shower caps

This is one of my all time favorite pictures of my kiddos!  I'll just say it was not a "hair wash day."

pratt is 5

This kid is basically impossible to accurately describe.  He frazzles my nerves like no kid I know, but at the same time, his Pratt-isms are so funny and...delightful it is hard to not just eat it right up.   

 In our house, five is big because you get to have a friend party.  Since his best friend and cousin has a birthday just a month after his, we got to have a combined party!  Aunt Saundra put together some sweet Ninja turtles games, and I made a cake.

BAM-a!

It was something of a rough start to our vacation to visit Steve and Em in Alabama.  The stop and go traffic on the freeway in Chattanooga, Tennessee bested us.  We rear-ended a car, who then rear-ended the next car that had managed to not rear-end the car that had randomly slowed way down, but sped up and missed the whole scene.  The tears in the back seats immediately started to flow.  The kids were so scared.  Luckily, no one was hurt in any of the cars.  Just a few seat belt burns (which just minutes before the accident we had begged Pratt to put back on) and a few sore necks.  

 We leaned that Chattanooga is incredibly efficient with these accidents, and so kind!

 The people in the other cars we hit were also so sweet!  While we all waited for rides and help at a local Cracker Barrel they even played checkers with our kids and held them on their laps.  For something that was so upsetting, they made lemonade out of the situation for us all.

 In the end we had to say good-bye to our Inferno Red Chrystler Town and Country.  We cleaned in out in a junk yard and loaded up our belongings into Uncle Steve's van, who had driven hours to come to our rescue.

 While we weren't perusing Craig's list and local dealers to buy a van to get back home, we visited parks, ate way to much good food (Steve and Em are foodies that have a habit of showing us just how much we have to learn in the kitchen), hiked, explored, died Easter eggs, and just enjoyed Alabama warm weather, and the day to day living of our Southern family.

And it just so happens that Steve and Em had an extra van that they basically let us steal from them!  Months earlier they had purchased an new van, and had yet to sell their old one.  After driving it around all week, and having Steve basically detail it, we drove it home.  One of these days we might be able to tell them just how grateful we are to them for all they have done for us!

 Oh yeah, and we got to get brand new car seats!

This was one of those weeks that we walked away wondering why we are so blessed!

pie face

Aimee was pretty excited to get to go to Toys R Us to spend a gift card she got for her birthday.  We spent what seemed like forever looking for something she like that was within her budget.  But, when we found the game Pie Face, the hunt was finally over!

It has become a great family game that we have found works backward for us.  Our kids WANT a turn to get pied!  We also like to use it in conjunction with other games like a trivia about an FHE lesson or even piano theory.  A right answer gets a chance to get pied!  I now try to keep whipped cream in the house in some form!

really sick

There isn't much worse than a sick tiny baby.  All you can do is attempt to comfort, and hope for the best.  My little Canonball fell victim to what our pediatrician suspected was RSV.

This baby was so sweet, even when it was obvious that he was suffering.  

Canon was really struggling to nurse those first few months.  When he got sick something switched and he actually started rejecting binkies and bottles.  While I was pretty bummed that the binkie got kicked to the curb, I was more than happy that such an unpleasant thing turned out to be a blessing to me.  I love nursing my babies (and I didn't mind not having to pump 5 times a day either)!

tidbits

Just another example of May's talent of stealth.

 Hair may not be Chads best skill, but he looks super cute doing it!

 We enjoyed making the most of the snow!

My number one helper during the day.

Aimee, with the help of her dad, made me this great purse!

May taking care of her baby.

Porter loves having the missionaries over!

We got these works of art in the mail from grandma.  She spent a Sunday writing each of the kids a special letter and drawing them a picture.

I wish the photo showed it better, but I am so cool, that sometimes I even work out with good old Abe Lincoln!

Pratt rocks at rocket math!  Medlar View will have one crazy smart boy in the Kindergarten next year!

My two cute riders!  This is how they do family bike rides.

If I mailed all of the notes my kids write to family, I would go broke paying for stamps.  They sure are cute though!

This baby boy makes our whole family so darn happy!

Porter and his mini-me!

The music teacher at the school does some random stuff.  Luckily, Porter isn't big enough yet to care.

daddy/daughter, mother/son

May was so excited to get to be a part of the Daddy/daughter dance event this year.  Aimee wasn't thrilled to have to share, but such is life.  Chad even made sure he helped make it special by contributing to the pre-dance preparations.

The boys had looked forward to also continuing our tradition of going bowling, and we had a blast!  I'm pretty sure the people in the lanes around us were completely entertained!