Dutch Village. Community Day.

Dutch Village had their Community Day on Saturday.  If you bring non-perishable items in, they give you a free pass for each family member.  I had Eric with me and all the kids.  We brought our bag of goodies and got our free passes.  If you came that day you also got in for free.  Tiff and the kids joined us...AND about half the people from our church.  We ran into so many people we didn't anticipate seeing.  So fun.

The kids "driving" the carriage.

 Same story.  Different carriage.  No Charlie ;)

Look at what the stork brought!  Brothers (and sisters!) from other mothers.

Cutie girls on the carousel.  Adelyn was all about NOT riding on a horse.  Which is a first.  But whatever.  She is her father's daughter.  B and Daddy where riding on the other side.  So no pics of the little man.

 

Sophia and Joelle dressed up and strapped on their wooden shoes for us.  Then they started dancing.  Love it.  Adelyn was off moping in a corner because they "didn't have a purple dress."  Eric and B were off playing a different game.

 

All in all, we had a great time.  We left and Joelle was screaming her fool head off.  But that really isn't anything new.  Terrible 2's and 2 year molars.  Bad, bad combination.  Fun fact of the day::Adelyn just finished her 2 year molars.  Joelle just started.  Hardy har har.

JBZ

We headed to John Ball Zoo today.  The weather was BEAUTIFUL.  I'm so over the cold crap.  Thankfully it will be warm for a week..  Most of the animals were out.  That was pretty exciting.

Cuties checking out the pelicans.  I'm pretty sure we could have just stayed here and they would have been satisfied.

Checking out the other ducks.

Grandfather ape.  We only were in the ape house for a little bit before they let them all out.  So no poop stories this time.  Thankfully.  Brecken and Joelle STILL talk about it.

Ape house.  No disgusting pictures, this time.

"Riding" the "horses"  I was pretty positive, out of all the pictures I had, nobody was smiling.  It was true for Adelyn.  At least Sophia is ;)

Twinkie cuties.  I promise Joelle smiles for pictures.  Apparently, not lately.

Mrs. Tiff showed them how the sun shines through the leaves when you hold them up.  They were all trying to figure it out..

Pretty sure I'll just take them to the courthouse and marry them now.  Joelle has lots of little boyfriends ;)

What a beautiful day.  We had such a great time.  That's all I have to say about that.

Sophia and Charlie come for a visit

We had Sophia and Charlie come stay with us for a couple days.  Tiff was having foot surgery done and is *supposed* to be completely off her foot for a week and wear a boot for 6 weeks.  Kinda hard when you are a Momma of young kids..  I offered to take the kids for a couple days so she could have a (painful) vacation.

Lunchtime!

1 out of 5 napped.  Meltdown from little B ensued..

Adelyn loving on Charlie

 Pooper check!  B saw me checking everyone's buns and thought he would help...

Goooooood morning!  Matching braids for the girls and matching mohawks for the dudes.

While the babies napped, Adelyn and Sophia drew pictures for Mrs Tiff.

The days get long when you are with 5 kids by yourself...  Soo you venture out for frozen yogurt!  They all appreciated the little outing too:)

Little C trying some froyo.  He looooooved it.  Who doesn't?!

We went to Tip Toes to pick out a toy and I had the girls make a crazy face in the tree house;)

Movie night, with popcorn!  I'm pretty sure Adelyn missed the memo Charlie wasn't a dog..

Can't be returning the babies all stinky...so we had a bath!  These three got along swimmingly.  Get it?!  Ha.

For breakfast we had cinnamon roll pancakes.  So we had to have a slightly healthier lunch;)  Can not believe how much Charlie gobbled down raw red peppers!  I can never get my kids to eat raw veggies until they are older..  Adelyn LOVES them, now.  But B and J think I'm crazy when I try to put them on their plate.

Everyone got along well, everyone slept great and Tiff got a little rest before normal chaos resumed again.  We love having our friends come visit!

Park Day

We had a (what looked to be) nice day.  It was cold but we can do cold.  We put on our winter jackets and headed to the park.  It was actually quite windy so we didn't last long.  But got a couple cute pictures I couldn't resist sharing.

Jojo climbing through the tunnel

This little lady wants so badly to do the monkey bars.  She just doesn't have the upper arm strength to swing across yet.  She can hang there..and maybe move one over...but that's it:)

 This is our favorite little park about 8 minutes down the road.  No one ever goes there and they have a bunch of trails we enjoy!

Buh Bye Paci’s

The reason I took the paci's away was because I was sick of them falling out, or being thrown out, of their cribs.  They, typically, didn't throw them.  But they don't have bumper pads.  Ever since Brecken realized he could use his as a ladder.  Joelle had lost hers 15 minutes into her nap and proceeded to scream for the next hour.  Mind you, they each had 4 (or more) in their beds.  I posted on FB asking if it was mean to take away my children's paci's while they were sick (they had colds).  The overwhelming response that I was NOT a mean mom was amazing.  So that very same day I snipped the ends off and threw them back in their beds.  And let them find them that night.  Eeeeeee.  I knew Brecken wouldn't have a problem with it.  He's been a lazy paci sucker since the beginning.  Joelle?  Muahahaha.  < That was her evil laugh.  Not mine.  She loves her some paci and I was afraid that girl would have it in for me.  Not even joking.  She was soooooo sad when she went to grab her paci that night.  "Boken Momma, it's boken!!"  She wanted absolutely nothing to do with it.  I kept telling her she might want to hold it and then throw them away in the morning.  She finally conceded.  B was already busy putting his finger in the hole and trying to rip it apart.  Because that's all the love he felt for that.  She screamed for about 30 minutes that night.

The next morning they were soooo excited to throw them away.  Pardon their scary sleep faces.  Yes, we do realize Joelle is a giant.  Because Brecken is not (that) short.  

Good riddance.  So long, farewell.  Don't judge me labeling our trash can.  We now have a trash can, a paper can and a compost can under the sink.  Eric gets irritated when I change things.  So I went ahead and labeled, so he couldn't forget.  And, I assure you, the children will need those words on there, as well.

Little B!  Doesn't even care that he threw those things away.  He much preferred the boob.

As I'm typing this, a month and a half later, I can honestly tell you this was, once again, our easiest transition.  Adelyn was upset for about 2 nights and so was Joelle.  She cried for 5 minutes at her first nap, without it, and for about 15 minutes the 2nd night.  By the third she didn't even care.  We even had a paci-loving baby come for a stay a couple days after I took them away.  She didn't put his in her mouth once.  Amazing.

My Birthday

My birthday morning started out with going to some friends from church.  Mary tries to have us over around once a month.  The purpose is to get together and have some Godly fellowship with women AND to pray for our husbands.  It usually amounts to us chasing our children around and sneaking in a quick prayer at the end.

These sweet ladies baked me a birthday cake and sang to me.

My little man and I.  I was informed I look like I'm 12 in this picture.  Clearly I should dress nicely and do my hair more often.

 Everyone has to help blow out the candles;)

 After naptime we headed to the park with Tiff, Sophia and Charlie.  Tiff picked us up cupcakes from Holland Cakery.  My FAVORITE cupcake place:)

Charlie got a cake pop.  That's plenty for a 1 year            Joelle trying to decided if she wants to eat
                                  old;)                                                                     something sweet...                 

B scarfed his.  You don't have to tell him twice..

I topped the night off with coffee made in my new coffee maker, my favorite (melted together) gummies and coldstone.  YUM.  I think I ate plenty of calories that day..

So blessed to have such great friends and family to spend my birthday with.  27 will be great.  Even though I'm going to perpetually be 24. ;)

Crazy Bounce. AKA Germ Warehouse.

We went to Crazy bounce with some friends.  It was "Toddler Time"...errr..."Mass Chaos Time."  Note to self::next time don't go during Spring Break. 

First time down the big slide.  A little unsure..

                 That's better ;)                                                                     Going down with Jojo






















 
Surprisingly, this little lady LOVED it.                                                   Down with Mr. B

 

Some ball pit fun with Charlie

What a cheeser.  He's so stinking cute:)  (Also) surprisingly he had the most trouble with the slides.  He couldn't figure out how to use the ladder.  The most clumsy, uncoordinated one (Joelle) could.  But not Brecken..odd.

Pretty girl.

I am writing this blog post 2.5 weeks later and we are STILL sick.  Granted it took 3/4 days for incubation before we got it.  Adelyn started first, then Joelle, finally Brecken.  Joelle and Brecken are mostly done but Adelyn still has a wicked cough.  Her sicknesses always settle in her chest.  We have been trying the Albuterol for a week now and nothing.  It kicked it in a couple days last time..this time, no such luck.

I had told Adelyn, earlier in the day, that she had Awana tonight.  Not thinking everyone was on Spring Break.  So no Awana.  AND she had colored a picture just to give to Sophia.  When I told her that we didn't have it, it was a catastrophe.  You would have thought I told her someone died.. :(  I was already mid text with Tiff so I asked her if they would join us downtown for frozen yogurt.   We enjoyed our Fro Yo and headed out for a little walk.  They saved the day.