Yay for photo equipment!

Can I just tell all of you how beautiful it is to have a nice camera, one or two flashes and a backdrop (roll of white paper, a sheet, a blanket, etc..) and to NOT take kids to a studio!! It really is a beautiful thing. Trust me, it pays for itself in a matter of months. :)

these are from today:
Lizzie




Andrew:


Rachel:


Tomorrow I'll do Andrew's 1-year photo shoot. And not go anywhere!! And not pay anyone for pictures! :)

Happy Birthday Andrew!

March 24th was Andrew's first birthday! We love having Andrew and can't imagine our family without him!



He LOVED his birthday cake!
He tried to blow out the candle..



And then dug right in:





YUM!

The finished product:



Jason's mom sent the outfit that Jason wore on his first birthday.. (um, in 1979!)



Happy Birthday Andrew!!

A few more pics

This was St Patrick's Day - right before we all went to Applebees for lunch! (Dad even got off of work for a bit to meet us there - it was fun!)




And Andrew, our evening entertainment..

I took our zoo to the zoo

And we brought a friend, too! I mean, we did have one whole extra seat in the van..

It was pretty fun - for the kids! It's been a long time since we went, and they had a blast seeing all the animals. (um, I accidentally caught 2 jaguars mating on video.. that was educational..)

We had a picnic there (which was visited by peacocks) and spent about half the day there. You'd think they'd take naps when we got home, wouldn't you? :)

The lions - mom and 2 cubs





The elephants are always a favorite - we caught them at feeding time.. you can tell Andrew's having a blast..



The hippos woke up and went for a swim while we were there



All in all, a successful trip! And we got out of the house!!!

The Sad Truth

I do have some friends (with 'only' 2 or 3 older and more, um, well-behaved kids) who are oh so diligent and keep their vans/suv's sparkling clean. Good for them. :)

Back on planet earth where we race the toddlers inside the house the second the car is in park because their bladders are about to explode for the third time in the past hour... we frequently forget to go back out and scour the van/gas-guzzler clean from all the goop du jour. So after a few days it's looking pretty embarrassing, and thank goodness for tinted windows!

That's why I highly recommend this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEFE3B0Rje0

That's pretty funny. But only because it's so true..

5 year old violin

(screech screech!)

Actually, it's not that bad. It's pretty cute...most of the time.
Micaela started taking violin lessons in February, so she has about 6 weeks under her belt now, and she can play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star! Let me tell you, THAT is an accomplishment! She spent a few weeks learning how to hold the bow and the violin, learning posture, etc. Now we're off and running! Or screeching, I guess.
The only drawback so far is that she has about a 30 second endurance before the "But I'm tired!" whining starts and then, of course, she's off to run like crazy around the backyard. Poor tired girl.. :)

Here she is with her teacher last week:



Now we have to work on keeping that pinky reined in.. :)

Here we go again!

Ok, now Andrew has it!
It is SO sad when a baby has the stomach flu - he's just confused and sad and barfing and miserable and doesn't know what's going on! Poor little guy..
We have stake conference this weekend, and Elder Eyring is coming - we even have a BABYSITTER for the adult session tomorrow night!! That in and of itself is a certifiable miracle. And now we probably won't be going.. :( Maybe we'll trade off so one of us can go to the adult session and the other to the sunday session..

Having a lot of kids isn't so terribly difficult when everything's going okay... it's the times when people are sick or hurt or something bad happens that you really realize how many kids you have!

Poor Rachey!

That girl is STILL barfing! She started on Tuesday, so that's 3 days now of not keeping any food down! She now has a history of ridiculously long bouts of stomach flu.. (I'd mention something here about having changed over 20 poopy diapers today, but I don't want this post to get too gross, you know..)
Poor kid! We feel so bad for her! She's just laying on the floor/couch all day! :( I even tried to give her a popsicle and she couldn't eat it. Now THAT is a sick Rachey - she is the sugar fiend of the world, and for her to not eat a popsicle is pretty bad!!
So far the rest of us are ok..
Oh, and our treadmill came today, so now we can really kick it up a notch.. (ok, start exercising because we haven't in years..hehe)

The blonde ones..

Just so the other 2 kids don't feel left out, here are some cute pictures of them from the past 2 days..

Lizzie eating goldfish (we love her one dimple!)


And Andrew, eating of course..


such a cutie! And so happy (and messy)! We love our Drew..


He got a haircut yesterday - he was getting a little too fluffy!
Is that the face of a little boy who wants the stomach flu? :)

Our budding philanthropist

This is Micaela with her bucket that was full of money 3 days ago!
Micaela had 4 baby teeth pulled in February and got 4 dollars from the generous tooth fairy for her ordeal at the dentist. Last week she gathered up those dollars (which she guarded with her life for 3 weeks!) and all the coins she could find or earn and that bucket was pretty full!
Our primary has a 'Spare Change Jar' which they are encouraging kids to fill with spare coins throughout this year, with the goal of buying Christmas presents for poor kids in December.
Micaela has brought a little handful of coins every week, but this week she was SO excited to bring her bucket of money!! Every day she counted and sorted her coins, and she had quite a bit of money in there! She was so proud when she dumped the whole thing in the primary jar!
We were so proud of her!

Reader discretion is advised..

I can't believe we have the stomach flu again!! All 4 kids had it at the same time in December, and Rachel and Lizzie both barfed for 12 straight days and nights, complete with trips to the doctor for dehydration, etc. Jason got it twice - once at the beginning and once at the end of the kids' sickness.. I got it once in the middle of all that.. I think our washer and dryer were about to barf by the end!! :)
Right now only Rachel has it, and I feel like I have a toned down version of it today. I'm still keeping down my chocolate, so that's what matters, right? ;)

Poor sick kiddo: (taken last night in between barfs)


She didn't move from the bathroom floor all morning, but she's back up and around this afternoon and hasn't barfed up her crackers yet! (she's always naked..)



We're up to 4 loads of laundry for this bout of stomach flu, with just one kid - that's not too bad! I hope the others don't get it or we'll have some appliance repairs in the near future..

Baby Pics!!

It may be a bit early for baby pictures.. but here they are!





I got quite the show during the ultrasound today - the little guy (or girl) was jumping, waving, kicking, squirming.. it was SO cute! That bottom picture was taken during a wave. :)
I've been anxious this whole pregnancy, feeling like something was wrong, and I know things could still go wrong (I'm only about 11 weeks) but obviously we all feel a lot better now! And we're all so in love with that little blob! It's amazing how it's still the same, even on the FIFTH one!! (crazy people!)

I'll be back later to post more about our semi-eventful weekend..