Chuck E Cheese

On Leila's birthday she wanted to go to Chuck E Cheese.

Both girls had tons of fun, they especially liked the one where the machine took their pictures.

They even got to meet the big guy himself.  And do a dance with him.

Henry had fun too, his favorite was this horse ride or the spinning teacup.

Leila can do monkey bars by herself!

The girls and I went up to Cran Hill for a day while nana and papa were camping with their church group.

Stella: mom are there pink horses at Cran Hill?

I remembered to pack almost everything, but not a pair of tennis shoes, so nana and papa were nice enough to take the girls around for me.

Here is Henry after falling asleep in the car, I love how his face is all smooshed.

Leila and I did each other's hair while the other kids were napping the other day.

Leila has three crazy buns.

Today is father's day, and we got to celebrate all fathers, but especially Jeremy.

He is such a great dad and husband and I am so grateful for him everyday.

Jer was helping Leila in the bathroom and she yells MOM!

Jer: my name is dad, how may I help you?
Me: laughing
Leila: no, I was yelling for mom.

We went to the beach and walked the pier with the kids - sort of nerve wracking, but nice.

The girls' favorite part was throwing rocks into the channel.

Personality

In what I hope continues to be an annual post...my opinion of my kids' personalities

Leila Grace, age 5
Leila continues to be such a joy in our lives.  She loves rules and order.  She will recite and attempt to enforce house rules on her siblings and cousins.  Leila loves to help me bake and she pretends to do cooking shows at least 5 times a week.  Leila is such a good big sister.  She really cares about Stella and Henry and goes out of her way to be nice to them.  One recent example I posted to facebook:

I was relating to Jer the story of how my great aunt Duie gave a quarter to Leila and Stella after lunch yesterday and Stella lost hers. Leila gave her quarter to Stella to put in her bank.
Leila: I do what I can.
Us: smiles and laughter
Leila: big sisters are big sisters. I don't really care about a piece of money.

Just the other day she earned two more quarters helping nana with kids or cleaning up, and when we got home, she gave one of them to Stella so Stella could put it in her bank.  She is becoming so selfless, I love that about her.  She has an independent sense of style.  She wants to choose her clothes and puts up a fuss (her words) if I try to get her to wear something that I choose.  She wears a rotation of her three favorite outfits (it would probably be the same thing every day if I did not enforce a strict no pulling things out of the laundry basket policy).  If I dare to suggest she needs a sweatshirt on, she will make a sad face and say, "It's not me."  I have a hard time resisting that...she wears a sweater instead. :)  She loves to read, color pictures, make cards for everyone we know, play in the sandbox, play goldie blox, play on the ipad, and watch TV.  She knows all of her letters and can count to 100 by tens, and 39 by ones.  Her best friends are Paige, Norah, Stella, and Henry.  Her favorite food right now is strawberries.

***

Stella Joy, age 3
Stella is very adventurous.  She loves to stomp in puddles, check out the baby birds in the nest in the front of our house, basically anything that gets her wet or dirty.  She is full of giggles and smiles all of the time.  She is in the awkward picture stage where if you ask for a smile you get anything but.  Stella is a bit of a chatterbox.  She always has a story to tell you about something that happened "today" even if it was 6 months ago.  Even strangers notice how outgoing and talkative she is - making the talking hand sign at us while she goes on and on.  Stella is very loving and likes to show her love with hugs and kisses.  Sometimes she will hold my face and kiss me again and again and again.  When we are in church and I let her stand on the pew in front of us, I will hold onto her so she doesn't fall and she gives my neck a backward hug that almost chokes me, but I feel already that someday I will miss it, so I let her squeeze away. Stella wants to be older like Leila, always trying to get the same age perks if she can.  The other day she announced that when she is four (after turning three about two days before) she will be allowed to pour her own milk on her cereal.  She just started going to children's worship at church and she is so happy about it, she refers to it as school; as in, I made this for you at school.  Ever since Leila started preschool Stella has wanted to go to school too.  Stella loves to be a big sister and helper.  She is always willing to go get things to help me out.  It is always interesting to see how her brain works, she is always spouting off cute things, like the other day she did not like the sound of being a daughter, she argued with me and started to cry until I agreed that she could be my son instead.  A girl son of course, and still insisting that she is Stella Joy instead of whatever you might call her - are you my sweetie pie? No, I'm Stella Joy.  Stella also likes order and we have made her a bit OCD with bedtime routine too.  I am not sure if it is my kids or if all kids are like this, but since we have a bedtime routine, if something doesn't happen in the right order, like forgetting to take a drink of water during the singing of Be Still and Know, she will flip out and want us to sing it again so that she can take a drink while we are singing.  Stella's best friends are Norah, Paige, Leila, and Henry.  Stella loves to read books, do puzzles, swing, play in the sandbox, play ipad, and watch TV.  Her favorite food is cereal.

***

Henry Jay, age 17 months
I thought that Stella got into everything, but somehow Henry manages to get into even more.  He is always opening drawers and cupboards and is very curious about everything.  He recently figured out that he could carry the step stool from the bathroom to his room and reach all of his pacifiers on his dresser.  So every day, and sometimes multiple times per day, he picks up the stool and goes to work, getting them all down again.  I love Henry's laugh, it is so infectious.  I think that part of the reason his laugh brings me such joy is that he was so unhappy for so long with food allergy induced irritability.  I am glad that he is mostly over that moodiness and he is free to be himself.  Henry loves exploring, spinning around (dancing), and climbing.  He enjoys playing with anything noisy, going down a slide, swinging, playing in the sandbox, and wrestling with his sisters.  His favorite food is hot dogs.  He loves to play outside.  He is always trying to scoot out the door.  Yesterday the girls were still playing outside and I took him in to give him a bath and he kept escaping back outside in various stages of undress!

Lots of pictures to share...

 This one cracks me up...I think Henry is trying to bite off the monkey's ear.

 Here are five of the seven kids I was watching that day.

Part of the girls' birthday celebration with my side.

Leila got an easy bake oven, she said, "Just what I've been waiting for!"

All of the cousins lined up: Stella, Norah, Zoe, Paige, Leila, Greta, Reid, and Henry

The girls don't like cake, so we made death by chocolate instead.

Stella miraculously blew out the candles on her first try, but I am quite sure she could never do it again, she is not good at aiming when she blows :)

Here are the first cookies that Leila made in her new easy bake oven!!

Henry gets more and more adventurous every day...we have to always keep an eye out for him!

Leila graduated from preschool.  She says she is now a kindergartener.  How did that happen so fast?

She loved learning with Mrs. H and Mrs. B!

The weather is warming up and we are spending more and more time outside on the swingset.

I am so thankful we put one up, the kids just love it!

Especially the sand box.  It meets all of their needs. Stella and Henry love to get messy and Leila loves to pretend to make all kinds of cakes and food!

Jer was helping Leila in the bathroom and she yells MOM!
Jer: my name is dad, how may I help you?
Me: laughing
Leila: no, I was yelling for mom.

Here we are at the Memorial Day parade.

Our kids love parades and clapping and waving to the vets was a good time!

So was spending time with Jenna!

I think I see some resemblance between these two.

After the parade we went to see Lindsey and Ben while they were in town and to congratulate Drew on graduating from Calvin.

Ken was worried about Leila's modesty, her skirt kept blowing in the wind :) The girls had fun on the beach, Stella of course managed to get her shorts soaking wet!

Jer playing goldie blox with the kids.

Another successful birthday gift, a bubble machine!  It worked great for that first day, and not again.

But they really enjoyed it while it was working!

Riding in the car the other morning...
Stella: Mama, don't go fast, I might lose my shoes.

After seeing a dog...

Stella: I just saw it, and it wasn't barfing! (barking)

The kids all love to swing!

And slide.

We had a fun Memorial Day spending time together :)

The kids have been doing a lot of wrestling together lately, and really enjoying it.
Stella: We're walk-housing! (rough-housing)

Henry filled this basket with toys in the family room, pushed it into the kitchen, and got in all by himself!

Then the girls had to get in on it too.

It is warm enough to get out the water table!

The kids could hardly wait while I scrubbed the storage grime off from it before I let them play.