I was feeling really bad that Jay will be 5 months old next week and I never took him to get his 4 month pictures taken like I did with the others. Life is so crazy and busy...I'm still just trying to figure it all out! :)

So I opened all my curtains and used my black headboard as a backdrop- this is as good as it's gonna get for now bud, sorry.

But they did turn out adorable!!!

He has the prettiest eyes and is just perfect and so snuggly...I just love this boy!

Love this one!

Remember this Courtney? 

I was remembering at girls camp when we use to tie our hair in rags to get curls and I thought I would try it with Hailey since she hates doing her hair, especially curling it.

She was so excited we just untied the rags and whala- curls! She told her Dad she was going to do it EVERY night lol

Ari singing in her microphone Gma got her for Christmas. She loves to sing. Sometimes I sneak in to listen to her in the bathtub with her mermaids singing....so adorable!

 We are always implementing things around here to get the kids to pitch in. We don't do allowances or anything- everybody just does their part and we work together. So I found this big cube/dice I used when I was the primary chorister and had an idea to turn it into a dinner job chart. I printed off 6 pictures (using clipart) that stood for these: clear the table, wash the table and chairs, wash the dishes, sweep the floor, pick up the toys and roll again (if they get this 3 times they get to choose). This has been working out beautifully! The kids are so excited each night to roll the dice and see what they get to do to clean up after dinner. Beats everyone running off while Mom gets to clean up! :)

Scott and Hailey were thrilled on Monday when I told them they could make cookies without any help from Mom! It was super cute to see them work together :)

I say it all the time how Hailey is such a mommy. Her new favorite thing to do is read to Jay because he LOVES to be read to. 

This is so hilarious! I was sitting right in front of the couch and Hailey was playing and reading to Jay last night and then she said, "Look Mom, I put Jay up on the couch" and when I saw him I laughed so hard and couldn't stop. He looks like an old man reading the newspaper! So funny!

Hailey made up a new game that quickly became her favorite. She has Dad hold a scarf and then she climbs up his legs and launches off. So funny. Dad was pretty sore after doing this for 30 minutes! lol

 

Cute pic of Ari waiting for her nails to dry. We paint a lot of nails around here. I can only imagine how my parents felt with 4 girls :)

Last Friday all of the 1st graders were suppose to go on a field trip to Hardware Ranch to see the elk, but they had a pipe freeze and had to cancel the trip. (can't have 100 1st graders without a bathroom...doesn't work) Scott was really bummed when he got home, so we got up on Saturday morning and decided to go as a family.

Closeup of this cuteness. Seriously!

So they have a trailer on sleighs pulled by the horses. They have a farm out there, but the elk aren't caged in. They feed them hay so they can come if they want to. They had 500 elk that morning.

These were the horses behind us and I was joking with Hailey that they were rockstars with their bangs and blonde hair like her. She thought that was pretty funny.

We also got to pick up some antlers in the visitor center and see just how heavy these things are! Crazy they don't tip over!

Arianna said, "Look Mom! Reindeer!!"

It was almost naptime for Jay so he didn't quite make it.

so adorable!

We packed lunch so we got to have a picnic and the kids got to play on the snow hills. When we got home the girls were having fun playing in the house and Scott and Kevin were outside in the garage. Kevin found an old snow blower and he was letting Scott take the entire thing apart so he could learn all about the engine and how it worked. As you can imagine Scott was having a blast with that! It was a fun Saturday for sure! Can't wait for winter to be over so we can start doing fun things again!!!

Jay's 1st bites- yum!!

 Saturday February 16th Jay tried his first food- rice cereal mixed with some breastmilk. He thoroughly enjoyed it...can you tell by the above picture? :)

He has his hands in his mouth constantly, so it was a bit hard to keep them out long enough to sneak in the spoon, especially once he tasted it because then he was just trying to push it in faster than I could do it. So cute!

Hope everyone had a fun Valentine's Day!

We use every excuse to do sugar cookies around here, Valentine's Day included 

 Ari never had much fun because she hated the frosting, even if it touched her. Thanks to her birthday cake, she was having a blast decorating this time around. I think she ate all hers before the other 2 finished... pretty funny

 The kids have way too much fun doing Valentine's for their classes. I usually just buy the cheap kind at the store, but they wanted to be more involved than that this year, so Hailey just found some cute ones online and printed them out, cut them out and signed her name.

 I told them they could do whatever they wanted with the 2 candies we keep stocked at our house- dum dums and smarties. This is what Scott came up with...he turned a smartie into  a cute firecracker. He had so much fun making them (and we even enlisted Dad to cut out 28 flames! lol)

 Instead of cutting the sandwiches into hearts this year I just used a cookie cutter and 2 types (different colored wheat bread or you could use 1 wheat 1 white) of bread and  swapped out the hearts on Scott and Hailey's sandwiches. Scott is obsessed with jokes this year, especially now that he's reading. He always checks out joke books at the library so I put some jokes in his lunch. Silly one's like, "What did the boy octopus say to the girl octopus?" Answer: I wanna hold your hand hand hand hand hand hand hand hand

Kids crack up over jokes like that- it's so cute! 

 Ari was the only one who didn't have a party because she's not in preschool yet, but the library put together a short little story time with a craft and cookies and milk and that was just perfect. They even passed out these little Valentine's, so Ari was as happy as a clam :)

 Every time I had the camera out Jay was napping, but here's one the other day. Jay can't just lay out and play anymore because Hailey is completely obsessed with playing with him. She's always been like that, but now that he's not quite as fragile she is constantly picking him up and carrying him around. It's super cute! She is such a sweet little girl. Ari was crying yesterday and Hailey went over and bend down to her level and said, "Would you like to play in my room or your room?" Ari said, "Your room" and Hailey said, "Okay Ari, but next time you don't need to cry to get what you want okay?" and she took her hand and off she went. :)

And although this wasn't said on Valentine's Day, it pretty much sums it up. Scott came up to me yesterday and gave me a big hug and said, "Who loves anything more than their family?"

Here's a video I took of Ari after taking a few  bites of crumbs until the final big bite. Listen to what she says in the beginning. Soooo adorable!! :)

Ari eating Cake! from Nicole on Vimeo.

Arianna is 3!

We did her measurements at home since we had to cancel her checkup due to her being extremely sick this week! 

38 inches tall and 28.2 pounds

Poor girl has been in her room all week wearing a mask watching movies on a portable dvd player in her bed with a humidifier going. It just knocked her flat it was so sad. I didn't see a smile all week and then she just woke up so excited it was her birthday she forgot all about being sick and had a fun happy day!

She loves princesses so much, especially Cinderella and Ariel. She just loves all the singing :) so she wanted princess party stuff of course. 

Such a cheese ball :) 

She wanted a princess castle. Since she is super picky and the only cake she has ever taken a bite out of was for Spock's bday (cousin Mia's cat lol) I just wanted her to eat her own birthday cake! She has never tried a cupcake or anything on her birthday and I just really wanted her to enjoy it this year. She told me she wanted chocolate and she told me she wanted pink and purple which I wasn't sure about since she has never eaten frosting, not even on a cookie.

Here's the cake :) After failing one little flower I decided to just use smarties instead as the flowers and she loved that.

trying to hold up 3 fingers and just couldn't lol

Trying to blow out her candle

and again and again and again and again until finally

she let out a big pouty sigh and what do ya know, it blew that candle out! lol She looked down and was all confused it was pretty funny

Opening presents

I was so excited about the Cinderella and this little horse and pumpkin carriage (worth every minute of painful day after Christmas shopping lol) 

and finally drum roll please!

The picture mantra of testing out the cake

a lick of a tiny itty bitty piece of frosting...

and thinking about it

going in for another crumb size piece

peeling off a piece of the cake

licking her finger

then finally- an entire bite! She even had seconds on the cake (she won't touch ice cream still....there's always next year lol) As a mom though, I'm just so happy she got to enjoy her own birthday cake. I'm so proud of her for trying so hard this year with eating. It really is a scary thing for her and she's come so far! 

And the part all our kids look forward to on their birthday...the one day of the year all the other kids go to bed on time, and they get to stay up an extra hour or so to play with their new things with mom and dad all to themselves.

Arianna is the sweetest girl. She just has a tender heart. Yes that means she is very emotional and sensitive, but it also means she gives a lot. My friend put it so perfectly when she said that Ari loves with her whole heart. She just gives you everything she's got and doesn't hold anything back. She never says, "No you can't play with me today because you were mean to me" ...she just loves unconditionally. I think that is her best trait. 

She is beautiful and I've always said she was sent straight from heaven.

Happy Birthday Sweet Girl!