Rhen's Animal Book

Rhen loves to color and draw.  One of her projects at school was to find out about different animals and present it to the class.  She made this darling animal book and drew pictures to go along with it.  I love it!

Little Beck

Beck is growing up and is so darn cute most of the time.  He's a boy and makes his share of messes but also loves to cuddle and give lots of kisses.  He is such a fun and sweet boy and I think he is starting to suspect that a new baby is coming.  He tries to hard to keep up with his older brothers and feels like he is grown up now!  

Tied up

Our boys are crazy.  They are always doing something that makes me wonder if I'm going to make it through their childhood.  We heard Liev calling to us from his bedroom and when we got up there this is what we found.  I asked him what happened and he said that Keen tied him up.  Of course he did.  Why wouldn't a 3 year old tie up his older brother?  At least they have a good time together!

The Shower

Beck loves to take a shower.  We have just been throwing him in with one of us since he was a baby and he has learned to love it!  He knows just how to do it - check first to see if the water is warm enough.

 Then just hang out and soak for as long as it takes!  Love this boy!

BYU Basketball

Our friends Tanner and Heidi Ainge came into town this week and got us tickets to the BYU/Gonzaga basketball game!  We were so excited to see them and also be able to go to the game.  We met up at Brick Oven for pizza before the game and even saw Cosmo at the restaurant.  The kids were excited to get their picture taken with him.

 We took Keen and Rhen with us and they had such a fun time!  I think this is Keen's first basketball game so he was really excited to be able to go.  

 Cute Rhen with her dad.

BYU ended up barely losing but we had a great time watching and cheering them on!  

Ski Lessons

We signed Rease and Rhen up for ski lessons this spring and they have 5 weeks in a row of all day lessons on Saturday.  They have been super excited about it and have become good little skiers.  Rease went to her first lesson then was sick the next week so stayed home while Josh and Rhen headed up to Brighton.  Josh loves skiing with and hanging out with his girls.  They have a blast together!  

 The get to have lunch together on their break and Rhen helped Josh pack their lunch and take it up with them.

 There are only 4 kids in Rhen's class so she gets some good attention and has gotten to be so good.  

 After lessons they have about an hour to ski with Josh before the resort closes for the day.  Rhen loves to get in a few runs with her dad!  Josh said she loves to go fast and speed down the mountain.  But he also said she has really good form and is doing a great job!  So proud of this girl and her skiing skills!

Bike weather

We've had some semi-nice weather this week and the kids were itching to get out on their bikes.  The boys and their wiggle bikes and Rhen on her scooter - they were happy campers to be outside playing and riding around the cul-de-sac.  They all look so cute in their helmets!  

Rease's Book - The Soda Can Mystery #1

Rease wrote this darling book this year at school.  She is so creative!

A minor surgery

Josh has had a cyst on the back of his neck right near his hairline for a long time.  As long as I can remember he's had it but it has started to get bigger and bother him more over the last couple years.  He finally decided he wanted to have it checked out and removed.  When the dermatologist took it out, it ended up being much deeper than he thought it would be.  He also had to go in one more time and have more of it removed because she had found traces of squamous cells that she wanted to make sure and get out and get tested.  I turns out that everything is fine, but he ended up with a pretty large incision because of it.  I'm glad it's out and ok and that he finally got it taken care of!

Crazy girls

I took the girls with me to a consignment sale that I volunteer at every year.  They had a great time and found ways to entertain themselves while I was working!  They are such crazy good friends and I love it!

The cousins

This is the main reason why we got our van - so that we could have friends, family and whoever else ride with us and fill up all our seats!  We had all the little cousins one day and I was so happy to be able to haul everyone in one vehicle!  Super fun!

The Boys

I get to spend a lot of time with these three boys of mine.  We get the girls off to school and then we get to spend the rest of the day together.  They are a crazy bunch and keep their mama running, but they are the best!  Always doing funny things and making silly faces - and always jumping, climbing, hitting, punching, wrestling and whatever else boys like to do.  Beck has joined in with his brothers and does whatever they do.  With new baby Desh on the way I know my life is going to get even crazier - but I guess I wouldn't change that.  These boys make me tired - but I sure love them!  Bring on the years of raising crazy boys!

Out with the old...in the the new

We have been thinking a lot about our vehicle situation since we found out #6 is on the way.  Our Odyssey has been a great van for us and technically would be able to seat all the kids with the middle seat in the back.  There are a few concerns I had about it though:

#1 - The van has almost 200,000 miles on it and though it runs great now, will eventually need to have a lot of work done on it or replaced with a newer, lower mileage van.

#2 - With all the seats filled in the back there is no room for anyone else to ride with us - which means carpools, friends, birthday parties, etc are out of the question for us with all our kids in the car.

#3 - We will have 4 kids in carseats/boosters when the baby is born and with 3 of the carseats in the middle seat it makes it really hard for the other kids to crawl over the seat into the back.  

These are concerns I have that can definitely be worked around but we started looking at our other options just in case.  

We have toyed around with the idea of getting a large 12 or 15 passenger van and just have tons of space and seats.  Josh really liked the new Ford Transit vans and we briefly looked at them last year when they were brand new.  The problem was the price.  Since 2015 was the first year they were  made the were still outrageously priced.  Plus I wasn't sold on the huge van.  It seemed like such a long and huge vehicle to tow around when we didn't really need all those seats.  So that went on the back burner...until now.  We started to revisit the idea of a big van and once again started looking at the Ford Transit.  We looked here and there and then one day I was looking on KSL and came across an ad for a 10 passenger, leather interior Transit.  I'd never heard of a 10 passenger model and wanted to check it out and see the set up.  So early Saturday morning when Josh was at the gym I called the dealership and found out where it was and told them we wanted to come see it.  I texted Josh and told him I would pick him up from the gym and wanted him to look at a van with me.  He didn't know I had been looking seriously and really didn't know that we were headed to the dealership.  Anyhow, he was a good sport and came with me to look.  We took it for a drive and decided to think about it.  We both really liked it for the fact that it was a smaller version, had leather and the price was almost $15,000 less because it was a year old now.  So we took the weekend and talked and thought about it, test drove it again and brought it home to make sure it would fit in our garage, talked some more and Josh did some negotiating with the dealer, then finally decided that this was the van for us and our growing family!  The kids were super excited and I was too.  It was a great option for us but not too big to feel overwhelming.  

So here we are with our new Ford Transit!  We can't wait to take it home!

 This is what the interior is like.  Seats 8 in the back which is just a perfect size for us.

And one last picture of the kids with our Odyssey before it went to another family.  It was a great van for us but we are glad to have some more space and such a fun new vehicle!

Rease's school picture

Our darling 3rd grader!

Rhen's school picture

Our cute 1st grader!

Liev turns 5!

Liev turned 5!  Can you believe it?  He requested a superhero birthday this year so I got to work thinking about what I could do that would be fun and simple.  I found a couple ideas for cakes and this is what I ended up doing.  Liev was really excited about it so I guess that's all that matters!

 And there has to be cupcakes along with the cake of course!  Spiderman, Superman, Batman, Thor and Ironman were the superheroes of our part!

 The boys all had on their superhero shirts and capes too which was really fun!

 Liev was so excited that it was his birthday and that all the attention was on him.  Who doesn't love their own birthday?  Especially at that age!  We all sang Happy Birthday and paid a lot of attention to this special guy!

 We had a few presents and he was most excited that he got bike helmet so he can start riding his two wheel bike that he got for Christmas.  

And Rhen drew Liev a bunch of pictures for his gift - she is so sweet.

 This is our little family at this stage of life.  I'm hiding my belly behind Rhen but believe me it's there!  One more crazy boy to join this family soon!  

A few of my favorite things about Liev at this age:

1) Liev is about as boy as you can get.  He loves anything that has to do with dirt, cars, trucks, climbing, punching, hitting, jumping and just overall making a ruckus.  I wouldn't change it though - he makes our life super fun!

2) Liev is very sensitive to his mama.  He always has something nice to say to me whether its "Mom I like your hair today" or "Your dress is so nice".  He is so sweet and kind to me and I hope he never stops!

3) Preschool has been so good for Liev this year.  He has really learned to love it and it's so good for him to be with 11 other kids his age.  His class happens to be a class of all boys which is kind of crazy but really fun for him.  It's pretty high energy all the time which is perfect for him and his teacher is so kind and patient.  Liev is learning all his letters in sign language and it's so fun to see him learning and loving to learn.  

4) Liev reminds me so much of what Josh would have been like as a little kid.  Tall and skinny with basically no fat on his bones.  But also kind and sensitive just like I'm sure Josh was (because he still is.)  If Liev could grow up to be just like his dad, I would be one proud mama!

5) Liev is at the age where he says the funniest things - whatever comes to his mind.  We've been talking a lot about the new baby that is in my tummy and I always try and have the kids feel when he is kicking.  The other day after I told them the baby was kicking Liev said, "Does Baby Desh have shoes on in there?"  So cute!  I love this 5 year old of mine!

5 year old stats from Dr. Erickson:

Height: 45.08 inches - 89%

Weight : 42.77 lbs - 65%

BMI: 14.8 - 28%