Lately

I realize it has been a while since my last post. We've been busy just doing life around here. Truthfully I feel like we are at a very challenging and exhausting phase right now. Having 2 20-month olds with increasing independence and individual minds is exhausting to say the least. Just when I have 1 corralled where I want him/her to go the other one takes off, so I chase him/her down only to have #1 run off again or climb up again or dump the crayons out again or, well you get the picture. We like to call our life controlled chaos 98% of the time and the other 2% of the the time it is uncontrolled chaos. We have snapped a few pictures in the past couple weeks though so I'll share those with you.

Morgan got her first haircut about 4 weeks ago. She was thrilled to finally have her turn at a hair cut and smiled like this the whole time.

Also about 4 weeks ago we had an Easter egg hunt with some of my cousins. Here are Hudson and Brooklyn with their cousin Audrey. We like to call them the triplets:)

Here are the kids with Opa and Oma on the Sunday morning after we got back from Mexico. Brooklyn was not to thrilled to be unattached from me once she had me home. I think she missed us.

Brothers

Kevin took this picture of Hudson and Brooklyn a couple weeks ago. They are starting to interact more with each other and it is fun to watch. Unfortunately they are also starting to fight more. Sharing does not come naturally that is for sure.

Anyone who knows Ethan will know what a big deal this picture is. Our neighbor brought over some puppies that were in the animal shelter. There were 8 puppies and he brought over 3 for the kids to see. We are trying to get Ethan over his fear of dogs and my neighbor thought some harmless puppies might help. He actually sat on my lap and pet one of the puppies for about 10 minutes. It was a HUGE step for him.

My pretty ballerinas. Morgan and her friend Emmry were playing dress up the other day and Brooklyn had to join in.

Not to be left out of the dress up time. Hudson had to be Spiderman for a while.

Ethan is doing an amazing job with his reading. He has learned so much this past year in Kindergarten. He has started to sit down and read with his little sisters and brother. It is fun to watch.

We are working on finally finishing our back yard. It has been a  6 year work in progress but we're ready to be rid of all the dirt. We moved one of our trees so we put the kids to work digging the hole.

This past Friday I was treated to a special "Muffins and Makeovers with Mom" at Ethan's school. I had this little cookbook and plate Ethan made for me waiting when I got there. The cookbook is really cute, each kid had to write the ingredients and steps to one of their favorite recipes. Ethan chose Grilled Pizza. He even included cutting the pizza up into small pieces if you have babies. Guess what he watches us do every day? We had to come fresh faced and with clean toes so our kindergartner could give us a lotioned foot rub, paint our toes and fingers and do our make up. Ethan actually did a pretty decent job. It was a very fun morning.

My toes, not half bad for his first attempt. He told me that I could stop going to get pedicures now because he could just do my toes for me. What a sweetheart:)

And the finished product. I'm not sure cosmetology is in his future but that is probably ok with daddy.