Jude and I were outisde playing chase. As an atempt to tease him I picked him up and put him in the bush. I was expecting him to be bothered but in reverse he decided he quite liked it. He kept asking to be put into the bush and would sit there as the bush slowly ate him. Funny kid.

Jude got a belated birthday batman mask and loves it! He has worn it everywhere and I mean everywhere.

Angie and I always look forward to Feburary because it is Parade of homes time. 28 homes for us to tour, judge, love and hate. Every year we learn new things about our future homes This year we learned that we HATED brown. There were 5000 versions of brown houses, rooms, walls, carpet, decor, couches, everything was brown! The last house we went to was gray and it was such a refreshing change.  I discovered that the coolest stoves are one with a griddle in the middle. There was a house that had a least 5 different colors in every room which taught me that simple is best.  Some of the more crazy things we saw were a mirror with a TV inside it. A room with two TVs in it,  a secret theatre in the kitchen, and lots and lots of secret nooks. 

Poor Alice just couldn't keep it together and was falling asleep in her chair. 

 

Jude and Alice got ahold of a giant green apple flavored marshmallow lollipop(GROSS!) and had a great time. That thing must have been more dye than marshmallow as evidenced by their faces.  And they are rocking the blue tounges. Cutie!

Derek and I have never been much of valentines type couple. We just feel it is a made up Holiday and there isn't a reason to have a day set aside for love when (hopefully) you have been celebrating it all year. Well off of my soap box and on to the post. This year I did acknowledge Valentines in some small way. I weaved Derek this epic Bacontines Heart. I know, I am amazing! 

Not much to this picture. Just some after church cuties.

Jude's birthday this year was extra special. This was the first time he had an opinion on what type of party he wanted me to throw him. I was going to throw him a super hero party but he was very against it. He kept saying that he didn't like that idea. And one day as I was scanning the internet I very serindipty-ously came across pictures of a train party. Jude was all over it! So I set the wheels in motion and started planning a train party. Black electrical tape all over the house to look like train tracks, boxes done up to look like box cars, and a train cake. We even had a pin the caboose on the train game, bridge up bridge down (red light green light, but for trains) and a coal collecting game which included candy. Then I took the kids inside to decorate the cake.  They had such a fun time sprinkling and accesorising their box cars. Afterwords the kids just zoomed around the tracks in their trains. It was so much fun and we are so happy that Jude is a part of our family. Happy 4th my wonderful boy!

 

Derek is taking a Child and Family Mental health psychology course this semester and had to do an hands on excercise. As a result Jude and Alice got to come and be a part of a great activity. There part was basically to sit on the floor and play with toys while being talked to and observed. They were in high heaven and have been asking to go back to "Daddy's preschool."

So this is what happens when you ignore 4 kids for 3 hours during super bowl.

They were actually very nice to allow Derek,Brian and myself to watch the super bowl uninterupted. They played with each other very nicely had almost no fights. We went on one walk during half time, and the rest of the time were content to munch on super bowl snacks and entertain themselves Sweet kiddos.

Jude and I were playing chase around the house and having a merry time. I decide to be stop chasing Jude and hide, waiting for an oppurtunity to jump out and scare him. Well the perfect moment comes and I sneak up behind Jude and give him a big scare. The joke was on me because Jude goes into defense mode and smacks me in the face with a whisk that he had picked up somewhere on the way. He wasn't trying to be mean, it was just a startel reflex. But it was a startel reflex that stung like a bee. Teach me to be clever and get the one up on my kid while he is holding a potential weapon. Geez!

Falling asleep just about anywhere. Reason 47 why toddlers are adorable.

Getting to meet our new Neice Posey. Itis so fun to have a new little baby in the family.

Rain is a cause for celebration down here in the desert. It is a refreshing scent, look, and feel to the day and one that I totally look forword to. On this day it had been raining buckets, just buckets of water. It was coming off the roof in water falls and making giant puddles. I had the kids put on there coats and boots and they hussled out the door excited to make a mess. They were stomping in puddles up to their ankles and getting soaked to the bone. There were a couple times where Jude had to dump out his boots because they were so full of water. Lips started turning blue but still the kids wanted to jump and play more. We had to rain on their rain parade and drag them in for a hot shower, but we promised them that they can play in the rain soon.

As we now have a bunk bed it was only a matter of time before we made a bunk bed fort. You just have to do a fort when you have a bunk bed, the police will come and arrest you if you do'nt. It's serious. And we made a seriously awesome fort on our first go. Every single section of the bunk bed was enclosed. The kids were peeking in and out with their flash lights and having a ball. At some point it stopped being a fort and became a dragon cave and we would all run screaming out of the fort trying to escape the "dragon". Even Duckets got in on the fun juping in and out. Sine then the kids have requested the fort over and over again and I am happy to oblige.