A weekend in Vegas

A couple of weekends ago the boys and I headed down to Las Vegas to visit these super good looking Turleys. We also got to enjoy some fun and sun with them. Caleb had to stay home and work, so that made things a bit exciting. The drive down was great and seemed quick. Gavin was a superb co-pilot and took care of everything so we didn't have to stop very often.

We immediately tried to enjoy as much time outside as we could. While the other adults were driving to Vegas or working, I took the kids to the park for a couple of hours. They all loved it. The weather was completely perfect.

 Gavin and Morgan were trying to spin this thing at the same time. It was pretty funny to watch their determination.

 Super silly boys.

 We even had a little picnic on the perfectly green fake grass of the soccer field. The kids were all even complaining about how hot they were after running around playing soccer. It was great.

 Miran had the big birthday party on Friday night and it included  this princess bouncy castle. Since it was setup several hours before the party all of the kids got to spend about 7 hours jumping their little hearts out. Henry and Wyatt even indulged me by posing with the princesses. Wyatt has never talked so much about a princess as when he was trying to talk every adult into getting into the castle and jumping.

 His feet barely left the floor, but he thought he was going so high.

 So very much jumping.

 Miran's butterfly birthday cake.

 Saturday was her big day, her baptism. All of Schatzy's girls have worn my baptism dress that my mom made for me to be baptized in. It was really fun to get to be with Miran and see her wearing it.

 These guys were all having so much fun running around that there was quite a bit on complaining from my crowd when it was time to get dressed up and head to the church. Morgan and Finn were both pretty happy about it though, and even grumpy they all look very handsome.

 I also took some family photos for Schatzy, since hers hadn't been update for about 6 years. It was a lot of fun and they all looked great together. Even when Miran had decided she was done taking photos and put on her grumpy face.

 Schatzy with her baby. So hard to believe that her littlest has become so grown up.

 It was really a great weekend and a nice break from winter and life for us. Our drive home was a bit more painful because I came down with a cold by Sunday morning, but we made it, and are very glad we made the trip.

Henry is 6!

My little Henry turned 6. We planned a rockin' Star Wars party for the occasion. 

I found some great inflatable light sabers for all of the boys and they had a blast with them, while not poking anyone else's eye out.

Henry is striking his tough pose.

We also morphed some of his favorite things into Star Wars food, almost all of which was candy. Like Dark Side Skittles, light saber pretzel sticks, black licorice meteorites and blue Jedi juice.

Yes, he has inherited his Dad's knack for closing his eyes when a camera is around.

 One of the boys' favorite games was freeing Han Solo from carbonite (aka, chopping a toy Han out of colored ice). The all spent a lot of time melting and chipping away to rescue Han.

Since we only had one Han action figure, this group was freeing Chewbacca, but they also had a great time. And they did claim that theirs was frozen much deeper than the other group.

 We used the light sabers to duel as well as balance our training orb balloons in the air. They all lowed being about to test their skills.

 Even sitting and waiting for the next turn was a good time.

 Wyatt got in on a bit of the action too. He really loved this party.

 On Henry's actual birthday he spent almost the entire day building legos. He did pause for some cheese pizza for dinner and his favorite peanut butter glazed bundt cake.

Valentine's Schmalentines

 In a slight variation from our annual tradition, I decided to make tiny dough hearts and let the boys decorate their own pizzas this year. They seem to enjoy the freedom of choice that this provides them. And they are starting to get the hang of exactly how to top a pizza to perfection.

 The results looked pretty good, and tasted good too.

 It took several tries for Gavin to get a photo of us, but the heart was just too beautiful not to document.

Wyatt was really wanting a shot with his Daddy.

 Finn's first Valentine's day was fun for him, I think. Tho he didn't get any pizza. He did give us lots of love and smiles tho.

 We ended up with red velvet cookies with pink frosting for dessert. They were pretty tasty even tho Wyatt is acting like his was poisoned. He did end up eating it.

Just hanging around

Just a few of our hanging around the house shots from the last couple of weeks. Admittedly we haven't been doing too much that seems exciting enough to even pull the camera out.

We have been doing plenty of baking, trying some new recipes and of course making some of the old. Gavin and Henry have really started to like helping in the kitchen and they are actually really good at it now. Henry helped Caleb whip up some excellent monkey bread... not sure what Caleb is trying to say to him in this picture.

 While the older boys are at school I have been being as lazy as possible with these two cuties. As Finn is getting around more and more, you can often find Wyatt on the floor next to him or sometimes on him. Strangely, Finn doesn't seem to mind either way.

 Wyatt had a bit of trauma this week with a fall into the downstairs fireplace. I was upstairs with Finn, but Henry was in the room with him and we still have no idea how the fall happened. Both Wyatt and Henry say that he was just standing by the fireplace and next thing they knew he had hit his face. No stitches required, but he got a pretty nasty cut and scrape.

We have continued to go to the Children's Museum with Anne once a week, and Wyatt is at the stage where he really love his day with Anne. He could spend hours at the water, especially if he can find a cup to move the water around with.

Finn also really likes the museum now that he can hang out in the baby area and mess with everything there.

 Finn's newest trick is scooting and rolling all over the floor. He doesn't have a traditional crawl yet, since his arms don't want to cooperate with his legs on that one, but he can spot something he wants and make his way to it pretty quickly by rolling turning and backing up. It is pretty funny to water.

Just doing a few pushups.

 And lately he is pretty cute as he sits in a normal crawling position and rocks back and forth, usually drooling. He makes me think of that funny bull dog from the old Mickey Mouse cartoons, the one that would always chase Pluto. Just one more way that I think little boys are like puppies.

So Very Much Snow

With record snowfall and several weeks of very cold temps, we have had an interesting month of being hermits. Add to that a few illnesses for the two smallest boys and I have tried to stay in as much as possible. I did try to sneak out and do some intense snow shoveling one day when it was above freezing and few fresh inches had come down. Even though it took as long to get them all in their snow clothes as it ended up taking for me to shovel, the boys were eager to come out and "help" me.

 Wyatt loves the snow so much he can't take his eyes off of it long enough to look at the camera. Every day when we leave the house, he looks down to see what shoes he is wearing and says, "I walk on snow, ok?"

 A very fluffy snow angel

 After all of the shoveling in the past few weeks we have built up our own mini sledding hill on the side of the driveway. Henry was loving it.

 And of course we had some snow ball fights... Can you guess who was the big instigator on that one?

Point Loma

Point Loma was probably my favorite place on the trip to San Diego.  We went on our last morning. It was so beautiful. Great views, and we got to see this super cool submarine heading out into the ocean, hard to beat that. There was also an amazing National Cemetery there and driving through it was quite breathtaking.

 I love this shot of Libbie. Obviously San Diego goes well with her.

 Wyatt loved it there too, though I don't think he looked at the views for more than a minute. He was very excited about all of the sticks and pine cones and spent at least 20 minutes under this bush in his little hideout.

  A few of the Eskelsens hanging out.

 These two were trying to identify some animals on the rocks below. I don't know if they ever figure them out.

 Finn and Ella were such good sports the whole trip and riding in the windy stroller on the walk to the light house was no exception. They even waited outside while everyone climbed the step to the top.

An attempt at a group shot, pretty hard to get everyone to look at the camera when they are quite distracted by the outdoors.