Fun with little ones.

We got to babysit a couple of DARLING kids last night. My boys loved having them around. They all mauled the baby and wanted to feed and hold her. While her older brother spent the night following around the boys. Here are some pics from the night.

Blue Tiger is going to be the best Dad. He LOVES babies. He loves to hold them, and to talk to them, he talks about babies all of the time. He is a natural and will be a great Dad.

From the time he could speak Star has been asking for a baby sister. How he would love to have a little girl around. I tell him he will have to do with times like this until he is a father.Puppy loved holding the baby. She was so good natured about being passed around, and held in weird positions.

Sage wasn't as interested in the baby as he was in her stuff. He liked to carry around her chair and sit in it. He was always trying to check out her bottle, and he kept saying "Baby" all night.

This morning several of the boys expressed their disappointment that the kids were gone. We will just have to convince their parents to let us take them again. It was a fun night.

Without Computers

On the morning following our locking up of the computers EZ asked if he could play on his. I explained again how we talked about our week without computers. His response was, "Oh No! What are we going to do?!"
What did we do with all of our time off of the computer. Well, me, I read. Oh it was so wonderful. I read four books (okay one spilled over into this week, but I couldn't sleep last night until I finished it). The boys played outside a TON! They love their bikes. And I love that they like to be outside so much. I was also REALLY grateful for the good weather.
One thing that REALLY surprised me was the fact that not one of them tried to turn on a computer. WOW! We put away all of the laptops, but the other ones I just unplugged. It would have been really easy for one of them to just plug it in and turn on the switch. But no one even tried. We had made a pact and we all kept it. YEA.
Here is a pic of Spike practicing. We really worked on form last week. Here is my Sage spelunking in the cupboards again. If there is a will there is a way. He cleaned out the whole cupboard before he crawled in and closed the door. I put a few back in, but he was just as happy.

Cups, cups, cups, cups, cups.

We cleaned out a couple of spaces and in one of them I found all of these little paper cups. I thought maybe the boys would like to drink out of them for fun. NOPE! Building is so much more fun. They are still playing with the cups days later.

You can't really see it in this pic, but EZ had a way of stacking them that he could make them collapse really easily into one another and took his "buildings" down really fast. A couple of the other boys tried to mimic it, but EZ is really the master of it.

One morning Puppy got up extra early just to see how many buildings he could make in the kitchen. EZ also liked to play the cups game. You know the one. Usually played with 3 cups and you hide a little toy under one, mix them all up and then find the toy. Well, that was WAY too easy for EZ. He decided he needed a lot more cups for the game. I never won.

They also had fun making them into "Telescopes" and "Glasses" too funny! We are trying to teach Sage emotions. We have emotion band-aids and put a ton of them on him. He ended up taking most of them off right away, but he couldn't get this angry one off of his arm, so we took a pic. Spike made a robot one day at school. He calls him Roger and talks about his personality and what he likes and doesn't. He doesn't like Sage or Puppy getting near to him. (LOL like THAT is going to stop them.) I am sorry I didn't take pics of the boys outside. It was a fun week and I think we all felt pretty good about it when it was done.

A Puppy Kiss

Last week I needed a babysitter, one of the Sisters from church was willing so I gladly accepted her offer and dropped off my two little boys. When I came to pick them up the first thing that my Puppy says is, "Mom, I love playing with these kids, they need to come to our house." Wow, okay. Puppy is a friendly guy and makes friends very easily but doesn't often have this reaction.
As I drove the boys home Puppy made a little confession. "Mom, I kissed her."
"Are you supposed to kiss people outside of our family?"
"No." (He knows this because we have had a few talks about it ever since he planted a good one on our Angel babysitter.)
Well, I kind of let the issue drop since I didn't know the whole story. But the next day I got to hear it all. Her Mom told me that it went kind of like this.
They were dancing to classical music and her little girl is very dramatic and theatrical in her dancing. While they were dancing she decided she was Sleeping Beauty and after dancing around for a while dropped to the floor expressing that he would need to kiss her for her to awaken. Well, Puppy didn't see a problem with that. Hence the kiss.
Well, I have to say that I think he's got good taste. She is quite adorable, don't you think? And she is just about as girly as you can get. And since Puppy is just about as much boy as you can get, put them together and they sure are cute.

National Unplug Week

April 19-25 is National Unplug Week.
We are going to do it. At school they have been hyping up the kids about it, and having them make lists and draw pictures and stuff they can do ... without the TV. Well, for us it's not the TV (since we don't have one of those) but we do have computers, DSI's, and all sorts of other fun electronic games. So, we've talked about it and tonight we all turn in our computers for a week. Dad and Mom can't give up phones, so they get to stay. But everything else can go.
So, do you think we can make it a week?
I'm not sure, but I have some ideas and hopefully we will be all the better at the end of this week.
We shall see......

Dad is cool!

Okay, so I don't usually post things about my hubby. But today I can't resist. Yesterday and today my hubby did something wonderful for me. He gave me the most wonderful gift.
A TON of ME TIME.
I spent yesterday afternoon and evening at the Temple. I was able to be there for six awesome hours, and then driving time on top of that, which was also fun because I went with a friend. All the while Dad took care of the boys. Picking them up from school. Feeding them dinner. Playing with them all outside. (Which always consists of at least a few band-aids and sometimes a lot more than that.) Getting through the evening schedule of baths, pj's, clean up, prayers, and good-nights. I got home late in the evening everyone and everything was peacefully in their places. So nice.
Then, this morning I spent four hours of the morning at a service project with my Sisters at church. I had so much fun and really enjoyed my time there. And when I came home everyone was happily playing outside.
And then to top it off my sweet hubby fixed my blinker. Something I've been needing to do, but haven't found time to do yet. I went and bought the light...but never got it changed. So, he did that for me too. I do have to put this in here though.... While he was changing the light we were debating about how to change it and after looking at a couple of different ideas, I suggested a way I thought would work and I was right. He even said, "You were right." I just had to document that he said that.
YEA! What a wonderful couple of days for me. Thanks Sweetie!

Martial Arts

My Blue Tiger asked a couple of months ago if he could start a martial arts class. My hubby and I thought about it and the more my hubby thought, the more he liked the idea....for himself too. So, for the last few weeks they have been going to classes together. The most surprising part of all of this is how much Tiger likes it. Don't get me wrong, I thought he would like it, but he is very hard on himself if he isn't perfect when he does something. So especially when he starts something he usually gets very frustrated and really has a hard time until he learns to do it perfectly. But that hasn't happened. Each time he goes he comes home so happy and enthusiastic. We have watched his confidence grow and have loved watching him grow in a new area. YEA! I am so happy for my Blue Tiger.