Sitting on my lap

I have some fond memories of sitting on my mother's lap. I can remember being sick and my mom rocking me while my younger sisters performed skits, sang songs and did dances to help me feel better. Also as teenagers we would all pile on top of my mom to have her rock us. this usually turned into a ginormous tickle fight. I can remember my mom holding my youngest sister Sarah who was screaming when she was one and wondering why she didn't just give her candy, that's what she was crying about and that would stop the crying. and now here I am enjoying plenty of lap time with my own kids when they want to read or don't feel well or have just woken up and need a bit of cuddling. and there are times I find myself wondering why I don't just give my kids candy when they are hysterical. it's a rare opportunity when I get to hold all my children at the same time when they are all happy. I relish those moments.

Stripes

Katelyn loves stripes, I bough Dallin some striped one piece pajamas with little feet. she fell in love and before Dallin could wear them she promptly claimed them as her own. she wears them all the time and insists that Dallin wear his own pair of striped pajamas each time she wears hers. so this morning when she noticed that Grant had stripes on his pajamas too, she was trilled to pieces and wanted to do a photo shoot then and there. who am I to deny her that wish?

The picture of Dallin was from Easter, not only was he not interested in a photo shoot with stripe pajamas he wanted nothing to do with anything that didn't involve being held. (yeah try saying that three times fast)

Eating us out of house and home.

on March4th Grant started eating "solids" or in other words mush, he loved it, he especially enjoyed "Helping" us feed him. his fingers couldn't seem to stay away from his mouth and already he's wanting to hold the spoon. he seems to love feeling big and doing big people things.

Easter was great we went to Naples, and celebrated it with Cameron's parents, Grandpa Bennett and Cameron's brother Abe and his family.

The kids had a great time playing in Katelyn's tent house. it's a little house that you put together like a tent. I love it because when you take it down everything fits nicely in a small tote bag. The girls would bring in all the stuffed bears and read to them then put them down for naps. Dallin was in and out having a great time doing what ever the girls were doing.

From left to right: Emily, Dallin (you can only see his cute pudgy hands) Kathryn, Katelyn and Lauren.

Grant is at this fantastic age where he smiles and laughs at just about everything.

Of course we had to decorate the eggs, unfortunately the Easter bunny over slept and didn't get a chance to hide the hard boiled eggs. my nieces Kathryn and Emily were the only ones who noticed.

Dallin fell in love with "papa Great" as is typical with Dallin he wanted to share his treat. it's amazing that he is not even two and he is so thoughtful. Grandpa Bennett also fell in love with Dallin, it's hard not to when he's such a great kid.

with church starting at 9am and a half hour drive to get there I knew we would be pushing it close so I woke up at 6:30am showered and got ready before anyone got up. I also "checked" to see if any Easter eggs had been hidden outside, as I "checked" Katelyn noticed me so when I got inside I got her ready to go to. by that time the others were awake and we went to see what everyone had in their baskets. Katelyn's basket is spilling out behind me. All of the kids got oodles of stuff. they where thrilled. I got some much needed clothes. thanks! Cameron got Clogs that were too big.

Abe and Julie and their kids Lauren, Emily Brandon and Kathryn
Thankfully Julie brought her amazing SLR camera and we were able to get a Family shot, do you know how difficult it was to get Katelyn and Dallin to hold still for 2 minutes to take a picture... I think wrestling alligators would have been easier.
Dallin had the best time falling down, he loved it, he would run a bit then carefully fall and laugh like crazy.
Grandpa Bennett with the kids.
Katelyn and Lauren. They are exactly a month apart and great friends.

Katelyn and Dallin were not the fastest Easter egg finders. Abe and Julie's girls were far more experienced in this whole gathering Easter eggs thing and they rushed around gathering as many eggs as possible, Katelyn and Dallin were slow moving in comparison. At one point Julie pointed out to her daughters that they had a lot more eggs then Katelyn and Dallin had. so Kathryn and Emily decided to hide some of their own eggs for Katelyn and Dallin to find. It was very sweet.

it was great to have a sister-in-law who is as insistent with taking pictures as I usually am. Julie got some great pictures.
Louise and her Dad, Grandpa Bennett. He came to stay in Florida for a few months. it was great to see him again, Cameron and I have some wonderful memories visiting Grandma and Grandpa in Logan Utah while we were in school at BYU.

Grant looked the best with the bunny ears and he was excited as could be to wear them.

Grant with Grandpa Bill. Grant was so happy.

All my boys

I had to take these pictures of Cameron and the boys while we were waiting to read together before bed. I'm just in love with these guys. Cameron who is my support and my best friend, Dallin who is so full energy and love, he's always willing to share his ice cream and attack us with these monster big hugs that melt our hearts. and Grant who laughs out loud and is an exciting kicking baby.

Dallin loves hugging Grant, in fact he just absolutely loves Grant. he is a great older brother.

Cameron has a lot of fun with the kids.

Dallin has moved into a big bed and he and Katelyn are sharing a room. in an attempt to get more sleep and get the kids to bed with slightly less crying we've decided to play the I love... Game. it goes like this I love Katelyn because she says "sure" then does what I've asked her to do. I love Dallin because he shares his ice cream with me. I love Grant because he smiles and laughs at me. and so on. The first night we did this Dallin was really tired and by the time it was his turn to say what he loved about each of us he was basically asleep and said, "I seep-ing" the next night we let Katelyn go first and then Dallin, again he proclaimed, "I seep-ing" on the third night we had Dallin go first, he closed his eyes, then peeked under his lashes at us and said with a smile, "Dallin seep-ing" then he giggled. he has tried every day since to claim that he is sleeping but he can't keep a straight face so in the end we always help him walk through the "I love you" game. He cracks us up.

Little piggys

last night as we were getting ready for bed Katelyn had a bit of gas and said, "did you ear that noise um my bom-mim?... it went oink oink!" then Cameron said "oh, do you have a little piggy in your bottom?" Katelyn thought that was funny and it was definitely what she had.

Oatmeal Princess

Every morning just as the dawn is cracking, Katelyn peaks into our room, looks out the window to see if there is even the slightest hint of daylight, if there is she shouts
"mommy it's wake up time. I wan a eat oatma-el"
some mornings I try to be diplomatic about it and ask Dallin what he wants to eat but somehow she always manages to convince him that he wants oatmeal too. so we eat old fashioned oatmeal...every single day. if by chance we don't have it for breakfast then by lunch time Katelyn is asking for it.


Oatmeal is one of the healthier choices so it wouldn't be a problem at all if it weren't such an involved process. You see, she likes the bring the water to a boil, cook for 5 minutes, let stand to cool type. and then she has a melt down if its the slightest bit warm so as soon as it's done I pop it into the freezer while we set the table and get everything else ready for breakfast. When everything is ready Katelyn and Dallin scrutinize over their bowl analyzing it from all angles and if there is the slightest hint that it could possibly be warm they insist that we blow on it. once it is adequately cold they gobble it up and usually finish off mine too.



It's amazing what we are willing to do for our kids day after day.
(OK so their not actually eating oatmeal in these pictures, but you get the idea.)

The first hunt

The YMCA had an Easter egg hunt the week before Easter. They had a bounce house and fun Easter games that were much to advance for any of my children but they had fun and got a treat for trying. We were hanging out at the bounce house when we realized that it was almost time for the Easter egg hunt to start, as we walked in that direction we noticed kids running in every direction gathering eggs, we missed the start but thankfully everyone was allowed to get 10 eggs and no more so by the time we got there everyone else was done and there were still plenty of eggs for our young hunters to find.

Dallin would spend some quality time with each egg before moving on to fine the next one.

Katelyn gathered her eggs much faster this year and then wanted to help Dallin gather his.

Grant was content to hang out with mommy. He didn't get a single egg, not one. Maybe next year.

I was asked to decorate a cake for the Relief Society birthday party enrichment night. I was of course thrilled until I considered that although I own cake decorating stuff I don't actually know how to use it. Cake decorating was one of those things I got really excited about a few years ago, so I bought the stuff and then that's where it ended. so this week I have spent quality time on the Internet watching videos and looking up cake decorating tips. I decided to do a floral design with star bursts. this was the practice run I made for the young women Wednesday night. I forgot to take a picture of the actual cake but it turned out fine, not great but that's OK.

Bubbles

Katelyn has become a bathtub fanatic. She begs to take a bath 4 or 5 times a day and since doing her hair is so much easier when it's wet and freshly conditioned I often let her take a bath in the morning, even when she has just had a bath the night before. This morning was one of those mornings. I was out getting breakfast for the boys and she was in there having the time of her life. she starts talking about bubbles and shouts, "look mommy look!" remembering that I didn't put bubbles in the bathtub and that last time she made bubble by herself it was by emptying her entire bottle of tearless strawberry flavored shampoo into the bathtub, I rushed to see what she was so excited about. the first thing I noticed was the now empty bottle of Disney princess bubble bath, the next thing I noticed was Katelyn, simply ecstatic,beaming up at me so pound of herself. So rather then give her a lecture I helped her make more bubbles and took some pictures. I'll save the lecture for another day.

First Haircut

After three and a half years Katelyn has had her first haircut not because it looked bad or because it was growing in straggly but for the mere fact that it had been three and a half years.
we did it in the bathtub so it wouldn't be so messy... what was I thinking?
we gave Katelyn a lolly pop because we always give dallin a lolly pop when he gets a haircut. She was a bit nervious about the whole thing, which suprised me. I didn't cut much off, in fact I couldn't even tell that it had been cut when all was said and done. I like her long curly hair.

What are you teaching these kids

so our conversation went something like this...

Katelyn you are going to be in charge of the lesson for Family night tomorrow what would you like to do?

I wana be naked!

You want to be naked?

yeah I wan everybody a be naked

Maybe we should let Dallin be in charge....