Easter Weekend in Ohio!

(this is a goose in my parents front yard that we give my mom the hardest time for having and Lacey-the animal lover that she is decided she wanted to travel by goose instead of car)

We went to Ohio over Easter weekend-Abby was on Spring Break that weekend too so it worked out good. The weather was gray cold an rainy the whole time but we had so much fun! We took the kids to Boonshoft Discovery Museum, which it totally awesome!! The kids had a blast! They played with the water table, where Bryan and Uncle Jeff tried to show off their building expertise--tried...!

There was a huge climbing thing with slides and stuff-I dont have pics of that because I had to help the kids climb up a spiral rope net thing and I thought it would be better to have both hands free to catch someone if they slipped!!

There was a recycling room with a game where you had to match up things you recycle with the things it saves and a recycling truck where you sort items-once a again Bryan and Jeff got in the fun with the kids and were trying to sort all the items as fast as the could because they wanted to see if the could jam the machine-nice huh?!

Colby wasn't very interested in recycling-he opted to drink his bottle instead.

The kids got to go to jail-they were guilty as charged and were sentenced to time already spent in jail for failure to clean up toys.

After we busted them out we went and made some pizza and did some shopping. While the girls did some hands on excavating-dylan worked with the microscope!

There was also a section on electricity with a bunch of hands on things to do-we were there in time to catch a little show where they made peoples hair stand on end! It was pretty cool but of course none of my kids would volunteer to help!

Later at home Grandpa played Polly Pockets with the girls!! But he had to have Abby help change the clothes because his hand were to big to work with the tiny clothes!!

I was able to spend time with a couple of my friends-it was so fun!! I dont know what it is about being back "home" and spending time with people you grew up with. I miss it! Then my friend Sarah came over in the evening and we had a blast-she is so hilarious-I just love her!! I was so sad to leave. I wish we could live in Ohio.

It was just such a wonderful weekend and thankfully after a few hard couple of days Bryans allergies calmed down and he was able to have a little fun too!

My Dad, Jeff and Bryan hid eggs for the kids to find-they hid them good, it was fun to watch them hunt the eggs. My Dad is a amazing egg hider!

I have a couple other stories but this post is super long with the pictures and stuff so I will add those soon!!

Abby's Spring Music Concert

Abby had her Spring Music Concert this morning and again this evening. She had a great time. She didnt have a part other than just singing the songs this time. A couple of days after her music teacher asked who wanted speaking parts she decided that she should have put her name on the list but it was too late by then. I asked her why she didnt put her name on the list from the begining and she was like "well it would be scary" i was like "whatever Abby! you get up in front of people at church and at your dance recital!!" she is so funny! So here are a couple video clips and some pics of her little concert!

ok I am having major video uploading issues! so I will get the other video up when blogger decides to not take forever to load!!

Goodies

Well first off I have to say that the reponsibility wheel has been a huge success! Thankfully! The kids try to put a bid in for the jobs they want to do when we rotate the wheels-its kinda funny!

Over the last couple of weeks Colby has really been rolling over and playing with toys. It is so fun to see him learning to do new things. Once he rolls over he then can push himself backwards and in a circle! He gets himself into some interesting spots and them he will cry for help when he has nowhere left to go! He also jabbers and talks ALOT! So I guess he will fit right in with the other three running around here. I don't know why Heavenly Father thought that I could handle 4 loud talkative non-sleeping kids---I NEED SLEEP!!!!! I mean come on here!!

He also is starting to hold his own bottle which is so cute to see him do especially when he falls asleep with his little hands on it!

Its funny, sometimes I look at him and it just amazes me that we have a baby! I dont know why but sometimes it just hits me-he is just such a fun baby!

Responsibilities not Chores!

In an effort to help the kids learn more about reponsibility and that the have to help out with things around the house because they are part of the family we have intoduced the Responsibilty Wheel. I didnt want to call it a chore chart because I wanted them to feel like they are in charge of doing certain jobs and not like we were forcing them to do it. Does that make any sense? I am having a hard time explaining it!

Anyway, We talked about what responsibility is and then I found a game about family members reponsibilites in the family that fit right in! In the game you answer questions about how to help other family members and what certain family members are in charge of and along the way you collect your family! The kids totally loved it!

Then we introduced the Reponsibility Wheel.

All the wheels rotate so they wont be in charge of the same combination of jobs week after week. The were pretty excited so we will see how it works! I made the wheel so that all the jobs get done after dinner so the house is pick-up and clean ready for the next day. So the first wheel has the names of course, the second wheel is for the kitchen, the third wheel is for both bedrooms (Abby, Dylan and Lacey all play in each others rooms so with toys being taken from room to room I figured this would be the easiest for a quick evening pick up) the fourth wheel is thier Room of Resposibility-in this room they are in chare of making sure all the kid things are pick-up and put away and the trash is thrown away and the last wheel is for the bathroom. All the jobs are easy so all three of the kids can do them mostly by themselves. Obviously we will have to help Lacey on some of them! We talked about how if we all do the things that we are responsible for and work together that it would make the family happy. So cross your fingers and let's hope this works and the kids learn a little reponsibility!

Taking Pics

I have to say that sometimes I feel bad when I tell the other kids to get out of the way when I am taking a picture of Colby! Does anyone else with more than one kid feel that way?! I love to take pic of my kids (obviously right?!!) and they all love getting thier picture taken so they want to be in every picture. So when I want a picture of just one of them and have to tell the others to scooch over a little and they get all sad I feel a little mean! But I mean hey they all have individual pictures of themselves so Colby deserves some too right?!

Here is the Colbster at 4 months. That went by crazy fast!! He is getting so big! He can roll over from his back on the tummy and from his tummy on to his back! He only likes to be on his tummy for a few minutes and if we leave him there longer than he thinks he needs to be there he will lay flat with his face nose down on the blanket and cry while slowly moving in a circle. It is hilarious although I do feel a little bad because he is upset but it is funny!!

Valentine Time!

Since Abby was off of school we took advantage of ALL the free time and did her valentines for her school party! Plus it saved me from having to think of someting fun for her to do! We went for a conversation heart theme this year! We cut out hearts, wrote a little thing on the front, filled then with a little candy and a ring for the girls and a sports eraser for the boys and sealed them up and viola! Done! Abby loves them and they turned out super cute! She also has a little gift for her teacher staying with the conversation heart theme!!

Blizzard 2011

Well here are some pics of all our stupid snow! When all was said and done we got about 18 inches at our house. One of the snow drifts was 33 inches high! The snow depth in the backyard was all over the place because the wind was so strong it just blew that snow all over the place. We had a couple huge drifts in the backyard so we let the kids go play for a few minutes. It was really cold probably hovering around about 5ish or so and with the windchill it was well below 0 but I didnt want the kids to miss out on the fun fresh snow just because it was freezing so we let them out for seriously 5 minutes! Plus I knew once it was warm enough for them to go play in the snow then the snow would be a yucky and gross crusty snow! Abby and Dylan had fun climbing all over the snow and falling in it and all that stuff-Lacey was way to little to try to walk through the snow she she ended up crawling on top of the snow!! So anyway here are some pics! I know that spring is supposed to be coming early but I dont know if it will be coming to Iowa early with all this snow to melt!! We have gotten over 60 inches of snow this winter-twice what we normally get. Sooooooo not cool!!!

To read or Not to read

I will probably get in trouble by my friend for this but oh well! I am supposed to be reading The Host but I still cant bring mtself to do it! Everyone tells me that I will love it and that it is awesome. But......the storyline kinda freaks me out! I have read the prologue but cant seem to make myself read anymore. I just dont want to not like it! I do have it sitting out where I see it all day long and it stares at me begging to be read. So while I am trying to talk myself in reading the Host I picked up City of Bones. The cover always seemed a little wierd to me but some friends recommended it and I have to say that I really like it! It caught my attention right away and I cant wait to read the other 2 in the series! So I will get around to reading the Host.......sometime........maybe.........totally before the movie comes out!!

New Project!

Well, I really have about a bazillion projects "in progress" but this one I a super excited about! I scrapped these pages on one of my total fav sites scrapblog.com. I have a tentative idea of what I want to do with them, still working it out in my head but I just had to share them because I totally love them!!

One Project Finished!

I have had pictures up in the hallway for a really long time but it was always missing something. I knew I wanted to do some vinyl something but never could figure out what I really wanted. Then when I was searching for something to put with some other pics in the family room I came across this saying. I totally love it! But I did change some of the words and added a some of my own, I always have to change things just a little to make it more me!

It says,

in this Family, we do second chances, we do mistakes, we do hugs, we do i'm sorrys, we do prayer, we do laughter, we do loud really well, we do love, we do family

Anyway the wall is almost done I just have to get a pic of Colby developed and get a frame! I am so excited I got it done and I also have to give a huge enormous thanks to my mom who gave me her little Cricut when she got her new big one! Those things are awesome! So thats one project finished and on to another one!

Quick Update!

Man, it feels like I haven't posted anything in about forever! I remind myself everyday that I need to put something up but I am wiped out by about 6pm! 4 kids is a lot of work! Thankfully Colby is a good baby-looks like fourth times the charm for us! I only wish he would sleep during the day but honestly I shouldn't be surprised because he is a Stoker baby and Stoker babies dont like to sleep. He is usually a happy little guy but likes to be carried everywhere so he can see whats going on so as you can guess it isnt easy to get much done during the day. I try to tell him that being the fourth kid he isnt allowed to be so demanding but he doesn't listen. He hits fussy meltdown time about 4:30-5ish-just in time for the dinner and bedtime busyness! He has great timing! One really nice thing although I will probably jinx it now that I am talking about it but he does have 1 good block of sleep usually about 5 or 6 hours starting between 6 and 8 where he will actually sleep by himself and then when he starts to stir and you hold him them he will sleep for a few hours longer. So that is way nice and something we have never enjoyed before! It has taken a while to get him to sleep by himself-he is a huge snuggle bug!

So anyway thats enough about Colby! Lacey has adjusted better than I thought she would! I was worried because she is totally a mama's girl! She is one funny girl! I got some pictures developed and in the 5 pics of her she had 5 completely different looks on her face!

Abby is an awesome helper with Colby although she thinks she is should be able to do more with him then I let her do. And Dylan is making plans for when he and Colby share a room! All 3 of them are dying for warmer weather so they can go play outside! Lacey was begging to go to the park we were like "sorry Lacey but it is only 5 degrees outside and the park is under about a foot of snow!"

Funny kids! anyway thats a quick update and since I am starting to get back into the normal swing of things I should be posting more stuff! And as I just noticed this I will try not to use exclamation points at the end of every sentence!

So here are a couple picks of the Colbster-

I love him in his coat-he is so dang cute!

Christmas!!!

This is Christmas so far at our house! The gifts from the grandparents far out do anything we got them this year and you can tell my parents managed to get the one thing they really really wanted!!

Merry Christmas!!

I knew there was NO way Christmas cards were going to get mailed out this year with a new baby and my address book disappeared!! So were are going cyber this year!

Colby's photo shoot!

We had a little photo shoot with our awesome friends at Butler Photgraphy! Jen and Paul are so amazing at what they do! I had a hard time picking which ones to post so you get a bunch to look at but thats o.k. for 2 reasons-1. they are awesome pictures and 2. Colby is just so dang cute!

Abby's Winter Concert

Abby had her Winter Concert on monday. It was also Grandparents day and since both sets of Grandparents were out of town I went to both the morning and evening show. I got the video of her in the morning and didnt take the camera in the evening but shouls have because we were able to sit on the second row right in front of where she was!! But oh well right! It was alot of fun because we only had Dylan with us-we dropped Lacey and Colby off with some friends so we were actually able to watch and enjoy the whole thing! Abby got to play the tone bars so she had to dress-up-she was so excited!

Tree Decorating!

Well we finally got around to decorating the tree today! It has been up with lights on it but none of the fun stuff!! We have a small tree with plastic ornaments and it will stay that way for a few more years until little fingers can learn to not play with them! We also went to a fundraiser the Scouts were having where they were taking family pics courtesy of Butler Photography-some of my favorite people!

Its just the kids this year-a pic of the whole fam will have to wait till the summer when all the baby weight is gone!