A little garden

We had a few gorgeous days in a row last week and Saturday was perfect to put the garden in.  I bought a planter box last year but it took forever for it to arrive, so I missed my chance to plant a garden.  It was probably a blessing in disguise because I was so overwhelmed with my small kids and being hugely pregnant that I'm certain I would have let it just die.  ;)  I have hope that this summer will be much less miserable for me and the garden will be something we enjoy instead of just being a chore.

The kids helped and feel pretty proud of it.  It's not very big (4' by 8'), but it's a good enough size to see what we'll want to do for next year.  Kanyon shows it to anyone that will pay attention to him.  So, beware.  Don't come over if you don't want him to drag you out in the backyard and show it to you! 

If they are this excited about it now, I can't imagine what will happen once we have little tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, bell peppers, etc to show for it.  Maybe I can get them to eat tomatoes this way. That is if I can keep Cohen from pulling my plants out!  There has already been a casualty or two, so we'll see.  Honestly, I can't even tell you which plant is which (besides the tomatoes) because Cohen pulled all the little labels out of them before I had a chance to figure it out.  I guess we'll have to see once things start growing a bit more!  Like I have said before, Cohen always makes life interesting.  ;)

The rest of the day was spent out in the yard working and playing.  

 

My friend, Kaylee, pointed out this flower to me that evening... it was growing out of a crack at the end of my driveway.  

It's cute, right?  One of those "against all odds" kind of things.  I had to take a picture of it before my kids ran it over with their bikes!

It's crazy to me that the kids only have 2 more weeks of school and then summer will officially begin... I'm not sure if I'm ready!  I'm going to have to have plans and fun activities to keep everyone happy!

It felt like Spring...

...but just for a minute because yesterday morning we had another 5 inches or so of snow on the ground. (Thankfully it was fully melted by the afternoon, but that doesn't mean that there weren't more snow flurries throughout the day! :/)  The picture above is Kanyon's bird feeder he made in preschool.  The birds have really enjoyed it. 

Cohen likes playing out in the backyard. Especially in the wheelbarrow full of mud/water. Yay. Here he was after a few minutes outside unsupervised. :P

We had to hose him down and get him right in the bath. Steve has now been given the assignment of getting rid of that mess in the wheelbarrow. ;)

Kanyon and Scarlett...

They are such good little buddies. They play so well together that I don't really get hounded every day by them asking for a friend to play.  Don't get me wrong... they definitely have their moments with each other... but I really love that about having my kids so close in age.  Lately too Steve and I have been noticing that Scarlett and Cohen will play together so well.  The age gap is beginning to lessen with those two now that Cohen is getting older.  It makes me excited for them and for the relationship that Cohen and Kelan are sure to have for only being 15 months apart.

Date Nights

... with the kids. :)

Steve and I had a discussion not long ago about wanting to make sure that our kids got one on one time with Mom and Dad regularly. Since adding the 4th little bundle of joy, it's often hard to get quality time with the older ones because the younger ones are so needy.

So, we came up with Date Night. Every Tuesday evening, one kid gets to go on a date with either Mom or Dad. So far the kids LOVE it and won't let us forget either. ;) They are always figuring out how many more days until Tuesday.

Last week it was Scarlett and I's turn. We let the kids choose what they want to do. So we went to dinner at Noodles & Co. and then went and got pedicures. Scarlett's first official pedicure...
(photo courtesy of the iPhone)

Pretty sure she'll be requesting more of these because she loved it! Then she and I did some shopping. I came home and Steve asked me how it was and I said that she was a great time! She just chats away and loves to shop and do the things that I like to do, so I had a blast! ;)

It was Kanyon and I's turn last night and he chose Megamind in 3D that happened to be a the dollar movie theater. It was great! He just sits there and is happy as can be watching the show with his drink and candy. He even snuggled up to me and held my hand... what a great date. :) I love that he's not too old for that anymore.

Cohen even got his one on one time running errands with just me last week. He was so well behaved and happy the whole time. I forget that because he is the hardest one to take in addition to all the other kids, that often times he is the first one I'm wanting to leave home when I have things to do. Really though, I think a lot of his misbehaving is boredom/attention seeking. I'm trying very hard to remember that in our regular day to day activities. So, I'm even making an effort to have that quality time with him too even though he's so young.

Steve and I both want to have a really close relationship with all of our kids individually and we're hoping that this one on one time is a step in the right direction to be able to have that. So far, it's going great and I highly recommend it. Plus the kids just get excited even for the simplest things.

2011

Maybe I don't want a Happy New Year, he said. Maybe I want an intense New Year with a lot of growth experiences

& I had to admit I'd never thought of that
-StoryPeople

Phew... Happy New Year! So nice to have a house put back together and not have stuff everywhere! As much as I love Christmas and I love to get out the decorations, there is something so fresh and new about your home again once it's all back in storage. :)

It's not perfect... lego T-Rex on the table, pull-ups from a recent Costco run, baby paraphernalia all around... but clean and de-cluttered as much as is possible with little ones in the house.

I've not totally come up with "resolutions" yet... I don't normally make any official ones but I want to have a couple of main goals for the year and I'm still thinking on them. For now though, I'll leave you with one thing that I know I'm going to try and master this year.

The Playroom. Ugh.
This was it's state this afternoon:

Can you believe I'm actually revealing it? Say I'm not the only one that has a room in their house like this one.
Even Cohen is appalled.

No matter how many times I try and "organize" and come up with some kind of system for storing toys, etc... it always ends up looking like this.




I'm not sure that I'm going to just throw my hands up and say it's the age of my kids just yet... although I would love to. My biggest issue is that this room is lacking a closet of some sort... a place to store sets of things and little items that just get tossed about the room by Cohen. ;) I'm not sure how to remedy that, but I'm going to try and figure something out. Any and all suggestions are welcome!

In the meantime... at least I know the kids are enjoying themselves and they are getting use out of the playroom! And thank goodness I have it. Could you imagine all these toys tossed about my house?? That would be a much bigger problem. ;)

For now I will just be grateful that I have to physically walk up a flight of stairs to see the mess.

2011. I hope it treats everyone well... and I hope that I don't have too many growth experiences this year (like the story mentions above). I figure I'm due for a year off after adding Kelan to our family in 2010. Those first and last few months of pregnancy were tough as well as the first couple months of the adjustment to 4 little ones in the house. It was a changing year for us, and although a bit tough at times... I'm excited for the future and where we are in life right now.

That sounded a bit like a toast... Where's my Martinelli's? ;)
Cheers!

Over-run with Snow

We've had two pretty good size snow storms in the last couple of weeks... bringing a couple feet of snow... and a few smaller snow storms prior to that. It's been pretty outside and was a perfectly white Christmas.

My poor, deprived kids had not been out in the snow at all this year... mostly because it meant me searching for snow pants for each one and knowing that I probably was short a pair for Scarlett. So, after spending a morning searching for them... I found that I was indeed short snow pants for Scarlett. Thanks to Dad though, she had some by the time she woke up from her nap on Thursday and we were ready to play.

It was about 5pm when the kids got outside to play... the reason for the darkish pictures.

Kanyon and Scarlett were pros in the snow (until it got on Scarlett's face - she doesn't handle that so well). She is the little girl dressed as a boy in the photo below. ;) She opted to borrow Kanyon's old winter coat because hers was too hard to pull over her gloves.

This was Cohen's first "real" snow experience. (aside from the one time on the sled with Steve on New Year's day last year... he was far too young to be a fan. Come to think of it... I never blogged those pictures. Maybe I'll have to do that, albeit a year late exactly.)

He has been the best kid in the snow for the first time by far. Dressed like a marshmallow, he walked around like a pro. Pretty sure Kanyon sat and cried his first time in the snow.

He even attempted and succeeded in climbing up a snow bank within the first 5 minutes.



Scarlett was working on her snow "fairy", rather than angel.






The kids really wanted to build a snowman, but Steve claimed it wasn't the packing kind of snow. I think he just didn't want to do it right then. ;) Oh well, it just means he's got to get back out there on another day to do it with them.

Prepping a sledding hill in our driveway.

A success for Cohen.

Not so much for Kanyon. Oops.



If it has to be this cold outside... then there had better be snow to play in or at least make it look pretty out there. The cold weather starts to get old fast, in my opinion, after Christmas is over.

Bring on the Spring!! :)

Christmas Day 2010

Kanyon was up at 4am. And we thought his regular morning at 6am was early. Needless to say we sent him back to bed numerous times before we finally gave in just before 7am when Cohen woke up.

Santa did indeed make an appearance and the kids were giddy with excitement. They ought to have been too because Santa spoiled them this year. (I think next year, Santa needs to put a limit on the number of gifts and go from there... apparently this year he/she forgot how many things had already been purchased and tucked away as early as November! Oops!)

*these photos below are of the night before after Santa had set everything up*

Cohen had a gift that was setup in the playroom for him, so Santa wrote a note for him to go find it. Boy was he excited. I should have gotten pictures of his face when he dove in that thing. We do have video though and that's even better. :)

We enjoyed the day at home and family came to our house to visit and see what the kids got. Trevor and Alex were the only ones who stayed and had homemade potato soup and rolls for dinner with us and then we played the night away on the new Pictionary game that we got for the Wii once the kids were in bed.

Here is Alex's masterpiece after the game was over and she played on the free draw mode.

Pretty impressive, especially since the pen and drawing device take some getting used to!!
Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas!

(Call me scrooge, but all my Christmas decor was down the next day. :) I can't handle the clutter for too long!)

Christmas Eve with the Shipp's

We always spend Christmas Eve at my parent's house with my siblings and my grandparents. My mom made a ham dinner and we exchanged gifts as we do every year.




Trent was very creative with his gift of money for Alex this year... folded into little boots! :) It's kind of a running joke that Trent gives to Alex every year, even though each year we randomly draw names. It must just be meant to be. ;)

Great gifts deserve high 5's all around.

The kids dressed in their new PJ's they opened that night... and all freshly bathed!

I loved this picture of Cohen with my dad. So sweet.

Scarlett was showing a very interested Uncle Troy the contents of her purse that Great Grandma Cummings gave her... she has carried that everywhere with her since that night. :)

*Gasp*
Could this be a family photo? Yes, yes it is!

Thanks to Alex for the very first family picture with all 6 of us present and accounted for. :)

Sonnenberg Christmas

We always spend the 23rd of December over at Ken and Babata's house doing the Sonnenberg side of the family's Christmas celebration. The kids really look forward to it because they love giving gifts to their cousins that they picked out.

We had a really yummy spread of food... after seeing it all, I just gave up on eating healthy and ate what I wanted. :) I did not regret it either as it did not disappoint!



Kanyon and his cousin Maya are such good buddies.

Scarlett and Aliyah are too... and pretty much inseperable whenever they get together.

Grandma and Grandpa Sonnenberg with their great grandkids (and Babata). :)

James was there too, but apparently hiding from my camera.

After dinner we all went to a retirement community center and gave out gifts, cookies, and other little treats to the older people there that were eating their dinner at the time. They always love the kids and the kids love bringing around the goodies to share. It's really so sweet. My kids looked forward to it all week long after we talked about doing service for others earlier in the week.

Can't wait until next year! :)