My silly kids

Dirty Darby after a visit to the park

Spiderman shares a Heffalump with the baby

Brendan's stack of books

Two cute girls in brown

Can you see Darby's outfit? No pants, her sister's sneakers, gloves and a knit hat. Its summer. She's so silly.

When I Grow Up

When asked what they wanted to be when they grew up, the children responded like this:
Brendan replied "I'm going to be an Army Commander."
Eva told me, "A farmer."
And Darby said, "When I grow up I'm gonna be a lizard."
Good luck with that Darbs.

Brendan Art part 2

I posted this elsewhere, but after a good laugh at his latest piece, I realized I had not posted this here.

It says, "Have a good time shooting those bad guys!"


BOOM!

Brendanisms

Two things.
One is a Fathers Day picture Brendan drew for me.




Two, Brendan's Sunday School teacher discussed the Sermon on the Mount. When he said that blessed are the peacemakers, Brendan said, "The Jedi are peacemakers."

True that, son.

The Good Life

So today is Fathers Day. I had everything I wanted, a sweet tie,


a nice day at Church, a nap, and some quality time in my lazy boy.



A lot of this is due to Christine holding the fort down and keeping the natives from getting restless (read: jump on daddy's face while he is napping).

Oh and Christine made some amazing stuffed french toast for dinner. It was pretty much an ideal day.

Feeling hot, hot hot

Happy Summer Everyone!

Reading

At this house we are BIG book fans. Jason and I are avid readers and, with my having been a teacher and him being a history major, we have a massive collection of books. In fact, I'd love to go back to school to be an elementary librarian (dream job!!)

Brendan has been into books since he was old enough to turn pages. At a year old he'd look at books for almost an hour by himself. Eva likes books but not as much, unless they are animal or activity books. Darby is as obsessed as Brendan was, though not as gentle with them. Now that Bubbs is reading on his own (he can read third/fourth grade material in his head; he amazes me), he usually has a book. Darby, not to be outdone, is convinced she can read as well.

Darbs does have a few of her board books memorized. Just ask her about Little Miss Muffet or Georgie Porgie. With other books she will sit and make up stories. She even "reads" to the baby. The thing is, her cover us pretty well blown when she picks up an adult chapter book (David Eddings in particular) and pretends she's reading that.

Though she can't read (obviously, she's 2), she is making some great progress with letters. She can name them all by sight. Thank you LeapFrog and SuperWhy. She has also taken an interest in a basic spelling game we have on the ipad.

I firmly believe that she will do things like read, ride a bike and potty train earlier than any of her siblings did and here's why: she will NOT allow being left behind by the big kids. In some respects, I see this as a good thing but in others, I can see some real battles in our parenting future. Dating conversation in the tweens, anyone?

Check up

I knew Paige was having a growth spurt but I was unsure just how big a spurt it was. At her 4 month check up on Tuesday I found out she is 26 inches long (95th percentile) and over 16 lbs. No wonder her clothes are all suddenly too small. The check up went well; she's on track developmentally. She is reaching what I call the fun age of babyhood. Isn't this a sweet face?

Darbs loves Paige

Darbs absolutely loves the baby. She asks all the time,"Caniholthebabypaige?"(Can I hold the baby, Paige?)

Paige is not too crazy about it since Darbs usually puts a finger in her eye or mouth or something, but I usually humor her.

Drool monkey

Somebody must be getting a tooth soon.
Her mouth is a faucet and she gnaws on her hands. At least she's still fairly happy.

Marbles Museum for Memorial Day

Raleigh has a children's museum that we had never been to and we were looking for something fun to do on our day off. There was supposed to be a bubble exhibit that day besides the normal fun stuff so off we went on Monday morning. This place is AWESOME!! We ended up staying two hours because we had to be back in Fayetteville for the afternoon but we could have stayed much longer. There were two floors of fun things to play on. Huge Legos, pretend cities, giant dollhouses, a pirate ship, crafts, a place to build a car and then race it . . . I could go on and on. We will definitely be back.

The backyard garden, attempt #1

Christine and I occasionally attempt to grow things. I almost feel sorry for the poor plants doomed to come to our home since we seem to have a black thumb.

Some friends of ours told us about something called Square Foot Gardening (thanks Andersons) and we decided to give it a shot. I did some research, bought the stuff, and set it up. So far so good. Things were going swimmingly until Brendan spilled a half pack of radish seeds into the carrots. We picked out most of them but as you can see in the lower left section we missed a couple (dozen). I actually picked out some and put them in other unused sections.

The kids and I love it. I find myself going out every day to look and see how things are going, there is some kind of simple pleasure in taking care the garden. Christine and I are taking bets though on how long it will be before one of our little tornados descend upon the interesting new sandbox.

How do they do it?

Eva unintentionally put her shirt on upside down, which is quite an accomplishment if you think about it.

Water Days

Jason here. Brendan is finishing up his school year and they are pretty much done with everything scholastic wise. So what better way to fill the day than to get the fire department out there, hook up the hoses and let a hundred kindergartners run wild in the water? I stayed for about an hour just watching and supporting the cause while Bubbs and company ran relays, got sprayed, swam in a dunk pool (that had to be cleaned out after a kid barfed in it), got sprayed some more, etc, etc.

The water relays were the funniest. There seemed to be an endless variation on the same theme of shuttling water from one bucket to another and the boys could never quite figure out how to crack the code.


The girls beat them every race I saw. Oh well, it was ridiculous good fun.

To be a kid again.

4 Months

Paige will be 4 months old tomorrow and it is safe to say that we are all enamored with her. She is also known as "Baby Therapy" for a few ladies in our ward. She loves to be held and engage in cooing conversations. She sleeps through the night but we are still having issues with daytime sleep. Its mostly because we have so much going on with the other kids that I often miss her "sleep window" and she gets overtired. She is also really chunking up. Her pediatrician appointment is not for a few weeks but by bathroom scale she is almost 16 lbs.

Paige has become quite proficient at making her bouncer move by doing what we call the "Crab Leg" (kicking one leg repeatedly to get the whole thing bouncing). She is working on rolling over, which is a bit sad since I can't put her down on the couch or bed anymore. She is teething and gnaws on her fist constantly. Her pouty lip is simply adorable. That one little curl on her head is still there and no other curls have joined it.

Paige tolerates her siblings "overloving" very well and even laughs at them. Her bright eyes and quick smile get me every time. Sometimes its hard not to wake her up and kiss her cute cheeks. I am really enjoying her babyhood.

Do you like the onesie we got from Jason's work when she was born?