Titan & Kylie

Poor Titan. Kylie loves him. I don't think he loves her back. Or at least not at much. She thinks he is her personal pillow.

And she loves playing with his paws. He is so patient with her, he has never scratched her.

Kylie is learning all sorts of sounds and words. Love it! Like how she says 'arff' for the dog sound? : )

Matthew turns 16

I cannot believe it, but Matthew turned 16 this week. What an amazing kid he is. He is so kind and caring, thoughtful, great with the little kids, and always (well, usually always) eager to help out. I cannot say enough how proud I am of Matthew. Today we went out to lunch (his choice was the Great Wall Buffet...after seeeing how big he is, is anyone surprised he chose buffet?) and then had cake at our house afterwards. This is him, not wanting me to take his picture.

Mike got a Winnie the Pooh cake, because on Matthew's 1st birthday he had Winnie the Pooh. I think Mike is just trying to hang onto the little boy he was.

Tyler and Papa

Kylie's favortite thing to do when Gramma visits - go through her purse and pull everything out!

Zach got ahold of my camera and started snapping pictures. These next few are from him.

He is obsessed with balloons. Talks about them non-stop. So of course he had to take a picture of his balloon and made me promise to put it on the blog.

He did a pretty good job of taking a picture of Gramma! (I am not too thrilled with him running around the house with my good camera, as you can tell)

He finally smiled for me!!

His 2 little helpers, that love him dearly!

Valentine's Day

Mike and I got to enjoy a night without the kids on the 13th. We were very excited to have some time to just go do something fun. I played the piano on the worship team at church that weekend, so I was pretty tired when I got done Sunday, so I got to take about an hour and a half nap, then we headed out to the casino for their buffet (which is amazing), and I actually won $23 on the slots. Almost paid for dinner! We drove back home, chilled around the house for a bit, then headed to a late movie. It was great! The next day I got to sleep in til 9:45am (I have no idea when that last happened....) and then started stripping the tile floors. I mop every week but they just get so dirty, so the ammonia bottle and I tackled them. Not so fun, but at least it is done for a while now. We then headed up to my parents' house for dinner that evening and my mom made a beautiful dinner for us: Oysters for the guys and chicken for everyone else. Mike got me these beautiful flowers. I was so impressed...he put a lot of thought into them. He found a picture and took the picture to Safeway and had it made for me. Also, notice all the chocolate he got me....I don't eat chocolate. He knew that, and was very pleased to eat it himself.

I love this vase. It'll be perfect for the flowers from our yard this summer.

I took these pictures of it today, now that it has started to open. So pretty.

I love that the boys love Kylie so much, and are so great with her. Tonight I took this picture of these two in my bathroom. Tyler was sharing his snack with Kylie.

And Zachary wanted me to take 'cheesy pictures' of him. So, I did.

TP Tower

Miss Kylie's new favorite pasttime while I am getting ready in the mornings.

But hey, at least she isn't into my makeup.

Random February Pics

I finally took some pictures of the kiddos and thought I'd better post them on here. I didn't get any of Matthew, but he turns 16 next week so I'll post some of him then.

Kathryn made the honor roll for her first semester of middle school and got a certificate. Very proud of her! And doesn't she look so grown up?!? When did this happen!! (Thanks Stacey for taking this picture!)
Miss Kylie is into everything these days. And I mean everything. And her favorites are my kitchen stuff and my makeup.

She decided to put on her hat this afternoon while I was folding laundry.


Our friend Brenna painted on her purple hearts at our Valentine's Day party at playgroup today. So sweet. This girl just fills my heart.

Naptime!

This is what she does every morning to my bathroom. And sometimes every afternoon. And every evening.

She loves playing with her headbands and hair clips too. And my water bottle, as is evident on her shirt.

My Tyler-man. Hates having his picture taken. Couldn't even get him to smile. He has a black heart painted on his face.

These boys are getting so big.

And then there's Mr. Zachary. My little talker. Always. Never stops. Seriously.

Love my kiddos.

And this is just showing Miss Busy Girl Kylie going from one thing to the next. Always. Never stops. Seriously.

Rock Climbing Wall

I have become the worst blogger lately. I used to try to update it regularly, and then our computer went into the shop for what seemed like forever, and I kinda lost my blogging mojo. I will try to get back into the routine. We have been really busy in January, which is good, but at the same time, I am pretty tired. Matthew is still in the full swing of basketball, Kathryn has been busy with school and choir and dance, and the little ones have had tons of playdates and trips places like the zoo and the Gilbert House and the Kroc Center. Mike is now on a swingshift schedule, so he works from 4pm to 2am. It is sure nice to not have him on graveyard, but sometimes the evenings get awfully long when I am by myself with the kids. But, it is still better than graveyard. I started playing the piano again at church on the worship team once a month so that has been really nice, and Kathryn and I volunteer in the little kids' Sunday School rooms at least once a month. We are definitely keeping the calendar full!

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When we went to the Kroc Center this week with the boys' new best friend Jaycoby, they had the rock climbing wall open after we swam. Tyler tried it but didn't really get too far, but I was really impressed with how high Zachary got!