Kids...

OK, photo overload here, but I just can't get enough of these little munchkins of mine.

This is the cuteness that I get to witness every day when big brother gets home from school:

Tucker loves his baby brother and the feeling is definitely mutual! :)

That Tucker is getting so big! I can hardly believe some of the things that come out of his mouth. A few months ago now (I've been meaning to write it down so I don't forget) We were chatting, and then he all of the sudden said, 'Mom, this is going to sound weird, but do you ever just think...Whoa, this is my life, like this is not a dream I'm going to wake up from. But I am on this world and a part of it! My jaw just dropped and I stared at him. I told him yes, I do think things like that sometimes. And then we had a great conversation for a few minutes about life. I couldn't believe that something like that came out of the mouth of a 6 year old. The next breath he was talking about farting and pooping and the moment was over, but I loved having that moment with my pondering child. He is a sweet boy. Maybe a little crazy and over the top sometimes, but so very sweet and sensitive. And for some reason, he just 'gets' things. Some things he definitely doesn't 'get' but then every now and then, he says things like, 'Mom, couldn't it be cool if the house next door was for sale for $1 and Keyton and his family could move in. Although if it was only $1 it's probably not very nice on the inside. But if they got it for only $1, they would have plenty of money to fix it up!!! OK, that was kind of a long and advanced thought process on the art of buying a home that I had no idea you knew anything about! :) (although he does notice when people have walk in closets, but I think that comes from me watching too much house hunters right after I had Jackson!) :) Anyway, these crazy kids are so funny! I just love them, and am so glad they're mine!

This is how we eat most of our meals. Even when friends are over. Most of the time the friends are a little timid to get up on the counter, but it doesn't even phase me anymore. I try to get them to sit on the seats every now and then. Tucker and his BFF, Owen.

This look right here is why I try and limit the screen time. The mouth open and drooling zoning out doesn't do much for me! :)

I'm so happy that my kids have such good friends. I love that they are (hopefully) going to have these friends forever! Chase turned 5, so we celebrated at Chuck E Cheese. I love these series of photos, of my friend Tara's son, Chase, and my friend Megan's son, Luke, and Taylor, of course!

Chase and Taylor celebrating:

Lukie gets up to join the dance party while Chase goes a little crazy:

And now they're all crazy:

Such cute little friends. 

Speaking of friends, these two are my buddies these days:

And they're pretty close themselves. This boy is lucky that his siblings love him so much. They are constantly wanting to help me with him, pick him up, hold him and love on him. Still. It is wonderful!

Oh man, that Taylor girl. I have no idea where she came from. She goes from being so wonderful and sweet and helpful and the 'big sister' to screaming bloody murder at the drop of a dime. It really does baffle me most of the time. Then she'll go right into being a dog, or playing with her imaginary friend, Jo-dan. Sometimes Jo-dan is her boyfriend, sometimes he's a baby, but he makes appearances every now and then. Not sure what I think about imaginary friends. It creeps Ben out. I think it's funny, I just hope it doesn't last too long! :) I've been working on getting her more play dates! :)

The best Taylor story as of late, is when she was sleeping in Tuckers room, on his extra bed. She loves to sleep in there with him, and he lets her every now and then. She's a pretty good sleeper mostly, so it is usually fine. Well a few nights ago, Tucker came downstairs mad, and said, "mom, I'm trying to read my book and Taylor keeps on burping!' Like, really, Taylor? Where did you come from? (I guess she does have both Pyper and Campell genes in her, the odds were not in her favor) but what 3 year old girl loves to make herself burp just to bug her brother? My little princess, that's who. My little princess who has no desire to play with princess stuff, that's who! My stinky lady--she's living up to her name! But I do love how she will just chat with me like a friend most of the time, and she is usually just so fun to be around.

Meanwhile, this man has discovered his feet. The minute he is on his back, they are straight up in the air and he is checking them out. I love this stage so much. He just stares at them for minutes on end, as well as his hands still!

But most of the time he just hangs out and chills and is always so so so happy. He even just cut two teeth and is still happy! He's not sleeping the greatest at night, but he is happy and smiley and that's what we love!

Not sure what to think about his mobile, although it does entertain him for long periods of time.

And I just love this naked boy! I don't know what it is, but when ever he is naked, I just have to love on him! :)

My sweet little boy:

And, let's be honest, he's just in his diaper a lot of the time, so it's not uncommon to find him naked on the ground just airing out for a bit before his diaper put back on. He loves it. Ben thinks I'm crazy for doing it, he's only started to poop on the carpet once, but luckily I caught it in time! :) TMI?? :)

OK, I did tell you photo overload.... remember? :)

He's a trooper on photo shoots. This particular one was COLD! We got kicked out of a train docking station, and were out in the woods somewhere, and he was still just smiling and happy. I only take him along if I know the people, and they are ok with me having him in his stroller, because usually he is just content and smiling and tagging along for the ride.

Death grip on the string of my hoodie while sleeping. I wish I had all day to just love on him and hold him.

I guess he does get like this every now and then. When I force him into photo shoots:

Oh, and the reality cam. Shot of the day. Lest you think my life is perfect, I went upstairs to fold some laundry, came downstairs to this:

Yes, Taylor dumped an entire bag of fishy crackers on the floor to eat them like a dog. And she did. The mess was like this for so long, that little by little, the pile was gone. She had eaten them all off the floor! :) Livin' the dream!

November Visitors...

We love visitors!!! Doug & Sadie, our long lost friends in Seattle came to visit, and we were OH so excited. These are Doug & Sadie whom our kids think are family. Lovingly called Uncle Doug and Auntie Sadie. We have been friends with them since day one of our marriage. I love having old friends like that. Before the kids, when we would go back and forth to and from Seattle at least once a month to visit, then Tucker came, then Taylor and Jacob, and now Jackson and Carson. Our little group of 4 is now and army of 9. It is so much fun! Not as easy to cram into small places like we used to, but fun nonetheless. I had to go do a photoshoot while they were here, and while Doug and Ben were happily entertaining Tucker with the play station, Sadie made up a cute little scavenger hunt for these two, I came home right at the end. That little Jacob is a cutie, and both of our kids just love their 'cousin' Jacob. Don't mind the raggamuffin children. Once lovely thing about being friends for so long, is that there isn't a need to impress. AND there isn't a need to go go go, we usually just hang out while they are here, grab a bite to eat here and there and just enjoy great friends and great food together! :)

All the kids in our bed; watching polar express. Ok, only the big kids were watching it,

Jackson and Carson were really excited about taking this picture. :)

I did sneak out with this cute little man to take some photos of him for his 9 month shots. He is THE absolute cutest thing I have ever seen! I just love him. And he is so happy and smiley all the time.

The very next weekend, my mom and Allen and Kelli came into town for the weekend. It was our annual November birthday bash. This has been the year of grandma visits, and we have loved every minute of it. Between having the babe, and surgery and my siblings coming into town, grandma has been up a lot and we love having her here!

Taylor and Grandma dancing with Chuck E:

Oh, and some EXCITING news was unexpectedly announced while at chuck e cheese:

 

Woo-hoo!!! That is #4 for them (crazy people!) and we will get a new little niece or nephew in June! :) Yay!!! :)

Of course, the plague has been at our house, so this was also the weekend that Ben and Tucker started throwing up, so poor Tucker didn't even get to celebrate his own birthday party. But, my mom and Allen and Kelli did take the kids to jump and bounce, while I stayed home with the sickies.

Cassidy's typical face:

Oh, but grandma did get her to actually smile!! Woo-Hoo grandma!

We waited a few days, and luckily the sick boys started feeling better, so we just did a be-lated present opening. Taylor led us in Happy Birthday:

Giving gifts to my kids is the best. They are both so animated when it comes to opening gifts and get SO excited:

Cute cousin BFF's:

We have fully embraced the Seattle Seahawks as a family. I was never a fan growing up because my family members were such big fans of other teams, that I just never got into them. But after going to the game in September, we decided that we needed to embrace the Seahawks as our team, since we are from Washington State, and they are pretty awesome. (And Russel Wilson is a hottie...but that's besides the point!) :)

It was also Aubrie and Cassidy's birthday, so it was fun watching them open their gifts:

We missed our other cousins being with us, but luckily we all got to see this cute little thing: 

We are missing her like crazy!
And this guy's no visitor, but he did get home from Alaska which we were really excited about!!! :)

pre-school with Taylor...

I love this girl so much. It has been so much fun for her to be in preschool this year, even if it is only a co-op, she loves it and it makes her feel special. I feel bad sometimes, because with Tucker everything is new and exciting, so he gets a lot of attention with his activities, and of course, Jackson demands a lot of our time, but poor little Taylor is in the middle, demanding no attention! :) I'm glad that she's the girl and the middle child. And I'm glad that she is having fun with her own friends now, instead of always trying to tag along with Tucker and his friends. 

Our field trip for the month of November was bowling. The kids, of course, had so much fun!

Really excited about bowling!!!

Ollie and Taylor anxiously waiting to see how their ball goes. The balls were rolling pretty s l o w l y down the lane most of the time, until we started using this handy dandy little ramp! :)

My friend, Danna was pretty impressive helping Ollie bowl while having baby Ezra on her shoulders! :) Now that is talent! :)

Of course, we went right at like Senior bowling hour, and it was filled with Senior citizens. I'm not sure they appreciated all of the commotion our group made. We had a bazillion kids between the 6 of us! :) One of the old guys went up to my friend Danna and told her she needed to stop drinking whatever water we were all drinking. She wasn't sure if he was joking or not! :) Either way, we thought it was pretty funny! :)

I wanted to take a picture of this cute poster we have for preschool. Each child has their photo on a stick and we sing a welcome song every day and it's pretty cute! :) Whenever we have preschool at our house, it just makes me smile, so I had to get a picture.

This month when it was my turn to teach, our letter was I and the topic was science. I was actually pretty excited, you can do a lot with science. I really wanted to do Mentos and Diet Coke, but it was so so so cold outside, and I didn't want to do that inside, so that wasn't an option. So, I decided to make home-made ice-cream. Tucker had just come home with this really easy recipe, where you put milk, vanilla and sugar in a small zip lock bag, then put that in a big zip lock bag with some ice and salt, and then you just shake it up for 10 minutes and then you have ice cream. Easy enough. 

Let's just say that what started as a fun science ice-cream experiment, ended in a puddle of sugary and icy milk all over my kitchen floor! The kids made their bags, and started to shake them and throw them up and down. I ran into the office to grab my camera, and I came back and they were literally whacking them on the floor as hard as they could. Of course, milk, water and ice were flying everywhere, the bags were totally busting, and they were soaked! I had to laugh. You can't tell from this picture, but there is a huge puddle on the counter top. 

So, we put that experiment away and tried something new. Baking soda and colored vinegar drops. They were just as entertained.

Luckily from all of our sickness, I had plenty of droppers! :) So they each got to pick a color and have a turn at it.

They were pretty bummed about the failed ice-cream attempt, that I just made one batch on my own while they were doing this, and then just let them taste the ice-cream. They all got a spoonful. It was actually pretty tasty!!! A little runny, but still ice-cream!

Taylor came home with this book a few weeks ago when they were learning about emotions. I loved it so much! It makes me happy!

And I am amazed at how much she is retaining, she loves to sound out words and tell me which letters are in the words, and she loves to write her letters. She has gone from writing her 'name' like this:

in September. To this:

in November!

And she will write on anything she can get her hands on. She was asking me how to spell my name the other day, then I found her writing on this balloon. I did help her with that top one of my name, but after that, it's all her! :)

Her and her cute friend, Lily get together after school a lot, and this day at our house, it happened to snow, so they went out:

So grateful for preschool for her right now. If not for preschool, we might have more mornings like this:

I was feeding Jackson and hadn't realized that her PBS cartoon had ended, and when I looked up, she was doing some sit and be fit workouts. She had even gotten a ball and everything! She is going to be totally in shape!

Luckily she is so easily entertained, and just a happy girl. (most of the time) Except those times that her brother pesters, teases, and chases her to no end. Thats when the ear piercing screams start! But when it's just the two of us, and most of the time, anyway, she is so pleasant and happy and fun to be with. She is often just singing happily to herself or dancing, and will just chat you up a storm if you let her. She is so sweet. In preschool, there is one boy who is a bit difficult, one of the moms told me that Taylor is her go to for this little boy, because none of the other kids really respond to him well, but Taylor will sit with him and talk to him and help him. She is very motherly and sweet like that.

She got into some eye-shadow and put it on her lips...

I love this girl of mine, I'm so lucky to be her mama! Can't wait for the years ahead of us!