Just what he always wanted...

From the day we told Matthew I was pregnant all he ever wanted was a little brother to play with. Well today it finally happened. Matthew was playing with a toy car set with ramps and elevators and Gabriel crawled right over and joined in the fun. It was brief but beautiful! Watch this. Photos are below the video.

Gabe's new thing...

Is to scare the living daylights out of his poor mommy. He loves to climb and crawl all over things. We caught him doing this...

Lori's gift card

Lori got a gift card from Nana for Christmas and went shopping today. She bought two shirts. One came with a sing-a-long microphone. She also bought sunglasses, HSM snow boots and a gymnastics costume. Here is a video of her with her mic and some photos of her clothes. And in case you're wondering, no she's not a ham at all...hehe

Merry Christmas!

It has been a while since I posted. I didn't take very many photos on Christmas because with 5 kids opening presents it is pretty much a mad house around here. I did however just get a great video of Gabriel climbing out of a new toy he got. He is UNSTOPPABLE!!! Watch this...

Gabriel's First Snow

Yay Gabe!!

It seems every day Gabriel learns something new. Today was no exception. Watch this:

My 200th Post!!!

This is so exciting. It is my 200th blog post. How cool. Anyway, it snowed today. Check this out. It was all melted within an hour of falling but we had fun out in it for a while this morning. Matthew was able to make one tiny snow ball but he dropped it before I could get a photo. Weather.com is calling for a 50% chance of rain/snow tomorrow. As cold as it is today maybe some will stick!

Finally got the tree up

Gabriel helps with Christmas Tree

This is the video of Gabriel helping us with the tree. The significance of the video is that Gabriel put himself into a sitting position. He did this right at the end of the video so we didn't even notice until we watched it back later. Ejnoy!

We met Billy Ray Cyrus today

Some of you may know that the girls have been cast as extras in the upcoming Jackie Chan film called "The Spy Next Door". Well it is also starring Billy Ray Cyrus and he was on set today and more than willing to have photo time with the extras which are mostly kids. We were no exception. My kids were beside themselves! And we're getting paid to do this!!!





This is my friend Tina with him.

Look what I can do...

Well Gabriel is mobile. Not just scotting here or there, completely and utterly mobile. Yesterday he went to the kitchen, to the stairs and even into my office all on his own. Its exciting and scary all at the same time!

Up, up and away

Gabriel LOVED these stools at Nana's house. He got from the floor to this all on his own.

Scarfing up the yarn

Here is the scarf I finished on the way to AZ. I have gotten good enough (still not great) but good enough to knit in the car.







I'm doing a shawl/poncho next.

Catching up

We've been out of town for a week so my blog has gone untouched. I'll spend a little time now adding some stuff for your viewing pleasure. This is a bouncy toy that my sister in law had at her house. We have decided to ask Santa to bring Gabriel one for Christmas. He loved it so much. Watch him go.

A Baby happy to see his Nana

Took these of Gabriel tonight. He hasn't seen Nana since July but the minute he saw her he smiled! By the way, if anyone was wondering, he was amazing on the drive. He slept the first three hours, woke ate and played then went right back to sleep until we were almost to Nana's house. It was really great.

Visiting Arizona

We are in AZ for Thanksgiving visiting the family we left behind when we moved. We are thrilled to be here and taking photos along the way. I'll post them as I get them. Here are some we took on our way here just South of Flagstaff, AZ.

The elevation there is 7,000 to 8,000 feet and with the storm that rolled in today we were literally UP in the clouds.

He stands again, in his crib this time.

He's done it again. Now he's pulling himself to a stand in his crib. Why is this happening to me so soon??? I'm not ready!!!

I am in shock

I do not remember things moving this quickly with any of my other kids.

Should I change the name of my blog to Cute baby???

Just kidding! But here's another video of...you guessed it, Gabriel being cute.

Static in action

Balloons and hair...need I say more?

Katlyn turns 11...

This weekend we celebrated Katlyn no longer being able to show her age on two hands! She turned eleven on Friday and for her birthday her dad and I decorated her room for her. She picked her colors and curtains and we kept the horse border she already had. As most of you know Katlyn is really into horses. My grandma made her a bedspread and pillows and my mom gave her many thing to decorate her room. Here are some photos.







The party was lots of fun. Our neighbor Yolanda came over and painted faces and after all the kids had left we played out front with silly string.

Look what Gabriel can do...

Gabriel learned a new thing. He figured this out all on his own and has been doing it all weekend.

Okay, okay, here are halloween pictures!

Several people have mentioned that I have not posted photos from Halloween. Since I'm terrible at taking pictures in the dark I've only got this one from before we went out:

Look what I did.

I just learned to knit. Well I AM learning. I managed a few little rows before I really messed it up and had to take it all out and start it all over. I figure starting over many, many times is just good practice. Thank you to my friend Tina and my grandma for helping me understand. You are both great teachers!

Triops are hatching and growing fast

We bought these things at Hobby Lobby. They are called Triops and they work similar to sea monkeys. They come in dehydrated egg form. You put them in water and supposedly in 18 - 30 hours they hatch.

According to the packaging they can grow up to 2 inches in length and can live up to 75 days. Well ours hatched, four of them. Not in 18-30 hours but in about 48. And these suckers are growing fast! This is one on its first full day after hatching.



To give you some scale, that tea bag (which is actually water conditioning stuff) is 2.5 inches long. Again this is day 1. I'll post more about them in a few days.

Book Tag: Teaching Your Children Life Skills

*Here are the rules:
1)Grab the nearest book.
2)Open the book to page 56.
3)Find the fifth sentence.
4)Post the text of the next two to five sentences.
5)Don't dig for your favorite book, the cool book or the intellectual one,
Pick the Closest.
6)Tag five people to do the same.

So, this is the book I have beside me right now.



From page 56:

Show him how to estimate the amount of paint needed by first showing him how to compute the area of the walls and ceiling. Once you're ready with everything you need you'll want to take a few minutes to carefully explain the method of painting you employ. Your child can help assemble the necessary materials before starting the job. He can spread out the drop cloth, mix the paint and tape up any areas that need to be protected. Of course each of these tasks will need your direction and supervision.

May I digress? The people who wrote this book, which I have not read yet, have clearly never met my children. When I paint I send them as far away as I possibly can. Now measuring I let them do but once those cans of color are open children are GONE. Good in theory but not in practice.

I tag:
Rochelle A.
Cindy E.
Kayla from Sand in my Dryer

Baby's got RHYTHM!!!

This is the toy that grandma Diane bought for Gabriel. It is a convertible toy that goes from a laying down toy to a sitting up toy and today we discovered he really likes it and this boy's got the moves!!!

He did it!!!!!

Today we caught Gabriel on camera going FORWARD!!! We are both excited and frightened. Watch this and Nana, get your tissues.

A halloween tradition

Last year we discovered this great little pumpkin stand sponsored by Galloping Grace Youth Ranch. It was rather small and cute. They had a few little games and things for the kids and pumpkins galore. This year they had grown considerably. They had MANY more pumpkins and lots of stuff for the kids including a hay maze and a large bucket of dried corn. The kids loved the corn bucket. They scooped and dumped for quite some time whilst Rudy and I searched for the perfect pumpkin.

We found it, called the kids out and they liked it too so it was THE one. Now last year we carved it way too early and by halloween night it looked like a grumpy old man. This year we waited until much closer and also got a tip about putting vaseline on the cut edges to preserve it longer. I hope it lasts this time.

Here are the photos. We voted on a square for a nose and triangle eyes but the mouth is modeled after Lori. What do you think? Did we capture her likeness?

Baby in his high chair

Last night I was taking Gabriel out of the high chair and he leaned forward and grabbed the tray. He kept pulling it back and it took quite a pull to get it away from him.

Matthew Thomas

Named Matthew because we love the name and Thomas after my father. This boy has our heads spinning. He is mischevious and lightning fast. It was very hard for me to do this post because one, there is so much I could say about him and two, I have over 1,000 pictures of him on my computer. He is my angel, with horns. He loves to cuddle me. No one else. Just me. All the time. Here are some photos of my boy.

Making a Gabriel face. I know Gabe wasn't born yet but we see a lot of similarities in this photo.



Matthew and Bandit. He loves animals, especially Dixie.



I love this photo of Matthew. I love the colors.



Another Gabriel face.



Another happy baby shot.

This is Matthew wearing two ties and his vampire teeth. He insisted I take a photo.



This is Mr. Cool posing for a picture in his awesome hat. Notice he is shirtless? As the years have gone on he's come to enjoy NOT being dressed. Most days he can be found running around the house in nothing more than his spider-man undies and maybe a hat or a light saber.





Matthew was a very happy baby. I think he has just learned to stand in this photo and was very proud of his accomplishment.



Any of you who know Matthew AT ALL, know that he is the fast and the curious. In this photo we snuck around the corner with the camera to catch him playing in Nana's bathroom. He still plays in bathrooms ALL THE TIME!!



Just a cute photo of him. I like the way the sun is on his head.