Mikayla's B-day Cake

Now here is a great story for you....
We don't get many gifts for the kids on their birthday but one thing we do is let them choose a cake and I try to be creative...well this year Mikayla said she wanted roses on her cake. So, I went online and looked for pictures of cakes that I could copy. Do you know what type of cakes have roses? Yes, of course, wedding cakes....so Mikayla chose a three tier cake with roses all over the layers and different colors and design for each tier. There was also one other thing...she doesn't really like cake so she wanted it made out of rice krispies.
I actually had a lot of fun doing this and while I was in the middle I hear "Mom, I think you need to get Nano, Mom can you come see this..." Well, I didn't stop right away, which I should have because when I came in I found THIS! Yes it is baby powder all over my piano, in the keys, and notice all the white on mounds just above the keys...those where some of his cars covered in baby powder and yes there is a haze of baby powder dust in the picture. When I came in Nano quickly brushed some of the powder off the keys!!
Oh my such fun!! My piano students every now and then will still play a note and get a puff of fresh scent and a little haze while playing! Gotta love this boy!!

Happy Birthday Mikayla!!

Mikayla is now 7! I can't believe our baby is so big....in fact she wanted a "wedding cake" birthday cake and a pink pony pinata....well the cake turned out to her satisfactions but the pony ended up purple instead of the pink, due to lack of paint. But overall, I think she was happy.....friends, pizza at the park, going to a park in Jan (the weather was actually not too cold that day), cake (kind of) a pinata and fun....what more could a girl ask for?!
WE LOVE YOU MIKAYLA HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

Sitting Solo

This is one of my favorite milestones!! I just love it when they are almost able to sit up...leaning so far forward, they can almost eat their toes and just so proud of the new view they get and it only last for a couple seconds and over to one side they tip or do a face plant!! It's just so cute!!
Oh and we add the dimension of a big sister and now we have hair to pull!! Really, what could be better?!?

Snow Days

We got our yearly 1/2" to 1" of snow and had the school's cancelled for 2 days and 1 late start!! Got to love NC snow. Nano didn't get into as much this year...he wouldn't keep his gloves on and then would come into the house crying for a bandaid for his hands because they were so cold...poor kid just didn't quite get it!!

Yummy Cereal...

We had fun trying Lynneah on her first rice cereal...she liked it when it would stay down....unfortunately that tongue just keeps getting in the way. We'll have to try again in a little while.Oh and there's also some silliness from the other kids.

Photo Shoot

I get a picture to hang on the wall of each of the kids between 3 and 4 months...here's Lynneah's! And the other kids acting like babies as well....for a little more fun!!

Photo Shoot Retry

We decided to put her in pink to match Mikayla's picture a little better on the wall.....

Fun with Boppa

We were so lucky over Christmas and New Year's to have Merrill's Dad (Boppa) out to visit and help with all our home projects. We are getting the house ready to sell and had quite a few BIG projects to finish....sad to say I only got one of them on camera. But here are is a picture of the cabinets they painted white....Boppa also fixed the outside of the shed (it was rotting) cleaned the mold off the outside of the house, put new windows in the house, fixed the hardwood floor and the list could go on!! Anyone else want to come visit!! :)

THANK YOU THANK YOU BOPPA for all the hard work and the fun with the kids...if you are wondering we were acting out holding to the rod for FHE and the kids loved having Boppa blindfolded!

Also, just a little bit of craziness with Merrill and the kids.....

Fun with Boppa

Here are a few more pictures from when Merrill's dad came out to visit.
He came out and we really put him to work. But we also had a little fun and took him to DC. I of course never had my camera but Boppa had his camera phone....so some are blurry, but better than none (which is what I have!)

Christmas Day 2008 cont

We went over to the Alder's on the 24....in the morning to decorate Gingerbread houses and have a GREAT lunch. It was so fun and the kids did a great job eating or I mean decorating the houses! Then Nano and Josh were having a great time using their new pillows as backpacks! And finally, Lynneah wishes a Happy New Year to everyone. She got a hold of these and had a great time shaking them around.

Christmas Day 2008

Our Nativity Play

Lynneah's Camera Face

Whenever the camera comes out this is what we get. She will be laughing or giggling and out comes the camera and that light is too darn distracting! But you still can see the cute chubby cheeks and double chin.

Joshua's Birthday

Happy birthday son!

Neighbor friends

Manuel and Julian are great neighbors, they love to play with the kids and vice versa.

mikayla found the camera again

Look who got a hold of the camera again.....I love to see through her eyes what she finds camera worthy.

Josh on 2 wheels!

Josh wanted to ride his bike without training wheels. He did such a great job and Mikayla took the video on the camera (I was feeding Lynneah)...but then he almost fell and now the training wheels are back on. Silly boy!

"Sisters, Sisters"

"There were never such devoted sisters....."

Fall in NC

I love the fall colors here. I can never get enough of them! And the boys are pretty good helpers when it comes to the leaves.

Lynneah's Tricks

Lynneah has learned how to suck her thumb and tries to sit up when you lean her against the couch. She also loves to suck on her lower lip, even when she's sleeping.

Lynneah"s Blessing

So I've been having issues getting my pictures to load...so I finally had Merrill show me what he used to do. Now let's just see if I can do this and the key is remembering tomorrow. Okay so let's be realistic, let's see if I can remember next week!!

all tuckered out

Better late than never right!

This is the only time I let my kids on the table - Pumpkin time!

COSTUME TIME

one silly night

Mikayla and Josh were having fun making Lynneah do a fish face. Those chubby cheeks are just too cute and fun! She liked it for the first little while! :)

one silly night (cont..)

So, Josh was throwing his dog up in the air and one time it didn't come back down.


He was pretty proud of himself!

plum tuckered out

While Grandma was unloading the car, Nano opted to stay in and play with his cars...this is how we found him by the end. Can I fall asleep like that wherever I am? Actually, it doesn't look very comfortable and after I took the pictures we put him in bed. His legs kept buckling under him and he'd wake up enough to stand again and then he was right back out. Poor guy...the beach is always so fun but we always come back exhausted - we'll take that type of exhaustion anytime!

Another fun beach trip

I can't say enough about how much I love the beach!! We went with some friends to Emerald Isle again and got to stay at our favorite beach house. Bhakka even got to come with us, what a fun time we had. Here are some of my favorite pictures from the trip:


Josh and Mikayla of course are just loving life. Mikayla constantly wants to get into the jacuzzi! Josh can never dig enough and

Nano had a blast in the water. Look closely at his right leg. He wore a black sock the whole trip. Poor kid had a nasty cut on the side of his foot that was already infected...I didn't want to imagine what it would look like after sand and ocean water got into it. We brought plenty of socks and put a new one on often...but obviously the kid had a great time despite his attire!
Lynneah loved being held all the time and Grandma got some great pictures of her, but they are on the Merrill's labtop which isn't available to me right now...so I'll post those later.


And finally, last but not least, Merrill and I! Well, first Merrill and the guys - thanks to Natalie who was the only one who brought her camera - we have a picture of the boys. Once the kids went to sleep the boys were finding all sorts of things to entertain them. From throwing water bottle off the balcony to see if it would be a good idea for Merrill to try jumping into the pool below - does he want another neck brace?!? I wonder some times! :) To...playing football in the ocean by moonlight. Well, the guys had a great time and then we all headed back to the beach house where the guys do their usual jump in the pool and then in the jacuzzi, only there was an addition this year...Merrill decided to bring me in as well. I was fully clothed I might add! The last picture I'm trying to growl but I'm afraid I was laughing to hard to make a good face...Merrill I love you! Thanks for always making me laugh! And I think everyone else had a good laugh as well. And thanks to Lindsay for saving our cell phone, which of course was in my pocket when Merrill pulled me in - Lindsay saw a green glow in my pocket in the water! We've already lost one cell phone to water this year!

Bhakka (aka Grandma Birdno) came to help

We are so so lucky! We got to have Grandma Birdno come out and help when Lynneah was born. We had so much fun and I really, really appreciate all the help...and so do the kids because then I'm the "nice" mommy and not the "mean" mommy!:)

Bhakka brought lots of games and pumpkins, lots of cute things for the kids and most of all a lot of love and fun times! We miss you already Grandma!

As you can tell everyone had to get in on the action.


And all the kids loved the extra attention. Thanks so much Bhakka!

Why I can't find time to blog and What happens when I do.....

So, while I was blogging that last post. I came down the hallway to find this:
I wish we would have gotten a picture from the hallway to see just how well Josh had blocked it with his toys. He did all this while I was blogging and Merrill was entertaining Nano while bouncing on the ball with Lynneah (Mikayla was reading in her room - a favorite pass time of her's these days). And you wonder why I don't find time to blog....okay so maybe none of you wonder, but sometimes I wonder why I can never seem to be on top of more than one thing at a time.
But I have to say the Josh was hilarious and I had a "nice" mommy moment, instead of getting upset because I could barely step over all the toys to get into the living room I told Josh what a great barricade he had made. "No mom I'm blocking the path". Then he preceded to tell me how he was going to fill up the whole "path" with toys all the way up to the ceiling. Keep in mind he was telling me this in spurts as he ran back to his room to find another toy to throw on the pile! It was so funny to watch and very entertaining. And then when I asked him to clean it up, he did so willingly and even got mad at Merrill when he tried to help. Lesson relearned, when I have fun with my kids, they are so willing to please and we all have a much better time - and really it only took a few extra minutes and I got to catch a glimpse of what goes on in that cute little head of his.

Mikayla and the Camera

Mikayla got a hold of my camera one day and I loved all the pictures she took. My friend Megan from AZ has a daughter just younger than Mikayla and she did this a little while ago. When I saw it on her blog I thought it sounded like something Mikayla would do. I guess I just needed to give her the camera sooner. It's fun to see the things she finds picture worthy. She also did take some great pictures of the family. This one is my favorite of the boys.
Oh and I have some of her comments after she took some pictures...she was hilarious!

Sister photo shoot

We decided to do a photo shoot with the girls. I love Lynneah's first picture...her face says it all. Mikayla however, loved it!!

Football season had begun

Okay, so I know it began a while ago, but I'm finally posting these pictures. I love to watch Merrill watching football. He's figured out a way to watch two games at once!! What could be better than that for any football fan?!? He has the TV going and his labtop. I sure love you honey, enjoy all your games!!

Tender Mercies

Here are Lynneah and Nano, just exhausted after our hospital stay. Nano gave us a bit of a scare a few weeks ago. Merrill was out of town and he decided to get sick on me!! Poor kid. But I am so thankful for all the ward members help. They came and took care of my other two kids so I could take the my two little ones in. Thank goodness Nano got a blessing and the doctors were able to get his breathing under control. He's had to attack's since then but other than that seems to be doing just fine. And Lynneah was a little angel in the hospital. For being only four weeks old she'd never gone more than 2 hours for feeding and she went 4 hours, which was all the time we needed to get Nano in the ER and taken care of. What a tender mercy. They both were little angel's in the hospital and again THANK YOU TO ALL WHO HELPED WITH TAKING CARE OF THE KIDS AND MEALS AND CALLS TO CHECK IN ON US AND WHO CAME TO THE HOSPITAL TO HELP MY SANITY.

THE YOGA BALL-FUN FOR ALL

So this is what we bought the yoga ball for. Lynneah is a bouncer. We had a yoga ball in the delivery room and from that first day Lynneah loved it. So a yoga ball of our own was our first "big" purchase after her birth! Oh and by the way, Mikayla actually took this photo - she did a great job, huh!



As you will see in the next few pictures...the ball is now a favorite of everyone's and it is always in use.

I think Merrill was actually the first to show the kids how much fun they could have on the ball, obviously Nano loved that!



























Then Nano discovered he can climb up behind Merrill and I while we are bouncing Lynneah and give her a real ride! You can't really tell from the picture but Merrill is holding Lynneah in his arms. Sometimes she likes this little "ride" from Nano - and other times she immediately let's her wishes for soft bouncing be known!







Mikayla also enjoys the ball. Here she's practicing her balancing and posing skills.


























And this is what the ball is mostly used for. My kids love the show "WIPEOUT" and they love to go flying off our yoga ball as if it's one of the "Big Balls" from the show!!