Elle's Birthday

Our Elle-belly turned five this month. The first thing she asked was if she could go to kindergarden now. I try to only do parties every four years, so this was an "off" year for Elle, but it still seemed like she did a ton! On Valentine's Day we had both sets of grandparents over for dinner and cake. In the morning she opened her gifts and had breakfast in bed. Then after school her grandma's came and picked her up for lunch, a mani-pedi, and some shopping. Then I took her, Mae, and their friend Judy to Chuck-E-Cheeses. We finished up the night at Blue and Gold for Jacob and Jonah's cub scouts. Needless to say she crashed that night pretty quickly. I'm so grateful for our sassy little Elle. She's so smart and quick and has the most lovable little face! She keeps telling me to stop kissing her cheeks, but I told her I never will, I'm her mom and it's my right. : )

Palm Springs

We wanted to do one last family trip before the baby came and February seemed like a good time to do it. We didn't want to do an amusement park since that would be a waste of money on my part and difficult for Bud to have to take everyone and we just wanted to RELAX. Palm Springs seemed like a good option and we took a three-day weekend. We took an interesting route there (keep an eye out for the Cima Rd. exit between Stateline and Baker) which put us on a two-way road in the middle of the desert. It did however lead us through Kelso, which has a beautiful train station and museum and it did cut a lot of time off our drive. We stayed at the Hyatt in Indian Springs, which was awesome. It had 6 pools, a waterslide, bikes, tennis, foosball and ping-pong tables (sorry I totally had to school you, Bud. It was funny to be in California again where a family of 6 plus one on the way really stands out. I even had one lady tell me I looked like a mama duck with all my little ones behind me. We really enjoyed the beauty of Indian Springs and just had a nice time together.

Holidaze

December was a whirlwind. We were so lucky to have all the family here for most of the month. The Reids got to come early and stay for almost three weeks. Mark and Jenni came in for a week and the Fontano's flew in and surprised all of us a couple days after Christmas. Kim and her family left a couple days after Christmas to move to Denver, but it was so fun to have them here for three months! We had a great time with all the cousins. Jacob, Jonah, and Elle got to try ice-skating for the first time and we had a really fun New Years too. It was a little tough to juggle time with both families, but what a great problem to have. We're so blessed to have so many loved ones so close. The morning the kids had to go back to school we were shocked with a morning snow-storm! Jonah came in and said, "It's snowing!" and I thought, yeah, yeah, little flurries, but he said, "No, it's really snowing, look outside!" When I did, I felt like a little kid growing up in Virginia looking out my window and seeing white everywhere. Unfortunately, it all melted 2 hours later and the kids had to go to school, but it was a nice little end to Christmas break.

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Halloween

Halloween is one of our favorites around here. It seems to last all week, but it's great with parades, parties and the girls even got to go to a pumpkin patch. This year was a little strange though since it landed on a four-day weekend and a Sunday and what is usually a super crowded, fun neighborhood, was really pretty quiet. I even took two bags of candy back to Costco that weren't used. The kids like to collaborate their costumes with our good friends and neighbors, the Tingey's as well as their cousins, so this years theme was Star Wars (again) and Witches.

Fall Frenzy

Fall 2010 was crazy! Our lazy summer came to an abrupt end in late August with the news that baby #5 was on the way. We had been trying and were very excited but I wasn't thrilled with the idea of an overscheduled fall coinciding with morning sickness. School started a couple days later with the twins entering third grade in seperate classes for the first time and Mae and Elle in preschool together. That gave me 2.5 hours to myself Monday - Wednesday and it was glorious! Almost every kid had something(s) going on. Mae in gymnastics, Elle in gymnastics and soccer with practice once a week and games on Saturday. The boys played their first season of baseball also with a mid-week practice and games on Saturday on the opposite side of town from Elle's games. The twins were also in cub scouts and piano lessons. Thank goodness my dad totally helped out and took the boys to their baseball practices for almost three hours on Wednesdays! Elle didn't love soccer, but she sure looked cute in her uniform. We pretty much had to bribe her to even play the first few Saturdays. The twins worked really hard in baseball and played on a really good team. It was really tough for me to sit through games in the hot sun during my first trimester, and wouldn't you know the one time I didn't stick it out, Jake got his first hit. Luckily, he gave us one more in the last game. When the season came to an end in November, no one was too sad. : )

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The Gum Incident

Back in August, Jake had a little mishap. He's going to kill me for publishing these pics, but it's too funny not to. He had been playing with gum he was chewing, pulling it out and wrapping it around his face (don't ask me why), when it got stuck to his little peach fuzz face. He was afraid to tell me because I had already told him to keep his gum in his mouth, so he tried to wash it off himself with COLD water. That only made the gum harden to his face and he came to me bawling. I got to smother his face in peanut butter while his brother and sisters watched and laughed. When I got out the camera, he got really mad, but he laughs at it now. Kind of...

Mae's Day

Our little Mae-Mae turned three in August. We kept it pretty low-key and had a family bbq/swim party. She also has a good friend with the same birthday, so she and Elle got to go to her party and I kind of got to count it. : ) Mae is such a light in our family and I'm so grateful for her sweet little voice and funny personality!

Road Trip

Nothing like a week of sickness to make you think, hmm, maybe I should update my blog. Besides, it's only been 7 MONTHS!!! Pathetic, but gettin' it done.

Last July-August we spent 10 days in the car on our first big road trip as a family. It was awesome! We traveled 2,132 miles and hit 6 states. It started as a trip to the Stoddard family reunion to Salmon, ID, but we thought we should make the most of it and hit Yellowstone and Jackson too. In almost twelve years of marriage, I had never been up to Salmon and really wanted the kids to see it. The pictures show some great highlights, but I have to mention the motorcycle couple. We took the "road less traveled" to Yellowstone, which had us following a couple on a motorcycle who wiped out right in front of us! We had to drive the girlfriend (who had a serious concussion and shared WAY too much) back to Dubois, ID (try and find that on a map!). After back-tracking over an hour the road turned to dirt for about 25 miles. Little scary, but we made it. It was a fantastic trip and I can't wait to do it again in another 12 years. :) Hopefully sooner!
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