More Elijah

Seth was supposed to be playing with Elijah.

He tossed him an iPad.

It quickly became obvious that Elijah follows in his brothers' device-loving ways. 

Filling the dump truck with mulch.

Guess who still loves me SO SO MUCH THE MOST OF ALL EVER!

"Why are you not holding me ALWAYS?!"

Jon was trying to install his car seat and Elijah decided to jump headfirst out of the van and onto the garage floor. I have never seen such a giant goose egg in all my life. 

Thankfully after some crying and snuggles (and medication), he was totally fine!

I don't even know, but he was pleased to get a bath out of it.

It was 60 degrees and raining.

He still screamed to go out, and then grinned at me when I left him there. 

Seth was supposed to be watching Elijah and instead tossed him in Timmy's general direction and ran off. Timmy needed to work/shower, which is really hard to do with a baby (ask me how I know). Solution? Surround baby with block robots! He'll stay in place for at least 20 minutes while trying desperately to figure out how to escape his captors. I still can't believe this actually worked for as long as it did...

We went on our post-lunch walk too late.

No naptime shower for me!

Catherine made me chocolate chip cookies with no chocolate chips for my birthday.

Elijah was very, very pleased. 

More Aaron Art

A cup of Yay, anyone?

I have no idea who/what Taech is, but that stick figure guy is totally owning that table/bar thing.

Giant slug with a toupee seems strangely elated to have arrows driven into his head.

A Little Elise

It looks warm enough to be wearing a swimsuit in this picture, but it wasn't.

But when there's a random pile of sand in the road, swimsuits are required!

Another day, another swimsuit.

I have each of my kids make a handprint when they're three, then I paint them and put them in the nursery. In the past I painted them myself, but Elise BEGGED to paint her own. I had a hard time letting go of my nice, matching handprints, but once she finished I fell in love with the crazy, sparkly, Elise paint job. I wish I had let the others paint theirs. 

This is the world's worst game based off the world's worst show.

Which means it's Elise's new favorite.

Mastered the training wheels!

Now we have to constantly watching because she'll just leave and ride her bike...

May (and random October)

My Mother's Day Legos from Catherine

Jon had all four kids sing to me for Mother's Day Church-at-home.

I think it might have been my favorite Mother's Day singing ever. 

Elise has been wearing her swimsuit for months now, but it was finally ACTUALLY warm enough for swimsuits in mid May. 

All five kids totally fit in this tiny pool.

Elijah was in HEAVEN.

He soaks himself basically every day now. Several times.

Kind of hard to see, but there's a Catherine up that tree!

It's now her new favorite place.

Elise can't reach the big tree, but she can climb Mr. Chris's poor leaning tree!

Jon is worried that our kids climbing it will be what finally takes it down.

One time we started paper mache masks. We were going to finish them the next day, so I put the water/flour mixture in a pan and covered it. When we actually got around to finishing a week later, there was some really impressive, stinky mold growing in the pan. Bonus: this has set Aaron off into a new obsession with mold and fungi. 

All the masked children.

Can you guess which kid hated every minute of the process and refused to even paint it at the end?

Finally got a picture of all 4 blown and decorated eggs!

The map I drew for our D&D adventure one week. We're still trying to figure out the best way to keep the kids focused since all they want to do is kill stuff and loot stuff...

All Jon wanted for his birthday was to have the playground and front of the house finished painting. I had the kids take the week off of school so I could spend my mornings getting this done. The house painting wasn't too bad, but the stuff for the playground was like painting with brownie batter. Thankfully the plan is to never paint it again!

Another random October find:

a picture from our stupid hot pumpkin patch field trip!

Elijah at One (Round 2)

When you are grumpy and uncooperative for your one-year-old photoshoot, Mom makes you do it again a week later. And so, here is Elijah at One...Again (this time with more smiles and less whining):

Now I have to pick which one I want on my piano!

Too many good choices

Catherine Things

Thanks to COVID-19, puzzles are now a thing again. A friend passed us a set of four huge cat puzzles and Catherine enlisted Jon's help in getting it all put together. 

Trying to find the last pieces of random cat fur.

We may have stayed up until 10:30 pm, but we finished it!

I think we all hate cats now. 

Aunt Lori passed along a recipe for dandelion honey and Catherine decided to give it a try! We spent an afternoon hunting down dandelions, stripping away the green parts, and boiling them down. She gave up on the boiling part before it got to honey consistency, so we had dandelion syrup instead. 

Just found this gem from the Father/Daughter activity way back in October! 

If there's one thing Catherine loves more than bugs or art, it's Daddy time!