Catching Up

It seems like lately I do a blog post, then time passes, and passes, and passes.  I think to myself a lot "oh, I better blog about that I don't want to forget it."  Then I realize, Wow!  It's already been 3 weeks, I haven't blogged about any of that stuff and we have more big stuff coming up!  So I decide it is time to blog about all these little things I don't want to forget, but one long blog post is not the ideal situation.  But what can we do?  So here is what we have been doing this past three or so weeks.

JAMES

James is pretty awesome.  What can I say.  We love having him in our family.  James made up a song for our family it goes like this; "James is a Cutie!  Michael is a cutie!  Billy is a little!  Dad is in Charge! Mom is a speedy!"  I don't really know why I am a speedy.  Doesn't even make sense but what can you do.

For his birthday he used the money he got from his Great Granny and Grandpa to buy a swimming pool.  He was so, so, so excited about it all day.  I told him we could go to the store when Dad got home from work, and there was no way I was getting out of that deal!  So he has been swimming almost every day.  And he is sure imaginative.  One time he pulled the lid to his sandbox into the pool and made a boat.

James in his boat

He likes to have Doug spin him around in it.  He loves to have Doug get in the pool with him almost all the time.

James has also been much more talkative lately.  Sometimes he just talks and talks and talks.  It is a lot of fun.  The other day at church was fast and testimony meeting.  Doug noticed a few of the kids from their primary class on the stand waiting to share their testimonies.  So he pointed it out to James.  Probably 5 or 10 minutes later James announced to Doug "My turn" and left to go take his turn.  We really weren't sure what to expect.  He went and waited behind the person at the pulpit (instead of waiting behind the 20 people in the chairs) then he got up to have his turn.  He said very clearly in to the microphone, "Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for today.  (Mumble mumble mumble mumble mumble) In the name of Jesus Christ Amen!"  Then he turned to leave.  But he noticed the Bishop holding his hand out (I am not sure if it was for a high-5 or just a hand shake) so James gave him a very enthusiastic High-5.  I think the entire congregation heard it.  Then he marched happily back to us.  As soon as he got back in the pew he stated (again very loudly)  "I said a prayer!"

Later after church we were waiting for Dad to find some parents to drop kids off with and James said "Come on M. O. M."

Today James and I were putting together gifts for teacher appreciation week.  I wrote out "Thank You. James" on a card for him to copy.  He did an amazing job.  Then I asked him to draw a picture of himself on the back.  This is what he came up with:

A picture of James.  He started out basically, head, feet, arms
hands, fingers.  Then I told him to draw a face.  So he drew eyes
and decided it needed eyelashes and eyebrows.  Then he studied
it for a while and I suggested a nose.  He thought about it for a
minute and then drew "a circle and another circle" I realized he was
drawing nostrils.  I laughed a little.  Then he put a dot in one
and said "a booger"  the the other nostril got a booger too! 

MICHAEL

Michael gets bigger every day.  He even has a song he sings "Everyday I'm getting bigger...everyday I'm running faster... Everyday I'm climbing higher....Everyday I'm jumping farther."  And it is true he is growing up.  And he has become the informer of everyone else's activities.  At the store I often hear him say in a tired worn out voice, as if he just can't bear asking one more time "Come on James."  And I think "man I must be a broken record."  Potty training is very unsuccessful.  He now thinks it counts as "pooping in the toilet" if he takes his poop from his underwear and puts it in the toilet. 

He loves playing with Billy.  Mostly because he is the boss when they "play"  but Billy doesn't mind, he loves the attention.  His favorite game to play with Billy is to do "flips" off the couch while Billy watches and laughs hysterically.  

Mikey trying to keep Billy out of his room

 Michael's favorite movie is Sandlot.  It cracks me up when he pretends to be characters from the movie.  This is Michael being Squints.  He is saying "Listen to me Smalls. This is a matter of life and death.  Where did your old man get that ball?"

One day Michael decided that this would make a fun bed.  So I had to go get him his penguin pillow and blanket. 

Michael in the planter box

Look at my cute face!

One day we went to Walmart to get the boys hats for the summer.  Not a great selection, but there really aren't that many options here.  So Michael choose this Angry Birds hat.  And of course he choose the green pig one for James!

BILLY

Billy is still the happiest, calmest baby every.  He just loves life.  His favorite person has to be his Dad. And his favorite place in the world would be on his Dad's shoulders.  We went for a walk one night a few months ago.  The plan was to have James or Michael walk and put Billy in the bike trailer.  But neither of the bigger boys would get out, so Dad threw Billy up on his shoulders.  He LOVED it!  It was so great.  So a day or two later Doug was home for lunch.  He was laying on the floor while we were talking and Billy wiggled himself over and positioned himself on Doug's shoulders.  Umm, can you take a hint Dad!

Billy is also into EVERYTHING.  He is probably the messiest person in our house right now.  He crawls over to something and pulls it out if he can reach, and if not he pulls himself up so he can reach. Doug was getting very frustrated every night because the play food was always out all over the floor.  And his guess was that the kids weren't even playing with it, just dumping it out.  Then I realized, it wasn't the bigger boys, it was Billy.  It is his favorite thing to dump out!  

Billy's favorite place to sit is right by the back door.  If the big boys are outside he likes to watch them playing.  And lately he likes to go there to catch moths.  They fly around on the window and he likes to try his hardest to catch them.  He did actually get one once,  and immediately put it in his mouth.  That is when I stepped in a put all the moths outside.  He was pretty mad at me.

 DAD

Doug has been having fun playing with his boys.  He loves his boys.  Michael loves to tackle Dad, and as soon as Doug walks in the door he is pushing him down.  Billy loves Dad more than anything and as soon as he hears his voice Billy is whipping his head around trying to find him.  And James...well I think he says it all when he says "Dad is in charge!" 

Doug watching a movie with his guys

The boys have been obsessed with these plastic balloons lately.  Doug claims to never have done them as a kid, I couldn't believe it so we got some at the dollar store.  Doug is the best at it.  And the boys are the best at popping them.

 Doug LOVES working in his garage and having things to build.  So he used the rest of the wood from the toy shelf to build treasure chests for the boys.  They were supposed to be for their birthday's but because of our unplanned trip to Utah he didn't have them done in time for James' birthday so decided to give them to them halfway between their birthday's.

Inside the treasure chest, Doug put their best treasure in the
bottom, a picture of Jesus and a picture of their family.  Then
he made some gold and jewels and a treasure map, and we
covered it with resin so it would be smooth and hard.

James' treasure chest

Michael's treasure chest

MOM

And me...well I have just been having fun being a Mom.  I love that I don't miss anything cute that these little guys do.  Except for what Ms. Ginger tells me about James.  Like the fact that he pooped in the toilet at school, with NO prompting, and then proudly displayed it to her.  
I also LOVE my calling in the primary, and James is singing again!  I love to hear him sing the primary songs I am teaching.  Plus I feel like a bit of a celebrity in the ward.  To the kids at least.  One day we were walking in the building and the little boy in front of us whispered to his mom "That's Sister Allen" pointing to me.
I have also been trying to come up with unique cute ways to decorate our house.  That is my new hobby.  This sign/picture frame has been in the works for months but proved to be more of a challenge than I thought it would be.  I had it all done and ready then I thought "oh lets try the word Small in red. So I did it, but rubbing it on made a shinny spot.  So I thought I could just leave it or I could try to fix it.    Well that made it worse.  I ended up having to take all the letters off, sanding it down and repainting it and basically starting over.   Oh well, it is done now, except for I have to replace the pictures on the side.  I love having it hanging over my bed, reminding me how important my work is.  

Also today James and I made gifts for his teachers.  

Ms. Ginger's flowers.  She said this was her
very favorite kind of flowers.  It's mine too.

Magnets we made.  James drew some of them, some of them we
used scrapbook paper.

 So now I am all caught up!  Just in time for Billy to turn 10 months, Mother's Day, James' Preschool graduation, Michael's birthday, a trip to Colorado then a trip to Florida.  I don't think I will every actually be caught up!

Happy Birthday James

James turned 5-years-old yesterday.  He is such a joy to have in our family.  I love his creativity and how he says it like it is.  Some things about James:

• he weighs 40 lbs and is 36 inches tall
• He loves to go to school, and his teachers love having him at school.  Ms. Ginger says the other kids like James too. 
• His favorite color is green
• His best friend is Michael
• His favorite toy is Scout
• His favorite movie is The Sandlot
• His favorite song is "Choose the Right"
• His favorite food is Cheese Its or Doritos 
• He knows all of his letters and letter sounds and can count to 29
• His favorite book is "Zoomer"
• He loves balloons, "8-balls", water, marbles, and baseball.

This year we decided to have a birthday party for James.  Since one of his very favorite things is balloons I figured a balloon themed party would be just the thing.  So we sent out invitations:

Birthday party invitations

I got a ton of balloons, and used Doug's air compressor to blow them up.  Then Doug hung them up all over the house.

We had lots of balloon themed games to play.  Bouncy Ball Balloons, Ballon Ping-Pong, Balloon Popping, Balloon Pinatas, and Balloon Painting (although we didn't get to that one).

James and a water balloon pinata, unfortunately
they didn't pop so we had to just throw them on the ground.

We had lots of balloon decorations too:

Happy Birthday banner

Balloon Cupcakes, plates, cups and napkins 

Balloon wreath, I am going to use this for all our birthdays
but it fit right in with the party theme.  It will probably
end up with a picture of the birthday person in the middle.

James really enjoyed the party and his friends did too.  He had one friend from school come, Anna, who we learned talks about James all the time.  And only James.  So her parents wanted to find out who James was.  She even gave him a hug and a kiss (on the cheek) before she left.

James blowing out the candles

Sunday was a big day too.  In primary on the kids birthdays they get to put a quarter in the candy machine and get some candy.  James has been waiting for this, not very patiently, all year long!  He was so excited to finally get his candy.  

Monday was his birthday and we had a long busy day.  First in the morning we had to register for kindergarten.  I can't believe he is getting so old!  Then we went to the park with some friends.  Lunch, then off to his school for his IEP meeting.  He and Michael just got to play in the classroom while Doug and I met with his teacher, speech therapist, and Occupational Therapist.  They had so many good things to say about James.  It was really fun to listen to and we could really tell how much they enjoy working with James.  He teacher just keep talking about how much progress he had made from the beginning of the year.  He is super smart, and she even talked about having him tested for the Gifted program in second grade.  He is also almost to the point where he wont need to go to Occupational Therapy anymore.  His only goals there are to hold scissors correctly and to learn to hold a pencil correctly.  

James has been asking for a "Scout" cake.  So of course we had to figure that out.  He helped me decorate it, and he really loved it.  I have to say I think it turned out pretty good. 

When Doug got home from work that night we had James' favorite dinner, Steak, Corn on the Cob, Green Jello and Salad (for Doug and Me)  I don't know if I have ever seen James eat so much!  

After Dinner we went outside to open presents and have cake.  This was the first time James made it through opening all his presents without getting burned out, and he was really excited about every one of them.  

James' new sleeping bag

Opening a present from Grammy

Finally we got to blow out the candles.

James had such a fun birthday, and we really enjoyed making it a special day for him.

8 Months Old

Billy is 8 months old now!  He is so much fun and we love having him around.  While he is still a super easy baby the past month has pretty much been like this:

He has been pretty grumpy.  I don't know if he is teething, not getting enough to eat, not getting enough sleep or just frustrated with his ability to move around.  But this past week he has pretty much been back to normal.  I love hearing comments from the other parents about how easy he is.  

Some things about Billy:

• He loves his brothers.  My favorite is when he gets talking to Michael in the car.  They just make noises back and forth to each other and get laughing so hard
• He has two teeth that are very cute
• He is so close to crawling.  He has learned to scoot around the house on his belly.  So between the rolling and the pulling with his arms he gets where he needs to go, which has been trying to get outside.
• He has also learned to sit up from laying on the floor.  So we had to move his crib down.  I have never actually seen him do it, but every once in awhile I look over and think, that is not where I left him.  
• He loves baths and likes to splash with his brothers
• He is clapping, sometimes he gets a little messed up and rolls his hands instead.  
• His favorite food is either spaghetti and meatballs, or tomato soup.  He gets so excited when we give him those
• He loves food and gets really mad when we are eating in front of him

Busy

When I was younger I remember my parents saying things like how they wanted life to just slow down for a little while, and how they just didn't have enough time.  I have to admit since I have been married and had kids I hadn't felt that way.  I remember when it was just me and James I would have to find things to do, and Doug would constantly tell me I needed a hobby.  I would read tons of books, and often had to read books over again just for something to do.  Well, sadly/happily those days are over.  Now it is difficult to find time for all the things I need to do, let alone all the things I want to do.  And now I have hobbies, that I have no time for.  So I often find myself dreaming of simpler times and wondering when things are going to slow down.  Blogging must be pretty low on my priority list since I really haven't been keeping up with our lives, and that is sad to me because I feel like there is so much I miss out on, and then when I finally get around to it I have either forgotten or don't want to have a huge-long post.  It is also sad because I love going back and reading old posts and remembering cute things my kids have done in the past.  So anyway, here are a few of the things we have been up to in the past month.

This month our Relief Society activity was about FHE.  I have to admit we have never been very good at this.  I get discouraged every time we try because we spend most of the time yelling at the kids to sit down and be quite.  But I decided we really need to be better at it.  This project has been on my to-do list for months so I decided to get it done and really try to have more consistent, thought-out FHEs.  And the past two weeks we have actually done this have gone very well.  The first week I read "You Are Special" to the boys and then we made felt puppets.  They loved it.  Last week Doug told the story of Ammon then we played a game where we had to try to scatter the sheep (throw all the stuffed animals out of the fence) while "Ammon" tried to stop us.  Again the boys loved it.

 Lately the boys have been really into water balloons.  Mikey is constantly wanting to "go to the dollar store and get water balloons".  If we have balloons in the house I have to hide them or they are always asking me to fill them up.  James always immediately takes them out back and pops them.  Mikey will play with his for hours until James eventually gets it and pops it.  I have had some "jumbo" balloons hidden for just the perfect day.  And that day was a few weeks ago.  It was so warm.  So I gave the balloon to Doug and sent the boys out back.  They had a blast.

James, Mikey and the "jumbo" balloon

Another thing James has been obsessed with is Scout.  This is actually Mikey's toy, but James found a Scout cartoon on Netflix and has been so excited about it ever since.  When he first discovered the cartoon (Phonics Farm) he wanted to watch it all the time.  One night we told him he could watch it in the morning after he woke up.  So he went to bed and was so excited to wake up.  After a little while he came out of his room and turned all the lights in the house off and told Doug and I to go to bed.  I asked James why and he simply responded "Scout" then went to bed.  Doug later explained to me what he was doing.  When you are a kid the best way to make morning to come faster is to go to sleep.  Then it practically takes no time at all.  So since then Scout does everything with us.  He goes in the car, he takes walks, James pushes him him in the stroller, he sits in Billy's high chair to eat.  Here are a few things James has done with him.

James giving Scout a bath in the sink

James having a snack with Scout

Billy has been doing a ton lately too, but I will post about him soon because he is turning 8-months-old next week!  But this is a picture I took this morning.  Silly boy.

How I found Billy sleeping this morning.

Finally a project Doug and I have been working on for months!  When we got home from Christmas there were toys everywhere!  I have always had a pretty unremarkable storage system for our toys, just diaper boxes on the floor and small plastic containers on a bookshelf.  Needless to say our "playroom" has always been sort of a mess.  After Christmas I was looking for a better system and came across this from Ikea and basically fell in love with it.  I showed it to Doug who responded, "I could make that for cheaper."  And I said, "OK, do it!"  So using our gift money from Christmas he did.  I had him add a long slot on the end for things like race car tracks and stick horses.  He was excited because he would get to use several of his new tools he got for his birthday and Christmas.  Including: the dado head on his table saw, his paint guns, his nail gun, and his new air hose.  

Cutting the dados in one of the sides

About a month ago we finally made it to Ikea to buy the bins and look at the actual shelf, we decided ours is better of course.  And of course we NEVER want to go back to the Denver Ikea again!  It was a zoo.  Finally last week the shelf was complete and we put it in place in the "playroom".  I used my Silhouette to make labels for all the bins.  And it is everything I hoped it would be, except I had planed for all the train tracks to fit in the blue bin, but they didn't so we had to shuffle things around a bit to make it work.  But I am loving it.

The completed toy shelf

Our "playroom" completed

Welcome to the playroom. No clutter on the floor!

All the toys put where they go

The bins just slide out and back in.
It makes it super easy to clean up, and
ask the boys to only get out one at a time.

Now Doug's next project is to make a chest for the dress-up clothes and we can get rid of the falling apart cardboard box they are currently in!  

Yesterday I had a bunch of ladies from the ward over for our cookbook club (Doug thinks I am a nerd for that) and they all loved how they kids kept most of the toys in the fence!  I loved bragging about my handy husband and showing off all his work.  And I was pretty pleased to show off our new playroom.    The icing on the cake...Mikey put himself down for a nap while everyone was there.  Doesn't get much easier than that!

Love.

I have 4 boys that I absolutely LOVE!  They make me so happy and I feel so lucky to have them all in my life.  Here are a few pictures from the past few weeks:

He was so tired, and sick that he just fell asleep!
He loves this chair and when he gets grumpy in the evening
I just pop him in the chair and he is content for awhile.

Mikey is at such a fun age.  He sings constantly, wants his
picture taken all the time, and loves to be involved with
everything!  He is definitely two!  He is stubborn and
wants to do everything himself.

These three boys LOVE each other.  They really are each
others best friends.

James asked me if he could play angry birds.  I was busy
with Billy so I told him to ask Dad.  The next thing I knew
the two of them had come up with this fun game. 

Mikey loves to help.  Mostly he wants to make sure it
tastes right every step of the way.  

 Billy turned 7 months on the 13th.  He is still so cute, easy, and so much fun.  I don't know how much he weighs but he is still a chunk.  He has been sick most of the past month so it hasn't been the greatest for us, but I think we are finally getting over it.

He was hard to get his picture this time because
he just wanted to roll over and eat those letters!

Then the blanket had to come to!

We had such a fun Valentines Day this year.  Doug and I don't usually get into it very much but this year we had kids who could have fun with it so I did!  

Heart cupcakes for James' class.  He always brings
cupcakes to his class parties because he LOVES to
bake and I LOVE to bake with him.

Chocolate covered strawberries for his teachers.  They were
pretty excited about these.  Also I made the box they
are packaged in!  I have to say I am LOVING my Silhouette.

Also with my Silhouette I decided to decorate the house.
I NEVER do this, but it was a lot of fun.  I cut out a ton of
different hearts and glued them onto year and hung them
up.  The boys thought this was a lot of fun.  

Finally one of my favorite projects I have done recently is this picture frame.  I originally made this for the boys room, but decided to put it on the mantle for now since it turned out so cute.  I just got some prints made of the boys together then used this quote that I LOVE.  It says "Sometimes being a brother is even better than being a Superhero."

JMB Ranch

In every house we have lived in we have had a "toy room".  A place out of the way to keep all the toys where they kids could play and we didn't have to keep the toys in the boys room.  It has been wonderful.  However in this last move our house now basically consists of 1 big room and the bedrooms.  So we set up a play area in the corner of the big room.  After our house was all set up Doug had a genius idea.  He wanted to build a little fence around the toys.  He liked this idea because it would contain the toys in one area of the house, I liked the idea because I thought it would be really cute.  Well 4 months later and the fence is done.  I give you:

JMB Ranch

 For Christmas I got my Silhouette machine and this was my first vinyl project.  I am pretty proud of how it turned out.  Especially since I had to make the cowboys myself.

6 Months!

I can't believe Billy is already six months old!  It seems like he was just born.  I am so busy with the other two that I am in no hurry for him to grow up.  

Here are his stats:

Height: 27 inches 75th percentile

Weight: 16lbs 6 oz 40th (ish) percentile

Head: (I think it was around 17 inches)

 Some things about Billy at 6 months:

• He sits up on his own and LOVES it
• He loves to eat, he eats peas, squash, carrots and rice cereal. 
• He LOVES his brothers and likes to watch them play and laughs and laughs
• He likes baths
• He is still the easiest baby ever
• He LOVES having his diaper changed and laughs and laughs
• He likes to yell and scream, just for fun

 Mikey loves that he can sit up now and always wants him to "tip over".  He also likes to play "monster trucks" with Billy so when he is sitting up Mikey always goes over and rolls on him to knock him over.  The other day Billy was just sitting in the other room yelling, so I told Mikey to go play with him and he decided to play bowling with him.  He got a bowling ball and used Billy as the bowling pin.  Billy thought it was hilarious!

 Billy loves making this face a lot now.  It is pretty cute.

 The other two have been up to a lot also.  James is amazing and always blows me away with the things he comes up with.  He loves to watch bowling videos or marble videos on YouTube and then tries to recreate them with what he has around.  He often comes up with some very cool marble runs.  That he builds by himself.

This marble run has two different paths. 

This one was really impressive to both Doug and I.
James was pretty proud of it too, he came out to get
Doug and show him.  Then when I got home from the
store he had to show me too. 

 Finally James and I bake all the time.  It is one of his favorite things.  So for the Broncos game yesterday we made this cake.  It turned out pretty cool looking, but didn't taste very good.  So James mostly ate the frosting.

As for Doug and I, we were both given new callings.  Doug was moved up to teach the 4-year-olds, and stay with James, but they split the class so he only has half of them which is much easier.  It has caused a bit of a stir since all the kids still want to be with him.  He is also going to be the Wolf den leader which he is pretty excited about.  I am no longer teaching Relief Society, which I was surprisingly sad about.  It was good for me to have to study the lessons and got me out of my comfort zone.  Now I am the primary music leader.  At first I was really nervous about this because it has always just seemed like a really hard calling to me.  Even though I love working with kids, it seems like the music leader has to be very enthusiastic and outgoing to keep those kids attention.  Today was my first day and I feel like I did a pretty good job and an pretty excited for it now.  One of the teachers even asked if I had done this calling before.  The primary is huge but the kids seem pretty good.  James had a hard time.  He was doing really well during sharing time, but as soon as he saw Mom he just wanted to go up with her, and because he couldn't he had a bit of a meltdown.  But he was better than last week and I think as he gets used to seeing me in there it will get better and better.