Brotherly Love

A Visit from Grandparents

Also in February, we had a visit from Cheryl, Angenette, and Don. We really appreciated them traveling the long distance and spending the special time with our kids.

Here are the kids with the great-grandparents and the baby afghans that Angenette has crocheted for each of them.

Here's the whole crew.

Cheryl and Jonathan worked a puzzle...and Grace jumped into the picture.

Jonathan is explaining Transformers to Don. If Jonathan has ever explained anything to you, you've seen this expression before.

Deep thoughts with Grace.

Cheryl brought musical instruments for each of the kids to enjoy.

The smile in this picture tells the whole story.

Playing music with Daddy. Grace really loves that harmonica!

Thank you so much for the visit, Cheryl, Angenette, and Don!

A Visit from My Mom

March is almost over, but I'm making a big effort to catch up on things worth remembering from February. I loved these pictures from a day that Jonathan had off of school and my mom came for a visit.

Resting

Old Friends and New Friends

In February, we had a visit with my good friend, Sarah, and her boys. This was a trial road trip for me - I took the kids on my own - and it was a success.

Here are the "olders" playing Legos. Paul has a good supply of dress-up clothes along with lots of building things!

Here are the "littles" playing. Or, Adam is trying to avoid losing all his toys to Benjamin. (These guys are the "new friends.")

And, here are the "middles" enjoying a story with Sarah. Levi is a lot older than Grace - he'll go to kindergarten in the fall - but both kids seem to fill the role of middle child.

We are so thankful that our friends live close enough for a visit every now and then! It was great to see you, Sarah!

Some Favorites

Here are the last two pics from our time with Dave and Jen. This one was taken with a timer. There's another one just like it, except that we are totally blocked by some passersby. This one shows some of the realities of adventures with kids. Take a look at the five kids, and you'll see what I mean.

And this is one of my favorite pictures of our family. We were walking down the street and thought it would be fun to have a picture of what this stage is like for us, so I asked a stranger to take a couple for us. I love this picture, and thanks to some Photoshopping by Dave and Jen, it's a pretty good shot of our whole family...my favorite people!

A Quick Attempt at Sibling Pictures

Walking to School

This is how she walked today...all the way there and all the way back. I pushed Benjamin in the double stroller just in case she pooped out and needed to hitch a ride. I was thinking that if she could walk, I could start using the single jogging stroller again. It pushes like a dream compared to the double. However, it took twice as long to get to school with her walking. Maybe she's not quite ready to walk every day.

2012 Almond Blossom Pictures

Here's one more post from February.

I got the kids' pictures in the orchard a little bit before the trees were in full bloom. I'm thankful that I got their pictures, though, because after this, I got sick, and then it rained a lot, and I would have missed my chance.

I had imagined that Benjamin would be walking by the time the almonds bloomed. But, here it is nearly a month later, he is 15 months old, and he still has a ways to go. Even without him walking, his brother and sister did a great job helping him do his job and be in pictures. Hope you get some smiles from the pictures of our dear kiddos.

If you were patient enough to scroll down this far, I hope you get a laugh out of this one...

And, here's a link to almond blossom pictures in years past.

Trip to the Coast

This was a month ago, but still worth blogging about.

Our dear friends have an aquarium membership and invited us to share a day there with them! We (our household) decided to go to the coast the night before and make a mini-getaway out of it, and then meet our friends the next morning. Jeff found a great little inn for us, and we had adjoining rooms. It was the perfect room arrangement and we all got sleep before a big day at the aquarium. Mostly we were managing our kids and enjoying their reactions to everything, but we did manage to get a few pictures to help us remember this fun, fun time together. Thank you for this shared adventure, Dave and Jen!

Driving to the coast

We caught a pretty sunset on the evening we arrived.

This cracked me up. The kids thought they should squat down just like Daddy.

Delight!

Self-portrait

What could be funnier than a hotel room with a popcorn popper?

Family <3 (Jonathan had the hardest time staring into the sun, obviously)

Baby seahorse. That's my index finger, for perspective.

The kids watching the story of romancing seahorses.

Trying to share some love. Jonathan wouldn't have it.

But Grace would!

Walking back to the aquarium after lunch. Note who Grace is hanging onto. She loves Jen. Dave, too, but especially Jen. I think she wanted to adopt them as parents.

The penguins were so outgoing! I'll share a couple more good pics in an upcoming post.