Lawrence

First off, Jordan had a trike-a-thon last week.  He was really cute.  Can you see his intense look of concentration?  We have deprived him so far of a bike, so he was trying so hard to figure it out.  He did a good job of sticking with it and doing it.

We absolutely love living in Lawrence.  We are very excited to move to Utah in a few months to live by our families, but we have loved our time here. 

Here is the view out of one of our windows the other day. Isn't it gorgeous?:

We just discovered this wonderful place basically across the street.  In fact, you can see it behind the houses in the picture above.  I love it there - big grassy areas, ponds, walking paths... it is wonderful.

The boys love throwing things in water:

Colette was enjoying the time out.  She loves wind and laughs whenever she feels it:

Isn't it pretty?!:

Evan found a patch of dandelions and was frantically trying to blow them all:

I love the sky here - the cloud formations always look so dramatic and pretty:

Resting:

Anyway, I just thought I would share some pictures of Lawrence and one of our new favorite places to go.

My crazy kids

Here we are again!  Still alive, still slacking on the blogging. 

Let's start off with a video of Colette.  This is from a few weeks ago, but cute.  She started shaking her head and thought it was fun so she kept doing it over and over.  And do you like the sympathy coughs at the end?  She's cute.  And yes, that is the normal noise level in our house with the boys!

Colette is THE biggest mama's girl ever.  She only wants me by the end of the evening and a lot during the day.  It is sweet, though, because it is nice that she appreciates all the work I do for her:

We went to Omaha a couple weekends ago and stayed in a hotel.  Here is Colette on the bed.  I posted this because it shows Colette with a hand towel.  She is obsessed with hand towels and wants one to sleep.  If she is upset I can give her one and she will calm down.  I keep making cute little blankets, but she just wants a hand towel:

While we were in Omaha, we took the kids to the zoo.  We swapped baby sitting with another couple so we could go to the temple.  We had six kids with us and it was really a blast.  The kids loved it so much.  Here are the older kids:

Jordan and Evan insist on falling asleep in the same bed now.  So they often end up looking like this.  They stay up so late playing and still wake up around 6:30 or 7:00.  I have to figure out what to do about this!

And here is my cutie:

And her new pose in the high chair:

The kids are doing so well.  Jordan is currently spelling words for me while I do this.  He loves figuring out how to read and spell and I am seriously amazed by him.  It is interesting how they all come with their own strengths and interests.

The other day the kids were in the bath together and Colette tipped over.  Jordan caught her and Mike praised him heavily for doing a good job helping her.  You could tell that Evan's mind was going and he said, "Maybe she will fall again..." thinking he could help her.  Mike said hopefully not, so he started thinking again.  Finally he said, "I can count to 20!" (this is significant because we have never heard him be able to do this.)  So Mike said to do it, and he did really quickly.  It was so cute and funny because you could tell he just saved it for a time when he wanted to use it for attention.  He is so sweet and rarely seeks attention, so I love that he did that!

Colette still isn't crawling or pulling up.  I can tell that she is frustrated a lot because she wants to get to things that she can't.  But she rolls around a lot to get place to place.  Hopefully soon she will crawl so she can keep up with her brothers.

We are getting closer to moving again and I can't believe how fast time has gone.  We absolutely love it here in Lawrence, and will be sad to leave.  But we are so excited to move to Utah and be by our families.  I need to start thinking about packing I guess!