Good Times-February

Our little Harrison is a drooly boy. Cute though, huh?
We did a Valentine's Day craft at Michael's this month. The girls enjoyed cutting and glueing cards together for the family.
Ta-Dah! Pop-up Valentine's Day cards!
Our first five kid pillow fight. It was fun for about five minutes...then there were tears.
Harrison bear-ly fit into his 3-6 month clothes. I finally moved him up a few days after this picture.
With all the storms passing through, we've had some dramatic skies to look at.
So happy!
Madelyn is such a great big sister. Harrison was super fussy one afternoon when I had too much on my plate. She stepped right up and patiently talked to, rocked and patted him to sleep.
Madelyn likes to surf Yahoo!Kids these days. She found a recipe for chocolate-covered strawberries to make for Valentine's Day. They were surprisingly simple and super good!
We did a mini-makeover of Catherine & Chloe's room last weekend. We bunked their beds and got them a six drawer dresser. They love the new layout because it gives them more floor space to leave their stuff sprawled over.
One worn-out Wii-er
Our almost three-year-olds. I think this is the most alike they've ever looked.
Fun with Daddy. It's a good thing Mark has a long torso. He needs it to pile all the kids on.
Harrison tries on the goggles from our Lowe's Learn & Grow experience.

More than meets the eye

We headed out to Lowe's this morning to build Lowebots! Mark had Transformers as a child and still has them stored in mint condition in their original boxes. Our kids have handled them once or twice but are still a little too young to appreciate completely their antiquity and value. So we thought building our own Transformers, Lowe's style, would be pretty cool. Indeed, it was!

Seth had fun making towers out of the pieces until Daddy could help him.
Sam always likes to be involved. He was quite the carpenter's assistant.
I got to help Chloe and Catherine.
Madelyn did most of the work by herself. We were all proud of our success in building Lowebots!

Flashback Friday: Rites of passage

As we drug out the exersaucer this week for Harrison, I was reminded of just how much fun this one toy has provided every one of our children. I can remember Madelyn staring at the butterfly during her early days in it and Chloe jumping herself silly in it. For Seth and Sam, the exersaucer gave me some much needed downtime during our summer in Texas.

Here's Seth at about Harrison's age enjoying the exersaucer:
I just couldn't resist tacking this photo on too. Here are our five under five!

If you can read this, thank a teacher

Or your mom (if she's your teacher)!

Chloe has discovered the power of the pen. She is reading fluently enough to take charge of her pen/pencil and write.

Ahh, the power! Ahh, the freedom for mommy who no longer needs to spell every word for her!

P.S. In case you don't read 'beginning writer', the sign says "Nobody allowed our room; no cat allowed our room".

Four months of joy

Our smallest member is four months old already. Sniff, smile! He had his well-visit last week and he is doing great. He weighed in at more than 17 lbs. and measured 26.5 inches long. Human growth and development really is amazing, isn't it?

Harrison is probably our most vocal baby. He realizes already that the only way to get attention around here is to demand it which he does by either squealing loudly, laughing heartily or crying like he's being pinched. He rolls from his tummy to his back and is ever so close to doing the reverse. He is more aware of his toys and grabs at everything from noses to plates to rattles. Daddy calls him 'pincher'.

It is such a joy to watch our children grow day by day. I love how the older ones interact with their baby brother. They do their best to make him happy and he, in turn, rewards them with smiles and giggles that warm all of our hearts. It doesn't get better than that!

Land of the Free

We got our taxes done this weekend. Yeah!

We learned that at Mark's current salary, with our current number of children and other deductions, we don't owe any taxes. That Child Tax Credit zeroed us out. Thanks George W.!

Did I just write that? I must have a fever.

As a Democrat, I feel kind of bad that we don't owe the government anything to live in this great nation. But as a homemaker lusting after a new kitchen, I'll gladly bank our refund.

Flashback Friday: Valentine's Day 2004

Madelyn was 20 months in this picture. It marks the end of my sewing career. When we only had Madelyn I sewed mother/daughter Thanksgiving and Christmas outfits. Then I thought it would be fun to make Madelyn a simple outfit for each holiday. I made it as far as Valentine's Day and then stopped because I learned we were expecting twins. My free time was then devoted to sleeping.

Day 3: Valentine's Day on the Catwalk

We headed north into the Gila National Forest on Sunday to walk the Catwalk. After a picnic lunch we were ready to hit the trail.
Our motley-colored crew. Seth turns into quite the clown with his crazy hat on.
The first half-mile of the trail traverses a canyon. The walkway is suspended over the river below.

Everyone was eager to see what was around the next corner.
Just as water formed the canyon, it continues to shape the rocks.
We made it to the suspension bridge. The end of the trail is near!

We made it! 1.1 miles in; now to hike out!
Harrison got to face out for the trip back as it had warmed up some.
Chloe and Sam formed a support team for the walk out. Both were very tired.
2.2 miles...a family record! We were so proud of the kids as it was not only the farthest we've ever walked but also had the roughest terrain and most elevation change.
Back at camp, the girls settled down to color. They told us that they like the trailer better than the house.
Harrison was all smiles, as usual.

Day 2: There's no place like home

On Saturday, we stayed at camp which happened to be filled with big boulders to climb and hike around. We got a little shutter happy, so bear with me.

Mark helped us all up and down the boulders.
Our band of rock climbers
My new favorite family photo
The kids were done with squinting into the sun for pictures after this one.
We dubbed this Sam's room. I love this picture of the first five!
My husband loves to climb rocks! He was the envy of all as he scaled the largest boulders in the park with ease.He took the girls on one such scaling mission. It doesn't look bad from here.
But check out the heights they were climbing to. I did my best not to give in to my motherly urges to faint and/or throw up seeing my young girls climbing to such heights.
This one is called Elephant Rock. Can you see why?
Five kids in a bowl.
Harrison enjoyed our hike. Our littlest member is pretty happy so long as he has something to chew on and something/someone to look at. I used his bib as an impromptu hat.
We ended the day with a campfire and s'mores. Fortunately, they were much better received this time.