Sledding

Before we left Iowa on Sunday, we had to take advantage of all the snow there to take the kids sledding.  Brian’s dad went with us.  We all had a GREAT TIME!! 

Jocelyn

Audrey sledding with daddy!  Such a cute picture!!

Jocelyn after hitting the side of the jump.  She was quite the daredevil!

Audrey and I going down the hill.  Audrey couldn’t get enough of this!

Eli on the big wood sled

family picture

Brian and Eli

grandpa helping the kids up the hill.  That was the hardest part!

Audrey trying it on her own.  She laughed all the way down!

 

 

 

Our weekend trip up to Iowa

 

We spent Friday night and some of the day Saturday at my mom’s.  We had a little party for Eli.  He also got to go shopping to pick out his bday presents from mom and jam, rexy and ryder.  He found some cool stuff!!  While daddy took Eli shopping, Jocelyn and Audrey played dress up with our old dance costumes.

They played dress up for about an hour.  They had so much fun!

Ryder watching the crazy girls try on dance costumes!

Audrey talking to Ryder.  She just loves him and loves to say his name!

Eli with his 5 cupcakes…SMILE!

Happy Birthday Eli!

 

We spent Saturday evening at Mark and Deb’s with Brian’s parents.  Deb made dinner for us all and then we had cake to celebrate Eli’s birthday.  We also played games.  Brian and Mark played the Wii.  Deb, Jocelyn, Audrey, Craig and I played Pictionary.  We also made popcorn.  We had a good time.

Watching to popcorn pop!

Grandpa and Grandma with the grandkids watching daddy and uncle mark play the wii.

Eli got this remote control hummer fron G & G Belden.  Earlier in the day he had picked out a remote control corvette.  Now he has 2 different ones to play with.

Eli’s Birthday Party

Eli picked Pump It Up for his birthday party.  We invited some family friends and some friends from school.  It was so much fun. The kids all had fun and I could enjoy the party too.  No set up, no clean up! 

here are some pics…

Audrey in the obstacle course

Eli on the obstacle course. (Abby in the backround helping Gehrig get through)

Jocelyn sitting up at the top of the slide to help the little ones.  Abby getting Gehrig to the top.

Jocelyn and Audrey on the BIG slide!

Playing basketball

Eli’s “girlfriend” Laney.  Eli wanted to have a birthday party with just boys, but then he remembered that he wanted Laney there.

Me and My girls.  I had to go through the obstacle course to help Audrey up the ladder.  Now, that was a good workout!

Audrey coming down the slide

Audrey and Gehrig playing ball

Eli

Jocelyn and her good friend Addy

Eli blowing out his candles … with a little help from Savannah!

Everyone eating cupcakes

Eli cleaning his face up after eating his cupcake.

Jocelyn and Addy eating…nice face Jocelyn!!

Eli opening his presents on his thrown!!

Eli with most of his friends…some aren’t in the picture!

Five years ago today…

Brian and I became proud parents of our little baby Eli.  Just thinking about the day brings tears to my eyes.  It was one of those bittersweet occassions where almost everything was perfect.  I had a planned c-section with Eli (after the emergency c-section with Jocelyn, I didn’t want anything like that again!).  Brian and I arrived at the hospital early in the morning with the c-section planned for 7:30 am.  He was born at 8:04am.  That first sight of our little boy…what parent doesn’t cry when they first meet their child face to face!  We knew that he was a boy and therefore we had decided on his name.  Eli Bosch Belden.  Eli because we both loved the name.  And Bosch, well that is why they day was bittersweet.  My dad.  He would have been so proud and excited to have a grandson.  Dad was there the day we had Jocelyn.  And he was so proud.  That vision of mine from the day Jocelyn was born will never fade from my memory!  Eli’s middle name of Bosch is to remind him of his grandpa who he was never able to meet.  He knows this, and every once in a while he aske me to tell him a story about his grandpa who is watching him from heaven.  All I have to say about that is that Eli has made my dad proud! 

Eli is a wonderful little boy.  He surprises me with his knowledge daily.  He makes me laugh when he laughs.  And he makes everyone around him smile when he smiles!  And he Smiles almost all the time!  He is the happiest little boy that I have ever met and always sees the positive in every situation.  But in the same sentence, I would say that he is ALL BOY!  He is hyper, loud, always seems to get himself dirty (and stinky!!). Oh, and I need to say LOUD again.  Eli has no volume button on him…he is either on or off.  And when his voice is on, he is LOUD!  His preschool teacher teases him about always having his “outside” voice on.  He loves to hang out with dad and play Wii.  And Brian has loved seing Eli get just as excited with anything Sar Wars as he does.  He is a good brother Most of the time. yes, he can tease them both, but he loves them with all his heart.  He just wants to feel included when they do things, and it doesn’t always happen when they are playing “girl” things. 

To think that he is already 5, and will be starting kindergarten this fall is crazy!  Wow, how time flies.  I feel so fortunate that I have been able to stay home with my kids for the past (almost) 2 years.  I have such a wonderful bond with the kids and I wouldn’t trade my time with them for the world.  I like to spend my day playing games with them, having lunch with them, helping them clean their rooms… there will be a day in the nto so far future that our kids won’t want to spend this time with us.  We need to take advantage of it while we can!

HAPPY 5TH BIRTHDAY, Eli!

ryder

I couldn’t resist posting this picture of Ryder from Christmas.  So CUTE!!!

 

Parents of the Year…

Wow.  Brian and I had one of those moments this weekend where we feel like we were far from “parents of the year”!  The kids wanted to watch videos from our wedding, ebony as a puppy, and them as babies, etc.  So we watched the videos of Jocelyn, then of Eli, and then… Oh, yes we are terrible.  We have absolutley no videos of Audrey.  How awful is that???  I never thought we would be those parents that neglected these types of things for our third child.  But we are!!  After feeling pretty crappy for a while, we decided that we couldn’t do anything to change the past, but we can change the present and future.  We now have the video camera sitting out so we can use it often.  I also thought of something else.  I scrapbook and Audrey’s scrapbook is BY FAR the best baby one.  I was just starting with Jocelyn (doesn’t look so great!!) and Eli’s I was experimenting with new ways to design a page ( Looks okay) , but with Audrey’s I know what i am doing and it looks the best!  ….Hey I am trying to make myself feel better!!

One of those questions…

So as a parent, you know that there will be questions asked that you are 1. not ready to answer or 2. don’t know how to answer!  Well, we got one of those questions tonight.  It came from Jocelyn.

After dinner, all five of us were sitting in the living room listening to music and talking about our days.  The song “I kissed a girl” came on the radio.  Now, I know this song is on the radio all the time and I know it has been on when Jocelyn has been in the car with me, but she must have never been paying attention.  That is, until tonight!  She sat there listening and says to Brian and I “kissed a girl…mom, is that a girl singing this song?”  I said yes.  And she says “WHY is she singing about kissing another girl?”  Brian and I looked at each other… more to say WHO IS GOING TO ANSWER THIS QUESTION???  Brian stayed silent.  I guess it was me!  I said “Oh, she is just being silly”  After a few minutes, she says “That is kind of gay!”  WHAT??  DID SHE JUST SAY THAT!  I calmly said “And what does gay mean?”  Jocelyn says “it means it is wierd”  Brian and I looked at each other…

WE LEFT IT AT THAT!!

 

It’s an addiction!

You wonder who is addicted and to what!  That would be ELI to the Lego Star Wars Wii game!  Brian bought this game for Christmas and Eli has been addicted to it since the first time he played it.  Eli thinks it is pretty cool since him and daddy can play it together.  They have spent hours on it together.  And when Brian wants to be done, Eli will beg him to play some more.  As soon as he wakes up, as soon as we walk in the door, you name it, he wants to play it.  He has played it with brian enough, that he now plays it by himself.  So now, since he knows how to set up the game and play on his own, he doesn’t even ask us to play. 

 If you are ever at our house and can’t find Eli…there is one place I know he is. 

Playing LEGO STAR WARS! 

 

Audrey said a new word!

Most of you know that Audrey isn’t our talker of the family!  She has a speech therapist come work with her from infant toddler services every other week.  I called to inquire about it over the summer.  It is a very neat program that is free of charge to those whose children qualify for the program.  They came out to test her and she passed everything, except speech, with flying colors.  It has been a great experience for her and for us.  She is even part of a language study with University of Kansas.  Lots of paperwork for us, but it helps her. 

 Anyway, on to the story.  I took that kids to Target last week and Audrey doesn’t like to ride in the cart, so she walks with us.  The kids and I were looking at clothes, when Audrey comes running up to me saying “Spongebob”  …this is A NEW WORD!  She was carrying a spongebob t-shirt.  She was very excited about it.  I didn’t even know that she knew about Spongebob.  Jocelyn and Eli rarely watch Spongebob, they would rather watch other things.  SO when she said this to me I was very impressed!  Later that day, I turned on the tv and it was spongebob.  She said it again.  She knew this word and it wasn’t going away.  It must be a fun word to say, because she says it often.

She is talking so much more than she was even a month ago.  She is a little sponge right now and will repeat about anything you say!  Whether she SHOULD say it or not!

New Year’s Eve

We decided to spend our New Year’s Eve as a family.  The kids wanted to make dinner together, so we made Chinese food together.  All five of us made the crab rangoons. YUMMY!  Even Audrey helped.  Hers looked quite interesting!  She kept trying to eat them before we cooked them.  She would say ALL DONE and then put it up to her mouth.  Then while Brian and I cooked everything, we set up a “bowling alley”.  The all laughed and kept themselves occupied so we could get the food done.  The rest of the night consisted of playing games, watching all the New Year’s Eve shows on tv and eating!  Eli tryed to stay up, but he layed on the coach and kept nodding off around 11pm.  Jocelyn stayed up until a little after 11.  Audrey had falled asleep around 10pm (she hadn’t taken a nap that day!).  Here are some pics from the night!

Audrey and Jocelyn helping me make the crab rangoons.

Eli listening to his MP3 player while he helped us make food and bowled!  He loves listening to his own music on here.  He has listened to it for many hours since he got it for Christmas.  He loves music!