Poster Child

Back in March we all got to go to the zoo one Saturday morning to watch Emily be honored as a finalist for a poster contest that the zoo held!  She beat out 2000 other 3rd graders from across the state and was one of the top 65 chosen for the special morning.  She was oh-so excited and it was a lot of fun to take part in her accomplishment!

This was her poster (such cute little animals!)

Our little artist

And, everyone had a great time (despite what Kari thought as this picture was being taken!).

Best Friends

Emily and Kari, Barbie besties

One of the reasons I'm glad I chose to have multiple children is because I LOVE to watch them play together as friends.  Not just siblings playing with each other bc they have to, but bc they enjoy one another's company.  Do they argue?  You bet.  (They are siblings, after all.)  However, I'd like to think that the good times will outweigh the bad and, in the long run, they'll be thankful to have one another as friends.

 Christian and Juliana having some good, clean fun!

 Recently, Kari and Christian have bonded over Wii sports.

Christian is so sweet and is always praising or encouraging Kari!

And, from one of my favorite evenings as of late, I was washing dishes and watched out the window as all four of them were playing and laughing together on the trampoline. 

Life is good.

First Haircut

 Baby J had a baby m...for mullet, that is.  And, one morning, while visiting teaching my friend, Lindsey, I asked her who cuts her son's hair.  (He's about the same age as Juliana.)  She says she cuts it and offered to cut Juliana's!  (She also prefaced it by saying she doesn't cut hair normally.)  She was brave and that's more than I was so I happily agreed!  And, almost two months later and it still looks good!  Juliana sat super still and felt like such a big girl--and I could tell b/c I'm her mom and that's one of my super powers, to know how their children feel at any given moment :-).

Thanks, Lindsey!

Valentine's Day

Yes, I realize I'm over a month late with this post, but I still wanted to record it bc it was a fun Valentine's Day!  Now, Cubby and I usually don't get into Valentine's Day very much (it is a holiday made-up by Hallmark, after all), but, the kids really like it and so it was fun to do something with them--our greatest loves!  (Oh, and this was also the night we told the kids and our family that we were expecting again so it was a good excuse to get everyone together without arousing any suspicion!)

Cubby made a yummy lasagna (that the kids didn't want to eat bc they're finicky like that), and Harvey picked up Jones Bro cupcakes (in pink and blue...but no one caught on...).  We played lots of games and had a good time lovin' it up!
**Editor's note:  as this post is so very late, I'm not going to bother with captioning each picture.  We'll just let them tell the story of the evening!

Team of Rivals

Christian has the sweetest friends!  Seriously, we are so lucky to live so close to such nice boys and good friends for our favorite boy.

This last year's Super Bowl teams were the Seattle Seahawks vs the Denver Broncos.  Obviously, the boys were a bit divided on who they wanted to win.  In the end, Christian ended up rooting for the underdog (the Seahawks) who actually ended up completely blowing out the Broncos.  And, although Andy and Henry each wanted opposite teams to win, everyone was able to remain friends in the end :-).

TMNT Power!

This girl cracks me up!

T-U-R-T-L-E POWER!

Soccer for Kari??

Yup!  Our fancy little dancer gave soccer a whirl in February.  (Since Christian is a part of the club team, Kari is free!)  Well, she was very excited and couldn't wait to start playing.

This session was just 4 weeks long and they had the kids practice for about 15 min, then scrimmaged for about 20 min and then they'd go back and work on a few more little skills.  It kept them busy and as focused as a bunch of three and four-yr olds can be!

Now, for Kari, we knew that she would not be happy wearing "shorts"--they're just not fancy.  So, for her birthday, Grandma Karen bought her a work-out type skirt with leggings attached underneath!  She loved it and felt very much herself running and playing soccer in her own little way!

Run, Kari, Run!

Meanwhile, little Miss Juliana looked on longingly and can't wait until she reaches the magical age of three next Spring!