April Part 1

I love my April fool's baby!! Brooklyn is such a little sweetie. Her birthday was April 1st and she is now 3. She was lucky enough to get two birthday parties. The first was when my parents were in town and it was a double party with uncle James since his birthday is a few days later.



The second party was on her birthday with the rest of the family. Earlier in the day Lacy came up and had some fun things for the kids to do to help celebrate Brooklyn's birthday. They did a little finger painting, painted some bags and then went outside and played with the puppies.


That night we had a birthday BBQ and some cake.


Things that I love about Brooklyn...
I love her smile and her laugh. I love it when she gets laughing and can't stop. It is so easy to get her laughing and when she starts, her laugh is contagious. She is the only one of our kids right now that we can tease out of a bad mood. And, she is the only one that I can make laugh with my funny faces.
Brooklyn LOVES to play games and puzzles. Her favorite games are go fish, and any kind of matching games.
She is such a big help with Katie, and whenever Katie starts to cry, Brooklyn will run over and start to talk to her. She also loves to read to Katie, and Katie just eats it up.
If she really wants something she will say, "I will give you all my money."
She loves to help in the kitchen. If she sees that I am cutting up food while I am cooking she will go get the play knife and help me cut the food up.
When she says I love you it always comes in threes.

Hannah and William have been say "pinkie promise" lately when they are making deals, so now when Brooklyn really wants something she points her pinkie at me and tells me, "give you my pinkie?" and she thinks that will get her what she wants. Truth be told, the first time she did it, I did give in with whatever it was because it caught me of guard and she looked so cute and serious about it.

Brooklyn loves the little puppies. She would carry them around all of the time. Her favorite one was this one that we named little Sophie.

One of her favorite things was to get a puppy, put it on her lap and swing with it. One day she was doing that with little Sophie and the kids kept coming in and telling me that Sophie kept throwing up on Brooklyn. We later discovered that the pup was getting motion sick because of the swinging. Little Sophie was the first puppy to go, and when the family left with her, Brooklyn just sat at the window looking out at the family until they left. She was pretty sad. I don't think she realized that one day the puppies were going to leave.



It was so much fun to have all these little pups. The kids loved to play with them and even though there was a lot of whining and a lot of poop to deal with, we do miss these little pups. They have all been sold and it was fun while it lasted. This little one was my favorite. I named her Penelope. She was the smallest and sweetest.





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St Patricks day

I wanted to do something fun for St Patrick's day but didn't plan ahead, so right before I was going to pick up Hannah from school, I was trying to think of something that the kids would like to do. We had found some rainbow play-dough cookies that we wanted to make when Hannah got home. But the house was a mess... and I have a really hard time making a mess in the kitchen when my whole house is a disaster. So, I was trying to think of something to motivate myself and my kids to clean up the house and get our jobs done. I came up with this. Now I have to say I have never considered myself a poet. My mom is pretty good and she comes up with some really neat, memorable poetry and I always wished I was better at it. So this was my attempt at a poetic scavenger hunt, because leprechauns are poetic, right?

So Hannah came home, we made the cookie dough, and put it in the refrigerator to harden a little and when we went to check on it it was gone, and the first clue was in its place. After they would finish each job the next clue would magically appear. It worked great and the kids were so excited to finish the scavenger hunt and my house was cleaned in record time. It was awesome!! I think the leprechauns might visit more than once a year.
Here were the clues that the leprechaun's left.

I am the leprechaun that borrowed your treat,

You will have to work so your treat you can eat.

Run go clean your room and help your mom too,

Then you will find your next clue.

Are there dirty clothes in your house?

Gather them all and take them to the place where there once was a mouse.

Can you pick up all your toys?

In the family room and toy room, but don’t make a noise.

I love to listen to your music everyday.

Can I listen to Hannah play,

While William and Brooklyn clean?

I will listen somewhere close and not be seen.

Go help your mom do the dishes

Then you will get your wishes.

It was funny because when they read the last clue William said, "Mom, my wish is that I never have to do jobs again!!"
He didn't get that wish, but they did get their cookies back.

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March

Katie is now seven months old. A few weeks ago her two bottom teeth grew in. I think that is the earliest that any of my babies got their teeth. She hasn't figured out how to crawl just yet. Whenever we put her on the floor with something that she wants in front of her she just scoots herself back. She is pretty good at that.

I think my kids are the greatest! I can't wait until summer break so Hannah can stay home all day with us.

We went to the Museum of Art on BYU Campus to see that Carl Bloch exhibit, which was amazing, and then we walked around campus reminiscing about our good old BYU days. I love BYU. As we were driving up William saw this bridge.

The whole time we were walking around the museum and campus this was the only thing William wanted to see. So before we left Jake took the kids on a walk on this bridge. It may have been the highlight of William's day.

Katie loves to clap and claps all of the time. Last week we were watching the BYU vs Gonzaga basketball game (which was such a great game, wasn't it?). Every time there was a great play, which was quite often, everyone there would start yelling, cheering and clapping. Katie would get startled and scared each time this happened. She would then look at someone, notice that they were smiling and then get really excited and start clapping. It was pretty cute. Maybe she will be my little basketball player.

Our pups are getting so big, about one month old. They are getting to the point where they love playing with each other and the kids, and they love to pee on my floor. Aren't they so cute!!




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February Part 2

Lacy and I put on a baby shower for Lindsay and we had a ton of fun. It is always fun to have a reason to throw a party.

Peaches had pups!! She is such a great mom, and did a great job for her first time. All of the pups survived and they are all so cute and tiny. There are two girls and two boys.


Here are the pups a week old.




Playing games with dad.
By the looks of Jake you would think our house was freezing, and depending who you ask, yes, it probably is. I think the kids and I have acclimatized to the temperature of our house since we are here all day. Recently it has been better thanks to Ben for fixing and adjusting a few things.



On February 26th Hannah and William had a violin recital and did an awesome job. Brooklyn was pretty sad she couldn't play her own little song there. Here are the kids with their cute fiddle teacher, Aunt Lindsay.




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February

Hannah lost tooth #3.

Katie is 6 months old. She is such a happy baby. She gives plenty of smiles to any one who will give her attention, and she is so much more content now that she can sit up by herself and play with her toys. She was rolling from her stomach to her back a few months ago, but suddenly decided that she didn't want to anymore. So she hasn't rolled for a while. She loves watching Peaches our dog run around the floor. She loves her jumping swing and whenever she sees that I am going to put her in her seat her legs start going crazy and I can hardly get her in because her legs are moving so fast.

She growls when she is thirsty after eating her cereal, and so far she loves her veggies and cereal and it show. She is 21 pounds and 27.5 inches which is over the 100 percentiles in both categories.


William reading (in his own words) a book to Brooklyn.


My only Valentines picture.
Hannah got home from her Valentines party at school and shared all of her fun dip candy with William and Brooklyn.

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January

Movie night


My little girls are getting so big.

We made snowflakes out of tortillas. It was a great snack , lots of fun and really easy. (idea from familyfun.go.com)

Katie loves her bath time


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December

We had a great month of December. The only bad thing was it went way to fast.


At the beginning of the month the city was fixing some pipes under the street in front of our house. We had a front row set as we watched them dig up our street and replace some of the pipes. It was pretty neat to see. William was glued to our front window from about 10:00 to almost 4:00 in the afternoon. He did take a small break for lunch, but then he was right back to the window.

We made graham cracker houses. It is hard to see, but Hannah built Rapunzel's tower. Rapunzel is even in the top with her long licorice hair.



Enjoying the snow while building a snow fort with dad.




Hannah had her first grade Christmas program where they sang a few songs and recited a few poems. It was so much fun to see the first graders singing and dancing. Hannah is a great little singer.
We are so lucky that Hannah and our cousin Heber get to be in the same class, so they were able to be in the Christmas program together.



Enjoying "Mr Krueger's Christmas" on a Sunday afternoon.

Katie, now at 4 months, is starting to roll over and can almost sit up by herself.

We had our annual chocolate dipping party, and wow, we had a lot of chocolates. We always have a lot of fun experimenting with different things to dip in the chocolate. Most anything tastes good dipped in chocolate.


After dipping chocolates we had our Proctor Christmas party. The kids made Christmas ornaments and the girls painted fingernails.

After dinner we acted out the nativity...



... and Santa Clause came. We had a great time!!



For Christmas we had a nice long weekend that we spent in Nevada. We got there just as a big storm was coming in. I love being in the country in the middle of a big storm, when everyone is home and you are all nice a cozy inside.

It was freezing cold, but the kids still seemed to have a great time playing in the snow and sledding.





Christmas Eve dinner
Acting out the nativity


Here are all of the kids in Santa's lap at the community Christmas Eve Program.


Katie and cousin Kaylee.

We all had a great Christmas morning. Hannah and Brooklyn's favorite things they got were some ballet dress ups and shoes, and William's favorite thing was his Woody. My favorite thing was that everyone was healthy through the whole Christmas vacation. It seems like with 4 kids, usually someone has the sniffles or the flu.


We then went to visit Grandma Ludean's and Grandpa Phil's for Christmas. And we were excited to see Grandma Hendrix who is staying with my grandma.

The grand kids got beanbags from grandma for Christmas.




Genevieve, Katie, Kaylee, Madison, Bailey (twins)
I love this picture. On my side of the family between my sister and my cousins we have 5 baby girls that were born within 4 months of each other.

These two, Katie and Kaylee were born just a few weeks apart from each other. It is so much fun to see them laying next to each other and interacting together. It will be fun to see them grow up together.



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