Dinosaurs

Benton: Brita, can you guess what my favorite dinosaur is?
Brita: A T-rex?
Benton: No.
Brita: A triceratops?
Benton: No. It sounds like this: RAWR.
Brita: A T-rex?
Benton: Yep.

Mima and Irene

Mima calls Irene "Ene."  She always has to repeat it a few times so I know what she's talking about.  I just learned that Mima can say the other kids' names really well, she just doesn't do it usually. 

Mima like to parent.  Whenever Brita and Benton start to fight she starts yelling, "Guys!  Guys!"

I always know when Irene is spitting up because Mima will start to gag and dry heave.  It's pleasant.

Mima also likes to let me know when Irene is sad.  If I'm somewhere that Irene is not and Irene is crying, Mima will come up to me and say, "Sad. Sad."  

Irene has been sick for about five weeks of her life.  She really needs to kick this cold and start gaining weight.  She looks so little compared to the other kids' pictures when they were her age.

It's a baby!

Irene Elisabeth McNabb was born last night (Friday the 11th) at 7:28. She weighed 8 lbs 12 oz and was 20 3/4" long. She's really cute, in case there were any doubters out there. Mom and baby are both doing fine. Hopefully we'll get home this morning.

Random pictures from this summer and fall

 

Mima

When I tuck the blankets around Mima for a nap or for bed I say, "Tuck, tuck, tuck" as I'm doing it.  Now she says, "tck, tck, tck," too.  It's pretty stinking cute.

Benton

Benton is so excited to go to primary today and to have Brother and Sister Martinez as his teachers.  They were Brita's teachers this last year and for the last two weeks he's gone to class with her (because they are about the nicest people you will ever meet).  In October we had stake conference, general conference, a temple open house, and Mima started going to nursery.  After that Benton just flat out refused to go any more.  So he mostly came to primary with me.  The nursery kids (who will be this year's Sunbeam class) started coming in for singing time in December and Benton just stayed sitting on the front row.  He would participate in singing time and sharing time (sometimes sharing too much--like the time he told everyone that they hadn't bathed before church for a month [which isn't true, for the record]).  Anyways, he's so excited.

Since he had been in both senior and junior primary singing time for a few months he knew the songs for the Christmas program really well.  He and Brita were both really excited about going up and singing in sacrament meeting.  We reminded Benton before he went up that he should sing loud but pretty.  Probably shouldn't have done that.  He sang pretty.  And about three times the volume of everyone else.  He knew every word, though.

Peter played an organ solo the same day and wowed everyone there by using the chimes on the organ.  The bishopric said it was pretty funny to see everyone's expressions when the bells started.  Afterwards people would come up to Peter and say, "That was so great--who knew Benton could sing that loud."  I think Peter felt a bit ripped off in the complement department. ;)

Easy peasy.

Me: Are you ready to have four kids?
Peter: Yeah!  Are you?
Me: No.
Peter: See, it's really easy, you just get up in the morning and go to work.. And by the time you get home it's almost time for bed.

Homophones

Today when I came down from putting the older kids to bed Monica was all excited to show me Mima's latest trick.
Monica: Mima can you show Mom your elbows?  Do you remember where your elbows are?
Me: Yeah, your elbows.  [Point to my elbows.]
Mima looks at us all like we're crazy and slowly slides off the couch and heads upstairs.
Me: Are you going to bed?  ...Really?  Um, good night then.
All of us look at each other like we're crazy.
Brita (calling from upstairs): Mima's pointing to Elmos on her sheets!
Mima comes back downstairs.
Life makes sense again.

Christmas

This really was a perfect Christmas.  It was so fun how excited the kids were about each of their presents.  

Here's the before shots.  We had two Christmas trees this year because we're cool like that.  And we wanted to wait to get a real tree so it would last longer.  And everyone needs a Christmas tree that looks like a disco ball.  

It took the kids a long time to notice the bikes.  Way longer than we thought it would.  I guess I  can't say anything though, because I walked past the stroller a couple of times before I noticed it.

 Here are the kids and Peter eating breakfast.  We realized late Christmas Eve that we had left all the sock stuff in the car.  The bananas were very green.  We tried to heat them up a bit, but it didn't work.  We choked down one banana between all five of us.

The kids each got a doll.

Benton and Peter made bean bags and a bean bag game for everyone.  It was a hit.

Here's Benton in his "prince costume" from Grandma.  The sword is from Brita.

The kids each got butterfly wings.  Benton might have been the most excited about them.  He was the most excited about a lot of things.

Brita in her princess dress.

The kids love the cash register.  That was one thing that we had been planning to get them since last Christmas.  They liked their stuffed animals that I made them, too.  When Benton opened up his arctic fox he said, "Oh, wow, a fox!  I always wanted a fox!"

The kids got a sled that they pulled various things around in.

Socks went fast.  Mima was the only one I got pictures of. opening hers.

That's what it looked like afterward.

The kids with my fancy new stroller and their dolls.  Benton was pretty much jumping up and down all day long.

Peter pulled the kids around in the sled.  The kids all had perma-smiles.  Peter almost died.  It was way too cold to be running around pulling a sled.

So then he let the kids do it.

This little boy was just so happy with everything he got.  So, so happy.

We did this puzzle.  The pieces were the shape of the countries and it made it a little frustrating when you accidentally bumped something and all of Eurasia was scattered everywhere.

Here's Peter playing "the kids'" clarinet.  You can also see the matching pajama pants I made.

And then it snowed.  Forever.  Two months later the snow has never melted and we're so sick of it.  We have a lot of sidewalk to shovel.  And a lot of driveway that never gets shoveled.  But the kids had fun sledding down the driveway.

When dreams come true

So Peter usually puts the kids to bed because he's good like that.  And he's more patient than I am.

Tonight he comes down and says, "So I was laying up there..with my eyes closed..I don't know, I might have been asleep.  And then..I had this dream..or something..where I was dreaming that my face was being splashed with water and I woke up and Mima was sitting there with her water bottle shaking water out on my face."