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. :)

Derek's 5th Birthday

We had so much fun celebrating Derek's birthday tonight! He was so excited to see his cousins since they were in Washington for almost a month. Grandma got the grandkids Nerf style bows and arrows and we had fun using them to shoot at balloon targets to earn chocolate treats. Later in the evening, Mitchell and Austin had fun sending arrows zinging through the house at each other. Thankfully, the kids didn't get hit but they had a lot of fun retrieving arrows for the uncles. Derek chose a Lightning McQueen decorated rainbow cake for his birthday cake and Grandma came up with a really cool cake. Derek got lots of cool presents from everyone and he was pretty good about sharing (with a little bit of coaxing). A remote control F-14 Tomcat, a Lite Brite (didn't even know those still existed! Awesome!), a Deadly Nadder/Toothless/Monstrous Nightmare combo, How to Train Your Dragon the book, an automatic plastic gun, Avengers figures, and a cool jet airplane shirt! We were so happy to share this time with family and are so blessed to live so close. 

Katelyn quickly picked up on the bow and arrow

All the kids were really excited when Derek unwrapped the Avengers!

Derek loves airplanes, so the jet shirt was really exciting

Clara was so excited when Aunt Amy was swinging her around that she kicked her legs like a frog!

This kid loves dragons. Loves.

Remote control F-14

So excited when he realized it was remote control!

He loves Cars, too!

Happy 5th Birthday Derek!

FAMILY!

Nana, Bryce and Emeri

Waiting to light the candles and sing "Happy Birthday"

Whew!

Everyone eating rainbow cake!

Yum!

"Look, Mom! I'm big enough to wash my hands at the sink! Take me a picture!"

Uncle Austin fires off a round at Mitchell

Derek put his hockey mask on and joined the action with his automatic plastic gun

Mitchell had really good aim and landed several hits :)

Aunt Amy cuddled Andi, Liz and Austin's new Goldendoodle. She's so adorable!

Mitchell upgraded the hockey mask to a paintball mask for all the kids

I was a little afraid for my life (ok, my face) to get this shot!

"Now that we have masks, we can shoot each other in the face!" - Isaac. Well, that escalated quickly.

Ally was so good with Clara! None of Mitchell's family recognized her because she has grown up so much!

Unwrapping a Present

This kid has been five for three days and he still hasn't unwrapped a present because nobody has been home at the same time. So, I grabbed the opportunity tonight to let him unwrap one of our presents while Mitchell was home. He loves the massive Bewilderbeast (called The Alpha) from How to Train Your Dragon 2, and I couldn't find any toys of that dragon that looked cool....but I finally found one! I don't know who was more excited for him to open that present, me or him. As you can see from the picture, he was pretty thrilled when he saw "THE ALPHA!!!" Hehe, point for mom. Bryce thought it was pretty cool, too, and Derek is such a good sharer. He didn't mind letting Bryce play with the Alpha as long as they were playing together. Can't wait for him to see what he's opening on Saturday!

 "Mom, it's the ALPHA!!!"

He tried briefly to figure out the packaging before he impatiently handed it over to an adult, lol.

Derek's First Hockey Game

I rarely have to fight the urge to wake Derek up after he's gone to bed, but I got the coolest phone call late Sunday night from Nana and Aunt Val. They had scored tickets to the Dallas Star's hockey game and wanted to take Derek with them to celebrate his birthday. So cool! Nana told him this morning when she facetimed with us and Derek has been wearing his hockey pads and mask off and on today. He begged to wear his pads and mask to the game, so I packed them in a backpack for him to take with him. When Nana showed up at the door to pick up Derek for the game, he was all smiles and so excited to go. He gave me a hug and a kiss and not a thought more after he climbed in the car. :( My baby is growing up so fast! Nana and Aunt Val and Rob made a sign for Derek to hold while watching the hockey players warm up. It worked and Derek got a puck from Nana's favorite player, Trevor Daley. He skated over, dribbled the puck a little and then popped it over the glass divider for Nana to catch. Derek came home so excited to show me the puck "his number 9 guy" gave him. (He talked about "my guy" for several days after.) I'm so glad he had this wonderful opportunity. Thanks Nana and Aunt Val!

 Derek likes to be dramatic

 He likes to strike poses and say, "Take me a picture, Mom." I think he means, "take a picture of me."

He loves to wear this hockey mask Aunt Val and Rob got him for Christmas

Sitting in Nana's car about to head off on an adventure!

They got to the rink early enough to get front row seats for the warm up

Awesome sign! 

Thank you, Trevor Daley!

What a cool souvenir!

Happy 5th Birthday Derek

Derek is five. DEREK IS FIVE?!?! This last year has been full of milestones for you, sweetpea. You can count to 20, know your letters and their sounds, and you're quickly picking up on writing both upper and lowercase letters. You can write your name and you love to play the what-does-"something"-start-with game. 

Oh my dear, sweet boy. How are you already FIVE?! You have grown so much in the past year. You wear size 7 clothes now and you love everything dinosaurs, dragons, cars and trains. Your favorite movies are How to Train Your Dragon, The Polar Express and occasionally Kung Fu Panda. You like to play your monster truck and dinosaur games on my Ipad. You love to run and be active, especially when your cousins come to play. You are so incredibly kind-hearted. You are quick to share with others (at church, at home, in the store - wherever you see someone who needs help). You recently got so excited about helping a little girl at Kid to Kid figure out how to turn on a Finding Nemo toy. You constantly help Bryce with a toy, or help Clara out of her crib (sometimes that isn't the best thing, but you are so darn CUTE about it.) You are wonderful, Derek. You are such a special boy and I know you are going to grow up to be a GOOD man. I can't wait to see what you do this year, sweetheart. We love you so very much. You are our Derek and we can't imagine this family without you. Keep making good choices this year, sweetheart. You are a GOOD boy.