Vday and much more

I say it every year. We celebrate our love for each other every day around here, but once again my guys got me a pretty bunch of flowers delivered to my work and then I got some new fleece pants (since mine have fallen in to the black hole where socks go) and a cool t-shirt when I got home. One thing about having all boys in the house is I'll forever remain the Queen around this joint. I'm cool with that :)

Filling out valentine's together for two kids this year almost brought out the divorce papers (every time Dave ripped a valentine or sticker he'd say Beth, next year can you not buy valentine's with these tiny %*&$%# stickers!?) and my great idea for Tyler's class almost sent Dave down to Cisco's for a quick shot or two with the locals. But around 11 or so, everything was complete and the boys were ready to spread their love around the entire school the next day (and I looked like a great Pinterest inspired Mom, but Dave did all the work ha!). Win for me...







Tyler's treat bag they made at school



Dave and I have been able to sneak out and go skiing a few times. We took Kyle with us last weekend and it's crazy to see him grown up and skiing with us. Last time we took him skiing he was 3! Happy he's in to it now and that he's not a snowboarder :)



Dave and the head wall on Boomer. Juli and I were attempting to catch some air on it too, but of course we don't have those pictures since we did much better tricks than him :)



And here's Dave giving birth to Juli.



Zac and I went to one of Alex's gymnastic tournaments and she did really great and so did Zac considering he sat there for about 2 hours or so!







And it's here. Amy had a coupon for 2 containers of formula so she bought us each one and delivered it to me with a message :) I'm very happy to be close to the end of my bottle making days!



And just a few more random pictures...

Zac 1st birthday party

Ugh. We should know things don't really ever go as planned right? Last Friday when I picked Zac up at school they said he really didn't eat much. Saturday he wasn't feeling well and after two sleepless nights (and throwing up in between Pop and Gram in their bed Friday night because he was coughing so much) on Sunday morning we went to urgent care to get him checked out. He had a cold and cough and they said he was starting an ear infection. Just in time for his birthday party on Sunday afternoon. Awesome. So, we had the party and the birthday boy spent most of the time on my hip or someone else's with an occasional walk around the room to check things out. I don't have many pictures since I wasn't really hand free, but Aunt Juli managed to get a few for us and Zac managed to gobble some of his cupcake (of course he did!). Next week we'll have a few people here on his actual birthday to celebrate the big guy one more time for his big day. Sick or not, lots of family and friends still got together to shower this sweet birthday boy with love!



Zac and his Pop...these two are inseparable!



Cousin Asa with his Grandpa (Uncle Ace)















Poor little guy :( So many cuddles for Mama this weekend. He slept with or on me for two nights and this might just have been to give me one last he's my little baby moment before he moves in to toddlerhood. Thankfully he's already feeling much better!



Having some fun with his brother!

Snow Days

Sleigh riding and skiing was on the agenda this past weekend. On Saturday, Dad got to go skiing and Tyler and I did a little sleigh riding, then T's friend and his Dad stopped by so we had a nice impromptu play date for a while. Then our super sunny gorgeous Sunday melted some of the snow, but we all still managed to find some tracks to have fun! Dave became a human ski lift and Alex and Sydney tried skiing for the first time and did great. Sydney did really well and was definitely getting the hang of it, Alex was a champ and totally caught on and was doing awesome and Tyler is totally loving backyard skiing and still needs his legs to get a little stronger, but he's having fun and says "It's ok, when you fall you just get back up!". We're thinking we might take him skiing once it warms up a bit. Even Zac joined in on the fun and had his first sleigh ride with Mom and Tyler!Good times...









































This kid was done, he was pretty much falling asleep in the swing :)

Week in review

Conversation between Dave and I last night....

Me: "Dave, what do you think we should put the kids in for school pictures next week. I have these two matching shirts, but I'm not sure I want them wearing the same thing."

Dave: "Yeah, let's put them in the same shirts so we can make fun of them when they're older."

Tyler went to his first movie last week with Dad. They went to the Ambler Theater to see Madagascar and Dave said he did really good. By then end of the movie he wanted to stand by the wall and watch, but he watched the entire movie. We don't have any pictures because if it was up to Dave our kids would probably have one picture of them when they were born and that's pretty much it :)

Tailgate party at school...this is the only picture I managed to get.



Keeping warm with pink fuzzy slippers



Jumping on the couch. You can tell it's February and we're all hurting for things to do inside. Tyler and I spent about an hour having a dance party and jumping on the couch and pillows. It was really fun, brought back memories of when Jill and I would do this. We usually don't do this with shoes on, I took these when we were getting ready to walk out the door.

It may not look like it here, but Zac was having fun too ha ha :)





And with all the toys we have, the tupperware is what they were fighting over.







And we'll spend today and tomorrow playing in the snow. What a nice scene to wake up to on a Saturday morning.

Zac - 11 months

I can't believe he'll be one at the end of this month. This past year has flown by so fast it's crazy! In my mind I just keep thinking he's a baby. And it'll probably be that way until he's at least 30 or 40, but this past month it's become apparent that he's growing out of being a baby and starting to become a toddler. The biggest things that have gone on since the last update are he's now walking most of the time to get places and he totally understands things we say. Here's what Z-man has been up to...

• Clap your hands, give hugs, give kisses, let's dance, give me your binky, how does the Doggy go?, wave hi/bye - he responds to all of these things when we ask him to do them. He does a great, very quiet "huhh, huhh" to bark like a dog.
• When you sing Itsy Bitsy Spider, he tries really hard to do the spider with his hands.
• This past week 4 different teachers have said to me "Do you know he says Linda?". Linda is his teacher and I guess whenever he gets up from a nap or someone tells him No when he's doing something he shouldn't be, he yells  "Linda!". I have yet to hear this, but they swear he does it.
• They say he's just like Tyler. Climbing in and out of buckets of toys, leaving the room and going across the hall, trying to get in to the garbage can (and turning around and smiling at them while he does it).
• He says 'nana' when he wants a banana, mama, dada, I guess he says Linda and Grammy says that the other day he said 'thank you' to her. Every once in a while, I hear a sound come out that kind of sounds like 'Tyler', but I'm not sure about that one.
• Grammy was watching him the other day and she said he looked at my In Touch magazine that had a picture of Kate Middleton on the page and said 'Mama' and then gave it a kiss. I don't mind being called a princess or duchess whatever she is, thank you son :)
• He's down to 2 bottles a day and isn't super interested in them, so we're thinking that taking away the bottle won't be hard at all so we plan to do that pretty soon.
• He plays with his brother and likes to follow him around.
• He loves the ball popper and will hit the little handle to make it play over and over again.
• He's still a good eater and is sleeping really good too.
• Still only has his 2 bottom teeth. I love the gummy smile!
• Oh yeah, and he's starting to yell at us when we tell him No or make him stop doing something he's not supposed to be doing. He insists on trying to open the gates and climb the stairs. His little personality is coming out more and more. I love it!

This months photo shoot is titled "Zac tackling an apple". He was determined to eat it and it took him a while, but he managed to eat a little bit of it!







And here I am in the In Touch magazine :)



And then there's yoga by Zac. We came home from work on Friday and Grammy said does he always stand on his head. Nope, we've never seen this before, but I guess he does now!