom for my heartburn , (they love them) used a very generous coating of cortizone cream on Elliotts face and squirted the rest of the tube out in the sink, and got in the fireplace and played in the ashes. thankfully none got on the carpet. Oh yeah, and Tay-O got in the fridge and found himself an egg to play with. He cracked it on the hearth and then came to me to ask me to help him wash his hands and offered me the empty shell. Only a minimal amount got on the carpet that time. So now you know how I get my sewing done. :)

On the other hand, the kids had been playing in the basement for a while the other day and I was busy cleaning up the house...when Kate came upstairs she happily proclaimed, "Wow, it looks all nice and really clean up here ! Thank you mommy!" she often surprises me with her appreciation for things when I'm not expecting it.

And when inviting Elliott to be in her sunday school class just after he got up from his nap and was sitting in the rocker with all of his blankeys: She bent over him sweetly and cooed, "You can come sit in my sunday school class OK. I know your tired Elliott, but you can bring your blankeys, you can even lay down and sleep in my class". (apparently she was getting a little desperate.

At this moment she is telling him a mixed version of Jonah and Curious George in the said sunday school class.

Seems these days Miss Kate is either sweet as sugar or distressingly naughty...and either chatty as i'll get out in a very jolly way, or impossibly hard to get a word out of. So many times this line of that little rhyme has been running through my head lately...When she was GOOD she was VERY, VERY, GOOD....but when she BAD she was HORRID! :D

We do love our Kate dearly through all the ups and downs. :)

A couple weeks ago we went to watch the AG Parade at the Spring Fest ( i guess thats what it was). We dined on fair food and Miss Kate got to ride a pony for the first time. She loved it! ...but was most impressed by the horse that went potty while waiting for the riders to dismount. :D We have a little video of her riding and she was quite disappointed that it didn't have the horse going potty. Gotta love 3 yr olds! :D

Of course the camera battery died during the video so we have no pics of the parade to share. But the kids happily waved their little mitsies off to all the waving parade folks. We were not aware that they would come home with a load of candy from it as many of the floats had people walking along beside throwing candy to the kids on the sidelines. The kids were quite excited and have been slowly working down their sugar stash over the past weeks. The parade started with a bunch of snazzy motorcycles that the kids found facinating as the went by just a few feet away from us. Apparently they made quite an impression as Kate had a dream a few nights later ....something about all of us in the back yard and a motorcycle pulling a big boat came crashing through the fence and was going to "trip over" Elliott! But mommy and Kate were ok and we weren't gonna be tripped over so we were happy ...but Daddy ran so fast and got Elliott and the motorcycle didn't trip over him after all so we were all happy ...and Daddy kissed him...and we were all happy...

or something like that. :)

Kate has been having interesting dreams lately that she remembers and talks about, and occasionally I hear her hollering stuff in her sleep. The other night it was "Elliott, NO, you stop that" and "But I CAN'T catch them...its too hard!".

These are the new jammies I sewed her that she absolutely loves! They turned out well and were relatively easy so I am making a couple more pairs. they're a very soft cotton. I also made (well, its verry close to being done) myself a nighty out of some of that super soft lightweight cotton that is so comfy and i also happen to love the colors of it (a lovely coral color trimmed with a light aqua)

Oh and I sewed her a new blankey too, of which she's very pleased.

We participated in a book chain awhile back of which I had forgotten about, but we got our first book in the mail a couple days ago. The kids were SOO excited and love the book!!! I think its mostly just the fact that it was a fun surprise in the mail, but they do happen to like tigger and pooh also.

Today I was inspired to post because the kids were entertaining me with their playing mtg. skills. Mostly consists of Kate singing loudly and Elliott jumping around from here to there as he would love to do in real mtg. and Kate gives him permission to do so suggesting he sit by cousin LaLa or U. Nathan and A. Vi.

Tay-O diligently wears a headcovering just like his sister...

and he occasionally helps out with the singing.

The part that I found very amusing falls in the middle of the second video. Tay-O comes around with a toy phone which Kate interupts the mtg. to insist that she needs and must make a call. She then goes into her cardboard house, first instructing Tay-O to sit on his chair, and makes a phone call to Brother Bill Prost. He has been visiting our area this week and she was impressed by his singing ability. Anyway, her phone conversation goes something like this:

Hi, Bill Pwost.

Are you coming?

OK. I was just wondering.

I.....I....was singing...are you gonna come?

Oh, OK....and sing?

Do you have your hymnbook?

OK

Bye Bye , ....starts to say Aunt susie as that is who she usually "calls", but quickly finishes with, Bill Pwost.

Ends phone call and comes out to report to Elliott, "that was Bill Pwost".

She has since made more than a few "calls" to him.

In the first video she belts out a slow and slightly draggy rendition of the ABC song during her sunday school. :)

Mish-mash

I thought I'd just throw a post up (not literally of course!) since its been so long and I've gotten way behind on stuff I intended to post. This is a lot of random pics of the kids doing the sorts of things they do when its freezing outside and we're shut indoors.

The #1 activity would have to be doing laps around the kitchen/dining/liv rm. loop. They like to put an oven mitt (yes I actually have 4) on each hand and do the laps waving like they're in some kind of parade every time they pass by me.

Since we had so many snow flurries during Nov.-Jan. the snowplow was seen often. It inspired them (which actually translates into me doing the actual work per their request) to slap together a cardboard "snowplow".

They got alot of mileage out of it and pretty much trashed it. I thought the video I was posting at the end was the "snowplow video" but found out otherwise after it was loaded and I didn't have time to redo. I'll probably post it later sometime for some entertainment for the 3 little musketeers that we miss in Portland. Then you can see what little imaginations can think up to make cardboard snowplows more exciting. :D

Both kids love to sing and have "bible readings" and since Kate is the leader around here Tay-O innocently follows her example. I came upon him one day all by himself by the head covering drawer in the living room singing away.

He's also into pushing dolly strollers around " The loop" with purses hanging from his shoulder or the stroller handle and often he talks on the phone at the same time. Anything that fits nicely up to the ear becomes a phone for him and he repeatedly says "Hi" into it and sometimes mumbles bits of this or that.

My Daughter wannabe. :D

When we explained one night (after a bible reading about sons and daughters) that Kate was our daughter and Elliott was our son Kate was very adamant that she wanted to be the son and Elliott could be the daughter. She has finally resigned herself to being a daughter but still lets us know that she'd rather be a son.

It is so nice when the kids get along and play well together. Some days I feel like they're constantly going at each other until I'm exhausted. Other times when they're being really quiet together and I rush to check on them I come upon them like this or something(meaning they are actually sharing happily without being commanded to do so!). So wonderful!!! :)

Having a "slumber party" on the living rm floor.

Kate likes to mother Tay-O which he doesn't usually enjoy. But sometimes when he is feeling unusually cooperative he will allow her to hold him on her lap and read him stories which just makes her day. :)

He let her read him several on this particular morning and I had time to dig the camera up and fire away.

He actually seems to be enjoying himself.

Kate is my most efficient helper these days though Tay-O is most often right there wanting to help in some way too. I think their favorite things are baking, unloading the dishwasher, helping with the laundry, or setting the table, but Kate loves to wipe and scrub and did an amazing job helping me with the kitchen floor the other day. Her comment as she was diligently scrubbing (which I happen to catch on video) was "This is hard work to do when I'm tired" followed shortly by "I bet Daddy's gonna be really happy that the floor is all cleaned when he comes home". She is also great at helping to tidy up the house as she knows where most everything goes...it just depends on how cooperative she is feeling that particular day. Yesterday when I was tidying up her comment was, "why is the house a disaster, mommy?". It actually WASN'T but apparently I say that way too often before picking up the clutter. :)

She got this beloved "Wormie" for Valentines Day and was trying her hand at photography. She took these next 2 all by herself.

We've been sick yet again for the past week with influenza and the day she first came down with it she told me she was going to go up and lay down (which is so NOT her) and when I went up to check on her I found she had tucked herself into bed with her beloved Wormie and promptly zonked out.

She spent alot of time laying in random spots curled up with a blanket and Wormie.

Elliott was the sickest of us all...

Not that excited about dinner time. :(

Thankfully we are all mostly better. Elliott and I both have a bit of a drip to our noses still but we're all feeling pretty good and actually went out to the park for awhile it the semi-warm sunshine this afternoon.

So here is the video I thought was the snowplow one but it is actually Tay-O practicing on the Wii Fit. :D This IS one of the things we do when trapped in the house so I guess it fits in here after all. Enjoy!

Finally...

At long last, here is the promised post for you, Gramma Jo. I have been sorting through videos of the past several months and organizing them into categories, sort of, and getting rid of the stuff I don't want. Here is the first of several videos I have completed. They are all from between 3-4months of Elliott and 24-26months of Kate.

Enjoy! :)

Hugs and Kisses. :)