See - we really DO have four kids!

I *finally* have pictures of all four kids together now! I had a big mental block somehow thinking that it was too hard...but yesterday I just told them all what to get dressed in and we ran outside and did it. They're not perfect, but at least I have something! :)

This was at the end of their 3.5 minute attention span!! "Huh?! What camera?"

Snow day :(

Well, at least the kids were excited!

(Gavin taught Rachel how to make a snowball, and she promptly threw it in his face - she thought it was hysterical!!)

You might be getting too big for your paci when...

You can put the whole thing in your mouth! ;)

(For the record, she only is allowed her paci in bed and in the van - and the date has been set for getting rid of it...yikes!)

Kids watching hockey

Gavin told me they were in 'the cheap seats!' :)

Girls' fall pictures

The pictures of the kids that are up on our wall right now are from last fall - they turned out really well and I wanted to do it again this fall. Well, apparently fall is now, so last night I took the girls out (just to the ditch at the end of our road - trying to take them all out to the park by myself last year was a bit of a disaster!) and did their pictures. I didn't have time to do Gavin, but hopefully he will be quick and easy and I can get his done this week sometime.

Welcome back!

Well, thanks! It has been a while! :)

I'm sure I have tons of pictures and stories to tell, but all I have right now is a random piece of information. Rach was in for immunizations the other day, and I got Abby weighed as well (I wasn't convinced she still outweighed Rachel...) Here are our kids' percentages on the growth charts right now:

Rachel - 90th percentile for both height and weight

Abby - 50th percentile for both height and weight

Gavin - 50th percentile for height and not quite 25th for weight

I think Rach will still thin out a bit...Gav was in the 75th+ percentile for weight when he was that age (and he was only 25th percentile for height, so it wasn't as proportional!). Abby's always been right around the 50th for both, although she was a very chubby baby (remember all her arm rolls??). We will see!!

Fun at the park

I THINK spring is finally here, and I took the kids over to the park close to our house to enjoy some late afternoon sunshine. :) Rachel loves to be outside (she doesn't always get to go out when the big kids do since she needs a little more direct supervision!) and she tries her best to keep up with Gavin & Abby!!

Looks like we'll have another reader on our hands soon...

Rachel was finished her snack and picked up Gavin's Big Book of Trivia Fun for some light reading while she was waiting for mommy to wipe her hands! ;)

My attempt at Mother's Day pictures...

Man, oh man, getting more than one little kid to cooperate for pictures is practically impossible!! :)

On Mother's Day morning, I got the kids all dressed and only realized afterwards that they were all in shades of blue and white. Clearly a sign that I was supposed to take pictures!! ;)

Rachel wanted nothing to do with her brother and sister, prefering to run down the road instead, chasing after the neighbor's cat. It was also all of about +3 degrees outside, so everyone was complaining how cold they were! Sigh.

Maybe in 20 years I'll forget what a hassle it was to try to get decent pictures of these cuties!!

Greg has a pair of oversized puppy slippers that Rachel absolutely adores! Whenever he comes out with them on, Rachel throws herself at his feet and gives the puppies hugs and kisses. I finally remembered to take a video of her playing with the puppies - she was kind of distracted, but you can see a glimpse of how much she loves them! ;)

In case you don't speak toddler-ease, she's saying 'come here' to the puppies, and then she thinks one of their mouths is 'broke.' Later on she tells them to 'stay.'

These couple of recent pictures capture Rachel's personality so well!! The 'hat' she's wearing in the bathroom picture is actually the top of the popcorn popper...she found it in the cupboard one day a few months ago, and it fits perfectly! She wears it at least for a couple hours every day - what a goof!

She loves to brush her teeth, and since she figured out both regular door handles and child-protected door handles within the span of a couple of days, we often find her digging in the bathroom drawers for her toothbrush.

Rachel is our first 'paci baby' - she LOVES her soother! She's only allowed to have it for naptime and bedtime, but she's become very tricky at trying to get it during the day! Sometimes she asks for 'crib' just so she can sit there and have a bit of a suck on the paci! Today I found her sitting at the end of the hallway with her paci in her mouth - she must have been able to reach it in her crib! I did take it away, but had to take a picture first. She's got her eyes closed - I think she was trying to hide from me - if she can't see me, I must not be able to see her, right??? :)

Pictures for you!

I've realized that if I don't leave my camera sitting out, I just don't get around to taking any pictures! I've left it up on the top of the piano for the last week or so, and I've probably taken more than I have in the last two months! *Ü*

Here's Gavin and Rachel having a little 'picnic' together:

Rachel reading

Rachel loves to look at books as much as the bigger two do! :)

Hugging the birdies. :)

It's not funny, and yet it is...

Poor Rach. We had a busy day today - spent naptime very much awake at Gavin's hockey tournament, and then headed to Grande Prairie to do the grocery shopping. She was pretty good while we were out, but by the time we got home, she was so overtired. She started screaming when we got in the house because she wanted to play outside, and there was no calming her down. I tried just leaving her alone, I tried to pick her up to comfort her (bad idea - she thrashed so much to get away she almost injured both of us!), but nothing would work.

With that introduction, I just had to take a video of her freaking out in the living room. I'm not a mean mommy usually, I just knew there was nothing I could do for her. :) The best part is how the other kids totally ignore her.

A few more pictures

I sent Gavin & Abby to their room the other day becasue they could not stop harrassing each other, and told them to just sit on their beds and not talk to, look at, or poke at each other until I came to get them. Must have been a good idea, because this is what I found them all doing when I came to check a little while later...

Our little hockey fan

Rachel just loves hockey for some reason, so she's thrilled that we've got the World Juniors on today. She's sitting there yelling 'go go go'. :)

Gavin likes watching too, and telling us what position everyone is playing, but his big thrill is the commercials. He broke our baby gate this afternoon running up the stairs and sprinting to the computer when he heard a commercial coming on.

Go Canada!!!

Rachel's words

Rachel will be 18 months in a couple of weeks, is 18 months now and we realized it's definitely time to count her words before she says so many things that we can't count them anymore! Here are the words that Rach knows (and says on her own, not just parroting us) right now:

- Mommy
- Daddy
- Abby ("Babby")
- puppy
- baby
- kitty
- hockey
- jacket ("ja-KA")
- buckle ("be-KA")
- donkey
- paci
- grandpa
- poopoo (often used at an appropriate time!)
- peepee
- cheese
- nana (banana)
- fishies
- brother
- hat
- blankie
- night-night
- uh-oh
- bunny


Here's a link to Abby's words when she was learning to talk (she was a little younger when this particular list was made). Gavin, being a boy and the firstborn, was a little slower learning to talk - his list of words is from 22 months old and it's about 15-20 words. (Although he's certainly made up for his slower start since!!)

Rachel the cook

We brought the play kitchen upstairs so Rachel can play with it, and it's been a big hit!

Halloween cuties

We're not a big Halloween family around here - my first thought of what costumes the kids would wear was maybe October 30?? Fortunately we have a few costumes around (this is the third year Gavin's been Superman, but he gets so excited every time...and it finally fits him!) and everyone had something to wear. Rachel's a monkey, but didn't want to keep her hood on for the picture. :) She was as excited as Gavin was - she dragged the costume around for most of the day making little monkey noises and trying to say monkey, something like "mah-KA!"

Abby was a little bit unsure about the whole Halloween thing - she loves to dress up, but everyone doing it at the same time and running around outside seemed a little weird to her. She changed her mind several times during the day about whether she'd rather be the bunny or the caterpillar, and right before we went out she was set on not wearing anything, but we convinced her. :)

We just went to a few houses around our neighborhood this year - we usually go drive out to the country and visit a couple of friends, but Greg was at a youth conference this year and I wasn't feeling adventurous enough to go by myself.

Talk about fast progress!

Remember that six or seven weeks ago, she was barely able to walk three steps in a row!!