Favorite Things

Some of my favorite things as of late:

• Nolan loves to get on the trampoline. He can climb up on his own, but needs help getting off. When he is done, he goes over to the edge, sits down and yells "mama, mommy, mama" until I come and get him off. It is one of the sweetest and cutest times of my day.
• Olivia has six teeth right now. 4 on the bottom and 2 on the top. However the top 2 aren't the center ones, but the next ones over so she has a giant gap between them.When she smiles we call it her hill billy smile and it is just adorable.
• One day I went to listen to a meeting at the church and all 4 kids were in the same room in the nursery (there weren't very many kids). They took the older kids out to the playground (Tyler. Carter, and Nolan all went out). Olivia got very upset when her brothers left the room and she didn't calm down until the boys came back in, then she was fine again. Already loves her brothers!
• And finally a picture of my two oldest boys doing something they do almost every night and always makes me smile:

Tyler the graduate

Tyler had a very nice Kindergarten graduation ceremony at his school. All the classes walked in, sang a few songs, and in between all the kids said what they wanted to be when they grew up. The kids said everything from football players, to teachers, to soccer players, to a gamer. I was pretty proud of what Tyler said "an Air Force pilot".  After the ceremony we went back to his classroom where his teacher handed out all their end of the year stuff and a diploma. It was very cool to see how far Tyler has progressed, especially in his writing, from the beginning of the year.I also had a phone conference with this teacher and he is going to do great in first grade. He is ahead of where he should be academically and is doing very socially. I couldn't be more proud of my Tyler Bug.

Touch a Truck

I had a very nice Mother's Day with my family. We went to touch-a truck which is pretty much a place where they have a ton of big trucks, motor cycles, fire trucks, an army tanks and the kids get to climb all over them. The kids had a blast and while it was a little noisy it was wonderful family time.We came home and just relaxed for the rest of the day - can't get much better than that. The one thing I wanted was a picture of me with all four of my kiddos and I got just that. I can't believe how blessed I am by these four little angels.

Carter the Graduate

Carter is an official pre-k graduate. His ceremony was very nice, where everyone kid got up and read a short book to us. They then performed a song, got their certificates and a Bible from their teachers. Carter did a great job during the ceremony and we are so proud of him. He had a great year with great teachers and learned so much. He is so ready to go to Kindergarten next year and I now we will just do awesome. I can not believe we will have two grade-schoolers next year!

Tender hearts

My big boys have always had the sweetest hearts. We were watching some show on the disney channel and the story was about the family moving to a new house. The mom wanted to move, but the kids didn't. At the end of the show they show the mom having a flashback of bringing all her babies into their house and then she decided she didn't want to move either. As a mom it did get me a little teary eyed I must say.However I look over to Carter as the show is ending and he looks so sad. I ask him what's wrong and he says 'nothing".I ask him again and he bursts into tears telling me he doesn't want to move. Now we are no where near thinking about moving so I am not sure where that came from. Tyler then also starts crying saying he doesn't want to move. They both go on and on for about a half an hour, with no convincing on our part that everything will be ok. My favorite lines that they said during this time were Carter saying "what if I forget to pack my light sabre" and "now I can't marry Kendall (a girl from his class)" and Tyler "now I won't be with Rene (a boy from his class)". I love how sweet they are, and why yes we will be moving one day, I love to hear that they love our home.

9 month appt

Olivia had her 9 month appointment and once again is doing just great. There are no issues as far as development goes, and she is ahead in most of those areas. She did slip a little in her weight percentile, but as long as she doesn't drop again everything should be ok. She only had to get one shot which she did pretty well for.Carter his under the table for it, so Nolan decided he should hide under it too. So much for being brave for their sister. I can't find her sheet with the number on it, but she is 16lbs 10 oz and 13th percentile for weight, 29 inches and 50th for height and I think her head was also in the 50th percentile.

Moms and Muffins

I got the privilege of getting to go enjoy a muffin with Carter at his school for mother's day. He also presented me with a flower he planted, pictures he colored, and his class sang us all a couple songs. It was very sweet and I loved watching him interact with his class. I love you my Carter Bear!

9 Months

9 Months! Man these months have been going by quick! Olivia is still such a sweet mellow baby.She is starting to get not like it when I leave a room, but the fussing doesn't last to long. She loves to eat table food and is liking her formula less and less. She crawls everywhere and is very fast. She can cruise as well and will walk from a table to another table close by with no problems. She also has a walker that she pushes and she loves that thing, maneuvers it with no problems. She has found that like her brothers she also thinks it is great fun to play in the fridge and to throw bowls all over the floor. She loves to laugh and be thrown into the air or be put upside down.She is always talking and is getting very loud.She loves to blow raspberries and started to wave with her hand.  She is still a great sleeper, even when her teeth come in, which is nice. While she loves to do a lot of what her brothers did, you can already tell there is a difference with her. She loves to be around people and is mush less into the throwing of toys and more into looking at them. We love watching her explore new things and can't believe she is almost a year old. While we anxiously await her first steps, we are just content with where she is right now.We love you Olivia!

Races

Once again we had the boys in the half mile trail running races this year. The boys were super excited to race again. Carter ran with the preschool boys and Tyler ran with the kindergarten boys.One time we got there late (thanks to me being pulled over) and Carter ran with the kindergarten boys as well. Both boys did well and ran faster than they did last year. The results: Carter -  1st race, 7th place with 5:08 time. 2nd race, 14th place 6:50  time (this is the one he ran with the Kindergarten boys and fell half way through the race), 3rd race -  19th place 6:10 time. Tyler - 1st race, 12th with a 4:36 time, 2nd race, 18th 5:01 time, 3rd race, 13th place 4:32 time.  Proud of both boys for doing their best!

Wrestling

The boys got to go to a wrestling clinic for free put on by the high school that Tyler's old wrestling club was with(his club went away when the coach moved).Carter was excited that he got to go this year and Tyler was just excited to go again. The boys seemed to have a lot of fun. Tyler remembered a lot of the moves and took it all pretty seriously,just like last year. Carter was there for more fun and would be climbing on the coaches and just running around(he had to sit out a few times because of this). We had to miss the last day where they had a take-down tournament, but the boys still had fun and both say they want to wrestle when they get older.We will wait a couple more years before we put them in a club again, but I am glad they get these little tastes of it here and there.

Swimmers

Over Spring Break we had the boys do swimming lessons, they did well,but Tyler still didn't pass his level. So we put them in for another 10 lessons twice a week. During Tyler's first lesson I saw him swimming and couldn't believe it.His teacher came up after class and asked why he wasn't in the next level up.Well because he had never done that before.He totally surprised us and did great for all the lessons.Carter did well as well and still loves the water. If we put them in lessons again they both will be in level 3. Once again Tyler just showed us that he will do things when he is ready to them, not when anyone else thinks he should be ready to do it. Justin and I are just happy that they no longer fear the water and are both very close to being in the pool all by themselves safely.