The Man in Black

Ephraim will be the ring bearer in Jeff (my brother) and Tiffany's wedding in May. I ordered him a suit on Ebay and it is actually quite cute... super easy shopping! Here is our little Man in Black:

Now I just need to get him some shoes. And a haircut. One thing is certain, having 4 kids has really taught me how to do things quickly. I never dreamed I would shop for a suit on Ebay!!! (It took 25 minutes to get Ephraim's measurements and decide which suit to buy, another 12 minutes to wait for my auction to end... Now I just hope the suit doesn't fall apart in the middle of the wedding! LOL!)

Cheerio

These photos are keepers! Which is your favorite?

Strawberry Shortcake

Tonight we made strawberry shortcake, Mystery Man's favorite dessert. The recipe is from Mystery Man's 90-year-old grandmother. Here are the photos... warning: this may make you hungry!

Mystery Man thought the cake needed even more strawberries, so he made it look like this:

This is the most moist and fantastically delicious cake. First slice...



Everyone loved it... but none of the kids could finish because it's quite filling. Mmmm...


Here's a closeup... hungry yet?

Good Kids

We enjoyed listening to General Conference this weekend. (This is when several church leaders speak to the entire church worldwide via satellite broadcast). Our kids love it because they get to have "church" at home. They did a nice job being quiet. Here they are coloring while we watched. It was really relaxing. And special thanks to my friend Stacy for the yummy Conference Casserole and kids' activity bag. :)

Fondue Night

Friday night we had friends over for fondue. After finishing, Lorelai climbed up on the counter, found a fondue fork, then dipped that little fork in the chocolate for several minutes, licking a little each time.

Copps Grand Opening

Last week we went to the Grand Opening of the Copps grocery store near our house. They had lots of samples and some fun activities for kids, like making these grocery bag hats.



Lorelai was thrilled when someone offered her a big bunch of balloons. She insisted on carrying the balloons all the way to the car (by herself) so we were truly a circus getting back to the van. Lots of cars had to wait for Lorelai to slowly toddle across the parking lot with the HUGE balloons.

Easy entertainment, and free!

Stalwart Silas

I have a lot of fun with Silas. I think of him as Stalwart Silas. Synonyms of Stalwart that fit well for Silas: athletic, determined, daring, courageous, dependable, dead set on, fearless, husky, muscular, powerhouse, sturdy, tenacious, tough, and vigorous (to name a few). Silas is CONSTANTLY wrestling with his brothers and he is starting to try to coerce Lorelai into a little physical play. He even wrestled with a brand new friend (Alex) within an hour of his arrival at our house. My favorite thing about him: that devious, giggling laugh. (Click here to hear that awesome laugh, and make sure to turn the music off at the bottom of the page first). I LOVE IT! I always laugh out loud when I hear it. Silas likes to play board games with me, but he also entertains himself very well. Here he is playing with a wooden fruit and veggie cutting set in his room.

Silas is also a great older brother to Lorelai. Here they are just after Silas filled her tippy cup with water.

Silas loves our new job chart. Twice a week his job is to collect the small trash cans from around the house and dump them in the large trash. Here he is dumping one (oh, and yes, that is drywall in the trash can... don't ask me about the backed up water main--filled with too much toilet paper flushed down by Silas--that flooded about 100 square feet of our carpeted basement and ruined about 10 feet of drywall).

Oops, some of the drywall screws missed the trash can and fell on the floor. Stalwart Silas quickly cleans them up. He's such a great helper!


And we've forgiven him for the toilet paper mishap. After a week of cleaning and drying the carpet and replacing/patching the wet drywall, our carpet guy reinstalled the carpet yesterday. Yay. We have a basement again! And Stalwart Silas will keep it looking great by emptying those trash cans! :)