time-out.

Found this little thing in time-out the other day.

Apparently she had been hitting.

When she got out, she hit again and had to go right back to time out. Naughty little baby!

Funny thing is, I can think of a few reasons this girl with her furrowed brow might get a time-out herself.

Like, using all the band aids in the house.

When she knows the rule is no blood, no band aid.

Or how about cutting major holes in the front of your dress with mom's scissors?

Even if it is fun to stick your limbs through the new holes.

Being rough with little sister could definitely make the list.

And then there's her current favorite hobby: stealing plastic baggies from the kitchen drawer and filling them with random things around the house. Ah, there's the snot sucker I needed at 5:30 a.m. this morning. And is that my ipod at the bottom that I use when I run? Thanks, Faye.

She's obsessive about wanting to call or see her daddy all day, but then she usually ends up getting mad and throwing a tantrum for him when he actually shows up.

I guess I'll forgive her, since she makes me laugh whenever she's not doing all the naughty things listed above. (And since she's a potty pro.) Seriously though, if Faye doesn't do anything else good in her life, she sure made a lot of people smile and laugh when she was a hilarious two-year-old. (And for the record, she really doesn't spend a lot of time in time-out!)

Celebrating Faye's Birthday/Valentine's.

Early Sunday morning, decorating Faye's cake before she woke up. (We had to hide it from her; there is no way she could control herself if she saw all that candy in one place. Hmm, I wonder where she gets that from.)

Ready to party.

Very thankful for good, kind family members who send gifts to my kids. I did have a little baby baby for her: Faye's first real baby doll!

We had a couple of families from church over for dinner on Faye's birthday.

Faye knew just what to do as far as blowing out candles and such. She acts like such a big girl. Yesterday I woke her up from her nap to go to a friend's house. When I got her and told her we needed to go to Cami's house, she brushed her hair out of her face and said, "Oh yes, I forgot!" As if she's overslept her alarm or something.

Valentines were nice and simple this year. Staple two paper hearts together with m&m's in between. The hearts read something like, "go ahead, be a heart breaker." So the recipient is supposed to tear the heart to get a candy surprise.

They did a good job coloring, writing, and stuffing them with candy all by themselves.

We all know Ev writes best with a Sharpie.

Tongues out.

My sweet Valentines with our fancy salmon dinner. I confess I was a little bitter hearing about lots of other people's Valentine's dates with their husbands. Mine gets home way too late to even catch dinner with the family and is usually falling asleep while he eats his. On this rotation he does have most of the weekend off though, so for that we are grateful! I am so glad I have four little people to keep me company while my husband-Valentine is so busy. :)

 

Everett, age 3.75

When I picked the kids up at the Y today (after my quick, but very intense work out!) one of the teachers mentioned that they all agreed that Everett is pretty darn cute. He is a good looking boy.

Everett dresses up a lot. Here, he's Brett Favre in the old days. He often walks around stuffed into his Santa costume from when he was 8 months old. Most days, at some point, he strips down and runs down the stairs yelling, "I'm Captain Underpants!"

Everett is a very huggable, kissable, snuggly little thing. Ever since he was tiny, Rick and I thought the word "creamy" was a good adjective to describe him. I can't say exactly why, but he is just soft and snuggly and... creamy.

Everett often asks, "Is today my last day being three?" He is beyond excited for his birthday. He recently decided that, instead of a cake, he would like a strawberry pie.

Everett has always spoken slowly, in a very careful, precise way. Sometimes it takes him a long time to get a thought out, because he's thinking of the best way to get it across. He has a great vocabulary. While doing a worksheet where he had to search for hidden pictures, he said to me, "Mom, this one is just so obvious!"
 

I've always preferred to call my kids by their full names rather than nicknames, but I guess Everett is just too cute to follow that rule. He's often Ev, Sweet Ev, Little Ev, even Evvy (which I don't say at all, but I think Carson and Faye do). I think I'm the only one who regularly calles him Rett, but I love that.

I like my kids to take naps as long as possible, but Everett very recently gave up his afternoon nap, and he is actually a much happier boy because of it. He had been napping most days, which then led to not falling asleep at night until quite late, resulting in crankiness the next morning, etc. etc. Anyway, no naps and an early bed time have changed his life for the better.

In January, Everett graduated from the Nursery at church and started attending Primary, the Sunday School classes for kids age 3-11. He used to be SO cranky every Sunday morning, dreading church and all that came with it. Ever since he advanced to Primary, he is a happy camper on Sundays! A couple of Sundays ago, Rick was at work, and we were car-less to get to church. A friend who lives nearby said we could borrow her car, so in order to make it on time we hurried and got our bikes/stroller and ran over to get it. When I told Everett he would be riding his bike in church clothes, like a missionary, his eyes lit up. He requested a tie and for his hair to be combed to look like a real missionary. It was so cute.

This was that Sunday when we snatched a friend's car. (We were on time, by the way.) Church before safety, right?

nap time art.

Finally filled everything on the gallery wall! My friend Kim took some family pictures for us that turned out SO cute, so it was easy to fill some frames with those. I used fabric and things I had to fill some more frames, but the canvases were sitting empty for a while until I decided to break out the paint during nap time.

I used a potato cut in a triangle shape to make this fun little piece of art. (The kids, of course, got to do some potato stamping later.)

I was about to copy an idea someone had to pour glue into the shape of a state and then cover it with gold glitter. Then I remembered I had this gold glittery paper! Much easier to cut paper than pour tons of glitter over glue. I'm not sure I love this one; I wanted to just do North Carolina, but the shape of the state doesn't really work with the vertical canvas.

Kim got some really good pictures, especially of Faye!

I love doing some simple project like this during nap time; for some reason it makes me feel like I got a TON accomplished in the day, even though it was one tiny extra thing. It's nice that even if kids are screaming and the kitchen sink is filled with dishes and there are about six loads of laundry sitting there needing to be folded and put away, I can glance over at this wall and be like, "hey, I'm doing awesome today!"

Baby Isla at four months.

It feels like it was just a little bit ago that I was running into the hospital, trying to make it to a room before this baby girl popped out.

But today I was trying to change her diaper while she rolled away from me about four times in a row, and I realized that my little baby is already getting so big! She can sit by herself for few seconds, roll both ways (but usually it's back to tummy; as soon as I place her down on her back she flips up and starts doing her push ups); she smiles and laughs and gets excited when her siblings are running around her. I love it when they get so interactive and smiley!

She is usually on the floor by Carson while he practices his piano. He takes frequent breaks.

Baby girl is in cloth diapers most of the time, now that Faye has given them up. (Although I need to sew new velcro on them since it's all worn out!)

I've decided Isla is going to be a bald one! Faye already had quite a bit of hair at this age.

I recently stopped swaddling Isla at night. So sad; she really loves to be wrapped up. But I don't like re-wrapping her in the middle of the night!

Soo she sleeps through the night... sometimes. I still am in there putting her paci back in or rolling her back over or moving her face out of her spit up.

Unfortunately, the spit up is still going strong. This sort of splatter happens about 52 times a day.

Hard to tell, but it actually totally soaked my shirt, her onesies, her pants, got a good part of my pants, and my foot. Nice. I do a lot of laundry. (And my handy husband fixed both the laundry room light and go the hot water working in the machine again! For real!)

Yay for daddy being home today to play with this big girl! Isla is seriously SO SO sweet. She hardly ever cries and is very even-tempered. I love how she lights up when one of us walks in the room and looks at her. I love this girl!!

Back when we used to wear jackets...

So, just when I get around to posting about the lovely fall we had here, I think both fall and winter have come to an abrupt end. It's hard to enjoy these beautiful 70 degree days when I'm worried the hot summer is going to seem verrrrry long.

The leaves finally fell off the trees at the end of December. These pictures were from December 30th, to be exact.

That Sunday afternoon, the neighbor was out raking, so we offered to help. I think she laughed at us. Then we raked our own yard.

Well, Rick raked. The boys jumped in the leaves, Faye ran around, and I took pictures. Isla was swaddled up real tight somewhere, I'm sure.

Everybody's got a job.

Oh there's Isla. Yep, all swaddled up.

Faye girl sure loves her daddy. She asks to call him several times a day, whether it's to tell him she fell down or because she needs a little entertainment on the potty. (That's right, Faye is officially in the underwear club.)

Rick would load up the tarp with leaves and then pull both leaves and boys all the way behind the garage to dump them all.

Faye and I took a little break to make some bread.

This girl's got to have her "snitch." She pronounces it, "sinch."

Well, it really was a nice autumn time, for the couple of days it lasted!