Mr. Happy

Here are a few cute pictures of Brigham from the past week. It's hard to believe that he's 5 months old now!

Getting changed after his nap

First time eating carrots!

Squeaky clean and oh, so cute!

Mr. Fix-It

Here's our little handyman! :) (Again, not thrilled about getting his picture taken...)

Sweet Cheeks

Today out of the blue Isabella came up to me, turned around, stuck her bottom out and pointed to it saying, "Tootsie Roll!"
"What??"
"Tootsie Roll!"
"Isabella, what are you talking about?" My mind raced, trying to think what the heck... (Insert imagination...)
"I have a Tootsie Roll too, like Pilates!"
Aha! "You mean tushie!"

Turns out, my Pilates video instructor calls the buttocks a "tushie" once. Bella was so excited that she had a Tootsie Roll too! :) Thank goodness that's all she meant...

Baby, It's Cold Outside!

Before the weather got too cold (it was still hovering around 20 degrees, though...), we were all able to get outside for a good bit to play in the massive snow piles. Daddy started things out and played for a while before he got snow in the ankles of his steel-toed work boots. :) (I told him that I would be stopping by Target's snow boot clearance isle soon...) I wanted to play too, so snapped some quick pictures and then made snow castles with the sand toys, snow angels, and snow recliners with the kids. It was fun, but the hot cocoa with marshmallows was yummy and so nice to sip on when the sun finally started to get low in the sky and the cold started setting in!

Mark had to shovel the deck stairs to get down to the yard.

Bella fell face first!

Bella's attempt to pull Lincoln in the knee-deep snow. She was just "spinning her tires"!

Snow princess...

I always love to see how high the snow piles up on the objects outside!

A Ray of Sunshine on a Cold Day

Daddy surprised Bella the other day by bringing her a bunch of beautiful Gerbera Daisies after grocery shopping! She put a single bloom on her nightstand, and then we got to enjoy the rest of them downstairs. Mark made both of his ladies very happy that day... Flowers for Bella and groceries for me! :)

Yum, Yum

Brigham started cereal last week and did so well with it! He loves it and seems like a pro after only the first time. We'll be starting vegetables soon, so I'm sure there will be some colorful, messy-faced pictures to come! :) (Here is a picture from after his first "meal"...)

Streeetch...

Yesterday when Brigham woke up from his nap I took the camera with me so I could catch his very predictable sequence of waking. It just makes my day to see him so excited and happy to see me!

First such big smiles!

Followed by streeetching and rubbing eyes when he gets un-swaddled.

This is a new look, though. The confused "deer-in-the-headlights" look wondering why Mommy has a bright camera flash in his face!

Dora & Diego in the Flesh

This is the blond-haired, blue-eyed version of Dora (Bella) & Diego (Lincoln) while they were watching the premier viewing of "Dora Saves Three Kings Day" yesterday. While they do make very authentic kings, something tells me that none of the three kings really walked around with barbecue sauce all over their faces. :)

Stress-Inducing Exercise

So I could fit some Pilates exercise in today, I thought I'd be able to do it while the older two kids were awake. I've done it with Isabella before, but never Bella and Lincoln both. Usually exercise calms one, as does my 25-minute Pilates DVD does for me. Not today, though. I've never had such a negative effect from doing exercise as I did today! This is how it went...

"Breath in through the nose, and out through the nose."
(Insert Bella & Lincoln chasing each other around the couch and jumping over me each lap like they were in a steeplechase race.)

"Stretch one, stretch two, stretch three."
(Insert Lincoln sitting on my stomach with a naked bottom while flat on my back.)

"Cross down and up."
(Insert Bella and Lincoln yelling at each other over the calming voice of the instructor. Okay, well this was the whole time actually...)

"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten."
(Insert Bella kicking me each of the ten counts while doing giant scissor kicks next to me on the floor. She thinks this one is fun, so joined in.)

Ahhh... Never again. I will exercise alone from now on. Oh, and two more things that were revealed to me while exercising on the floor today. I really need to vacuum, and the mysterious missing sippy cups all rolled under the couch to live. All FIVE of them!

Brotherly Bonding

Now it's Lincoln's turn to show you how well he cuddles with Brigham! Of course his snuggles are a little more fleeting and always carefully monitored! As you can see, Lincoln always has something better to do than smile for the camera... ("Blue's Clues" in this case!)

Egg Business is "Rolling" Again!

After a couple of months off, our hens have begun laying again in addition to our ten new "little ladies". (It was weird buying store-bought eggs for a while, and Mark was completely disgruntled...) I went to collect eggs a bit ago and came back with 11 in one trip! Mark will be taking three dozen to work tonight to sell after taking the first highly-anticipated premier dozen last night. With getting a bit over a dozen a day, we'll be harvesting around 100 eggs a week. These girls mean business! Maybe our egg money will help us to become recession-proof! ;)

A Four-Year-Old's Lesson on Gender Stereotyping

This morning my trance-like state from peacefully and quietly doing dishes in the kitchen was shattered by Isabella's shrieking voice yelling at Lincoln from the other room. Upon inspection of the incident, I found Lincoln trying to penetrate the blanketed walls of her "club". It wasn't just any club, though. It was a "girls only" club. Isabella, anticipating that Lincoln would want to be a part of the club too, had already planned ahead and created a boys' club just for Lincoln with the pop-up tent. She yelled that her club was only for girls, and that he needed to go to the boys' club. She had also carefully filled each club with the "appropriate" toys for each gender. This is what I found inside of each club created by Bella...

Girls' Club
~ Pink/Purple Leapster that she was playing
~ Barbie Doodle-Pro
~ Princess Barbies & princess horse
~ Pink race car
~ Pink headband
~ Sleeping Beauty princess throne

Boys' Club
~ Tonka dump tuck
~ Incredible Hulk punching hands
~ 2 dinosaurs
~ Jack hammer
~ Saw

Now remember, I had no part of creating these clubs... Isabella can take full credit. It's amazing to me that a 4-year-old can already gender stereotype so "correctly"!

Lovebugs

Here are a couple of new pictures of Bella and Brigham that were so cute. :) Bella is completely smitten with him, and he loves to smile and talk to her too. She is also able to help entertain him more now that he's getting bigger.

Happy 2009!

Wishing you all a very healthy, happy, and prosperous New Year! Hope you were able to have a little fun last night! As for me, I was in bed by 10:30 with a belly full of tenderloin with mushrooms & onions, scallops, and asparagus that Mark made! :) Oh, and maybe I should make it part of my resolutions to post more... Anyways...
Blessings in 2009!