Here Comes the Sun...Spring Fever!

Well...Spring is here, which means there is a lot of playing outside here! YES! But Spring also means rain, so there is a lot of staying inside. So to fight our Spring Fever we do a LOT of playing! Tori LOVES to play on the computer and is on starfall.com every afternoon while Brooke takes a nap. She is learning how to read and she loves to play the word games. As you can see from the pictures above, she also LOVES to pose for the camera. For fun, we take the camera out ans she poses and makes funny faces or does dance moves (I think that I am going to put her in a ballet class during the summer just for fun). Tori is "hiyarious" (she says most of her l's as y's). Her other pastimes include finding bugs and other creatures in the dirt (please refer the worm above) and cooking with me.

Brooke is our comedian. She is always trying to make something funnier than reality. I LOVE the spaghetti mustache. She really LOVES to walk around in my shoes and by the end of the day she has at least three pairs of my shoes in our living room. Brooke is also a future photographer...she will pick up anything and put it up to one of her eyes and says "Say cheese!" and make a clicking noise. Some of her fake cameras include cheese graters (as pictured above) and blocks. She LOVES to follow Tori around and tries to do everything Tori does. Her new favorite feat is to climb on her dresser and play with all her bows! What a monkey!

Can you believe that this little girl is 7 months old!? Boy how time flies! Katelyn likes to play in her jumpie, she can now roll from her back to her front (to her chagrin), she eats at the table in a highchair, takes three naps (please refer to the happy napper above) and has just taken on the swing outside (and LOVES it!). All in all...she is a happy camper...even though I believe that she is getting in two of her bottom teeth!

All in all...we are doing well, even though Spring Fever has hit...we are enjoying the good ol' life. We have been seeing a few rainbows, enjoying a few horseback rides, and taking it easy. Aren't my kids just the cutest!

Last night for FHE we planned our garden. Yippee!!! Tori cannot wait to get her hands in that dirt! I really hope that we actually get zucchini here this year!

Hanging Out with Silly Girls, Veggies and Tall Towers

Well, we hang out at the house a lot...I try and get out of the house every once in a while. We have a schedule: Monday-we stay in the house because I have a mountain of laundry to do, Tuesday-we sometimes go to the store or invite friends over, Wednesday- same as the day before, Thursday-we go to the Library for reading time and checking out books, Friday- more hanging out... I cannot wait until it is nice enough to go to a park or something. I mean, we are still a little bit bound to the house because of Katelyn's naps and feedings, but she is good about sleeping in her car seat. So we do a lot of reading, dancing, pretending, playing outside (thank heavens for a backyard!), playing with toys, watching shows, and playing Starfall.com. (Tori can now navigate the whole site by herself and find her favorites! AWESOME!) What keeps me busy besides 3 kids? Reading, Blogging, and Family History Indexing. F.U.N.

(Lora, I think Katelyn looks like Liv in some of these pictures!) Katelyn is loving her new meals! She has tried rice cereal, peas, green beans and carrots. She is also old enough to rough house with Daddy too...she is playing one of the girls' favorites: BONK JIUW (that is like shoo with a little "J" lisp).

Last night we had Family Home Evening (aka FHE) with the girls. Our lesson was on the Tower of Babel and we made the tower with Jenga blocks! They LOVED this lesson. I got it off of Pinterest here. We will be trying lots of those lessons I am sure! Katelyn even got in on it...she LOVED chewing the blocks. Jason's tower hit 11 before it tumbled down. Of course the favorite part was making the towers fall and then building them back up again. We played for almost an hour! (We need to invest in some wooden blocks)

Once There Was a Snowman and Other Shenanigans

We got some snow last Thursday after I bought the girls some snow boots for $5 at Wal-Mart! So we put them to good use! Tori immediately went outside and made a snow angel! Brooke was not so much of a fan, but she looked dang cute in her hat and boots!Tori was in snow heaven!

We made a snowman and sang the snow man song...sadly Tori then proceeded to destroy the snowman. I guess that was his fate because although this is what it looked like at noon, by the time Jason got home it was all melted! This was Tori's very first snowman.

Katelyn, on the other hand, stayed inside all comfy cozy in her swing. She did not want to check out the snow quite yet. As for the shenanigans...well, they always abound in our house. (Did you check out Brooke's BLUE eyes! And have you noticed that Tori's eyes are the color of amber or honey...or as I call them: a nice shade of blonde!)

Well, little miss Katelyn tried her first taste of "real" food (rice cereal) on the first day of March. Her first reaction...gagging and dry heaving. She couldn't even keep down a tablespoon full! The next morning (pictured above in her red PJs) she devoured a whole half an ounce and by today she eats a whole 2 ounces of cereal. She even had her very first bottle with formula! (I told Jason that now that Katelyn can drink out of the bottle I will be free to leave him with the kids for LONG periods of time...he looked at me with a stressed out smile and said, "Right!" Ha ha ha!) She is such a doll! I think tonight she will be trying green beans...yummy-yummy!

On Slave Training

Can you guess who is on the move?! Katelyn will scoot just about anywhere! Here are her six month stats: 12 pounds 13 ounces (3%) and she is 25" long (22%). She is TINY! But she still is learning new things. She can now roll over from her back to her stomach (to her chagrin...she HATES being on her stomach) but she is way too strong for her own good. She still scoots all over the place and I LOVE this picture of her under the bed, this was taken as I was doing some indexing for Family Search (it is my new hobby..I am addicted)!

As for the other beasts (I say this because as I am writing this blog both of them are crying because one stole a hat and the other one bit her sister's stealing hand...but I am determined to write this blog!!!!) they just keep getting bigger. Tori is loving Primary (especially all of the singing!) and Brooke finally will go into Nursery voluntarily! They love to wear my glasses (if you look closely you will see that Brooke is hanging out on the toilet with them on!) and they love to help me in the kitchen (Tori likes to hang out pant-less a lot lately hence the naked legs) putting away dishes and making cookies and dinner. Sure it takes me 5 times longer to do, but it is so much fun with them. What they don't know is that I am training them as my slaves and soon they will be doing this all on their own while I sit, read and eat bon-bons! Ha ha ha (that was an evil maniacal laugh!).

February Fotos

We went to a ward game night at the beginning of February and I made some sprinkle cupcakes for a cake walk. We decided to eat the left overs for breakfast. I snapped these stinking cute pics (please note that Brooke is looking at the camera and has her hand around Jason. Also note that Tori has her hair in pig tails!)

The Dingers came to visit twice this month! I remembered to take pictures only the second time! Auntie Marie came too! We needed to get some pictures with Katelyn and her grandparents.

When there are free babysitters there are crazy date nights! Holla! Jason and I went to a fabulous Valentine party with a thrift store flair. All participants were to come dressed in clothes that we bought from a thrift store with a Valentine/Couple Theme. Jason and I went for the Valentine theme. We found most of our outfits at DI and I found my fabulous Valentine PJ pants at Goodwill. Jason found my amazing sweater in the racks (please note that there are feathers around the neck and sleeves!) I also couldn't pass up these hot pink stilettos! H.O.T.! Our professional pictures will follow soon...maybe with a blog devoted just to the party!

TORI: still loves to pose for the camera. I love the hot chocolate mustache. I pulled my hot pink shoes out of my shopping bag and they were immediately snatched by little hands. They walked around the whole house in them.The 4 bottom shots are Tori in a princess photo shoot. 1 is a over the shoulder look, 2 is the classic fist under the chin, 3 is the up doo, and 4 is the hands under the chin look. My favorite is the sitting princess that I took yesterday...she is getting so BIG!

BROOKE: is our comedian and I feel lucky if I get a shot of her! She was sporting the bunny ears on Monday and I just had to take a few pictures. She is constantly getting into things...she is a very curious girl. She also LOVES to wear my shoes around the house. She just keeps getting more beautiful.

KATELYN: aka Scooter (we are pretty sure that this is going to be her nickname) is growing like a weed. Her new trick is too scoot (hence the nickname) all over the house on her back in the back bend push leg form! It is pretty funny. she is our first to do this and it makes her quite mobile. One day we found her under the trampoline in our living room. She pushed her way under and then back out again! Check out her form...she is waving to you all!

Auntie Marie couldn't resist dressing up our little Scooter...she is quite the doll!

Last, but not least, Tori is learning to draw and write. She can now spell her name and LOVES to draw various animals. As you can see by the label, the left animals are frogs. The animal to your right is a dog. So stinking cute!

We have enjoyed our February thus far and I cannot believe that February is almost at an end! YIKES! But...Scooter will be turning 6 months soon, so I will post her stats and another photo soon! Check out my new food and fun blog: That Is A HumDINGER!

Happy Valentine's Day!

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It's February!

Well, this set of pictures was taken at the end of January, but don't judge! :) We got these marvelous building magnets from Grandma Frann for Christmas and the girls LOVE them! While I was giving Brooke (the child who is not pictures in this post because she will not sit still or pose for the camera) a bath, Tori constructed this little doosie all by herself...it is a train! What a happy little architect!

Katelyn can now sit by her self for a few seconds. She can roll over too...but I can still count how many times she has rolled over on one hand. These pictures were taken this morning in the outfit that I bought for her when I found out that I was having another little girl! I love that color combo: pink and orange!

Grandma and Grandpa Dinger were here last week and it was a blast. They are seriously lifesavers. As I have mentioned before I really need a vacation and at least when they come I can get out of the house a little without the kids! In fact one day I scored at the Good Will and found 4 new pairs of shoes at $3.99 & a cute sweater and blazer! Nothing like new shoes and clothes to soothe my frazzled nerves! On Friday we got a babysitter and we all went to dinner kid-less! It was great to get away and have some good sea food! Mmmmm.... crab! That is about all...I cannot wait until the Dinger grandparents come again! (By the way they will be here again next week! This trend is caused by a combination of the joys of retirement, itchy feet and irresistibly cute grandkids!) Auntie Marie is coming too! Cross your fingers because Jason is also taking his really big LCSW exam on Thursday...he has been working for this for 2 1/2 years (say a little prayer for him)!

My Little Girls

Can you believe that this little face is 5 months old? Katelyn keeps getting bigger! She just recently started scooting herself back with her feet to get off her play mat (which she loves). It is hilarious. I will leave her in one spot and she is half way to another location in a few seconds. She still hasn't mastered rolling over yet from front to back (she has done it a few times by accident, but those don't count), but she is playing with her feet and can almost roll from her back to her front. She is doing things a little backwards! I just recently took out the swing and she thinks it is pretty cool, but she is already to tall for the first setting and I have to change it so she can actually jump and not just stand there and play with the toys. The booties are from an older sister in our ward. They are so cute and they actually stay on her feet because there is a tie on the ankle. Too bad they are just a little too small (she is busting out the toe)...Katelyn only wore them once.

Me and my girls. Tori and I were practicing taking pictures with my camera in different settings...thanks to a photography mutual night with the Mia Maids. The setting is made to take pictures with one person holding the camera. It turned out ok...except for the fact that I looked disheveled...maybe because it was Saturday and there is always so much to do?! I tried doing the one hand pictures with the baby...but it wasn't functioning. So Jason took the pictures for me, but put his hand in front of the flash in the pictures...oh well. I think Katelyn looks a lot like Liv in these photos!The picture with Brooke and I is from Sunday (hence the reason I look a little more presentable)...look at Brooke's BLUE eyes! She went to the doctor today for a well check and she is 35 1/2 inches tall (75%) and 27 pounds (40%). She is talking up a storm and is still a major comedian. She loves to sing and has a lot of Christmas, Nursery Rhyme and Primary songs memorized. She also can count to 10 and can say all of her ABC's and knows some of her letter sounds (which I attribute to the fact that she loves to watch "Super Why", "Sesame Street" and play on Starfall.com with her sister. Her favorite letter is "W" and her favorite numbers are "5" and "8" (she constantly points these out when we are in public). She loves chicken nuggets, Doritos (she is definitely like her father here), cheese, burrito meat with black beans and chocolate.

Here is little miss Katelyn in her cute little Sunday dress (except for the one on the bottom left...that is her outfit yesterday.). This one is a Katelyn original, meaning that she got this dress from someone just for her and it is not a hand- me- down. I LOVE it. The colors are just perfect for her. She is such a fun little baby! So I included the picture with Tori, because I think that Tori looks like a 3 year old going on 23! I also think that she looks a little like Oscar or maybe Livy in this picture!