The life of Jo

Ahh... such is the life of a toddler. Cursed with forever scabbed knees, permanent bruising on shins, and facial lacerations. Poor Joey fell of the couch, while "wrestling" with Samuel.  Its a bit hard to tell here, but he cut it in three places, and got a nasty cheek bruise to go with it.

 But big brothers somehow make it all better. This is litterally 2 minutes after the bleeding stopped.

And I tried to snap a photo of him that night, but typically he was squirming all over and this is the best I could do.  I need a camera in my eyeball!! I swear, the minute I pull it out the moment is over.  Things move to fast. Mostly my kids.

"Leap" Chair

Joey loves to play with the letter magnets.  Anyone who has ever had a toddler has the Leap Frog song "Ever Letter Makes a Sound..." seared into their permanent memory.  He pushes everything repeatedly and never lets the song play through completely .  This morning he mixed it up a bit by moving his chair over to the fridge by himself.  Hysterical!

Fatty Fatty

So the big dumb has been put on a diet! He tipped the scale at 128lbs today at the vet. We were concerned about him because he had be losing his cookies lately, and he is also getting older, so he is having a very hard time getting up and around.  Diagnosis: He most drop 15 lbs.  He's hilarious...Love you Franklin:)

Snow Day

Yes...15 inches of snow overnight.  Incredible.  I only ever remember school being cancelled twice in my life for snow.  We really have to get really pummelled...15 inches was good enough to do it!  The boys were so excited.  You see TV shows or movies about kids getting a "snow day".  But it is so much sweeter when it happens in real life. It snowed 15 inches overnight on Thursday 1/10/13.  Then on on Friday it continued snowing all day. Not kidding. All day.

 This is my front yard.  You can't even tell were the road is.  I think we shoveled the driveway a total of 5 times in 2 days.  Then Saturday, it got cold.  Highs in the teens, lows are below zero.  That means that all this snow is now frozen, and not going anywhere for awhile. These are the days when you just want to snuggle up and drink hot chocolate and watch movies. Can I do that? (like everyday?) It has been an amazing winter so far.

First snow of the year 11/10/12!

William, Christian and Joey playing in the backyard on 12/15/12.

Oh the joys of sledding! Met up with the cousins on 12/27/12. William, Logan, Collin, Avery, Christian and Adien

Samuel was not happy, with me. We got whitewashed going down the big hill!!

Couldn't seem to get enough - 12/28/12

Goodness Gracious Sakes Alive, Samuel Hess is Turning Five

He is awesome.  Don't you agree? My little man had his fifth birthday.  Christian's birthday, Christmas, and New Years just didn't seem like enough celebrating.  So we thought we should have another birthday at this time of year.  We must have been bored; not enough to do this time of year you see. Samuel was so excited to get this helmet to go along with his bike. He now has a cool bike, so he can chase ride with his big brothers!  Did I mention it is 10 degrees outside?  Sometimes that can be a drag, when you are trying out your new gear.

After opening presents, Samuel wanted to go to dinner at In n Out Burger with Uncle Jeremy and Aunt Erin-Leigh.  Then we can back home to eat his SpongeBob cake.  Then on Saturday, we took all the boys rollerblading, so Samuel could try out the rollerblades he got for Christmas.  We had a great time, eating pizza, skating, playing arcades and going in the bounce houses.  Love you Samuel!

Christian's Road to Teenage-dom

Today Christian turns 11.  Cliche really, but time flies by too fast.  He is growing up too fast.  He eats so much. He is almost as tall as me. He stays up too late, and sleeps too late. He is embarrassed by girls. He is worried about his clothes and hair. It is happening too fast.

Here are the boys.

  

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We got Christian a Kindle Fire!  He was super excited, once he realized what it was. (refer to previous picture) He loves to read, and is insatiably curious. They are inseparable

Minecraft is taking over my life.  This is Steve. 

Christian and his best buddy Drew. They celebrated his BD on Friday, with Minecraft of course!

As always cute Uncle Jer and Aunt Erin-Leigh came to celebrate too.

Lady Liberty

Can you spot the real Statue of Liberty? 

This was Christian's first year entering the Reflections contest at school.  The theme this year was "Diversity Means..." He really wanted to enter the 3D category and make something out of Legos. He decided on the Statue of Liberty. It took him about a month to get it just right.  Other than my purchase of the spray paint, I had no part in his design or construction! The hardest part for him was to sit down and write his artist statement:

 On November 3, he found out he was a winner in his division at school and would be moving on to the Council Level.  They called the participants up in his category, and started announcing participation, then honorable mentions The look on his face was priceless as he started to realize that he was one of the last ones standing, and was going to be a winner. He went on to win at the Council Level as well, and went on to compete in the Regionals. 

He even added a little light lego for the torch!

We have got to figure out some way to tap this bizarre Lego building talent - I guess he could always be one of those creepy grown-ups who works for Lego and sits around playing with kids toys all day.  But I think he could aim higher...engineer, architect, hmmm....