Going to the Carwash!

Carwash time! On our maiden voyage with the Malibu as my primary car, Bryce christened it with projectile vomit. Thanks, Bryce. The only logical thing to do was take it to a car wash to get the seats shampooed (for the first time since we bought it five years ago!). It's like a brand new car! We picked Derek up from school and headed straight to the car wash down the street. I took a video of all three kids in the backseat during the car wash, but it's too big to put here. Clara and Bryce were scared, but Derek was thrilled. Crazy kid. :) I"m pretty sure he's going to be begging to do that for the next three months. Lol.

 Derek and Bryce watch the men shampooing the carpets on our nice, shiny car.

Cheese face!

Zoob Bow and Arrow

 Derek created this bow and arrow out of Zoobs and Bryce made... well, something.

Two boys and their toys

Playing Dress Up

I love my boys, but Clara is so much fun to dress up! We can find cute dresses and experiment with cute hairstyles. This morning, Tammy came out of her room and insisted I document today's experiment because it is so cute. I can only take credit for the hairstyle, white shirt and half the genetic makeup, though. The purple dress came from Nana and the aunts and the other half of the genetics came from Mitchell, of course. :)

 I love the artsy feel of this one! Plus, her little wispies are so cute!!

 I twisted her hair up and secured it with a bow clip. It began to fall out after 20 minutes, but it was so sweet!

We love our sweet little princess!

Babies

 Derek and Bryce are cuddling their leopard babies while Clara cuddles her Fennec Fox. :) Movies are better when you cuddle your babies in forts.

Les Miserables

Tammy heard about the production of Les Mis that the McKinney High School was putting on. That's one of her favorite movies and Liz's too. She invited, Liz, Jenna and I to make a Girls' Night of it and we had a blast! I understand that the story as a whole is supposed to be an uplifting one of the redemptive power of Christ, but I still struggle with the portrayal of such hopeless, senseless evil experienced by one poor girl who has no knowledge of where or from whom hope comes. Not to mention the disgusting lack of tact and comedic glorification of evil, plain and simple. However, it was nice to be able to spend time with my sisters and my mother-in-law and the high school students had very evidently been assembled from a highly talented group of students. Jenna and I had fun looking through the cast biographies and sniffing out the Mormon students who talked about BYU or missions. :) We stopped at Sonic for some sweet treats and protein. Tammy bought the family size onion ring box and we all chowed down on onion rings and milk shakes. Food of queens. :) So glad I was able to spend the night with loved ones and get out of the house.

Jenna, Tammy, Liz and me

Sleepy Heads

We sure love to sleep, well, by we I mean Mitchell, Clara and I. Derek and Bryce are pretty consistently awake at 6 every morning. Bryce saw Mitchell taking a nap on the couch and decided that he would sleep better with some babies. Bryce very lovingly tossed them onto Mitchell's face before more gently arranging them as you see in the picture. Mitchell is definitely a trooper. Clara is pretty insistent on her morning nap. This morning, she climbed upstairs and was playing rather vocally by her self. At one point, I didn't hear her sweet little voice anymore, so I headed up to check on her and found her as you see. I guess she likes to sleep on the edge... literally!

 Everyone sleeps better with stuffed animals

No worries, I didn't leave her like this. She only woke briefly when I laid her down in her crib before she rolled over and put her bum up in the air, haha!

Sunny Sunday

With church cancelled today because of ice, the boys required entertaining this morning. I found a slab of particle board to serve as a ramp for the cars and the boys have been playing with it for the last hour. That's impressive for two kids with very small attention spans. :) Clara is being Clara, of course, which stands for cute. She likes to play with the long stuffed snake by tucking it across her legs and on either side. I love watching my kids play. They remind me to see the fun in life.

Thrilled to take it for a test drive

 They love running the big monster trucks over the little cars at the bottom of the ramp, haha!

Our sweet little princess!

See? Nothing cuter than a girl playing with her snake.

Derek Makes Lunch

 Derek is finding more and more ways to express his independence. Today, I finally caught him making his own sandwiches. He's been doing it occasionally on the mornings that I don't get dressed quickly enough. :) He asked to make lunch for himself and Bryce to eat outside and, like I always like to do, I grabbed my camera. These two are just adorable. :)

 So proud of himself!

 Straight for the apple butter

He can be very meticulous

Always remember what good friends you are! The very best - you're brothers!

Playing with Zoobs

Some toys are just too cool for dads to resist. My mom found these cool lego/kinext hybrids for Derek's birthday and he loves to build chains of them which he calls walls. Not sure what the walls are used to keep in, but he likes to build them. Mitchell showed Derek how to build a T. Rex and Derek was thrilled. He called me over to see Dad building the "AWESOME T. Rex!" :) Love that kid and his dinosaurs. We were watching Fantasia's animated dinosaur sequence last week and I called to Derek when the big T. Rex started fighting the stegosaurus, "Derek, look at the T. Rex!" He took one look and said, "That's not a T. Rex, Mom. T. Rex has two fingers and that dinosaur has three." Proudest Mom Moment yet. Bam.

Quality time spent with Dad and Son. :)

Movie Fort Time

We love movies. We love forts. Seriously, a match made in heaven. The boys love making forts in different places, so when they discovered they could take the chair out of the butler pantry desk and crawl into the space underneath, we had to build a fort there. Derek insisted on bringing all the "babies" and all the dragons to watch How to Train Your Dragon 2 in the fort. I suggested the pillows and Derek said, "Oh! Great idea, Mom!" He's such a sweet boy. Bryce was thrilled to be included and was not interested in saying "Cheese" for the camera. Clara and I had some fun with the camera. She tried to take some selfies and I finally got a shot of her little tooth! It's really coming in well and we're hoping she'll get more teeth soon. 

 Derek will still humor me, but Bryce was wholly intent on the movie; no time for mom. :)

Forts ROCK!

Look at this sweet little lipless face! She is such a gorgeous little kid.

Check out that little tooth bud! She's getting so big. :)