Michiana

Our Summer trip this year was to Michigan to see Eric's sister and her family. My sister lives at about the half way point to her house so we were able to see her as well! Here are my kiddies with my sister's kids. Isaiah wasn't in the mood for pics.


Here is Uncle Terry with Clark. Clark was very content with him. (and his feet) (:

Here are the kids with cousin Katie, Eric's sister's youngest. She's the only person who could get Bianca to wear that kind of bow in her hair. They are having dinner on the deck where Bianca got a splinter which resulted in a huge 3 hour meltdown and three large adults holding her down to remove it. It will forever be referred to as "the splinter incident" from this trip. Every trip has something right?!

Ahhhhhh, the lovely beaches of Michiana. Bianca is a girl after my own heart. She rolled in the sand, she danced on the beach and at the end of the day I found her just sitting and singing on the shore. My little beach girl.

Wyatt got brave and went out pretty far on the sand bar. It helped that it was so shallow. He had a great time. He kept calling to me, "Mommy, look at me!"

Clark's first trip to the beach. I put his feet in the water but he didn't like it much. He did kick with excitement when he saw the water but I think it was too cold for him.


That 5 minutes in the sun just wore him out!


Cousin Katie and Bianca. Katie is a bad influence. Before Bianca went to sleep one night she said, "Daddy, I want an American Doll and Katie says they are $100.00." Oh dear. They are so cute together I guess I can't hold it against her. The Malones recently got a trampoline and they spent a lot of time on that together. Wyatt especially loved it.


Then it was back to my sister's on the way home. I never realized how much work vacations were for my parents, now I know. But it's all worth it for the kids. They made so many memories and were so excited to see everyone. I think they had fun. (:

Thanks for the good times Sistas!

Bianca turns 6 and Clark's blessing

Clark is almost 3 months old now and I wanted to see how he looks compared to how Wyatt looked at his age. See the two pics below. I think they look really different. The first pic is Clark, second one is Wyatt.


For C's blessing Eric's sister and my sister and all their kids came out. It was pretty crazy around here but also a lot of fun. The kids were playing nonstop. They were so tired when everyone left that they ASKED to go to bed at 6:30 that night and slept until 7 the next morning! Here is my sis with the babe.

Here are some of the cousins and Bianca doing some art.

Bianca's birthday is April 8th. I don't remember why we decided to do Clark's blessing on her birthday weekend but it all worked out. She's having her party this Saturday. She got to have her "special day" though on her actual birthday. This year she is having a spongebob birthday. One of the presents she asked for was a spongebob pillow.

She had to wait until after dinner to open her presents and she was very excited. Her big present was her first big girl bike with training wheels. I'll put a video in another post. She wanted the barbie bike vs the princess one. She's moving on to Barbies already! It's pretty hilarious, the Barbie bike has a smaller bike on it to put a Barbie doll into.

Eric ordered these special cupcakes for the kids. Wyatt got Elmo and Bianca got Oscar. They were really yummy and cool looking!

So here is Wyatt the day of his blessing in the same outfit Clark wore. I didn't have Clark wear the vest because I didn't love it.
Again, comparing how Wyatt and Clark look....

These are of Clark....


They are both so cute! I love my boys! Clark's blessing went well and we want to thank everyone who came out and those who were thinking of him on his special day.

Tennesee and other updates

We recently got back from a trip with some friends at their timeshare in Tennesee. I figured traveling with a newborn is better than when they are over 6 months of age. Clark still sleeps a ton so I was up for taking him on his first trip. It took about 5 1/2 hours to get there so we decided to split it up on the way there. Eric booked us a suite at the Holiday Inn Express halfway to our destination.
The kids had their own little room.

They had a lot of fun at the indoor pool. They are such goofballs. I didn't even tell them to make funny faces, they just pose that way "naturally". (:

Bianca got to work unpacking as soon as we got there. We were only there one night but she unpacked her and Wyatt's things in their room and got them all settled.

Then it was off to the timeshare the next morning. Here is a picture of Bianca with our friends little girl watching Charlotte's Web and eating some yummy kettle korn.

The kids all got along really well and had fun having art contests and telling each other what to draw.
The weather was colder than I expected but I didn't want the kids to miss the horseback riding. They were pretty chilly but still wanted to have their full amount of time with "Freckles".

We had a great time!
Updates at the homefront are as follows: Clark is growing like a weed. He just turned two months, I can't believe it! He has his two month check up on Friday and has developed his first cold but hopefully will be recovering soon. This is him and Bianca ready to go to church.

Baby boy again. He's smiling at cooing now, so sweet!

And our Spring project is the garden. Daddy got the kids to work right away. Wyatt of course doesn't see anything as work. Little turkey!

Eric raked out a lot of grass and redid the boundaries of the previous garden, almost doubling it in size. We got the soil ready and are looking forward to planting some peppers, beans, tomatoes, and lettuce as soon as we know their won't be anymore frost. Yay!

Toy Adaptation

After only a few days the kids have started to really get into their toys and change them to their liking:

Christmas 2010

Christmas this year was crazy! Again I feel like we got the kids too many presents. Wyatt was hilarious he just kept going from one thing to another, he was so overwhelmed! And he's the one who can't seem to get enough of anything so it was funny to watch. Christmas Eve we had some friends over and had the kids perform a little nativity play which is on the video at the bottom of this post. We had a yummy dinner and then opened Christmas Jammies.


The kids went to bed surprisingly well and Eric and I got to work. Christmas Eve is my favorite, I mean it's usually a lot of work but it's so fun to get everything ready from Santa. Especially the stockings. Also Eric and I open a few gifts Christmas Eve and have some time together.
This was my task, the littlest pet shop and my little pony gear. You might think that it wouldn't take that long to get ready and you, like me, would be dead wrong! Those toys have so many tiny rubber bands that hold all the tiny pieces and pets in the box,, it was ridiculous. I think it took almost as long for me to get it all out as it took for Eric to put together the air hockey table.


Then came the train set. That took a around a couple of hours. The table was easy enough to set up but Eric and I had to look at the picture on the box to figure out how to do the track ect. We went to bed around 11:00 only to be woken up at 1:00 by the lovely miss Bianca. She was so excited she couldn't go back to sleep so she was up for about an hour until she finally fell asleep in our bed. Wyatt got up early and had forgotten it was Christmas morning because he and Eric just lounged around a little and let us girls sleep in. They woke us around 7:30 and we then told Wyatt it was Christmas. He screamed and ran into the room where the Christmas tree is. LOL. When he saw the train table he said, "Om my gosh, how did this get in here!" and then he ran away from it.


One thing I really wanted to get the kids was a Lite Bright. I remember loving mine when I was a kid. Granted there are more high tech toys out there now but sometimes the kids like the old school toys just as much. They had a lot of fun with it.

And here is a clip of the play the kids performed. It was impromtu so don't expect too much but it was way cute. We want to make sure that they remember the real reason we celebrate Christmas.

Thanksgiving / Pre Christmas 2010

I apologize to the old folks who follow this blog, I know you won't love the new music I put on, but sometimes I have to bust out my oldies. (:
We are finally feeling back to normal around here. The day after Thanksgiving Bianca threw up, only once so that was a relief. But no fever or anything. Then on Sunday I got really sick and stayed home from church. When Eric got home that day he started feeling bad, then Wy got it Monday. Blah. It's been a hard couple of days but I'm glad we got it early this month and that it's over!
We had a really nice Thanksgiving with some friends this year. I didn't cook, which felt kind of strange but it was nice to have a break. We just made some sides and took them over. The food was so good but if I eat too much at once I feel like I can't breathe (due to the big preggo belly), which is pretty much what happened, it was worth it though. (: The kids made these cute little turkeys after dinner.
The day before Thanksgiving we put our tree up and got the Christmas decor out. Let's just say Daddy is super excited this year. He had all the shopping done in the beginning of November and most presents wrapped by mid month. He even put some stocking stuffers in the kids stockings. He's done this in years past but Bianca was too small to reach, this year was different. The minute she noticed a small bump in hers she pulled all the stockings down and dumped them. Needless to say, they went back into hiding.
We don't hang out stockings on the fireplace we've always used a little holder that has 5 candy canes to hook the stockings on. It's crazy because we've got it all filled up for the first time. Even though Clark isn't here, he has a little stocking. And somehow I have a present that says it's from him too. Hmmmm. I've got a pic of our stockings too that I'll have to post later.
As for the Christmas cards.... We have yet to take a family pic. Now that we are feeling better I hope to get a good one and get those cards out in the next week or so. And please send me your cards because I love to see them! I keep them in their own photo album!

Halloween 2010

We had a great Halloween this year. Saturday night we went to our ward trunk or treat, then Sunday we had some good friends over and made our own pizzas and played. Here are all of us in our costumes: Eric was Robin, I was a deviled egg, Bianca was Alice in Wonderland, and Wyatt was Batman.

Hallzooween

Saturday we met some friends at the zoo and went trick or treating and on the train and carousel rides. These were the blowup decorations we saw on the train ride. Wyatt was so excited to see all of them:








They also have a pumpkin patch where the kids can get a little pumpkin. Here is Bianca posing with some of her best buds. She is Alice in Wonderland this year. I couldn't get Wyatt to get in this picture.

But this is him on the train ride. He is Batman.

Bonk and Daddy on the train.
I love this pic of Bianca on the carousel. She stuck her hand out and said, "Look Mama, it's like I'm flying!" I never want her to grow up.

And these are just a few random pics from this month. Eric came home with this inflatable cat a few weeks ago and the kids love it. He turns his head from side to side. Pretty cool and spooky.

And Wyatt before preschool one day. I love this hat on him. I have to bundle him up every morning because preschool starts at 8:15! I think it's pretty early for the little ones but he's been doing OK with it. Still warming up to the teachers and new schedule.