Our February

We found ourselves the first Saturday in February at the Discovery Museum as a family. We had a great time together. Chase mastered the rock wall (possibly the proudest moment of Ben's life so far), Davis fell in love with himself in the mirror tunnel, and Hudson fixed a car. We love spending time at that place with our little people. 

I put on all my patient mom skills and hosted a whole bunch of kids for a Valentines cookie decorating party! The kids had a great time (two more kids showed up after this picture). It was messy, lots of sprinkles, and lots of happiness! 

Hudson created little tents to sleep in and slept that way for most of the month. I love his creativity.

Nana's school had a STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) night, which we attended and Chase LOVED it. He loves this stuff and had a great time (so did Hudson). We built towers, rafts, bridges, scribble-bots and stick bombs. Chase could have stayed for HOURS!

We had a really great, low-key Valentines Day this year! I love these little love-bugs so much! I had little Valentines out at breakfast for them (a new tiny puzzle and a new flashlight!) and we had crepes for breakfast. 

The boys had Valentines Parties at school, which was cute and fun. The weather was pretty nice that day so we spent the afternoon at the park. I made enchiladas for dinner and then we did the chocolate fountain- a favorite Valentines tradition for our family!

This is just another random park day! We love this cute little park so close to our house. We meet friends there frequently and it's just great all around! This winter has been so mild, so we've enjoyed it more this winter than most years. 

I got to go on a fun girls trip with my mom, sisters, aunts and cousins! We went to Fort Myers, Florida and it was so wonderful! We had beautiful weather, enjoyed our time at the beach and pool so much, and had a great time laughing and chatting. We had a mostly talentless-talent show (Heidi and I did a dance, and the hot babes quartet did a little quartet revival from our childhood). We had an Elvis themed bridal shower for Ella and stayed up way too late chatting. It was an awesome, wonderful trip! 

 Davis spent a big part of the month just emptying containers and generally making messes! It's his job.

 One day my boys were just watching TV like this. I asked them why and they both just laughed at me and continued doing it.

Davis is just so sweet and so busy! He learned to go down the stairs backwards while I was on the girls trip! Ben said it made my trip much easier for him (our house has so many stairs!). 

We finally got enough snow right at the end of February so the boys could sled! They've been wanting to sled all winter and it's just been so dry! Hudson went down like twice, Chase could have kept going forever. The next day we took some little friends with us and Chase had a great time sledding with his little buddies.

We had a fun (and short) weekend in Arizona. We flew out on Friday afternoon, and came home on Sunday. The reason for our trip was so Ben and I could attend Janelle and Trevor's sealing in the Mesa Temple, and then have Ellianna sealed to them. The boys loved seeing their cousins, got to go to the Natural History Museum, and loved staying in the hotel. They were also weirdly psyched about the rental car, and just loved the whole flying aspect of the adventure as well. I didn't get many pictures of our trip besides just the airports, but it was fun!

And not pictured, but noteworthy of our February was SO MANY DOCTORS APPOINTMENTS! Besides the kids annual check-ups, we had a string of sickness through our house! Chase, Ben and I all got strep. Davis got a sinus infection (that led to a fun middle of the night visit to instacare for me and Davis). Hudson, magically, stayed completely healthy all month long! The antibiotics didn't wipe out the strep completely for Chase, so he got a second round. Then Davis was running and fever and got some fun little blisters on his hand and leg, which we thought might be Hand, Foot and Mouth, but probably wasn't- just some random virus. It was a doozy. We mostly pressed on through all the fun stuff even though we kept getting sick! But I'm pretty ready to go a full week without seeing a pediatrician!

Davis- 11 months

 He's 11 months old! Davis is still just the sweetest, cutest little thing I've ever seen! Everywhere we go I get comments about his darling red hair, blue eyes and his single dimple. His sweet face is a perfect match for his sweet, lovable spirit. We just love this kid so much!

He used to really prefer me, but has started to show equal enthusiasm about Ben. His face lights up when Ben gets home from work! He bobs his head forward and kicks his little feet until Ben picks him up. 

He's really into toys, we now have a baby toy bin in the family room. He loves the walking toy he got for Christmas and pushes it all around. He's started pulling himself up on furniture and cruising around. Just before the 11 month mark he finally started crawling on hands and knees instead of his baby seal scoot. He climbs the stairs like a champ (although hasn't learned to go back down yet).

 This past month he started getting picky about food! For awhile there he was feeding himself all kinds of fruits, vegetables and meat. Now he mostly likes waffles and white rolls! We can still sneak other stuff in sometimes, but it's a lot more work than it used to be. Also, at 10.5 months he weaned himself! All of a sudden, one Saturday he refused to nurse! He was down to three feedings a day at that point, and he was taking a full bottle of formula before bed already. So we just went to straight bottle feeding which I honestly think he prefers. It was a little sooner than I wanted, but I basically had no say in the matter.

He likes to watch ESPN with Ben. Seriously, if he's having a hard time going down to bed, they come downstairs and turn on ESPN and he calms right down. After a little while he turns in to Ben, which is his sign that he's ready for bed. Then once Ben lays him down he goes to sleep right away. One night my parents were even babysitting and Davis was having a rough time, so my dad watched a little ESPN with him and it worked like a charm! 

 He loves toys, but also really loves remotes, phones and the tupperware/bowl cupboard in the kitchen. On this particular day he took off his socks and was entertained by repeatedly throwing them on the ground for like 15 minutes.

 Oh Davis, I can't even imagine life without you! Babyhood is pure magic and we are all constantly intoxicated by the love we have for this baby!

Hudson Turns FIVE!

 On January 24th, our sweet Hudson turned five years old! We can't believe he's that old already, it went way too fast! We loved celebrating our sweet kid. The Sunday before his birthday we did the family party at Nana and Papa's- he got presents from them and his aunt and uncle and we had cake (funfetti cupcakes, per his request). It was a fun night! He got little lego-juniors from Nana and Papa and then spent the next few days playing with them constantly, and telling anyone and everyone he met about them!

On his birthday we did presents in the morning and then he went out to breakfast with Ben. They both loved it! Now that we have three kids, these one on one dates feel even more special and important. They went to Granny Annie's (Hudson's fav) and he got chocolate chip pancakes with whipped cream.

 We went to Get Air trampoline park and the boys had a great time. Hudson loved these foam pits you could jump into, and Chase did a lot of flips. We came home and had waffles for dinner and put the kids to bed. Hudson had a huge smile on his face all day long!

A little about FIVE year old Hudson:

• He's started reading! The last few months he's really figured out how to sound out words and is doing so well with beginning reading! 
• Loves riding his two wheeled bike. He tries super hard to keep up with Chase, even with those little wheels and his little legs just pumping so fast! He always has a grin on his face while he's riding.
• His favorite foods are blueberries, grillies (quesedillas), cookies, waffles and pizza.
• He loves preschool. They are learning the sign language ABCs which he's so excited to show me every time I pick him up.
• He makes the cutest facial expressions while he talks- it's so charming and endearing.
• Hudson has such a big vocabulary for a five year old. I kind of forget because I'm used to him talking, but other adults always tell me how wow-ed they are from words he uses. 
  

All the January Stuff

When we weren't celebrating our little boys' birthdays this month (which does tend to occupy a LOT of January for us) we did do a few other fun things! We gave Chase the first Harry Potter book for his birthday (the illustrated version, it's beautiful!) and Chase and I had so much fun reading it together! I seriously looked forward to this milestone for years and it was so fun to share that book with him. He loved it and would bring it to me to read any spare minute we had. It only took us 10 days to finish! Once we were done we watched the movie together (in about four different sittings, we never found a big enough chunk of time to watch the whole thing).  Now he's working on earning the 2nd book!

Davis is officially in the "getting into everything" stage. He loves to empty cupboards and bins and just generally make a mess. On this particular night he'd been really fussy, but going through our bathroom cupboards was making him happy, so I just sat back and took [poorly lit] pictures and laughed at him.

 Ray and Diane got the boys a zoo pass for Christmas, so we used it for the first time! Hudson is such a zoo lover (and I think Davis will be too!) so I'm really excited to get to go a bunch this year. Our friends the Josephs and Rohbocks also have passes, so all of us met up there on a random Tuesday morning (that the kids had off school) and had a lovely time exploring the zoo together! I always feel pressure with these type of outings- try to get good pictures? Or just enjoy being with the kids? It seems hard to do both. So I mostly enjoyed the outing and company and as a result ended up with only a few sub-par pictures. It was a fun morning though!

 This January was so weirdly warm! One 55 degree day I packed up my kids, grabbed a couple of the Bacciocco kids so they'd have playmates, and headed to the park! It was seriously glorious. I have no pictures of Chase and Luca, because they were running like crazy the whole time (they brought a frisbee). Nora (with the two babies) and Hudson have gotten to be cute little friends and had so much fun together, and I mostly pushed Davis on the swings. Another dad at the park asked me a little skeptically "How many kids do you have?!" I assured him only three, I brought a few extras, although ironically only one of the redheads was actually mine. (The Bacciocco kids have bright red hair just like Davis)

 Davis is a glasses grabber. Also, his tongue is out like this all the time. I have about 13 pictures of this cute interaction with my dad, but this is what they always do together. Davis grabs his glasses and my dad "tries" to stop him.

 We switched to 9:00 church and it's glorious! Also, I just love getting my kids all dressed up for church! I think they look so cute in their nice clothes, and I especially loved Davis in this little number Heidi got him. And now we all get Sunday naps after church!

 This picture is just general Davis cuteness, every month goes by so fast and I can't believe how quickly we are approaching his first birthday! We spent a lot of this month just playing at home. It's made me realize a few things, one of which is how thankful I am for our home. I really love being here. While I generally like to get out and about and do stuff, it's nice to feel comfortable and happy to stay home as well. Also I've seen my kids bond more and more, which is the happiest to watch. My older boys disappear down to the basement to play for hours at a time (thanks mostly to new Christmas and birthday toys!). I used to dread January and felt like it dragged on and on forever, this year it flew by!