Miscellaneous pictures to finish up the month of February

Bentley and his buddy Abby May.

Olivia, me and London

This boy.... striking a pose, with Star Wars jammies, his "bean" and his "sticky socks".  This is the epitome of Bentley right now.

Not many grandma's are as dedicated as this one. They adore her and thought it was the best to be bounced from underneath.

The weather has been so nice! We have been eating our lunch outside as often as possible.

Cute Erin with those gorgeous lashes.

Eden and Makayla made some pretty awesome shields out of the pizza box after dinner.

Nice smoothie stash...

He LOVES playing Legos.  He doesn't really ever attempt to build anything really, but he loves to play with the people, all the cool helmets and weapons, and the bike.

This is one strong little lady!  She loves to push him around. The problem is that he just jumps off whenever he feels done and that usually sends her crashing angrily to the floor. Poor baby.

3 against 1

Bentley was very generously sharing his cereal with Olivia.

Brad needed some sheet metal cut for a game board he is working on. Grandpa to the rescue! He has a tool for everything.

Grandma is so good about allowing as many little helpers as can fit on the counters! That's Carson's little head behind her.

I took the kids to their bi-annual dentist appointment to get their teeth cleaned. Bentley is the best 2 year old patient ever. I could see his little body and hands tense up every time she would start working in his mouth, but he was so cooperative and patient through the whole thing. As soon as she sat him up he threw both hands into the air and said, "I did it mom! I was so happy!" Cute boy.

A chilly, but fun day at the zoo

The rainforest room is very warm and humid... and stinky as Eden is so graciously pointing out.

We brought a lot of extra bread along this time and they had a blast feeding the ducks. We go to the zoo often enough I guess that seeing all the animals (or even a good amount of the animals) each time is too boring. But feeding the ducks was definitely a huge highlight this time.

Eden made a little peacock friend that was not at all shy. Eden kept backing up and trying to get away from it while still throwing it a little bread trail.

Cute friends!

Yee Haw little Cowgirl.

Entertaining the baby

Bentley was already in the closet, pushing these little buttons out from under the door, when Olivia came crawling around the corner.  She of course didn't know he was in there but was immediately so curious and baffled about things popping out from under the door every few seconds.  She sat and watched so contently for quite a while. Every time one would pop out she would kind of jump. It was so cute to watch.

You can see Bentley's cute fingers there under the door.

It wasn't long before Bentley realized she was out there because if things would stop coming out she would kind of grunt at the door and he would send a new one out.  You can imagine that she was very surprised when he opened up the door and yelled "Boo!"

I love watching my kids together.  There's nothing like the adorable bond between siblings.  I'm so grateful to be a stay at home mom so I can capture moments like these.

Eden starts Tae-kwan-do!

A few weeks ago Eden started a Tae-kwan-do class and it has been so good! For the past couple months I have felt like I should get her into something physical to help with her endurance and coordination and everything.  Before Christmas at some point she watched the movie "kung-fu panda" and said she thought karate would be fun to learn.  After thinking about it a bit I realized that it would probably be the perfect fit for her.  It wouldn't be something super intimidating like soccer but would allow her tons of exercise, and she could learn some great skills and confidence in her body. 

The first day there they had to run and jump over some pretty high mats.  She tried her best but was nowhere near being able to do what the other kids were doing, so once we were in the car she tried to get out of karate all together saying "well I just want to spend more time at home with daddy."  Daddy is still at work though so I knew she was fishing for some kind of excuse that sounded reasonable. We had a good talk though about the importance of trying new things, even if you can't do it perfectly the first time and she agreed to keep trying. :) 

It's been a couple weeks now and she is already starting to improve a lot! She takes it very seriously, and focuses so good.  Just last class one of the teachers came to me and said she was more worried about Eden and one other little boy because they were the smallest and youngest in the class, but she said they are the two best students because they focus and try so hard. 

I love going to her class and watching her.  She is incredibly happy there and so proud of herself after each class. She has even had a few "sparring" matches with her teacher and she goes for it.  It's adorable.

Now if I could just convince Olivia to sit nicely and watch instead of trying to crawl out on the mat and scream at the kids then we'd be in really good shape. :)

Good job Eden! I'm so proud of you!

Olivia - 11 Months Old!

Olivia is 11 months old already!  It's so crazy how fast the time is passing by.  I just adore this girl so very much. She has a very wide array of emotions and we love her through them all, but obviously much prefer some over others.  She is spicy - that's the best way to describe her. It's both good and bad. ha ha

I love those rainbow shaped eyes when she smiles big. She looks very similar to Eden at this age.

She has mastered removing the lids from markers and this time got a few good tastes before I took it from her.  She was very angry about that.

She loves to play in the toilet and with the toilet paper. On this night we were reading stories to Eden and Bentley and when Brad came around the corner and busted Olivia in the act of toilet papering the bathroom it really startled her and mad her very sad.

She LOVES to be outside.  However, she HATES the grass!  She will  try her best to crawl along any tiny little path if it means less contact with the grass. ha ha

I mean... look at that face.  I don't care how much she yells and tries to be the boss around here- she is so stinkin' adorable.

Olivia has mastered the stairs so we didn't have to keep the baby gate up long which is way nice. It's fun that she will just randomly wonder upstairs and start playing with toys. She loves to close doors which means that the problem comes when she goes into one of the rooms and shuts the door behind her. She makes sure to utilize her yelling though to ensure that we find her, and quickly.

She is still so quick to smile and is super friendly with other people, as long as they don't try to hold her.

She is starting to outgrow her morning naps which is both good and bad.

She's not very patient so when she wants something and it's not happening quickly she will give us a good yell. 

She knows she isn't supposed to play in the dog food, but she doesn't care.  She has a very determined spirit which is also both good and bad. ha ha

Most people I know say that their third child is either incredibly mellow and chill, or complete opposite.  Olivia is complete opposite.  She hates to sit on my lap and hang out (like during church or Eden's karate classes). She wants to be down and moving and doing her own thing. She doesn't put up with any mistreatment from her siblings.  If Bentley takes something from her she will scream at him until he hurries and throws it back.

We are praying she will get some words soon to save all our sanity.

We love this girl and her fiery spirit.  She is a handful, but she has so much personality and loves to be involved in anything and everything!

Valentine's Day and Austin's Baptism

Eden and her friend Makayla May got to spend an afternoon together making their valentine's boxes for school.  They were very excited about it.

Eden was adamant that her box did NOT have any polka dots.  I'm not sure why she felt so strongly about that. 

Eden picked out some "Monster High" valentine's.  Bentley got some Transformers ones. He obviously didn't need any, but he was really happy to write on them and prepare them for all his friends too.

On Friday I got to volunteer in Eden's classroom at school and help out with the Valentine's day party.  The kids were so cute, and I think Eden was very excited to have me there. It was fun to see her in that environment.  She was so happy and social with the kids and it made me feel so good to see her there being so comfortable and happy.

Eden made this Valentine for her teacher. I'm sure her teacher appreciated a little extra money. ha ha

Eden's cute class doing some activities. She is in the pink and white coat off to the right side.

Then today, Valentine's Day, we got to go down to Los Lunas and attend Austin's baptism.  I'm so grateful to live close so we could be there with them. 

Such a good looking family!

After the baptism, we spent the rest of the day at grandma and grandpa's house.  The kids learned all out the circle of life when they went in to collect eggs and came upon a dead chicken. Grandpa was very gracious and gave him a proper burial (for the kids sake lol).

Olivia wasn't too sure what to think about this swing.  She had a death grip on Bentley's shirt with one hand and his pants with the other the whole time they were swinging.

She loves to go on rides in the wagon though!

Looks like these two were surprised by the camera while playing Legos.

My mom thought to capture this candid moment of life for Brad and I right now.  Looks like it's just Bentley there, but there's another child in front of each of us.  I'm glad I have a good man by my side who is so involved and helpful with the kids because they can sure be a handful!