Aquarium Party

 

The party was a huge success! I loved having it at the aquarium and not my house—as much as I adore 8 year old boys (and Beans' one girl friend) and all their loud & hyper energy, it would have driven me crazy to have them here :) Everything fell into place so well for the day: my mom and dad both made things so easy for me—my dad helped me carpool all the kids to the aquarium while me mom stayed at the house with baby Luke (yay!) Then my sister was able to come with all her cute kids, and Nanny brought 3 more cousins and stayed with us too. I loved having all the adult help!

The party hostess at the aquarium was great too—totally laid back about our crazy crew and also really helpful when we needed her. We started out opening presents, checked out the sharks and stingrays, ate pizza, had the hostess take us on an animal scavenger hunt all through the aquarium, and we ended up back in the Sunken Ship (party room) singing Happy Birthday and eating cake. My little guy was so pleased with the whole event and felt so spoiled to have his friends and family celebrate with him.

Coming up on the calendar: Caroline's pajama party, the kids' actual birthdays, and Bentley's baptism in early June. Love my May birthday babies and how fun and full this month gets to be in their honor.

He Rolls!

 

The baby boy has been thinking about rolling for a few days now and today, he mastered it. Before, he could roll to his side all on his own but we had been helping him make it over his little arm/shoulder "speed bump" to make it to his belly. During my YW presidency meeting today I had Luke on his back playing by me on the floor and suddenly we looked over to see him perfectly propped on his tummy and staring those bright eyes up at me. Love that he got so much praise not only from his sisters and me, but all the women who were here—he had a bona fide cheering section!

Later in the day I tried to catch a live rolling session and finally nabbed one—this was just after lunch today when he still had to work pretty hard to get to his belly. By bedtime tonight he was rolling over with hardly any struggle at all—so fun to see his tiny body figuring out new things.

A Play And...

 

Busy week around here. Biggest of all, for my Bentley, was his play at school: Grammarosaurus. He performed it Wednesday, Thursday and Friday for most of the grades at school, and for all of the 2nd grade parents. We were invited to see him at 8:30 am on Friday morning and it was such a cute play! It reminded me a lot of School House Rock because the tunes of the little songs they sang were so catchy and taught all about correctly matching up plural nouns and plural verbs or how to use pronouns in sentences. Cares has been singing the songs all weekend (she did see the play twice—lucky girl!)

I love this picture—can you tell getting to the school by 8:30 was a little crazy for us? Livs and Cares look thrilled about it and we didn't have time to change Luke out of his nightgown.

On Thursday morning I got to see Caroline's finished recital piece at ballet and parents were invited to film the dance too. I love that those little ballerinas have learned their whole dance and the concert is still about 6 weeks out! They will be pros by June :)

On Wednesday night with the Young Women we had a professional organizer come teach us some great tips and give clever, affordable ideas for organizing and keeping our things clean and orderly. Of course I loved all that she shared and took home plenty of ideas and inspiration. One of the things I am implementing from the night is to take a space, sit down in it (or in front of it) and plan the reorganization and the timeline. Good advice for me as I am someone who just dives in when I have a free hour or so (and closets and laundry rooms never take just an hour to redo...)

Sister Chapel's display on Wednesday night—see my cute YW Daisy posing in the mirror?

And so, I had a busy Thursday and Friday working on my room and closet and it was quite satisfying.

Today, Livs attended her first birthday party for a friend—so cute! It was just across the street and my sweet neighbor told Cares she could come as Olivia's "helper" and join in on the fun. The girls were so excited and had a great time (thanks Kristin!) It was actually really great to have them occupied while we did our Saturday cleaning today—they may not be the best at staying on task and helping rather than getting new things out.

We spent the late afternoon running errands in Orem—the Toys R Us there had a ride along trailer bike that Joseph has had his eye on so we made the trek down south. I'll have to get some pics of the kids riding behind Joseph's bike with him—they only had about 20 mins to use it tonight before bed.

Tulips

 

We dropped by the Tulip Festival yesterday. Although the sun wasn't out for much of the morning, it was still a pretty warm day and the flowers were as bright and striking as ever. Our crew of "littler" kids had a great time together running all around and enjoying the open gardens. Bentley has been performing in a play at school for the past few days or else I would have pulled him out to join us. I ended up getting Caroine to Kindergarten about an hour late but we planned to take our time and knew we'd be late so we could enjoy cousin and grandma time.

I love the perfect order of the world and the rebirth of all that is living and vibrant every, single spring. After winter's colorless cold it feels amazing to see so many blooms and green grasses and leafy trees. I went for a run the other night and stopped at least 3 different times to reach my face up into blossoming trees and smell the soft scent pouring out of them. It actually made me feel a little giddy, and grateful for so much beauty all around me.

4 Months

4 month stats:

Weight: 17 lbs 10 oz

Height: 26.5 in

 

The baby boy is growing too fast! I held my friend's 5 day old newborn yesterday and it made me miss my Luke as a brand newbie. Babies are so delicious, and Luke at 4 months is at such a fun stage because we get so many smiles and laughs out of him each day—it truly makes me so happy and content as a mommy to see Luke's huge grins.

Luke is just such a good baby. He rarely fusses and if he does it's because he's getting tired or over stimulated. He goes to sleep so easily needing just one lullaby snuggled up in my arms, with his special blankie by his face, to make his eyes droopy and his body calm. Each day we seem to be getting into more of a regular schedule which I am excited about—I nurse him about every 3 hours and then he takes about 4 naps each day in between feedings. He is a rock-star night sleeper going at least 10 hours every night but sometimes 11 or 12. While we were in SG he suddenly thought he needed to wake up every 4 or 5 hours and that was not cool. When we got home I decided he could just cry if he needed to be awake before it had been 8 hours and so he did the first 2 nights home and then we were magically on the 10 hours+ plan. That makes me such a happy mom. Of course I never go to bed very early and soak up a solid 8 hours for myself but even 6 or 7 hours of consecutive sleep feels amazing.

Luke loves: batting and grabbing his toys on his little play mat, sitting in the Bumbo and feeling so big and more at the kids' level (but the Bumbo almost always makes him spit-up from the pressure on his tummy), smiling for all of us and all the folks who sit behind us at church, snoozing in the carseat—he cannot stay awake in it for longer than 5 minutes, and the ceiling fan still ranks pretty high. He has found a new true love though—his hands. As long as he can find a fist to suck and gnaw on he is a happy, drooling boy.

These pictures really seem to show how dark Luke's eyes are. They are definitely a dark blue right now but they seem to be changing, little by little, to more of a gray. I had those same eyes as a baby and so did Caroline, and we ended up most certainly non-blue-eyed, so we shall wait and see.
 

I love my darling boy (whom Livs aptly calls "chubby chubby bear")

Red Rock

 Another little hike while down in St George in the Mini Narrows:

 We headed out in the late afternoon and it was so hot on those rocks by then. My sweet kiddos had the reddest cheeks and did not last long exploring around.

 

When we found the narrows we realized only the kiddos would fit and Livs was for sure too scared to venture in without her daddy. So, my brave Cares and Beans just squeezed through them without us! I watched them the whole time from the entrance until Joseph had hiked around to meet them at the end. I might have fit in there with them but I had a sleeping Luke in the Bjorn and we didn't have anything else to hold him in. Then again my nursing "accessories" most likely would have been too big anyway—oh the joys :)

 Cares in the narrowest part of the slot

 the view from above

I adore this kid so much. He cracks me up in this picture!

My sweet kiddo went for a bike ride with Joseph today, just the pair of them, and ended up taking 2 really good falls. Once a big rock threw off his balance and sent him flying (luckily onto the grass) and later, he was cruising down a steep, paved trail trying to keep up with Joseph and he just got going too fast and fell into brush and weeds. He came home with tons of scrapes, a bloody nose and a swollen, bruised left knee but was holding it together so well. Until he saw me—oh man he broke my heart for sure. I was so proud of him for being so tough the whole way home though. I still think of him as my tiny guy but he really is so grown up. Still needs his mommy though which I am very happy about :)

Nursery Rhyme Girl

Caroline's Kindergarten class has just finished a unit on nursery rhymes. This week she brought home a folder filled with tons of rhymes, and pictures she had drawn to go with each one. That folder has been read all the way through at least 3 different times in the past few days as Cares has read it to me, Olivia and Joseph. She is so proud of her work. And her reading skills. But she truly has all those little rhymes memorized in her head too (and probably will forever!)

To culminate their learning the Kindergarteners hosted a Nursery Rhyme Festival at the school yesterday. They invited their families as well as the whole school to wander through their rooms and see and hear them recite nursery rhymes. Caroline chose to share "Starlight Starbright" and got very excited about being as sparkly and star-like as possible for her costume. I put sparkles all over her face and hair and she wore a perfectly suited gold outfit from Grandma Bobbi to go along with her gold and shiny plan. Our Cares looked vibrant and darling and did an excellent job reciting her lines.

The whole family was able to see her present her rhyme, even Bentley who came through with his class, found his little sis and gave her a big hug. She was so thrilled to see him and he was thrilled to see her—cute. It really is so fun to be in school together with siblings.

We love our school and it's been fun to have Cares doing some of the same things Bentley did when he was in Kindergarten (his nursery rhyme was "Roses Are Red") Next Friday Bentley's class is presenting a play all about grammar and he is quite excited for his own turn to act out lines and wear a costume.