Pictures from today

 My family room looks like this nowadays.And despite all this someone still managed to get out of her corral

and decided to help me with the dishes.

 Madoc found all the pillows in the house (minus just two) and built himself a cheetah nest.

Crayons and Pencils

Today was the first day of school. Sadie is a big 1st Grader now! Last night we went to school and met her new teacher, Mrs. Mulay. She was exactly the teacher we wanted! And we found that she had several friends with her in class.

School started a half hour earlier this year and Neil didn't know what time we needed to be up. He graciously took care of the kids and let me sleep in (which I love!) but that meant I had only half an hour to get breakfast made, lunch made, and everyone ready to get in the car. That was a crazy morning! But we made it and still had time for some pictures. They look just like last year's first day pictures - just a little older.

Madoc's Party

Madoc had his birthday in Indiana but we had a friends party once we got back. He wanted a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse cake, just like last year, so that set our theme. Only 2 of the 4 little boys (and siblings) we invited could come but they were our best family friends so we were alright with that.

For Sadie's art party I planned a few activities but left a lot of time for playing. That did NOT work and I had kids bugging me the whole time. So for Madoc's party we made it much shorter and I planned every minute. But when the kids got here all they wanted to do was play. So much for games and activities!

Neil grilled hot dogs and chicken and we also had chips, popcorn, and apples and strawberries. And let's not forget cake! But I did forget the ice cream. Oops. Sadie was very upset about that after the party.

Charlotte is growing a little too fast

Charlotte is a tiny, sweet thing. She'll be eight months old in a few days. While we were in Indiana a month ago she finally started eating solid foods (yay bananas!) and she pulled herself up for the first time. She had just barely started sitting on her own before we got there. But that was only the beginning. In the course of two weeks she went from completely immobile to walking around furniture. None of my babies progressed so fast. She learned to crawl quickly. It started out as a modified army crawl where she would get up on her knees every third step or so and propel herself forward. It was only a few days before she was all hands and knees. She also learned how to get back into a sitting position, pull up on anything and walk around it, and go up the stairs. I hope she doesn't want to start walking anytime soon.

 Pulling up on the coffee table

 Madoc feeding her a bottle

 Ruffle bum - the outfit was mine as a baby

Sitting in the grass out in the backyard

A quick post about the weekend

Charlotte decided to eat the laptop cord.

We have a volunteer watermelon plant in the backyard. This is one of the three watermelons off it (unfortunately they're not suitable for eating but apparently suitable to dress up).

Have you seen the pic of the kiddie car wash floating around the web? I showed it to Neil and on Saturday he made this. The water in the desert is so warm coming out of the tap that the kids just stood  under it like a shower. So much for running through the sprinklers.

We spent all day Friday at a waterpark but I wanted to just play and enjoy so I didn't take the camera. The kids loved it (it was our second time) and Charlotte lasted seven hours! What a lil' sport. Neil and I took turns on a few of the slides but we spent most of the day in the wave pool on tubes and just swimming around. The kids liked having so much shallow water to swim in. But it was kind of a problem because they would just take off (especially Madoc) and would be in the middle of the pool with no adult supervision. I think I had a heart attack about twelve times that day.

And for an update, our ward split and we are now in a NEW fifth ward for our area. Neil is the new Elders Quorum president (he has been for a month or so in the old ward) and I got released from YW and called as the new gospel doctrine instructor. I taught for the first time on Sunday and it didn't go well. And to make matters worse I was the youngest person in the room (excluding Charlotte of course).

Four steps up is a bit high

My seven and a half month old baby just climbed the stairs. Awesome.