Latest and Greatest

This little love face.  He has had a rough week.  On Monday afternoon he started running a fever which lasted until Wednesday.  He woke up Thursday morning with tummy issues so I decided not to send him to school again, for the third day in a row.  Last night the kids were playing jump-bo on the trampoline (the opposite of limbo where they have to jump over a noodle) and we think he injured his ankle.  He has been limping on and off all day.  Poor kiddo!  Hopefully he will stay healthy soon!

Shadow thinks she is a tiny little lap dog.  Mike sat down to play legos with the kids and shadow made herself at home.

Thanks Meme for the pink mustaches!  They found a really good home on our apples.

Mom, can we buy this for our baby?  We really need to lock it up.

Thanks Doc!

A sunny, soggy hike

Last weekend we had beautiful sunny weather and a free afternoon, so we went to a local state park for a little hike.  

The kids are getting to be such great little hikers!  On this particular day we made it over three miles.  

At three miles they kind of pooped out.  Thankfully we were on a road walking back to the car so Daddy sprinted back and picked us all up.

Even though the weather was awesome (look at Mike in shorts) the lake was still frozen.  We stumbled upon the polar bear plunge.  Even though it was great weather, I still was amazed that people were jumping into the lake on the other side of the beach.  They had to chop into the ice to make a place to swim in!

We have to enjoy these lazy weekends before baseball/softball/soccer season starts.  The way the weather is shaping up, we may even be able to get out this weekend too!

Eight and a half years old!

Caution!!!  This bathroom is clean!!

Carter boy, you are eight and a half years old.  There is a saying about motherhood that the days are slow but the years fly.  I have found this to be so incredibly true!  

At eight and a half years:

• You've gotten to be a really picky eater.  You don't really like any meat, except for buffalo chicken wings and sometimes steak.  Even typically kid friendly meats such as chicken nuggets and hot dogs you will eat occasionally.  But give you any kind of cracker, bread or roll and you are in heaven.    
• You really enjoy playing Minecraft on your tablet and have even started watching Dan TDM on you tube.  Your Dad and I have watched it, but we really don't get the draw.  It's just a teenager than walks through Minecraft and talks about it.  But oh boy, you love it!  And your brother and sister do too, we often find them hovering over your shoulder to watch.
• You love wearing bracelets and necklaces.  You have several paracord bracelets and rubber bracelets that you keep on rotation.  You also love to wear dog tags as a necklace.
• You are becoming more aware of what is considered "cool" as far as your wardrobe.  Recently one of the little boys in your classroom wore running tights under shorts.  You came home with the words Gander Mountain written on a slip of paper and requested that we take you immediately to get a pair of running tights so you can wear shorts to school during the winter.
• Your list of allergies has gotten a little longer.  We know that you are allergic to peas and peanuts.  Your environmental allergens are cats, dogs, dust, mold and cockroaches. 
• We just started a face mask with you to correct your overbite.  Eventually you have to wear it for twelve hours a day, but we are working up to it by increasing your time by an hour each night.  We have also been putting it on you after you fall asleep.  Sometimes you have difficulties falling asleep, so we knew adding a face mask to the mix would make it tricky.  This also means that I have been setting an alarm to get up in the middle of the night and take off your face mask.  Oh well, good practice for the new baby, right?  Thankfully you have been doing very well with it and haven't complained of too much pain.
• Right now you are gearing up for baseball season.  You are so excited!  On your half birthday you went on a date with Daddy to pick out your new cleats for the season.  I haven a feeling you will be wearing these around the house quite frequently.
• Right now your favorite books include the Tides of War series, Scooby Doo chapter books and the Bearenstein bears.  We have some of the books from when I was younger and I frequently find you reading them on your own.  I've been picking them up at the library when I see them.
• You love going outside.  Frequently when you have had a tough day at school you will march in the house, grab a snack and go up into the woods behind our house.  Most of the time you want to be alone.  This causes friction with your little brother because he adores you and wants to see you!  
• Your favorite toys are legos, your bike, and your camping and survival gear.  You also love science kits.  We have an old alarm clock from goodwill in the basement and you love to take it apart.  Many times you will ask for different materials so that you can do different science experiments.

You really enjoy cub scouts.  This is from our visit to the MAPS air museum with our den.

When you are happy you could generally be described as giddy.  You have a loud woooo! noise that you make!

Conversely, you can moan and groan with the best of them.  I'm pretty sure the first twenty minutes after you wake up all communication occurs in the form of groans.

Your favorite article of clothing will always be camo.

We love you Carter boy!

Ava's Winter Cheerleading Camp

I just wanted to share some pictures from Ava's Winter Cheerleading camp.  The girls go one night during the week for two hours and learn different cheers and a dance song.  The next night they perform at the high school varsity basketball half time.

She adored learning the different moves and learning from the high school cheerleaders.

I was impressed, she picked up on the dance and cheers pretty quickly.

She also got a little pink carnation from her brother, and really enjoyed her time.  I could tell it was a little nerve wracking for her to perform in front of such a large crowd.  Her face was flushed and she ran up for a hug immediately.  It was so much fun watching you Ava girl!

Winter Finally Arrived (and subsequently left)

On Tuesday the kids had their first snow and boy were they ever pumped!  They helped Daddy dig out in their pajamas and ran straight inside to throw snow pants on top off their pajamas.

Carter has gotten really good at snowboarding down the hill in our back yard.

I found snow paint for the kids, and Ava adored it.

We even tried making an igloo with snow bricks but it's a lot harder than it looks.  We ended up with three walls, no roof.

This year is amazing!  The kids are getting so wonderfully capable.  Everyone is able to put on all their own snow gear and they stay outside for so long.  I remember when they were all toddlers it was take me twice as long to get everyone dressed and undressed as they would want to stay outside to play.

These two pictures were taken earlier in the week when we got a small snowfall.  The bigger kids were at school while Dawson and I went sledding and built a snowman.  Sledding with this kid is a riot!  He is such an adrenaline junkie.  I sled with him a few times but the dog would freak out about me going down the hill and run over to me on the sled to make sure I was ok.  Dawson got tired of me and the dog slowing him down so he went at it alone.  This kid flies across the yard and crashes into the house.  They he laughs and screams in joy and runs up the hill again.

I will miss my little buddy in August!  And also, I really love these little animal winter hats.  This is probably the last year Dawson will willingly wear one, but I think they are so precious!

Valentine's Day

I just love St. Valentine's Day.  It's so fun to pick out little things for the kids to enjoy, just to let them know that I love them.  It's fun to spoil all four of my loves a little bit!

This year I picked out a small lego kit for each of them, book, journal and some new smelly markers for everyone to share.  Legos = my kids love language

Ava and Carter were able to put their kits together without help, and Dawson only needed a couple of minor assists.

This was my kitchen table thursday afternoon.  All three kids brought home their Valentines and emptied them out onto the kitchen table.  So it looks like we are re-stocked on candy until Easter time for sure!

Dawson can be such a sweet little guy.  He drew me this picture of me and him in love.  He thinks we are going to get married when he gets older.  He even told Mike "you are losing your husband."  (I think he meant wife.)  What a sweetie!

I love all my Valentines!

And I must say this about married life:  Sunday was a really rough day for me.  I think I overdid it swimming at the waterpark and I was so exhausted and felt terrible all day long.  I ended up laying on the couch for most of the day and I took almost three hours of naps.  But the best present I could ask for was a husband that took care of the kiddos and unpacked from our trip.  I love you Mike!

Waterpark Fun!

This past weekend we had the best time with our family.  We went to Kalahari water park, and the kids had a blast.

Ava preferred the tamer attractions with her cousins.  On our second day there I finally convinced her to ride some of the bigger rides and she loved it!  She even told me that her favorite thing was riding the raft ride with Mom.

Aunt Tiff and our cutie cousin Abbie

I think Ava really enjoyed the time with her cousins.

These boys.  I didn't get to see them a lot because they spent the majority of their time on the bigger rides.  Dawson loved the water slides.

They loved racing to the bottom on this slide.  I think they rode it the most!

Smiley Ava!  Look at cousin Andrew having fun too!

Thank you again, Bo and Grandma for the wonderful weekend.

An Announcement!

Well, the rumors are true!  Baby Shadle will be joining our family sometime around August 30th.  

Dawson's family portrait

I love how he drew a diaper on the baby.

So far, the kids have been pretty excited about the newest arrival.  I went to school after we told the kids, and Ava had spread the news far and wide. It was so nice to see her excitement.  Carter's only concern was the baby arriving on his birthday.  I will do my very best to make sure that doesn't happen, but no guarantees of course!

In December Carter, of his own accord, told us he didn't want to sleep alone anymore.  So we moved him with Dawson into the yellow room and they have been happily bunking together.  We are going to have to move some toys to the basement eventually, but we do have a free room now!

We decided to tell the kids with a special desert.  I put the letters BABY on four cookies and mixed up the word.  I told the kids that we had a secret, and they can unscramble the word to figure it out.  Dawson protested that he couldn't read, but I told him not to worry his brother and sister would help him.  As soon as I put the four cookies down Dawson immediately yelled out BABY!  There were smiles all around and they wanted to know the due date and gender.  We have a video, but the file is too large so I can't upload it.

Avaroo! and many stuffed animals too!

This little creature and her stuffies.  In these pajamas they look like twins with matching ears and spotted animal pattern!

Ava wearing Meme's wedding veil

Ava found the poodle ear muffs and has been wearing them to school and here, gymnastics.  I thought Meme would like to know that there are still being enjoyed!

I love how they use their imaginations to build lego creations.  Dawson built the car and Ava built the remote control.

Love you Ava girl, thanks for all the smiles and snuggles!

Dawson, the latest and greatest

We have been working hard on night training Dawson.  He had five dry nights and so he picked a lego airplane ambulance!  

Here is a pic of Dawson at his five year checkup at the doctor's office.  He earned the duck stuffed animal at school by getting five stickers.  He has really taken to duckie, it has been going everywhere with us.  Duckie is even the first thing he looks for at night, before angel baby.

The five year appointment is a doozie.  Dawson was not happy about the shots, but he was very proud to tell everyone that he is now immune to measles mumps and rubella.  It made me laugh because the nurse tried to offer him a band aid after the shot, which really just added insult to injury.  He still hates band aids, almost as much as stickers!

We were working on Valentine's for school and Dawson made sure to write one to himself, haha that is a kid that really wants a piece of candy!

We love you Dockie Boy!