Now Trenton makes me laugh too

Trenton didn't have school today. I'm explaining to him that I'm going to let them watch a movie from the library that is more for little kids like Dallas and Brooklyn and that he probably already knows everything it's about.

Me: "It's about the five senses, you know what those are right?"
Trenton: "Yah, like 5 centses makes a dollar."
Me: giggle giggle
Trenton: "Wait I forgot."

And he's supposed to be our smart kid. Love it!

Winter Catch Up

We celebrated Martin Luther King Jr.'s Birthday by making a really ugly diversity cake . . .

Dave got creative and entertained the kids with a piece of cardboard that came inside the Xbox packaging he got from his parents: Meet Daddy Robot. He also combined internet surfing with finding a new way to put Lexi to sleep.

It looks like Brooklyn has makeup on in this first shot but neither Dave nor I have any recollection of even taking this picture. Auntie?? Grandma? Someone want to fess up to starting our little girl way too young on makeup? After all Margaret, you did shave my legs for me when I was in third grade . .I think I still have the scars to prove it. The second picture: unlike Dallas, Brooklyn actually shows some sort of remorse when making an unecessary mess and being told that it's not okay to do so.

Given our kids track record we're going old school and using more VHS movies as they don't scratch nearly as easily as DVDs. They also make really cool train tracks and bases for building towers out of dice.

Our visit to the Festival of the Nativities. Notice how Dallas is about to drop Baby Jesus on his head. No, we do not let him hold Lexi.

Lastly, why we love Lexi. I finally get around to picking her up off our bed as she's been sort of whining for a few minutes lying face down. I turn her over to find that she is just rolling around in her own spit up but still smiling. How nasty? How sweet? You decide.

Snowed In

An earlier blog stated the beginning of our adventures with snow back before Christmas and now I'd like to wrap the story up. The snow was fun for the first few days, but when it kept coming and then staying it led to some mad cabin fever for the kids and me. The kids ended up not having school for the entire week before their scheduled Christmas break . .unfortunately Dave still did-so the kids and I went crazy all couped up with no place to go. Documented by picture it went something like this .All of the beautiful snow outside of our home . . . . .
Self portraits of the progression of my feelings day by day: No picture of the first day as we actually just played in the snow as seen in a previous post.

Day 2. Okay -----------Day 3. Sad ----------Day 4.Disgusted

Dave: Shocked after spending a few very long days indoors with the kids

We did end up putting chains on the car and once Dave was on his break from school we made it out to Burger King so the kids could have a little more space to play. The boys also enjoyed our neighbors igloo and snow cave.

Prettige Kerstdaggen

We had to visit Sinter Klaas at the Dutch Store while we were here for our last Christmas in Portland. We got all 4 kids there and Brooklyn had the classic screaming photo followed by all smiles in the car once she had her bag of goodies and wasn't sitting on some strange man's lap

Neglect of the Fourth Child

Lexi is now 3 months old and we've only posted a few pictures of her on here -hence the title of this post. She has outgrown her acne and thanks to the day I went razor happy is still almost completely bald. She weighed 12 lbs and ? oz .(neglect again I know as I can't remember her exact weight) from her 2 month check up. Here is the gist from her visit to the doctor earlier this month:

Length- shorter than average

Weight- about the 75th percentile- remaining the smallest of our babies

Head- still larger than average (85th percentile or so)

She takes a pacifier better than any of our other kids, usually sleeps for at least a 7 hour stretch at night, will coo and smile for us, has gorgeous eyelashes and we all love her. The scrath between her eyes is compliments of Brooklyn, although Brooklyn is usually pretty good with her-grabbing burp rags when she spits up, shoving any binki she finds into her mouth
(even if she is asleep), making sure she always has her blanky, etc. The boys are still begging me to let her sleep in their room and I'm still not letting her as I don't trust them.

Pop Quiz

1. Why has it been more than a month since I've updated our blog?

a) Our computer hasn't been working very well
b) I have four kids with the oldest just turning 5 1/2
c) Dave likes to take pictures in RAW format on the SLR so I don't know how to upload them
d) I've had nothing to post about
e) pretty much all of the above

Correct answer: e (but with a major emphasis on B) My life is full with the following:
12-15 diaper changes per day
15 loads of laundry washed and folded each week
dishwasher loaded to the brim and emptied at least once a day
2-3 nightly awakenings (usually just 1 attributed to Lexi)
breakfast for 5
packing one sack lunch
nursing
making lunch for 3 others
dinner for 5
snacks all day long
vacuuming, sweeping, mopping, wiping scrubbing, picking up, paying bills, chaufeurring
refereeing fights between siblings
wiping snotty noses
trying to exercise whenever I can
holding crying girls
and on and on and on . . I have a lot to be grateful for. One thing I can certainly be grateful for is a full life . .sure a lot of it is monotonous tasks, but the cute and mischievous faces that require those tasks are worth it.

2. Why don't we own very many nice things?


a) we don't have a lot of money (Student loans only go so far)
b) we aren't materialistic people
c) our kids destroy everything
d) we don't have enough room to put any extra things
e) all but b are true

Correct answer: E (this time the empasis goes on c: our kids destroy everything

There are the things like slashed screens, broken dishes, etching drawings into the car with rocks, spilling of dyes and glue on the carpet, but Dallas topped the list yesterday with this:

This is what it looks like when you watch Clifford on a broken LCD tv. Dallas climbed up into the armoir and knocked the tv over. Its my new recipe for how to blow $600 in 2 seconds of "fun". Dave's comments to the boys regarding the event: You're never watching tv again. Never. No xbox and no tv. You can learn how to read books and play with toys. (In part due to the hundred times he alone has asked them not to climb up there)

Dallas's comments: I a weally bad boy. I wished evewyfing in the whole wide wold would be made of metal. I ask "why?" response: so it couldn't get bwoken.

So that's the headline for today and I'll work on some more from the last month later.