how we spend a lot of afternoons

 

pretending to be mommy with norah 

best friends

 This is Norah and Elsie.  They are a week and half apart. 

It was fun to go through pregnancy with Laura and also now the newborn/baby stage together.  We tend to keep it in the family.  Laura is one of my closest friends, Noah is Colin's best friend, and Adah and Nathan are Joel's.  Makes playdates really fun for all of us.  We weren't too sure of Joel and Nathan being good friends for a while but now they are buddeeees as Joel calls it :) 

We're hoping these girls grow up being best friends too. 

bath time

 If norah loves bath time this much I cant wait until the pool this summer. She does this everytime. I love it. One of my favorite times of the day.

love this precious girl.

Bring on Summer

 

Two Months

Baby girl is 2 months old.  How did it go so fast?

And doesn't really fit on the bed anymore. 

Norah is the sweetest baby.  Still loves to be held and snuggled all day long.  Which we gladly do.  She loves to catch us looking at her and will just start smiling and cooing.  She isn't a big fan of being on her tummy but loves to be held and will hold up her head and look all around.  She is a great sleeper.  Only getting up 1 or 2 times a night.  Which is so nice.

She didn't like it - poor thing.

Oh those cheeks.  They get lots and lots of kisses.

Stitches

Sweet Joel got stitches tonight. 

 

Sliced his eyebrow on the edge of our tv stand.  Matches his other scar on the other eyebrow (when he was 1 he was walking with a Tupperware container on his head and fell and cut the eyebrow. Hair doesn't grow on that spot.  At least he will look symmetrical now)  We learned after last time when Colin got stitches to go straight to the children's hospital.  Brent was there for almost 5 hours.  Didn't help that Brent never answered his phone.  After a few hours I was so worried at home thinking maybe they never made it to the hospital.   I even called the hospital - since I knew it wasn't as bad as Colin's chin hanging out. And made Sarah worry too by my phone calls every few minutes.  Brent said that Joel was so easy for the doctor. I think part of it was that he was getting stitched at 11pm and was half asleep.  He is very proud of his bandaid and the toy the doctor gave him.  And now I'm going to bed and snuggle with my boy who I will gladly let rub my ears all night long. 

Kite Flying

 Colin got some great kites for his birthday so yesterday we went down the street to the playground to fly them.

 Joel couldn't figure out how to get his kite up in the air.  We kept telling him to hold his hand up. So he held up the opposite hand the whole time. 

 There wasn't much wind but they had fun running around for a long time.

 Joel trying to figure out how to get his kite up in the air. 

The kites weren't just for the kids.  Brent had fun too.

Card

Colin made me a card today all by himself.

It says "I lof yow tow" = "I love you too" 

I love how he sounds out things.  Makes perfect sense to me.

Smiles

Its blurry and dark but I just love this picture.  Melts my heart every time she smiles. 

3rd times the charm

Third times the charm for me in the recovery aspect of having babies.  I could barely walk after having surgery after Colin and with Joel I broke my tailbone. But this time I'm already running and feel great. 

So it wasn't too hard to get talked into doing the color me rad race.  It was pretty fun. And a great group of women to run with.  I think next year I'll take the boys. They would love it.  Joel keeps asking me why those people throw-ed chalk on us.  I drove everyone in Brent's new car.  He put down plastic just for us :)  haha nothing got in his new car but I think it did make him sweat a little!  One of the girls got a call from her husband saying they were out of diapers so she had to run into the store like that on the way from my house.

Ninja baby

Video

Six

Yesterday our sweet boy turned 6.  Its hard to believe he's already that old.  He is such a great kid.  He is our tenderhearted sweet heart.  Who also loves to wrestle and beat up on his brother :)  One of the administrators at school told Brent as he was dropping off Colin one morning that Colin was the nicest kid in school.  And I have no doubt.  He never says anything bad about anyone. Loves to help out other kids in his class. His teacher put him at the table with the kids with special needs and Colin loves it.  Doesn't see them as any different - just loves to help.  We are so blessed to be his parents. For the most part he makes parenting easy.   He's a wonderful kid and we've loved the past 6 years.  Just wish it didn't go by as fast. 

  He wanted a birthday party with friends this year - the first time we've done a party. So we did a ninja party yesterday.  Colin was bouncing off the walls with excitement the whole day.   I didn't get many pictures of the party.  Just a few so hopefully Ant Ant or my dad will send me some. 

 The rain held off until almost the end. But the kids didn't mind.  They were out there running around in the rain. 

 And now that he is six finally (his best friend has been six since December) - he's already asking if he's now six and a half.

Thank you to everyone who came for making Colin's birthday special. 

Kindergarten performance

This past week we had Colin's kindergarten performance.  I have a few cute videos to post.  But for some reason its not letting me post them all together so you'll get them one at a time. But the kids were adorable. Colin looked a little scared at first.  The cafeteria was packed with parents.  He said he was looking for us but we were far in the back. 

So proud of my boy

Good thing Brent doesn't garden this way

Berry Picking

 We went strawberry picking the other day.  The boys got really into it.  Norah just slept the whole time :)

 Colin found the sweetest strawberries.  We've been eating his bucket first.

 Joel of course picked all the muddy paths to walk

 We had to teach Joel which ones to pick

 Showing off his muscles

And now we have a ton of strawberries to eat.