HUGE PICTURE UPDATE!

Back by popular request...

Finally a long overdue update in PICTURES!

I don't have much time to write an update out, the pictures took my whole time I have tonight. ;)

But here is the last two months in pictures....Have fun!

We got a new (used) playset for the boys finally. I went outside to take a picture of them playing and this is what I found:


I couldn't figure out how the dog got up there with them, until I watched a while longer...

All five of my guys in the top of their playhouse!



 Owen happy about his Easter presents!

 Happy about his Easter gifts.

 Mr. Serious

 Brayden was NOT a happy camper...can't remember why now.

 Brayden is happy now - dieing Easter eggs.

 Owen's rainbow egg.

 All the boys digging into the easter egg dieing. Some are using the little tools some are just using their hands. ;)

 Super proud of himself here. ;)

 Our final bucke o' eggs.

 Billy was SO proud of his eggs!

 Alex was proud of his dark purple egg...it was the result of all the colors!

 Owen's decorated egg...or hands?

Gabe's first bee sting. :( Ouch!

 Billy was really proud of this egg he decorated all by himself. :)

 The "Happy Easter" sign my mom drew with the kids on the back wall.

Billy flying his first kite.

The bunny my mom made with Brayden's help.

Owen found the first egg!

Wasn't sure about this whole Easter egg hunting thing.

Alex entered his first piece of artwork into the local Art contest for kids. He didn't win a ribbon this time, but we're pretty proud!



That's it for now! See ya later... :)

Guess who's 7!!

Owen is!

Our last kid birthday of the year (yes we get them all done and out of the way by early spring haha!)!

Owen is very happy to finally have his birthday. It's hard for him to have to wait through all FOUR of his brothers' birthdays and not get his special day yet.

So he's been planning it for awhile.

He wants a basketball cake with Michael Jordan dunking a basket on it. :?
I think I'll get pretty close to that...Ebay has cool basketball figure cake toppers. ;)

For his present he wants the Dairy Queen Blizzard maker that he's been eyeing for a long time. Uggh.

For his special dinner....he's still thinking about it.

So on to the celebration of Owen. :)

Owen is our April Fools' day baby. He was due on April Fools' day too. However I can't claim an actual "born on the due date" baby because he was induced by my doctor. ;) There really wasn't a medical reason and who knows if I would have really gone into labor on my own that day, but I'm thinking I might have. I was dilated pretty far, about 4 cm. and having nightly contractions from about 37 weeks on. I was worried about getting to the hospital in time after finding babysitters for the kids, etc etc. So my OB offered to break my water to get things moving. I jumped at the chance of course. When I checked in though, I was already contracting on my own according to the monitor...so maybe my body was already in beginning labor?

Anyway, everything went perfect. He was my first epidural baby and it really was a dream labor/birth. He was great after birth, 9's on his APGARS. He was beautiful. :)

It wasn't until after they took him to the nursery that we found out there was a problem. He was born with a semi-rare condition of not having an anal opening.

Needless to say, when my husband told me this, on April Fools day remember, I told him that it was  NOT a funny joke.
They took Owen via ambulance to Seattle Children's a couple hours after he was born. I had Billy go with him because I wanted to go home and pack our stuff. My parents drove me to Seattle a couple hours after.
He was only there for about three days. The surgery they did on day two went great and he had no other complications or defects that could have also accompanied this type of defect.
We were so greatful!

Now poor Owen just has an embrassing story that he'll really hate me for telling everyone about one day. lol

Okay...now for seven fun facts about Owen.

1. He's the biggest clown I know! ;) He always says its because he was born on April Fools day.
2. He is obsessed with the name Isaac. I don't know why? But if he could rename himself, he would, to Isaac.
3. He is my most sensitive child by far.
4. He's a great little artist.
5. He's not a morning person, and is always the last one out of the house, usually missing a shoe or two. grrr
6. He so looks up to his older brothers and is always trying to grow up too fast! :(
7. He LOVES video games. I have to reign in his video game playing quite a bit.

Now...the last 7 yrs of Owen :)

Newborn...finally coming home from the hospital! Poor little guy has straches and sores on his face from the suction tubing he had on for three days (to keep his tummy empty).


First birthday!!



Second birthday with his Auntie



Proud to be Three! :)



His fourth birthday we spent at the Portland Zoo. :)



With Auntie again, for number 5!



Silly Owen is happy to be six. :)



Finally seven! Happy Birthday Owen!

Busy busy!

I'm finally on Spring break and now its almost over! It was way too short.

We've used this Spring Break to totally switch everyone's rooms around. We also finished painting the master bedroom.
We moved back upstairs into the master bedroom and moved the oldest four boys downstairs into two rooms. Alex and Owen are sharing a room and Brayden and Billy Jr. are sharing a room. They'll have the main area downstairs for their TV/games.
We also will be using a corner of the living area/game room downstairs for our school area.

Upstairs we took back the master bedroom and put Gabriel into the former school room. That will be the "nursery" room.

Needless to say, its a lot of work and we're far from done.

At least everyone has a sleeping space right now though and beds are put together.

Billy Jr. who's slept in our bed the past couple years (every since he switched from a crib to a toddler bed uggh) has been in his OWN bed in his own room for the past three days. Tonight we had a bit of a set-back with him falling asleep in our bed again, but we moved him back to his bed once he feel asleep. :)

I've said it feels like we're staying in a hotel or something with a whole room to ourself, no kids in bed with us, new painted walls, and we even got a new bedset to go with our painted walls! We LOVE our room. Its a kid-free area. haha
The boys are loving thier new rooms too, although their rooms are pretty sparse right  now and Alex and Owen are living in the Safari room (the former nursery painted with a whole African safari theme). They all want to customize their rooms and repaint them. Brayden wants and under the sea theme. Hmmmm Not happening. Maybe we can give him some blue walls and get some sea animal wall stickers though.
Alex and Owen want a sports theme, like maybe a basketball court. Again....not sure how to do that.

So that's what we've been up to. SO much more to do! aack I will post pictures when everything is back in its place. ;)

Please stay tuned for your regularly scheduled programming....

Its the final two weeks of this quarter's classes for me.

Needless to say, I'm busy.

However, I didn't want to TOTALLY neglect my blog.

So in the mean time here is my favorite quote, in honor or Dr. Seuss's birthday:

Nine Years of Nail-biting!

And what a fun and crazy nine years its been!

Nine years ago I became a mom for a second time.

Brayden has been my little energizer bunny since moment he could get down and go places.
Childproofing? Nah, didn't stop him!
Baby gates? Forget about it!
Locked doors? He always found a way.
He's been a go-everywhere, climber, and explorer since I can remember.

He's also very creative and independant. He took it upon himself to ask for a piano and piano lessons two Christmases ago. He loves to jump fully in to whatever he's learning about or doing. If he can't figure it out, he'll keep trying until he does. He's helped me cook dinner since he was high enough to see over the countertops (safely of course)!

I'm proud of who he is - which is his own unique little person. I can see great things for him in the future. :)

Nine Fun Facts About Brayden
1) Brayden was my smallest baby, weighing just under 8 lbs at birth.
2) He is 1/16 Cherokee Indian, according to my hubby. yeah yeah, I know everyone has stories like that...but really, his great grandma was half Cherokee - his great great grandfather (? Grandma Beki correct me if I'm wrong!) being full Cherokee. He tans well in the summer. :)
3) Brayden loves art and loves to make crafts.
4) He loves the piano (but not to practice) and will sit and watch endless Youtube videos of piano performances.
5) Despite his video game crazed brothers, he's not big on video games. He'll play them, and he likes to play them...but not to the extent of his brothers. He loves to just go hang outside by himself...ride bikes, climb the treet, etc. I'm always kicking the other boys outside to go play with him.
6) He is a FAST runner, even outrunning his older brother.
7) He once put the cat in the drier...and turned it on. He was pretty little and I was told about it right away so I was able to get kitty out, mostly unscathed. ;) He did feel bad afterward!
8) He is a noodle KING. He loves noodles. He'd live off noodles every day if I let him.
9) He secretly likes Justin Bieber's music, but don't tell him I told you! shhhhh :) His brothers tease him too much about it, so he'd never admit it.

Now...nine years of Brayden....

Birth Day! Born the night after Alex's 3rd birthday party...two days after Alex's birthday. My first thought when I saw him was "look at his big nose!". He grew into it quickly...it was just a newborn thing I guess. haha

First birthday!

Second birthday - I LOVED his hair! The only one of my boys born with my thick, long hair. Notice the bald trend on his younger brothers...haha

Third birthday...Mr. Grumpy that day I guess..

Fourth birthday - yes that's a pink diary and pen that he's playing with. Deal with it. ;)

Fifth birthday - Got his bike and helmet! :)

Sixth birthday - Chuck E. Cheese = CHAOS ;)

Seventh Birthday - In the far corner...couldn't get one of him sitting still enough for the camera I guess!

 Eighth Birthday - Same thing, just an around-the-cake photo...he must have been too busy that year!

1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9!!

Happy 9th Birthday Brayden

Terrific Twelve

Guess who's turning TWELVE?!

If you guessed Alex, then you are correct!

I can hardly believe myself that its been twelve years. I still remember when he was a drooling toddler scribbling on my walls. And now he's entering the pre-teen era.
Yikes!

I'm blessed to have Alex as my oldest child though, because he helps a lot!
He is a caring, trustworthy kind of kid.

12 Fun Facts About Alex:
*Alex was actually due March 9th, but as is my "norm" -he liked that last week of February. ;)
* He would have been a BIG baby if he had gone up to his due date or overdue...as it was, he was just 2 oz. shy of 9 lbs.
* He had horrible eczema as a baby/toddler and we'd have to tape socks on his hands at night. But those didn't even work. Many baby pictures I have of him, he has scracthes all over his face. :(
* He had a scary ashtma attack when he was just over a year old. He had to be life-flighted via helicopter to a bigger city hospital. I wasn't even there! I was at a training for work. It was super scary to get that call and then hop on the plane in the wee hours of the morning to join him and my mom in the PICU. :( He was there for three days, but he  never had another asthma attack after that. Weird.
* He's scared of the dark ;) (Shhhhh Don't tell him I told! hehe)
* He's half Native American (thus the dark coloring...incase any of you didn't know and were wondering)
* I was a teen single mom with him for two years until I met my hubby!
* Alex hates spaghetti and Dorrito chips. Weird kid, huh?!
* Alex loves animals, especially reptiles. He desperately wants a snake. ummm no.
* Alex is learning to play the piano this year and his teacher says that he's very "musically talented", something he and Brayden have in common. I don't know where they got it from though! Not me!
* Alex "hacked" into the school computers in 1st grade. Really he just saw the teacher's password and memorized it, then used it later to change his reading scores to 10,000 words per minute. But the teacher wouldn't admit that he could have seen her password, and instead she accused him of "hacking". The school comp. tech. team had to go and change all the passwords on the computers.
* Alex is allergic to everything...at least according to the allergy test he got a few years back. He reacted either through skin/scratch test or blood test to all the allergens they tested him for. And there was a LOT. He's taken two allergy shots a week, then eventually every other week, for the last five years. This should be his last year for that. :) His allergies are a LOT better!!

Okay on to the pictures!

Birth Day, going home from the hospital!




Year one - so cute!


Second birthday - what a ham!


Third Birthday - And that night I went into labor with his first brother :)


Fourth birthday, the first combined birthday party :)
 

Fifth Birthday


Sixth birthday


Seventh birthday...ya got a little something on your face...


Eighth birthday


Ninth Birthday


Tenth Birthday...enter Mr. Cool



Eleventh Birthday...he didn't know the bow was on his head, haha


Number 12!! Happy Birthday Alex!
My goofy guy!

Four Fun Filled Years!

Someone has a birthday!

 And thus kicks off our birthday madness week (Brayden and Alex are in the next few days too...so watch for my posts!).

Billy Jr was born 4 years ago today. Its amazing how fast time goes.

Fun facts:
* He's also number four in birth order.
* He was my BIGGEST baby at 9 lbs. 12 oz.
* He was due on February 16th, but in keeping with his other February birthday brothers, he came just a couple days before Alex's birthday on the 23rd...who came a couple days before Brayden's birthday on the 25th.
* He has asked for a "blue cake with candles" for his birthday

I will make sure to post pictures of cake and presents later. :)

But for now, pictures from his last four years.... *sniff*

Newborn Billy Jr:


Billy's First Birthday (At Chuck E. Cheese):


Billy's 2nd Birthday:


Billy's Third Birthday:


Fourth birthday photos to come...Stay tuned!