April Smorgasbord

There are times I just pull out my phone to capture a moment.....because I want it kept forever.....

so whether or not these pictures have ANYTHING to do with each other, it doesn't matter. I wanted the moment remembered for April.

We dog-sat in April. Because my babies eat everything on the floor, I put the dog's food/water on the porch. Good idea right? Until Wynn goes outside, dumps it all out and has lunch!

(Hopefully the promise of the dog food will come through of thicker and shinier fur/hair)

My baby-ladies just woke up. Their sleepy faces make them look more alike.

These two....... are just full of it. Full of everything happy, fun and extreme.

(Pretty sure that was my LAST walk I went with them on. I was pushing the twins and Kellyn wanted to push Everly....that is until the way BACK. There was a LOT of whining, walking-through-quicksand that ended up with me pushing Everly with the twins while balancing the umbrella stroller on top going uphill. Like I said, last time.)

Aleeya and Iris like to choreograph dances. This happens to be their "Braids" dance and song they did for me.

Aleeya's artwork was in the county art show.

I think it's safe to say that NO one would ever consider us classy.

So to go along with that my kids just re-affirm that notion daily. This particular day Emerson decided he wanted a pool. And made a "deep end pool" in our recycling bin. (as opposed to the "shallow pool" they made out of one of my bins)

It doesn't quite fit the family. Two is the limit.

Since it's filled with cold hose water it is PERFECT for the cold-water-challenge game Emerson made up.

You see, the first step of the game is to challenge an unsuspecting younger sibling. Then you sit on the side where both players try to pysch themselves up for the shock.

On the count of three, you both have to get in. The person who stays in the longest wins!

Church is a place that I EXPECT the twins to be a handfull. I keep one eye on Everly for good measure. Everyone else I can count on. 

But for SOOOOOOOME reason there was a Sunday in April that this kid just couldn't keep his hiney on the bench. 

I guess he just needed extra practice when we got home.

He wasn't the ONLY one!!!!!!!!!

I heard a lot of action downstairs and peeked down to find the kid made a 4-square game out of Bronson's ties on the floor in his room. My kids can make fun anywhere!

Like in the mud during a HUGE rainstorm!

Another monumental experience.... the twins tried RedVines.... and approved.

Wynn

and Miss Iley-May

At Aleeya's elementary the 3rd and 4th graders are required to do strings. Here is Aleeya's strings concert.

Her little arched back is so cute.

Brooks couldn't make her concert which probably turns out to be a good thing since he thinks violins sounds like a whining cat anyway.

He was also out of town when Wynn (it's ALWAAAAAAYS Wynn who falls!!!!) cut above her eyebrow open and needed stitches. 

(what good is marrying a doc if he can't do the stitches?!?!?!)

Thankfully our friend let me bring Wynn over at 10:30pm and sewed her up nicely. 

She LOVED getting all the shots and being held down 3 hours past her bedtime.

On the PLUS side..... it helped the family tell the twins apart faster!

Spring is always the busiest time for my family because of baseball. And as crazy as our schedule gets there's NO way my boys aren't going to play baseball. There's something magical in the air watching baseball games!

And I will NEVER tire of seeing their cute name on the back of their jerseys.

More pointers from Dad. He actually ASKS Brooks for pointers. 

It sure made it easy to support Bronson's team since they were the Cardinals. We just got all our Cardinals gear out every game and looked like quite the fan-club.

Cutest little fan-club for Emerson's game.

(He's the kid that still waves to me from whatever position he is playing)

Royce....too polite to tell his buddy to SCRAM and get back in his position.

Good ol' Royce swung that bat with bad intentions every time he was up. He was also their best fielder too.

E² Birthdays

THIS crazy cat turned 11!!!!

He told me EXACTLY what he wanted for his birthday:

1) spaghetti with meatballs for dinner

2) a blue baseball backpack (to match his current baseball team)

and baseball gum

and 3) a junk box

(check out Royce's face, HA!)

I delivered in all of those requests, but after looking at these pictures, I'm starting to think I should've provided a shirt too. 😏

His birthday part he invited a ton of his school/church friends to a park where we had pizza, cupcakes, treat bags and kickball.

(again, no shirt)

The left fielder was tough. She only got hit and knocked down by a ball once.

Everly also shares her birthday in April and she turned three. 

Here's my E².

Everly is........how shall I say this.......... a liability. 

She is a master-sneaker, food/treat-stealing, quiter-than-an-injun-walking sweetheart.......

who happens to be an EXPERT in drawing on eyebrows (when she goes through my make up of course)

This picture must be documented as well.....because she has clothes on. 

You see Everly is a nudist.....

MUCH to all our dismay.

Everly also likes things juuuuuust right to go to bed. Which means her blanket and her three books.

I don't even READ them at bedtime to her, she just has to sleep WITH them.

You cannot add a different title either. They MUST be 

"Spaghetti with the Yeti"

"You Can Go Jump"

And "Go Dog Go!"

I guess someone IS worse than me with books in bed!

Despite all her sneaking-nudist ways, the whole family loves "Belch" (what her brothers call her. Infact SHE calls herself that too when you ask what her name is)

I think we'll keep her.

I found Everly in Kellyn's (toddler) bed on her birthday night.

Now that she's 3 she can raise her CHIN UP and bring on an awesome (or stinky) year.

My Birthday Gifts

The first of April I turned 36. WHAAAAT?!?!

(sounds a lot older than 35)

Although Camden didn't TECHNICALLY do this for my bday I consider this a gift to me. He learned how to change diapers! 😆

He started babysitting for a family that had a boy in a nighttime diaper. Camden assured them he knew how to put one on. The kid ended up with it on backwards. So here I am teaching him.

We started with an UN-moving baby and then moved on up. I decided not to overwhelm him with the twin-challenge. ;)

A birthday gift to me would be all of us sitting quietly, watching Conference and taking notes on those inspired words.

Yea, THAT didn't last long. This was more like it.

Because every precious moment with these two is a gift, here's one of those no-personal-space kind of pictures of the girls in the bath.

A gift (and a challenge) is a household of girls who want to be like me. They watch everything I do and that's scary sometimes and I know I don't always do this job justice. But it's sweet when I hear Aleeya talk about wanting to be a mom when she grows up.

This was TECHNICALLY not for my birthday but we got the BEST THING EVER my birthday week. 

Meet the Sasquatch. 

The newest member of the family. #iminLOVE

On my actual birthday Brooks was working and the day was PACKED with games and practices. It was the first time I had six kids that needed to be at 5 different places at the same time.

Happy flipping birthday to me huh.

BUT I bought myself a papaya to muster through it all. MMMM-mmm

Being the taxi driver isn't the tricky part, it's taking Kelly, Everly, Wynn and Iley with me and keeping an eye on them that's tricky. Thankfully I have friendly babies that crawl to strangers to be held.

And I can bribe Aleeya and Iris to keep tabs on Everly/Kellyn for me.....because keeping track of Everly is a job in and of itself!

Three of my friends (Candi, Autumn and Jenn) had a birthday brunch for me as well. Probably the best french toast I've ever had. It literally was a FEAST. 

Oh, and Emerson gave me a container of Tic-Tacs because he said my breath stinks. Nice.

Can we just go back to the Sasquatch for a minute though...... I love LOVE driving that thing. It's SO smooth and gets a LOT better gas mileage than the Yeti did. It's quieter, turns better, has an AC that works and now thanks to Royce it is one window short!

The knucklehead saw the height on the Sasquatch (it's so tall......I mean, I can't even go through any drive-thrus because of the height. haha) and wondered if he could throw the baseball from one side of it to the other.

And in case you are wondering, he can't.

Brooks and I told Royce that he probably will owe us for YEARS for that window in jest. Then Brooks said he had to vaccuum up all the broken glass. Royce cocked his head to the side and with his mischevious grin asked, "Can you pay me a dollar if I vaccuum up all the glass?" #facepalm

And no, he didn't get paid!

Award to the Winners!

St. Patrick's Day Award:

Since the boys were all gone on St. Patrick's Day we had our Annual Jellybean Race a week later.

The first heat was Royce and Iris

Iris won

Aleeya vs. Emerson

(quite the pose Emerson..... apparently it helped because he won)

Everly and Kellyn moved the jellybean all of 4 inches before they realized it wasn't worth the effort and ate them.

Camden and Bronson

Surprisingly, Bronson won.

Now the winners battled it out. Iris with the head start and hands down STILL was no competition for Emerson's skills

(Note the box on the right with clothes hanging out. That's as good as it gets folks. THOSE are the boys' Sunday clothes. They come out of the laundry room and sit in that box until Sunday morning because I hate hunting down their clothes. And yes, this rec-room area IS infact Bronson's bedroom. No privacy for that kid!)

Camden's goal in life is to photo-bomb my pics. I have to say he nailed it this time..... the start of the finals....Emerson vs. Bronson

AND THE WINNER IS EMERSON!!!!!!

The prize? He picked to go eat at Golden Corral. No surprise there.

These next two outings get the awards for the Best Girl-time of the Month.

1)Beauty and the Beast with friends

As much as they liked the movie I think Iris still liked the escalators more.

Aaaaaaaaaaand 

2) General Women's Conference with Aleeya. 

Dinner at Subway first 

We got DRENCHED running into Subway and later to the church!

Here we are at the church before it starts.

Adventure Award:

Goes to Miss Iley May...... who is a climber, and would rather climb on top of her sister's high chair to eat HER food. 

Character Award:

as always, goes to Kellyn

Cuteness award:

kind of a given, right?

Sneakology Award:

This is the ACTUAL certificate Brooks presented to Bronson at the dinner table

He was awarded this for walking a few miles to a phone store with Camden, buying a phone and effectively hiding it from Brooks and I for a month w/o us catching him. Impressive.