(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!!

Bentley's One!

Bentley is one year old. I can't believe it's already been a year and yet I find myself wishing that more time had passed. It has been a rough year and even days up until her birthday I wasn't sure she was going to make it to a year! I do feel like we have finally turned a corner with her. Just as I thought that, she cut her first tooth yesterday on her birthday! With her increase in drinking and eating more table foods and mobility, she has definitely been a happier baby. It's funny to see her drag herself all over the house. The kids have realized that nothing is safe on the floor anymore. Bentley really is a cute baby. She is usually pretty easy to get smile and laugh, which is definitely one of her redeeming qualities. She is such a mama's girl, which can be both very endearing and aggravating all at the same time. She sleeps a solid 12 hours at night and takes about 3-4 hours of naps a day. She is great at putting herself to sleep and just snuggles into her blanket. She is super petite and people mistake her for a much younger baby all the time. We do love this child, even with all her feist and fits and attitude. The best is when she is "crawling" around looking for me and I pop out unexpectedly and she gives me the biggest, happiest smile. That makes it all worth it.
At one Bentley likes:
-taking baths. She loves splashing and kicking in the water.
-Table food. Anything that we're eating. In fact, Bentley will usually eat some baby food, but only after she's fed herself something from her tray. She will immediately start screaming if you try to feed her first when sitting down to a meal.
-Mom. Like I said, she's a major mama's girl and knows how to milk it. Read: screams whenever I walk by, put her down, or leave her side.
-Army crawling. She loves being able to get to where she wants to go. We have much longer periods of contentment on the floor now.
-Hanging upside down. She giggles and giggles whenever we swing her upside down.
-her blanket. Makes nap times so easy.
-Her binky. She loves it. And I love it.
-"Talking." She is a major babbler. She will just chat and chat and chat.
-Sticking her tongue out.

At one she does not like:
-Baby food
-Milk (yet)
-Being left alone
-Her car seat
-Getting dressed

For her birthday we had some family over for cake and ice cream. Nothing fancy, but it was fun.
She loved her cake after daintily picking at it for quite some time. She took her pointer and thumb and just kept pinching at the frosting. Then she finally got into it. She probably did more playing than eating, but she was a happy camper there in her high chair for a very long time.The cousins in attendance:
Her favorite place to be:

Update

All my kids are doing great and I just need to record a few things.

Taytum started speech therapy a couple weeks ago and was already growing by leaps and bounds on her own, but is now stringing together so many more words. Just a couple days ago at breakfast she said, "Thanks Mom, for cooking breakfast." She was the first one to say it so she wasn't just mimicing someone. Which reminds me, she has the best manners. She is the first one to tell me thanks for her meal at almost every meal. She is just as funny as ever and makes every day happier just by being in it.

Bentley has started OT and PT, but before that happened, she started army crawling about a week and a half ago and now is getting around pretty well in her belly crawl. She is much happier and content to be on the ground. I love it! As does she. We still have about one day a week where I still think she may not make it to her first birthday (which is in one week, by the way). But all in all, things are going much better with her.

We went to see a physical therapist who specializes in oral therapy and she did some exercises with Bentley and she is now drinking through a straw! Her hyoid, which is a bone in your neck, basically, was really far back, which puts strain on her tongue and kind of feels like it's choking you when you swallow. Since liquids are harder to swallow than solids, Bentley wasn't loving liquids because it felt like it was going to choke her and go down the wrong tube. Our therapist gave us some exercises to do at home and it's bringing her hyoid out and Bentley loves her some water now. Poor girl gets so thirsty at meals and she'll just chug a whole cup of water. It's such a relief. I can't wait to see her weigh in in a couple of weeks!

Looking for a City...

A couple weekends ago we went up to McCall with three of our good friend couples. A friend of our friends owns a couple of cabins just past McCall. We parked at the trail head early Thursday morning and then had to snowmobile in 25 miles to get to the cabin. It was such a gorgeous, sunny, albeit cold weekend. When we got up around 7:30am it was a cool -20. We spent both days snowmobiling and rode about five miles to a hot spring. It felt so good on our cold, sore muscles.

The evenings were spent eating delicious food(Jefferson ate that whole steak... I felt like we were on The Great Outdoors)

and playing some fun games. Not to brag, but Jefferson and I won the newly wed game. We also stayed up way too late both nights watching movies and eating treats.
Saturday we ate breakfast, cleaned up a bit, packed and headed back down the mountain. It was so cold on the ride back that my goggles iced over on the inside. I had to stop a couple of times to scrape them off.We had such a great time! We flew Jefferson's mom in to tend the kids. She just adores her grandkids and she was the perfect baby sitter. Our kids were all alive and happy when we got home and immediately asked when we were going to go away again so that Gramitchy could stay with them. We couldn't have done it without her, so major kudos to Teri. Thanks! I wish we had some pictures from their weekend together. The kids made it to school okay both days. Friday afternoon they met Ashlee and her kids at Just Kidin' Around and then went back to Ashlee's for pizza, donuts, and a sleepover. I think it's safe to assume that they had fun.

Mommy Moments:

A few sweet moments from my kiddos the past few days:

*Andi came home from her unbirthday party at preschool on Monday and brought out a sucker for both Carter and Taytum that she had saved for them.

*Carter saved and brought home some of his chocolate milk from snack time at school to give to Andi.

*Taytum has been having trouble staying in her bed at night and we warned her that if she got out again we were going to move her to the pack and play. We heard her get out of bed just a few minutes later and we went upstairs to follow through with her consequence and Andi said, "Please don't move her, she was just following my example." Andi had gotten up to get a tissue to blow her nose and Taytum followed her to the bathroom. It was really sweet.

*I came back downstairs after breakfast the other morning to find Bentley's baby food and oatmeal spilled all over the floor and wall. I asked Carter what happened and he said he didn't know. I then called up the stairs for Andi and Taytum to come down to solve the problem and Carter just whispered, "I did it." He knew I wasn't happy and it was tender to see him process the situation and choose to be honest. I was really proud of him. It was just an accident and I wasn't mad at him. I hope he stays that way!