for the grandparents

Here is some video footage of the children opening up Christmas gifts from their grandparents.  We saved these presents for last, after we had even eaten breakfast and mostly gotten dressed.  I thought said grandparents would like to see the little monsters react to their surprises.  I know this is a lot, but if you have any snarky comments about it then the videos aren't for you anyway.  Just sayin'....

So, without further ado, here is Quincy opening a gift and then later in the day still playing with it.

Here is Sidon with his gift.

 

And the big girls with their shared gift.  

They were so excited and had no clue that they were going to receive such a gift.

The girls are taking a music class.  It's called Let's Play Music and it is amazing and super fun.  I am so glad they have this opportunity.  This is their first year of a three year course.  Their teacher has an autoharp that they use for classtime and Rivers especially has fallen in love with it.  There is a magnetic wire basket on our fridge that she pretends is an autoharp.  She even gave instructions to Brian to make an autoharp out of cardboard.  The instructions included tearing the top layer of paper off the cardboard in order to expose the corrugated cardboard in the middle so that she could "strum" it.  It's pretty cool, but the real thing is cooler.  Here they are "performing" some of the things they do in class.

And here all the children see the amazing family gift we received.  

I'm not sure who is more excited, them or me.  

Hindsight

It seems like a good number of conversations between Maryann and I revolve around what life was like pre- and post-children.  Our present table arrangement has Maryann and I sitting across from one another with children on all sides.  "Isn't this romantic," I ask as if it were just the two of us sitting down for a quiet dinner and a 3 year old boy wasn't regurgitating food all over the table and then playing in it, or a 1 year old girl grabbing our clothes with her grimy hands, or a 4-yr-old girl trying for our attention to tell us how her food arrangement looks like a nativity scene, or a 6-yr-old wiggling her crooked front tooth at us and giggling about how she talks with a lisp now and every time she says a word with the letter L her tongue pushes her tooth way out.  Yep, life has changed. 

Yesterday we rolled into church 5 minutes late instead of the usual 15 and noticed a vacant section of seating up front.  "Awesome, padded seats, we've got to sit there," I thought.  So we disruptively made our way to the front and just as we sit down the bishopric says something to the effect of, "please take your children out of the chapel when they're fussing".  You can't really blame the bishopric for making these almost weekly announcements given this ward has soooo many young children in it.  Seriously, I've never been in a ward with more little ones before and I think the bishopric is a little unnerved by it really.  There's a constant background noise, almost a dull roar, of children throughout the service.  I've long since learned to tune it out.  But whenever a visitor comes to visit our church it's one of the first things they comment on, "My, there are a lot of little children here."  I remember back to my college years sitting in a church without a single baby in it.  It was almost intensely quiet during those meetings.  Nothing like our ward here in Michigan.  Well, immediately after sitting down I realized I had made a strategical error in choosing to sit in front of the bishopric on those padded seats.  We'd forgotten the baby's pacifier and didn't have nearly enough room to spread out all the coloring books and whatnot, which led to a lot of elbowing and pushing and fussing.  The snacks that we thought had been packed into the Sunday bag were definitely NOT in the Sunday bag.  Not to mention the multiple bathroom trips our children wanted to make this particular Sunday.  Nope, from now on, we're going to plop this family down in the back on the hard folding chairs, even if they haven't opened up the curtain yet.  Maryann told me that things had actually gone pretty well compared to last week when she had to bring them to church by herself because I was at work (which may have accounted for the bishopric's announcement this week). 

So here are some more pictures of the monsters we are up against at home.  They're a lot of work but we love it... most of the time.

 

 

Learning to ride

These hooligans love being outside.  So why do they always fuss when we tell them to go out there? 

We had to get a new baby helmet for this one. She climbs everything. This is the child we have to keep our eyes on every second. We've found her standing atop the toilet tank, kitchen table, couch armrest, and several other precarious places. We have some very strict rules now regarding keeping bathroom doors closed and kitchen chairs tucked in at all times. Don't be surprised if you check our blog sometime and see this one wearing a cast on her arm or leg.

Teaching the kids to ride bikes this year has been a snap.  No tipping over or chasing them down the street or any of the fret.  How did they do it?  We took their peddles off for a few months and let them hobble around on their seats in the driveway.  Once we saw that they were balancing and coasting fairly well, we put their peddles back on and off they went.  Sidon is still skuuting around on his Skuut bike (one of Maryann's better Goodwill finds).  Maybe next year we'll paint one of the several purple bikes around here a more manly color so Sidon can ride it.

 

Niagara

Here are some shots from our trip out to Niagara Falls this summer. We happened to be there when some guy attempted a tight rope walk over the falls.  My children were completely against letting me (Brian) give it a try.  Hard to believe we're related sometimes.

 

 

 

We made out like bandits on this trip. Not only did we get all of our children onto the Maid of the Mist boat for free (because they were under 6 y/o), but our hotel room was upgraded to a rooftop suite with "falls view" for no extra charge. There were many nervous moments for Maryann and I who were trying our best to keep four baby children from getting washed overboard on the boat or from plunging to their deaths over the many short railings we encountered.  I think the children's most traumatic part of the trip, however, was dining at the Rainforest Cafe.  The giant moving anaconda on the ceiling had more than one of them bolting for the door in total panic.

Sacred Sites

Thought I'd dig up and post a few photos for the family far far away.

 These are from our excursion out to New York in June.

Sitting atop the hill Cumorah

 

Print shop in Palmyra where the first copies of the Book of Mormon rolled out:

The Sacred Grove

 

Below is a favorite photo of mine found deeply buried in our honeymoon archives, when Maryann and I last visited the Sacred Grove.  This was the inspiration for the attempted photo above.

Definitely a completely different experience with four children in tow:

 

Our 5 yr old photographer teaches us a thing or two about image composition:

Mud Monsters

There's never a shortage of fun things to do in Michigan in the summer time. Occasional rains provide lots of ewy-gewy mud puddles for mud castles and making messes. Riding their scooters through the lake puddle at the end of the driveway is inevitable.

Sidon likes to wait until the girls have some sort of mud creation assembled before going at it with his scooter. I think Cumorah would have clobbered him this time if I hadn't stepped in.

Clean up time

Adorable 

Banana volcano by Rivers 

Crazy hair is the norm in this family.

Love this back yard.

No fear of the water. Can't take our eyes off her at the beach.

 She's going to be our climber. Youngest kid we've had that could climb in and out of her own walker.