Another Mega-Post!

Well, it's time for another "mega-post." I have desires to post more often but it just doesn't seem to happen. Too much going on around here! :) I have been working on trying to get this post done for awhile and just haven't managed to get it done. When I talked to my Dad on the phone today he told me in a round-about way that I really needed to post some new pictures. So I thought I better be a good daughter and get it done. That's why it's almost 2:00 in the morning and I am on the computer instead of sleeping. (Man--the babies are even asleep!!) So anyways, I hope you all enjoy it! As always I will start with the most recent stuff and move backwards.

Today:

These pictures of the boys were taken in my backyard today. It's tradition that we take pictures like this every spring. Amazingly enough they can all three still fit in there. They don't usually ride around that way though. Timothy is learning to drive this year.

3 months old:

Here are the babies when they were 3 months old (sorry, bad framing-- I almost cut Kylie out of the picture):

They are really smiley so I was trying really hard to get their smiles. Philip cooperated really well. Here are some cute ones of him:
  

Kylie didn't cooperate as well. She didn't want to smile and then when she did the moment I caught on film just looks like an open mouth rather than a smile. Better luck next time!

 
 

They had their check-ups on May 6th. They are doing very well. The doctor didn't even take the time to adjust their growth charts for pre-maturity. They are growing so well he didn't need to. Here are their stats:

Kylie--

Weight: 9 pounds, 3rd %tile

Length: 22 inches, 10th %tile

Philip--

Weight: 15 pounds, 90th %tile

Lenght: 25 1/2 inches, 95th %tile 

So, as you can see, Philip is still much larger than Kylie but even she is much bigger than she used to be. She is finally starting to outgrow her newborn clothes and move into the 0-3 month size. Philip on the other hand is beginning to wear some 3-6 months clothes. 

Here are some more recent pictures of them:
This one was on 4/9 (Yes, Suzie this one is just for you!!):

These ones were on 4/12 (Holbrooks, these ones are for you!):




This one was on 5/3. These are their matching church outfits. I took these when we got home from church. Kylie was so ready to be done and Philip was just waking up. So they weren't being photogenic but I just had to get them in their matching clothes.

These ones were on 5/9. Once again I was trying to get their smiles.
Finally, two smiles at the same time-- too bad Kylie wasn't looking at the camera!

Flowers:

Well we tried to go see the cherry blossoms at the Cherry Blossom Festival but being the naive newcomers that we are we didn't realize that you can't really just drive in and see them. We had two hours and we thought we'd drive over and drive by and just see them real quick and come home. NOT! The traffic was so bad that we got to the National Mall drove around one end-- the end opposite the blossoms, and then came straight home and we barely made it in our alloted two hour time slot. There were probably as many people there as blossoms. Next year we will figure out how to take the metro and give ourselves more than two hours. I was sad to have not seen the flowers but several houses in our neighborhood had cherry blossoms so we did get to see some.

We don't have a cherry tree but we do have a Dogwood tree in our front yard. It bloomed with beautiful pink blossoms. Then we had more flowers around our house bloom. For awhile our house was very pretty. I love flowers!

Here is our Dogwood Tree. By the time we took the picture the blooms were already starting to fall off. It was much more filled than this.

More flowers.

Our house from the street:

Science Fair:

Brian participated in the science fair at his school. He really likes science. His experiment was titled, "Which diapers are the most absorbent?" I thought that was great for our house. :) We tested four brands of diapers to see which ones were the most absorbent. The ones we tested were: Huggies, Pampers, Luvs, and Parents Choice. It was a fairly close contest but Luvs won. 

Brian had fun with it. He got a special certificate for participating that said "Excellent!" on it. He is pretty proud of it.

Happy Birthday Andrew!!

Andrew turned 5 in April. We can't believe he is getting so old. He will start Kindergarten this fall. He can hardly wait. 

He had a fun birthday. He was a little worried because he knew we hadn't been to the store so he was wondering about his presents. When he asked me about it I told him we were going to go shopping in the toy room. So I told him to go to the toy room and make a pile of everything he wanted and then we would wrap it up and give it to him. He did not think that sounded like a good idea. Luckily Derek got some time on the day of his birthday and made it to the store so he got some real presents.

He wanted a dinosaur birthday cake. I was planning on just sticking some of his dinosaur toys on it and calling it good. He was going to be happy with that too. He even had all the ones picked out that he wanted on it. But then we did some internet searching before we started and found just the one he wanted. It didn't look too terribly hard and I thought we could manage it so this is what we ended up with:

Andrew did the spots while I did the spikes, toes, and eyes. He was very proud of it. It tasted very good too!

Here is a slide show of him opening his presents:

Easter:

For Easter this year we decided to focus more on Christ and the Resurrection. So we spent the whole week before Easter celebrating. We started the Sunday before Easter and then did something every night up until Easter to represent what Jesus did during the last week of his life here on earth. Some of our activities included making palm leaves on Palm Sunday, drawing pictures of temples on the day He cleansed the temple, and eating a dinner with food from Jesus's time on the night of the Passover. It was lots of fun and really added to the holiday for all of us. We plan on doing the same thing next year and making it a tradition.

Easter Eggs:

We had lots of fun coloring our Easter Eggs. Timothy must like vinegar. He enjoyed sticking his hand in the dyes and then licking them off. Good thing it's non-toxic.

Easter Morning:

The kids had lots of fun finding all the plastic eggs that the Easter Bunny hid. The Easter Bunny decided we had enough candy so he filled our eggs with money. Mostly pennies but there were a few silver coins too. Strangely enough, Timothy got the least amount of eggs but the most money since he just happened to get almost all dimes.

Easter Outfits:
Here are the babies in their Easter Outfits. Kylie got a dress with Easter bunnies on it at one of my baby showers so she had to wear it. Philip got to wear a yellow tie so he thought (well it's probably more accurate to say "I thought") he was matching her. I took these after church and so they were tired and hungry and not being photogenic. Ah well! You'd think I'd learn that after church is just not a great time to take photos. Someday!


And lastly, Kylie's famous "No more picures!" pose:

Orange Bow:
When I was younger I hated the color orange, mostly because it was the color of vomit. Over the years my abhorance to it has declined and I don't mind it quite as much. It's not my first choice but I don't absolutely hate it. But my family will never let my hate for it go and still love to tease me with it. My Mom gave me some ribbon to make bows for Kylie's hair. She included some orange ribbon and teasingly told me I had to use it. Well, I did!! So these pictures are special for my Mom, all my sisters, and to Aunt Jerrie and her family. Derek thought it was cute but when he first saw it he asked "What's up with Kylie's 'Rambo band'?" :) So here's our little "Rambo Baby."

Random Photos:
Here's some cute photos that just didn't fit anywhere else but I thought would be fun to see.

Timothy trying to calm Kylie when she was crying:

All the boys had to check out the babies new toy:

Brian and his babies:

Brian reading to Philip. Philip really like it:

Philip fell asleep in my chair. The TV was one so it actually looked like he fell asleep while watching TV:

Timothy:

A post just wouldn't be complete without some pictures of Timothy getting into "mystery trouble." So here he is when I found him in the top of his closet: