Amelia's Little Fingers

This weekend we got a random and fun visit from my parents. They were on their way home from Boise and decided when they were equidistant from our house and their house that they would rather come to our house. And really, can you blame them?

Look at this cute girl!

Of course I forgot to take pictures of Grandma and Grandpa when they were here. We were just having too much fun! They came on Sunday night, stayed Monday and then left on Tuesday morning. It was a quick trip, but we had a good time visiting with them and the kids loved to see them.

These pictures were actually taken by my dad. I asked him to take a picture of Amelia's little hand for me.

You see, whenever I feed Amelia she always plays with the cuff on her opposite sleeve. So with each little hand she is fingering her other sleeve, which I think is so cute.

It is amazing to me how different each child is from the get-go. Amelia does things that neither of her brothers ever really did. It is obvious that our kids had their own unique spirits and personalities before they ever came to earth to be part of our family. I sure am glad that we have the three little spirits that we do. They are the biggest blessing in our life!

Amelia at 10 Months

Amelia has been ten months old for a little while, but I have had a hard time getting her picture due to the cold she has had and the teeth she is cutting.

Today I finally decided she was probably feeling well enough for me to give it a shot. What a difference a month makes! I could NOT get her to sit down on the couch! For some reason she thought that sitting on the black fabric on the couch was scary and it made her cry. I only managed one picture of her up on the couch, and you can see that she doesn't really look happy.

Then she kept trying to crawl off the edge and I gave up on the couch. I tried to sit her down on the floor, but she would not hold still on the floor either. She insisted on standing up, so I had to figure out how to make it work. I finally got some shots that I really like!

If I cut the pictures off just right, you almost can't tell that she is hanging onto our little car garage/ramp for support.

Love this next shot where she is only holding on with one hand.

It was a lot of work, but I love these pictures and think they were well worth it. I tried to get shots of her with her 10-months-old sign, but she was having none of it. These pictures totally crack me up.

Ah well! At least I will always remember that at 10 months old miss Amelia was getting three teeth and did not want to hold still for anything!

Rainbow Fish Preschool

For our second day of preschool this week we had the letter F. So we talked about the rainbow fish and read tons of books about him.

It was mostly just Ephraim and Clara, and I love how well they play together. They also enjoyed the rainbow fish crackers that I had for them.

I think the craft turned out pretty well. I used my new Cameo to cut out the fish scales, so it was a lot easier on me than cutting out a bunch of stuff by hand. I can already tell I am going to love that machine!

Here is Ephraim's rainbow fish. Pretty nice, huh?

Snow day and Wilbur the Snowman

Last night an amazing thing happened... it actually started to snow! The boys were so excited, especially after all the rain that we have had this week.

When we woke up, everything was wonderfully wintery white.

The boys desperately wanted to play in the snow, but I knew that by the time Jacob got out of Kindergarten at noonthe snow at our house would already be starting to melt. So after lunch we took a little drive and went up the canyon to a park just past the mouth of the canyon.

There was a lot more snow there than there was at home, and the boys were excited to get out and play!

There was only one little problem. I got the boys dressed in their boots and snowpants before we left the house, and told them to grab their coats as we headed out the door. As you can see from the picture above, somebody did not listen to mommy and forgot their coat!

It would not have been a problem, except it is a bit colder up the canyon and Ephraim was wearing short sleeves. Since Amelia was sleeping in her carseat, I figured Ephraim could borrow her little snowsuit to keep his arms warm.

After I put the little snowsuit on him he was warmer, but I almost could not stop laughing! He looked like he had a little bear hanging out on his back or something! It was hilarious, but Ephraim didn't mind at all because his favorite colors right now are pink and purple.

Canyon View park was great. We had the place to ourselves and there was plenty of snow. The boys had fun throwing the snow off the bridge into the water, and I enjoyed the scenery.

I don't know what was so fascinating about seeing the snow hit the water below, but the boys kept at it for quite a while.

(hehe! Don't tell me you aren't laughing!)

Of course we could not let our snow day pass without building a snowman.

I helped the boys roll the snowballs, and they packed them down. And of course every time Eli turned around and I saw the little feet dangling out the back, I had to stifle more giggles! Hehe.

We had a great time building our snowman in the park! The boys were happy to know that he would last longer because it was warmer, and at night when no one was looking he could go play on the playground equipment!

We named him Wilbur (as in will-brrrr!) and waved goodbye to him as we drove away.

When we got home our grass was already almost bare, so it was a good thing we drove up the canyon to play in the snow! I hope it snows again so we can play in the snow, even if we have to take a little trip to play in it!

Elmer the Elephant at Preschool

This week it was my turn to teach Ephraim's preschool. Since the letter for the day was E, I decided that we would do something related to elephants. I was thinking about preschool while at Tucson for Christmas and Grandma Devereaux suggested that we read about Elmer the Elephant.

So I checked out the books and thought they were wonderful! Elmer is a patchwork elephant and he is awesome. Jacob and Ephraim loved reading these books and I wonder how did I not know about these books before? There were quite a few Elmer books, including some newer ones.

I made the elephants using egg cartons. I found the idea on this website and they weren't hard to make at all. I thought they turned out pretty well.

First I read the first few Elmer books, then we put long socks over our arms and pretended they were trunks. I had the kids reach into a sack and pick something. Then they were supposed to try to tell me what it was without looking. The kids thought it was tons of fun and wanted to do it again later!

I wish I had pictures of the kids with their elephant trunks, but sometimes when you are in charge of 5 three-year-olds it can be pretty busy. I did manage one picture of them doing their E coloring page.

After they colored their paper elephants, I let them color their egg carton elephants. They did a great job making their own colorful elephants. (Ephraim's is the one on the left).

It was a really fun preschool day for me. I was really happy with how the crafts and activities worked out. I really do enjoy teaching preschool a lot more when I am prepared!

Monkey Amelia and the Dishwasher

Somebody decided she wanted to help me do the dishes!

I was at the sink, and I look over to see Amelia kneeling on the dishwasher! It kind of freaks me out that she climbed up there by herself!

Look at me!

It is amazing how quickly things can change! Just a month ago Amelia learned how to crawl. Now there is just no stopping her! Look what I caught my baby girl doing today!

Do you think she is pleased with herself, or what? I guess we are going to have to clear off the tables and move things up a little higher!

Rip VAN Winkle

Ephraim is at that age where he refuses to take a nap, even though sometimes he could really use one. I can tell when he is really tired because whenever I take him for a ride in the van in the afternoon and he is the least bit tired, he falls right asleep!

I am talking dead asleep! You can open and shut the van doors and he doesn't even wake up! Sheesh!

The good news is that Ephraim is all better from his cold. The bad news is that Amelia picked it up from him. She has a yucky cough, but it is not croupy sounding so I know they wouldn't be able to do anything for her at the doctor's office. Top that off with the 3 teeth that she is currently cutting, and she is one miserable girl. Needless to say she has not been sleeping well, and I have rocked her to sleep many-a-night, many times a night. Poor girl! I hope she feels better soon.

The boys cannot believe that we STILL do not have any snow. It did not snow yesterday or today... it rained. Can I just say that January in Utah is turning out to be a bit strange! There is no snow on the ground and I can't remember it ever being this warm. I actually don't mind the lack of snow, but I hope for my boys' sake that it snows soon!

Sick at home

Ephraim's fever persisted today and he got quite the cough to go with it. He spent a large part of the day asleep on the couch, poor guy!

He definitely had a fever, and you can see how much he sweat on the couch pillow. (Eww! Definitely had to wash that one!)

He did not really want to eat a lot, but we made sure he drank plenty of liquids. Whenever he doesn't feel good, Ephraim thinks he needs to have some 7-up... even if it isn't his stomach that doesn't feel good! What a cute boy.

We kept him on Ibuprofen to keep the fever down, which was pretty much all I could do. But it is hard not to feel bad when your boy looks at you with this pitiful face!

Can't you just see the "I feel yucky, why can't you make me feel better?" look in his eyes? It almost breaks my heart.

Hopefully he will get better quickly!

In other news, it has been so warm here that our sun catchers only lasted a day!

Oh well! At least they were not hard to make.

Winter crafts

This morning when Ephraim came home from preschool he was not feeling very well. Apparently he was coming down with something because later that afternoon he fell asleep and I found him like this:

At first I could not believe he was really asleep, so I had to get closer and check up on him.

Sure enough! He was out cold. Poor kid was exhausted and didn't feel like eating a lot. So I let him rest most of the afternoon.

While Ephraim was sleeping, Jacob played with his castle blocks. I love the castle he built and the "guards" he put around to keep watch over it.

I think the boys are actually quite creative, and the castle blocks are going to be a lot of fun for them.

Jacob and I also put up the sun catchers that we made out of ice. I loved the colors and shapes, which we made by putting food coloring in our fun ice cube trays.

We made one with stars and one with puzzle pieces and we thought they were pretty to look at.

We have not had any snow lately, but it has been cold outside. So Jacob, Ephraim and I made some gel window clings to put on our front window. That way it could at least look like it was snowing outside!

We had a lot of fun with our winter crafts this week. I love that I can find so many fun things for us to do online (thank you Pinterest!).

Santa Baby (Christmas revisited)

It took me a week, but I finally got my Christmas decorations down! Hooray! In my defense, I definitely did not have time to work on it during the week, as we were just getting back into our regular daily routine.

There were some pictures of Amelia that I planned to take in front of the Christmas tree, but did not get it done before we left. So as I took down the tree I took some really cute pictures of my baby girl in her Santa hat. Then as I looked through her 9 month pictures, I realized that I had already taken some of her in a Santa hat. So now you get both sets of pictures, in an Amelia Christmas extravaganza!

I could not really get Amelia to look at me when I took these pictures in December. I think it was because it was at the end of our photo shoot, and she was done! She did enjoy playing with this ornament though.

Now here are the pictures that I took of Amelia before I took the tree down. Aren't these awesome?

I didn't even mind when she started playing with the ornaments, because that was even more adorable! I love this girl!

You would not believe how many adorable pictures I got. It was hard for me to cut it down for this post!

Sometimes I wish I had taken cute pictures of the boys like this when they were little... but what can I say? I have gotten better with photography as the time has gone by and my equipment has definitely improved. But I like to think I take nice pictures of the boys now too.

Besides, it wouldn't be as cute with a 5 year old boy in a box in front of the tree, would it?

Too bad I didn't get these pictures taken sooner and send them off as a Christmas card! Oh well. I guess I will have to come up with something fun with all of the kids for next year.