Buried.

Last night Andi tells me and Jefferson, "Abby is buried from her trampoline because she walked outside the net." Me, "You mean grounded from her trampoline?" Andi, "Yeah, grounded!" She knew it had something to do with the ground! Haha!

You do the math.

Stuff,

We had the Corrigan/Birk family over for dinner on Sunday. The kids had a blast playing together. The dress ups were a hit. As always.
Andi and her cousin Jordyn.
Taytum was super emotional all afternoon and super sad her cousin Kaleeya wasn't there (she was home sick). Finally she just conked out in Grandma Karla's arms.
Taytum disappeared the other day and was being super quiet. I finally went to investigate and this is where we found her: reading her scriptures in her room. How sweet.
I looked at this picture of Taytum and wondered where my 2 1/2 year old went... She is getting way too grown up on me.
I hope everyone knows how much I have always loved this little Bentley . I have been somewhat open about what a challenge she has been her whole first year of life, but I have always loved her to death. Well, the last 2-3 weeks she has been such a doll and I am completely smitten with her. She is happy and smiley and giggly and just makes me laugh.

(great picture from my phone, I know)

We had a fun FHE on Monday. Jefferson came home from work just a few minutes early, which would have been treat enough, but then we decided to take the kids to see "The Lorax." It was not my favorite movie, but cute enough and the kids enjoyed it. We were the only ones in the theater which helped when Bentley got chatty. We packed some treats for the kids and munched on popcorn and "special drinks." We have so much fun together!

Hair.

Andi asked me to do her hair curly yesterday. While we were curling she said, "Aunt Ashlee's hair is always curly." And we got into a discussion about types of hair. We talked about how her hair is straight, but that some of her cousins have curly hair. Then she said, "And I know, Jordyn's (this is her little black cousin that's her age) hair is a poof." It made me laugh. She's absolutely right.

Just a quick update on the babes:

Bentley:
*Bentley weighed in at 15 lbs. 2 oz last week. What the heck?! I thought for sure she was gaining. Though she did start crawling, which is normal for kids to kind of plateau when that happens, but she can't afford to plateau. Our doctor isn't really concerned because she is developmentally on track and social and interactive. But we would like to see some more weight on this petite little lady! (Her head is in the 50% so at least her brains are growing)
*She is getting really fast at her army crawl and has her arms and legs coordinated. She'll do a few real crawls here and there, and will also crawl on her knees and forearms. She is so much happier now that she can move.
*Her second tooth on bottom popped through today.
*Her personality is really coming out. She's kind of funny and she knows it.

Taytum:
*Doing great with potty training. #2 is not so great, but she has gone a few times on the potty, so I'm hopeful.
*Her speaking is improving so much every day!
*Her favorite descriptive word right now is "freaky." She is constantly pretending her hands are "freaky spiders" crawling on you. Today at the pet store she saw "freaky lizards." The cat's eyes in the movie were "freaky." It's hilarious.
*Her facial expressions have us laughing multiple times every day.

Andi:
*is Andi. All things girly all the time. She is permanently attached to her make-up bag.
*She is learning to read at school and doing a pretty good job. I know most of it is just memorization, but it's a start and fun to watch her try.
*She is really good at helping take care of everybody in the family.
*She adores Bentley and loves talking to her, playing with her, feeding her, getting things for me for her, bringing her toys. She's such a little mom.

Carter:
*Is a smarty pants. It's fun to read with him and watch him do his homework.
*He is the most helpful child anybody could ever ask for. He is always the first one to jump in to clean up and always does the most.
*He is so honest, and it makes me proud. Just today I found our bathroom hand towel sopping wet in the sink. I went out and demanded to know who did it and Carter timidly said he did. He was just trying to get it a little wet to wash off some marker on his arm. I was proud that even though he knew I was mad, he was honest right off.
*He gave a talk on Sunday and we were only called the night before as a last minute fill in. He did such a great job! He stood up there and recited/read it all by himself.

On an unrelated note, it was in the 60's today and so divine! We spent all day outside. We went to the park, had a picnic, came home and jumped on the trampoline, rode bikes, played with sidewalk chalk and bubbles.... the sunshine made my heart happy!

108

Happy 108th Birthday Dr. Seuss!!
March 2nd is Dr Seuss' birthday, and since we love us some Dr Seuss we decided to make an afternoon of celebrating.

We pulled out our collection of Seuss and did some fun activities to correlate with them.
For One Fish, Two Fish we did fish pattern papers and Goldfish in the bowl. Carter's had math problems that he had to solve to find out how many fish to glue in.
For the Cat in the Hat we made Cat in the Hat hats! The kids seriously love these! It's really ridiculous.
Ten Apples Up On Top: We drew ourselves and stamped our 10 apples on our head. Carter chose strawberries because those are his favorite. :) I also love Carter's picture (the yellow one) because he drew Andi chasing him with a mop, just like the bear in the book.
The Foot Book: We made a picture of the sweet little feet I meet every day!

Green Eggs and Ham: Green eggs and ham, of course! (and an english muffin). I was going to do pink lemonade for the pink ink drink, but my kids wanted chocolate milk. They thought I was pretty magical when I made green eggs. These weren't my best, but my best were eaten first.
We also made and decorated cupcakes. They were red (pink) with white stripes to match our Cat in the Hat hats.

Dad contributed by renting a Cat in the Hat DVD and all the kids crashed and watched it to end our evening.
I had about three other projects with three other books that we didn't get to. I guess I'll just save them for next year. It was a really Seusstastic birthday party and an added bonus that we snuck in so much reading! Thank you Dr Seuss for your mad rhymes that makes my kids love reading time!

Today is your birthday! Today you are you!

If we didn't have birthdays, you wouldn't be you.

If you'd never been born, well then what would you do?"

It's Potty Time!

This is what we've been doing the last few days...And Taytum is doing awesome!! The few times Tay has had an accident in her underwear she's stopped herself and finished on the potty! Every time she goes everybody gets a treat: a starburst, M&M, or swedish fish. It's been motivation enough. So thrilled with her progress!!