Eli’s advice to Jocelyn

The kids started swimming lessons a few weeks ago.  Jocelyn and Eli had their 2nd class on Monday afternoon.  (Audrey’s classes are with me on Tuesdays)  Jocelyn had one of her friends in her class the first week, but her friend is now in the next level swim class, so Jocelyn doesn’t know anyone in her class.  After lessons were over and we were in the car, Jocelyn was all mad because she didn’t know anyone.  And Eli says to her:

“Jocelyn, HELLO, make some new friends like ME!!”

with a classic expression on his face, like he was trying to say “Duh!”

I laughed so hard and Jocelyn, of course, didn’t like getting advice from her 5 year old brother! 🙂

One of those moments when I wish I would have had my camera to take pictures of both of their expressions!

Eli has never had a problem making new friends whereever we go.  He already has so many friends up at Jocelyn’s school, so he is so excited to be there in the fall.  I will never worry about Eli not making friends.  He always has a smile on his face and will play with just about anyone!

My birthday!

March and April are such busy birthday months for our families.  Mine was the 22nd.  Brian asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday and I told him that I wanted the 5 of us to spend the afternoon together.  After church we went out for lunch, Mexican… yummy!  Then we went to a park to play and go on a little hike.  We then ran a few errands and ended the afternoon getting ice cream.  It was such a fun and relaxing day.  I think every Sunday should be like that!  I feel so blessed that my family is happy and healthy to be able to spend days like this together!

BTW, those of you that know Brian well will appreciate this one. 

His gift to me was- Not playing video games all day long!  🙂

Jocelyn’s Birthday Party

Jocelyn chose to have a birthday party at home with several girls.  There were nine girls total.  The evening consisted of eating pizza, playing some fun games, eating cake and opening presents!  The girls all wore their pajamas. 

 

 

Toilet paper wrap up.  They all partnered up to make each other mummies!  They loved this game so much that they played it again at the end of the night!

 

Nail polish hot potato.  The girls all sat in a circle and passed around a few bottles of nail polish.  When the music stopped, whoever had a bottle of polish would paint one of their nails.  Whoever got all 10 painted first won a prize!  Thay made a big mess, BUT they had fun!  And had some wild looking nails too 🙂

“All tied up” 

They all stood in a circle and grabbed hands with 2 different people.  They then had to figure out how to get back to a circle with letting go of each others hands.  They got it within a minute the first time and they never could get it the second time.

Building balloon towers.  Each team had 40 balloons and masking tape to build the tallest balloon tower.  I thought that they may not like this game, but they really got into it and worked great as teams.

Jocelyn had a really good time.  And judging by the girls, they all did too!

A day at the zoo

I love to take the kids to the zoo.  I hate to jinx this, but my kids are always so well behaved at the zoo.  They love to see the animals and to see the new things they are doing at the KC zoo.  I took them over spring break, and we hadn’t been since fall so it was great to see the changes that have been made!

We had a picnic lunch and enjoyed the day together!

I think this is  cute picture of all three of them!  (Other than Eli’s toungue sticking out! )

Standing in front of the kangaroos.

Sleepover

Jocelyn had wanted to have a bunch of girls spend the night for her birthday party, but 1o 2nd grade girls overnight did not sound very fun to me!  So I made her a deal that she could have 3 friends spend the night over spring break.  She invited one of the girls that wasn’t going to make it to her party and then 2 other friends.  They played outside, baked cookies, played fashion models on the runway (quite funny watching them pick out “high fashion” outfits, and played games!  They did a great job!  

 

Jocelyn, Addy, Kaitlyn, and Laiken

(Nice face Jocelyn…she is always trying to be funny!)

 

St. Patrick’s Day Parade

In the 10 years that I have lived in KC, I have never been to the St. Patrick’s day parade.  So this year, it was over spring break and the forecast was looking wonderful… almost 80 degrees and sunny!  Who would pass that up!!  We picked up some of our friends and off we were to the parade down in Westport.  We found really close parking and a great place to sit.  Of course, we were in our spots an hour before that parade was to start!  But the kids had fun people watching and eating snacks.  I sprayed their hair green too.  They did a great job and we had all had a fun time!

The girls.  I also took a picture of the boys, but Eli’s eyes were closed!  Darn it!!! 🙂

 

Ice Cream Truck

A few times during the summer, I let the kids get something off the ice cream truck!  We had the best weather over spring break and so the ice cream truck was out and about every day!  One afternoon, I was watching a friend of mine’s kids and I let them all get something from the truck!  Audrey made a big mess with her SPONGEBOB ice cream treat! 

 

What a mess she was!  But she loved it and the clothes all went in the wash and all the stains came out! 🙂

Jocelyn and Laiken eating their ice cream! 

 

Can’t believe that she is 8!!

I don’t know where the time has gone!  I remember the day that Jocelyn was born!  She was born by emergency c-section and I wasn’t able to be awake during her birth.  A very hard thing to hear.. “Lori, we have to get your baby out ASAP!  Her heart rate is not doing well!”  God was looking over us that day and we all stayed healthy!   Jocelyn was born at 1:36pm and I was able to meet her after she was about 30 minutes old (I think??).  I was so happy to find out she was a girl.  Such a wonderful surprise!

And now, she just celebrated her 8th birthday!  She has become such a caring young lady.  Don’t get me wrong, she has that attitude of an 8 year old, but she is very kind hearted and would do anything for you!  She is a great friend to her friends and we are so happy to see that!  She is a great big sister to both Eli and Audrey.  We are so proud of her and hope that we help shape her into a caring, loving, independent young woman!  It’s happening right before our eyes!

We celebrated her birthday for almost a week with different things going on.  On Friday the 13th, Audrey and I took Jocelyn lunch.  We took her Panera and made her day!  Panera is her FAVORITE place to eat!  She is so my daughter! 🙂  Brian’s parents came down the 13th -15th, so we were able to celebrate with them on her actual birthday the 15th.  We did cake and some presents on Saturday night.  I even made her cake with Audrey’s help decorating!After church on Sunday, we went to Zio’s Italian restaurant for her birthday lunch.  Her choice!  

Her cake that we made! 

Making her wish…I wonder what she wished for!  What does an 8 year old wish for??

The kids with Grandma and Grandpa Belden.  Pretty cute picture!

 

Just a weekend with dad!

Most of you know that I really enjoy scrapbooking.  And those of you that scrapbook also know that one of the only ways to really get a lot of scrapbookin done is to take a weekend away and scrapbook!  I was gone for a weekend a few weeks ago and so the kids had a weekend just with daddy!  Luckily the weather was beautiful for them all weekend!  I am so proud of  Brian… he did a great job with the kids!  Here are some pics from the weekend!  I am so glad he took pics so I could see them too! 🙂

Chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast!

They all went to Home Depot to their Building Workshop.

Brian always takes Jocelyn and Eli, but since he had Audrey, he took her too!

This was her first time going and she is very proud of her racetrack!

 

 

She fell asleep behind the chair in the living room.  This has been her new “hiding spot” and she must have gotten tired and fell asleep!

 

Jocelyn is a DINOSTAR!

Jocelyn had her musical for school a few weeks back.  She was a dancer.  They had to select what parts they were interested in and then try out for them.  Her first choice was a dancer.  Not a surprise to us!  The music teacher does such a great job with all the students.  She is very energetic and excited about the program; therfore, all the kids were too!  I helped with the t-shirts and masks that week before the program.  The shirts looked great!  They used a black light, so all the kids had to wear black pants along with their “Dinostars” shirts. 

This is Jocelyn’s group dancing.  She is the 3rd from the left.

There she is in the middle. (I can’t get the eyes to look normal??)

Jocelyn held the “Y” in

micropachycephalosaurus group!

She did a great job during the entire program! 

We are so proud of her!