HOLY BUSY SPRINGTIME

Congrats Kord on your Arrow of Light...followed immediately (within minutes) by your baseball game. Quite a night kid.

Case and his best bud...seriously, best bud!

Yep, that's a "5" pizza. Happy Birthday Layne

Purple Polka-dot Poodle Party

Soca star

Crazy fun with Grandpa Merrill

Thanks for coming to visit Grandma, Grandpa, Auntie and cousins

Hadley was talking on a pretend cell phone when she turned to me, “Mom, do girls ask boys out on dates”. “No, Hadley, you wait for the boy to ask you”. So then I hear her on the pretend phone again, “So would you like a date?” “Hadley, remember we don’t ask the boy, we want them to have to come to us.” “I know Mom, I was just asking him if he wants to come to my house and eat a date…like what Jesus ate.”

Hadley's school party...They made school supply kits for kids in Haiti...and a HUGE pencil cake for Hadley.

Cousin fun gets a little tiring.

Kord borrowed a decibel meter for his science fair project. Which, of course, means that we had WAY too much fun with it. First, they stuck it in my face while I was talking on the phone(rude!)...and then they put it to Case. For the record, I hit 84 decimals chit-chatin' it up on the phone.

It's the HADLEY SHOW

WOW. It really has been the Hadley Show this last little bit.

Now I just need it to be "Hadley Lane" or Layne.

WHAT TIME IS IT...GIRL TIME!

We got to go the Cats the Musical...just the girls. Hadley and Layne were on the edge of their seats the whole time. We were on the first row, first balcony so they had a great view (thanks again Dad). I NEVER thought that I could get sick of the music, but turns out that after listening the soundtrack about a MILLION times, it gets a little old. Every time I start to lose it though, I realize how excited I am that they love it as much as I do. Girls rock!

You see, in Ms. Dallasta's class you can earn Cat Cash throughout the year. Most kids spend it in small increments...10 here for erasers/30 there for stickers. But not my Hadley, she had her eye on the prize. So she's been saving all year and got to be Teacher for the Day. Check out that teacher. There was no messing with her. By the end of the day she had her notebook all filled up with the naughty things that kids had done (I kid you not). In fact, it started at home with, "Case poosht the techer Msr Thomas" and ended at school with, "Dmechry cold me a Grandma and Alin colled me Osy Osborn". I can't make this stuff up.

All the kids go on Daddy Daughter Dates and Boys Night Outs with Dad. No one ever wants to do it with Mom. Well, my Hadley finally decided that I was good enough for her so we went out on our first ever Girls Night. It was super fun to spend a whole night with this chica.

My sweet, sweet Hadley decided to get baptized. It was beautiful. And since it was the Thomas', also eventful. Russ got her all organized and was about to start the ordinance when they stopped him so he could switch to the other side and raise his RIGHT hand not his left. Cracks me up. Grandma Jones made the dress (gorgeous) and Hadley was ALL glows the entire day. She decided that she wanted to play the piano and have her cousins, siblings and friends sing. So that's just what she did. I love this sweet, beautiful little person. Congratulations Hadley.

Spring Break

My mom was here over spring break so she got to go with Layne on her field trip to a puppet show. She's never gotten to take any of my kids on a field trip so it was super fun for them.

Case is pretty much addicted to Grandpa Jones. They just hung out the ENTIRE time Grandpa was here.

It was snowing up on Prune Hill an hour before the Easter hunt started. We're used to rain, we're not so used to cold. Another great Easter hunt memory. Kord was too old this year (crazy that my baby's too old) so he helped Case. It was pretty adorable.

LAYNE GOT THE GOLDEN EGG!!!!!!!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HADLEY!!!!! She got her ears pierced for her birthday.

AHHHH. Easter

Okay, so we headed off to Tillamook over Spring Break. We went to the cheese factory and (of course) had to end our trip with Tillamook ice cream. But not so "of course" is that we decided to get the "Tillamook 38 flavor tour". They call out each of the 38 flavors as they put them in the huge bowl and then sing us some crazy song about the ice cream. I could totally tell how excited everyone behind us in the huge line were. They were THRILLED to wait around while we got it. Of course, with 42 kids like we have, really it was practically the economical chose to get the crazy big one.

I love the Oregon Coast! We explorers this great area, checked out the lighthouse...

...and the octopus tree.

Momma's birthday and such

Kord (right) and his best buds

NIIICE

I went out of town for a couple days and, of course, there were some hilarious things that went down while the momma was gone. Just two:

1.Turns out Russ pulled up in front of the preschool and just let Layne out as if she’s in high school and sent her in. Obviously in preschool you have to walk the child in, sign them in, and get there stuff put away. When she walked in by herself the teacher said, “Did you drive yourself here?”

2.Russ couldn’t find diapers (which were of course in the closet) so he went to safeway and bought some. I asked him what size he got. “6”. I thought that was pretty good since Case wears 5’s. I asked him how he knew what size to get. Russ said, “one bag had a picture of a little baby just lying their doing nothing, the next had a little fat kid who could sit, one had a kid who could walk, but one had a little kid running –and I thought, ‘oh crap, my kid can run’, so I got that one”.

When I got home though, the the house was clean-ish, Russ made my favorite homemade empanadas, Kord made this yummy birthday cake(note the 30 plus 3 candles), the girls made an AWESOME music video for me, and tons of great homemade gifts. I LOVE this crazy family.

My little man and his best bud

While the girls were away (at Cats the Musical) the boys will play

AHHHH the Children's Museum. Layne, Case and I have made quite the weekly tradition (thanks Grandma for the pass)

WHAT!!! Case is 2 !!!???

Of course, Case HAD to get his first Wii game...I mean honestly, he WAS turning 2 for crying out loud. It's about time.

This boy CAN'T live without trucks.

And THIS boy can't live without building. This time it's a catapolt to launch the plastic chicken.

Thanks for the chicken Grandma, it's amazing how often it comes in handy.

GROSS. No friends are going to want to play Uno at the Thomas house after seeing the way we play here.

Okay, so this goes something like...what do you get when you cross a banana with a mitten.

Actually, I just love the little tiny hands that fill this mitten. I needed some way to show how teeny they are (hence the banana). I love these kids.

RUSS' blue truck from childhood. Russ' cat would crawl into the back and Russ would launch it down the stairs. Yep, you read correctly. Then Russ would open up the back of the truck and the stupid cat would walk over and get back in so it could go flying down the stairs again. Of course, as soon as my kids heard the story, their first thought is:

but we don't have a cat.

And their second thought is:

but we DO have rabbits.

NO KIDS!!!

Why is my life full of so many crazy stories!!??

AHH Valentine's Day...

Wednesday night: Layne (4) starts screaming. Turns out, she poked herself in the eye. She was running to hide from Case and was running with her fists in thumbs-up position. She poked herself with her thumb. We decided (incorrectly) that it was just the skin beside the eye.

Thursday: By 11AM (why yes I AM the worst mom in the world for waiting so long) we decided that we really needed to go in. She had a huge scratch on her cornea. NIIIICE. FYI we had a nice family discussion about running with your thumbs tucked in :)

Friday: Russ and I went to dinner and then I gave him Gettysburg. So Russ, me and KORD (yes he was still awake when we got home so he wanted to watch it) watched GETTYBURG for Valentine's. NIIIICE again.

Saturday: 6AM Russ did this little ditty in...what else...church basketball. So we headed off to the urgent care at 9:30. I had a hair appointment (ladies, you know how you never want to miss that) at 10:45 so I ended up getting Russ through the x-ray and back to the doctor and then headed off to the stylist with all FOUR kids. Which, ironically, I scheduled for Saturday so that I wouldn't have to worry about the kids.

Saturday afternoon: This story actually starts 10 days previous. I just wanted to go the the stake dance...JUST ONCE for crying out loud. Well, Russ wasn't so excited and then ended up coming home with tickets to Monster Jam for Saturday. lovely. This weaves into the previous story since, evidently, he thought that Monster Jam wasn't enough to get him out of the dance so he had to do THAT to his foot too!

No d&$% foot injury was going to stop Russ from bringing his boys to see vroom-vrooms so he hobbled, jumped, and yanked himself to the Rose Garden arena. What a cute daddy

Sunday: Well, how could you beat the precursors...I did the fun little valentines things for the kids in the morning but than that was it. I even forgot to make the milk pink for crying out loud. No pink mashed potatoes. No pink soup. I'm such a loser.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S WEEKEND!

I'll do better on St. Patrick's Day