My little helper

This little guy loves to play the "transfer game". Moving things from one spot to another. Papers, books, toys, whatever he can get his hands on. So I figured, instead of fussing since I can't hold him and do laundry at the same time...why not involve him.

He can transfer the clean laundry to the basket and move the wet laundry to the dryer. Keeps him entertained and his favorite part...shutting the door when we are done.

I think someone might be ready to start some school

Yesterday I was able to do a little school with the girls ( and I mean A LITTLE - Grammy has been helping with school around here and I am sooooooo grateful ). With it being St. Patrick's Day, I we all dressed in green and I printed some things off of Enchanted Learning for the kids to do. My little guy wanted to participate.

Actually, when I was printing the papers, the fascination of watching the paper come out of the printer was just adorable. All those kinds of things that are so normal to us are brand new discoveries to the boys.

Tyce is able to color inside the lines, trace some letters and he is beginning to write some letters on his own. Not bad for a four year old. =) We also tried tearing papers and pasting it to paper. He enjoyed that. And since it was going so well, I thought we would give scissors a try. He doesn't have the motor skill for that one yet, but it shouldn't take too long to learn. He seems to be a eager learner and wants to be involved with our projects. It will be fun to teach him.

It was fun to show Daddy all the work he had done. I put it up on the back of the door in the kitchen for all of us to acknowledge his hard work. (My camera is giving me trouble, so I am using my phone for my pictures. I do have some nice new pics on the adoption blog of the boys looking TOO CUTE. Click on the peapod to the right and head on over there for a look-see.)

How we fill our days...now that we have 4 kids

I have been BUSY...BUSY...BUSY. The boys keep me running and I love it. We have only been home about a week and a half and we are working hard at keeping a routine. I find that all kids thrive on routine. It helps so much for them to know what is expected for each part of the day.

So our day if full of lots of play time.

We will spend more time outside playing on the playset.

Then after we used up all of our energy we have
lunch and clean up before nap time.

Oh...how we love our nap time.Yes...I rock him to sleep for both nap time and bed time (and I LOVE IT).
And after rest time we start all over again.


But most of the day...these pleading eyes look up at me and reach up for momma. And then...I spend my day holding my Little Man.

Tissy's TENTH birthday HUNT

Staying in fashion of letting our 10 year old have a birthday shopping hunt, we spent the morning out with the kids opening envelopes filled with clues. These clues led Tristen (who turns 10 tomorrow) off on a birthday shopping hunt.

This was a big adventure for the whole family and we weren't sure how it would end up. We are deep into the cocooning stage of adjusting to our adoption, but we had to break the rules to celebrate this sweet girl of ours. (If you haven't heard, we just got home a week ago from Africa with our 2 newest Sweet Peas).
The morning started off with a hug from her little brother. Can't you just feel the love???
The clues took us to our local shopping strip plaza where Tristen got to pick out goodies from some select stores. First a treat from the store at Cracker Barrel (somehow my camera stopped working so all these pics are from my phone).

With her toy of choice (a sock monkey), we headed to the department store for some new clothes. She picked a new outfit (always a huge treat to get something NEW in stead of hand-me-downs) and quite fashionable I might add.
We stopped off at Ross where she picked out a new hand towel for her bathroom. And then off to the dollar store where all the kiddos got to spend some birthday cash. Little man Tate just stayed in the sling and didn't seem to care much for shopping. But big sister Tally and little brother Tyce were all about finding goodies too.

Then we headed to the book store for a new book and toy too. She had a limit to spend at each store and worked hard at finding things within her budget.


Our next stop was Target for a new bike helmet and a DVD to watch with the family.

Last stop, ice cream at the creamery. Yummy !!!! Dessert before lunch.
All in all, the kids did well. Even though it was lots of stimulation with stores, we didn't interact with friends or people so we felt like it was a pretty safe activity. We have asked the girls to sacrifice so much during this whole adoption, we need to make sure and meet their needs too.

Such SWEET girls. Oh how I love them and enjoy them every day. What a blessing to have such a beautiful family.