Our Defense Queen

Paris LOVES to play defense!

The POWER of the girl...

She was BOOTING these balls with intensity throughout the entire game.

She told me after the game, "Mom, my legs are aching from how hard I was kicking the ball!"

Leaping or kicking?!?!  On a side note, both she and Sarah asked to take dance lessons in the fall.

Not afraid to get in the mix...

Good D, Parie!

New used toys for fun activities...

We love Play it Again Sports. The store rocks! We've found great roller blades, a hockey stick, and now raquetball racket and scooter. Paris had been asking for a pink scooter, and Charlie had been wanting to play raquetball with Fletcher. Now, both activities are being greatly enjoyed by the kids. So fun that that store has items that greatly enhance our family time! Fletcher loves going to our local rec center with Charlie to hit some balls with him. Paris is having so much fun scootering around loving her PINK scooter.

Safety first with great protective eye wear!

Parie's Dance Recital, June 2011

Paris was super excited all year for her "play" (as she called it!) The theme of the recital was "Thumbelina."

Of course, Paris was thrilled with her teacher's selection of a pink tutu for her class' ballet dance.
She looked adorable and those missing front teeth could not be cuter!
So fun that she had sooo many friends in her Tuesday morning dance class.
Her siblings and those of her friends always went to the library in Chuckwagon during Paris' hour long dance class. After class, everyone piled in to eat a picnic lunch at the park and have fun with friends outside before heading home for schoolwork. All the families looked forward to our dance/library/park day together on Tuesday mornings. What a fun routine we had on Tuesdays this past school year!

Favorite shots from Leadville, CO family adventure day (August 2011)

The whole reason we ventured to Leadville was because Charlie has wanted to visit the town to see the highest airport in North America, the third highest in the world, ever since we lived in Dallas. He has been "flying" out of Leadville's airport on the flight simulator with students for about 10 years and was super excited to see it in person with his own kids. This is a picture of Paris in front of the only runway the airport has. You can clearly see the Rockies to the west of the runway strip. The town sits at 10, 200 feet elevation and look how big the Rockies still look behind Paris!

Paris is holding Colorado's state flower, a columbine.
Loving the color and texture of this doorway Sarah is standing in.
She is oh so grown-up now in many ways...her forever drawings of families of people, HUGE families of people, have varied slightly in the past few weeks to include more and more fashion statements in terms of the individual family member's attire. She still has drawings of huge families, but she also includes fashion designs that she has created for them to wear.
Sarah is dreaming of teaching art (and music and dance) to children in Africa. She says she wants to go to art college and maybe study fashion design, too.
Sarah would like to play on a more competitive soccer team.
Paris would like to play violin and is interested in taking music lessons this year. She would still love to take riding lessons if given the opportunity.
Paris is such a sweet girl who plays well with all her siblings.

She can fight well with them, too. :)

Paris Easter photos 2011

Paris was soooo excited to wear her new dress from Gammy and Popsy on Easter. The only problem was she'd thrown up (lots!) the night before and couldn't go to church on Sunday! She didn't care...she put it on anyway and wore it to pick up the big kids from church after they sang with the choir.

Love how Noah is looking so lovingly at Tommy in this picture...
Paris was so thrilled to get new shoes that are high heels. She and Sarah are "same same" and both think their new shoes are so fun!
Paris is now wanting to grow her hair out to be the same as Sarah's. She likes how Sarah has layers. The only problem is Paris' hair is completely different from Sarah's in terms of thickness! It definitely won't look the same! The hair cutter told Sarah when she got the layers that Sarah had the thickest hair she'd ever cut!

"Pretty Girl with Red Hair and 'Dots' on her Face"

A boy on the opposing team described Paris to his mom as the "pretty girl with red hair and dots on her face." HA! So cute...love little kids' ways of describing things! Tommy cracks us all up with his descriptions of things that he doesn't know the word for yet. He's often asking, "Wahut that called, Mom?" I often have NO clue what he's asking about and have to ask him to tell me about what he's asking the name of. He'll launch into his funny explanation of what he's trying to figure the name out for. I'll have to post one when there's a fresh example. He did one recently trying to get me to remind him the name for squirrel. It was his explanation of the fluffy tail that helped me clue in to what he was describing.
Paris is loving playing defense for team Spain. Her league doesn't have goalies but she defends the goal well as sweeper/stopper ??? I don't know what that position is called exactly but she loves playing it!
That precious grin that melts us! We love cheering, "Go number two!" Paris is number 2 for team Spain and thinks it's hilarious that she's #2 (poop!!)

Paris' Missing Two Front Teeth

We love seeing her precious front toothless smile!Paris LOVES her brother, Noah! She is SO sweet to him. He is one lucky kiddo...his siblings adore him! Tommy often says, "Mom, him do this me! (and then Tommy grins at me showing me how Noah smiled at him. Apparently, Tommy doesn't "know" the word smile...he just shows me a smile to tell me what Noah "does" to him!) So cute!

Paris and Noah right before church on April 10, 2011:
Tommy is all serious business before heading out to church this Sunday:
Tommy told me today that he was ready to poop in the potty. I have to say I had my doubts that it would actually come to pass...literally...because he's been trying to use his potty for pooping for MANY weeks now. He had his normal great morning with wearing underwear all day, and he's been sleeping through the night with just jammies on for a couple months. He still cheers for himself to us each morning that his jammies are dry and, "Me pee potty!" We still make a big deal with verbal praise for his pee pee in the toilet but the treats have long stopped for that feat. The trouble with TeeTom comes after that sweet afternoon nap that I so look forward to...but dread the after nap poop clean-up that inevitably comes along with it! He and Fletcher have always been sooo predictable in their bodies' daily "rhythms." Tommy just couldn't muster up the discipline to go sit on the potty after waking up from his nap. I am very thankful he never laid in bed and went potty in his underwear. Yay, that he at least climbed down from the top bunk and "hid" somewhere in his room or the playroom before pooping. BUT, today was THE day!!! He was serious. He did go poop in his little potty for the third time ever!!! Praise God!!!!!! I didn't have to wash out poopy underwear today! Yippie for me!

Three Big Kids' Monart Drawing Lesson: Tiger

Paris' tiger drawing:

Fletcher's tiger drawing:Sarah's tiger:
The three tigers from February 2011 art lesson:
The kids were so excited by their drawing lesson projects this week. They had such fun creating these tigers!

"I feel like the President...or Popsy!" -Paris, Feb.3,2011

So this is how I find Paris laying in bed (but the sheets were down around her feet at the time), and she says, "I feel like the President! Or POPSY!!" I thought, "What?! What does she mean?" Sarah knew right away. She said, "Oh yeah! Popsy always does that when he is sitting in his bed. She looks just like him!" Then, Paris proceeds to mimic Popsy walking in his bedroom and climbing up into bed and getting comfy with his hands behind his head. The girls had me rolling at their clever observations of their Popsy. I'd say they nailed him in their impersonations of him!

December 8, 2010

Tommy was taking his job of holding a gift during one song quite seriously. He knew when to shake, shake the gift as part of the song's motions. His first gift was shake, shaken loose by Tee Tom and had to be replaced mid-song because the package was coming apart from my aggressive package shaking son! He took it all in stride, though, and didn't melt down when his gift was shedding and had to be exchanged with a new one to shake.

Tommy had a BIG accomplishment yesterday evening...pee pee in the potty (finally!!!!) It's been many-a-week with "no diapie," as Tommy says. He reports to everyone in the family, especially Daddy, that he has no diapie on. But despite, "no diapie," there has been no successful
potty-ing going on at all. He had one tiniest of tiny poops (a poop droplet) a week ago...we celebrated it because he actually sat and tried for real for the first time. He's had quite a few pee pee mistakes and a couple poop mishaps...Yuck!! Not like the other kids...they just "got it" one day and went potty with VERY few accidents ever between the three of them. They were also right at three years old, whereas Tommy still had five months until he'd turn three. It helped that Fletcher had made a big deal of watching and learning from him, the big brother, last week. He showed him (again) how he holds his penis to go pee pee standing up. So Tommy's first successful attempt was a long (!) standing up pee pee. I didn't cheer, though I was kneeling right there holding Noah, until he was ALL the way done for fear of either me or Noah getting sprayed with a stream of urine. Tommy cracked me up when he was trying to pee one time a few days prior and while standing up holding his penis said, "Hey! Hide-nin!" He laughed that his penis was hiding! :)


Tommy's holding the elephant (hasn't let go since yesterday) that he chose out of "treasure box" for going potty in the toilet.

Paris lost her third tooth right before we left for Community Bible Study. It was her first top tooth. She may lose the top left one soon because it is also loose. Then she'd be able to sing, "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth!" Her good friend, Callie Adams, has no top front teeth right now and looks adorable. It would be a cute picture of the two of them together with no front teeth.

Paris can still fit in the Christmas outfit Gammy gave her last year. Praise God! She looks adorable in it. Yay, Gammy!!

December 6 in Mrs. Appel's class

Our little waitress passing out the cupcakes she made for her classmates.

She has been WAITING for this day for soooo long!

Maliek and Destiny (one of her two best friends from Mrs. Appel's class) can be seen behind her:

Pay Pay's shoulders hunch in her bashful posture...it used to surface when she was younger as a "chin tuck to chest and left ear to left shoulder while looking out the tops of her eyes" posture. She was feeling bashful as her classmates sung "Happy Birthday" to her during circle time. I was SO thankful I got to see her reaction- it was precious!

Starting to feel timid during circle time...

I no longer describe her as shy, however. She is in many ways more bold than Sarah or Fletcher right now. The go-carts and other recent situations have shown us just how "brave" she is! Small example: Paris will stand alone in a fast food line to ask the worker for a water cup. She no longer needs help or company to do things she might have felt insecure doing alone or independently a year or so ago.

Our SIX year old...

still loves all things "P"...pink, purple, paint ponies, pigs, plums, pears, peppermint, princesses, Polly Pockets, Pet Shops, Poppa Sam, Popsy!!

Paris' Pony Party

Johanna Perry enjoying the pony activities:
Destiny and Callie petting the horses waiting to be adopted:

Sarah and Fletcher excited to ride:

Paris' 6th birthday party was held at Friends of Horses Rescue and Adoption. The facility is rustic but the people could not be NICER! The owner/manager, Bill, is super laid-back and was great to work with. There were four horses for the girls to ride with about ten volunteers that helped to lead the kids around an outdoor arena. It was great that each of the children got as many turns as they wanted on each of the horses. The kids rode for well over an hour and then took a tractor-pulled wagon hay ride around the property past the chickens, goats, horses and foals, and calves. There was lots of squealing and much fun had by the party-goers.

Paris' friends had pony treats (apple slices and baby carrots), but we made sure the ponies got the real deal with big carrots and some apple scraps, as well. The kiddos played "Horse, Horse, Pony!" which only varies from "Duck, Duck, Goose" in that you have to canter after the tagger who names you the pony and if the tagger is caught, he is sent out to pasture in the stink pot middle of the circle. The kids acted like this was the best game ever! So funny! They also played a variant of "Red light, green light"..."All the ponies in the pasture...trot. HALT!" And then, "All the ponies in the pasture....gallop. Halt!!" The kids could have played this much longer had time permitted.
Paris and McKenna. Fun that Sarah is super good friends with Kenna's big sis, Lexi. Kenna was excited that she got to have a sleep-over this time instead of it always being Lexi at our house!
Tommy LOVED riding Cowboy. He'd say, "Me ride Black Jack. NO! (ha! ha! he'd laugh.) Me ridin' Cowboy!"
The kids all seemed to like their turns on Flour, Cowboy, Grizzly and Bob.
Paris' favorites are paints. She's influenced Sarah in that way, too. Sarah now seems to prefer paints and palaminos, as well.
Noah grabbed a nap in the Bjorn once he got all snuggled up in his snow suit! We call him the baby polar bear when he wears it. He's pretty darn cutie, if I do say so.