March

So my goal for this year was to blog more regularly...that hasn't happened.  Oh well I guess maybe 1 month at a time is good enough!  We have not really been doing too much lately.  I am still trying to get into a good routine now that we have four kids!  I have to say things are getting a little easier every day.  My piles of laundry aren't so big (except for right now of course), bedrooms are starting to get cleaned, floors vacuumed, and dinners are becoming more than pizza, hamburgers and spaghetti.  The boys this past month however have been amazing!  They are hitting an age where they are becoming such good friends. It is interesting to see how our family dynamic is changing.  James is becoming more interactive with his brothers.  Michael is taking on the leadership role.  He likes to be in charge of what his brothers are doing...but James doesn't always listen.  And Billy is still the little terrorist.  He often walks around the house with a baseball bat hitting everything (including all of us) as hard as he can with it.  James likes to say "You should not bam bam!" 

Michael and Billy building towers and knocking them down

All three boys playing 'rainbow playdough'

 The boys are still in love with their little sister.  Brooke is starting to become much more alert and interactive.  She smiles all the time and has a cute little dimple on her left cheek.  Some days she is really grumpy and hardly sleeps at all.  On these days she just wants to be held all the time and it is hard to do anything.  And somedays she is much more content and is ok spending time in her swing or bouncy chair.  She is also starting to sleep better at night and usually I only have to wake up once around 3:30 to feed her.

Michael holding Brooke, and Billy could not let someone
else have her without being there to make sure they did it right.
See that cute little smile!

3 cute kids!

 James' new obsession is Pacman.  This one has gotten a little crazy.  It has also gotten him in some trouble both at home and school.  Lucky for us it is starting to fade, but it got a little crazy for awhile.  Luckily for us he has a very understanding teacher who didn't suspend him when he was making guns at school and shooting all the other kids with them.  I had to explain that he was being pacman and the other kids were the ghosts.  One Saturday he made Doug make a pacman board on the kitchen floor with blue tape.

James adding the pellets to his pacman game

Mikey looking super cute in his church clothes
He will only wear them if he can wear "regular"
clothes underneath.

I often find Billy's stuffed toys on Brooke.  He is such a
loving big brother. 

 Michael says his best friend is "Dad".  He loves to do everything with his Dad.  Whenever Doug has to leave for work Michael runs outside to 'push' his truck out of the driveway, and the second he walks in the door at night he tackles him and the wrestle for awhile on the floor.  Doug loves having such a fun best friend.

Michael and Doug swing in their superhero capes.

 James is finally almost potty trained!  After about 3 years of active potty training we could not be happier. After trying everything, bribes, charts, rewards, punishments...we finally got to the point where we were having to give him an enema once a week to get him to go.  One day Doug said "James go poop in the toilet so we don't have to poke you" and he went!  Just like that.  So now in order to get him to go all we have to say is "James make sure you poop in the toilet today so we don't have to poke you." and he goes.  Love this!

Potty time is often a family event.

 Billy loves his baby.  I often see him taking care of him.  I have seen him sharing his food with it, hugging it, burping it, rocking it, putting it down for a nap, kissing it and more.  Today I was feeding Brooke and Billy came over with his baby.  He pushed Brooke's head out of the way so that his baby could have a turn nursing.

Billy and his baby.  He was feeding it oranges.

James and Michael have been really into Mario lately.  They both have angry bird hats, one red and one green and every night before they go to bed they put the hats on and become Mario and Luigi.  This week James decided he needed a castle made out of his bed so that he could say something about "Mario  please come to the castle I have made you a birthday cake.  Princess Peach."  Last night I found him asleep in his castle.

James' Mario castle 

Finally Brooke is now two-months-old.  She is such a sweet little girl and is so loved by everyone in her family!  The other day Doug mentioned that we needed to get her an easter dress.  So we looked a little but didn't find anything we loved.  The next day I decided to go through her 3-6 month clothes to see what we needed to get.  I discovered that she has 10 dresses in that size and just 2 or 3 shirts, no pants and a few jammies.  I guess she is going to be a pretty girly girl and wear dresses a lot!  If I only had her wear them on Sunday's she would only get to wear each 1 time before she out grew them!

Brooke's two month pictures

Billy wanted to help so much.  Finally I let him give her a kiss.