Everyone was so excited to see Juliet eat a cupcake. Grandma Kathy made fancy ones with chocolates on top!
I mean, Juliet was happy to take a few bites and destroy the thing at least. Oh baby.
Then we did a little light reading.
Truth time, we did not manage to read this book to the baby because she still mostly yanks books out of our hands and bashes them.
She was not particularly interested in unwrapping her present (new swimsuit!)
But she did go nuts over shredding the crepe paper afterwards.
Hunting down basketballs at Bradley's game. She's so naughty cute.
And some sibling reading time while we packed up for Great Wolf Lodge!
We arrived! Everyone was so excited. Nathan was amazing and agreed to go on Super Bowl Sunday, despite the Chiefs being in the Super Bowl. We were still able to watch the whole game, and they had a pretty nice watch party in the main lobby, but we certainly missed some excellent BBQ and a fun watch party at a friend's house.
But we HAD to take this sweet thing on her actual birthday weekend. We even did the fancy birthday package so she would get cake, a poster on the room door, and wolf ears that had a party hat!
Juliet's first time at Great Wolf Lodge was a great success! We all had a great time.
She was a little unsure about the water at first but thanks to Daddy cuddles she warmed up to everything pretty quickly.
And check out her sweet birthday stuff! Balloons!
Poster on the door which we took home with us and put on the door to Juliet's room. She loves the poster, she points at it and likes to poke at all the animals if we hold her next to it.
The big kids were dazzled by all the birthday gear, they think all Great Wolf Lodge trips should be like this.
The very cute cake. It was quite delicious, Juliet was a big fan.
We spent a fair bit of time in the arcade and all the grown-ups thought it was rather hilarious when these three hopped onto the ducky ride.
Juliet was definitely the correct age group for this ride, although she was terrifying to watch because she mostly tried to stand up while the ride was moving.
Juliet getting in on the zombie water shooting game. This was a favorite, they got loads of tickets from this machine.
Juliet also loved the driving games. We wouldn't put any money in, she'd just turn the steering wheel and hit buttons while cackling with glee.
The big kids crashed pretty hard at night and slept in the next morning. Not our sweet little Juliet! She made it till just past 6 and then Nathan took her out to play around in the lobby.
Day two of swimming!
Grandpa was so wonderful and played pretend Pokémon with Bradley in the big pool.
Bradley and Eleanor were rather annoyed by the behavior of some older boys we didn't know and in an act of great parenting, I told them "10-14 year old boys are the worst people on the face of the planet, just get away from them because no one else likes them either." So cute Bradley found his daddy and cute Juliet and I hope he doesn't think too much about how soon he will join the ranks of 10-14 year old boys. He'll be delightful still of course, but only because he's my sweet Bradley.
It was fun to see the kids able to do the obstacle course on their own this year!
And Juliet's favorite part of Great Wolf Lodge was the lazy river with Daddy.
Cute crew just before we left.
And because it was such a nice day (for February) we let the kids rest at home a little and take a bath and then I insisted on a park outing. Because that's what you do when it's over 50 degrees in February.
Swing!!
I might have tired Eleanor out a bit, this is what Nathan found when he came upstairs to get her for dinner.
Juliet had her 1 year checkup and is a happy healthy baby.
And she's up from the 14th percentile in weight to the 15th percentile! Packing it on, way to go, baby!
Grandpa Dan sent her what is certainly her new most favorite toy: a big box!
And there was a mini coupe in it. She likes that too. Eleanor surprised us by being the most enthusiastic kid when it came to assembling the toy. She was awesome, we're going to have to get her working with Nathan on other projects!
Finished product, great joy!
Juliet loves everything about this little car. It's been fun using it inside and it will be even more fun when she gets to hang out with the big kids while they play outside once it's nice out!
So, there was a bit of an ordeal concerning Juliet freaking out and crying and clinging to me when we tried to do a one year old cake smash photo shoot at a friend's house. So it was just so precious and darling (sarcasm) when we got home and she started to get interested in the cake and wanted to play with it.
As you can see, I handled the situation with grace.
Marauding baby. I helped Patrick fill out his sheet for being star of the week and in that time Juliet cleared a shelf off the bookcase in my room. She's a terror at the library.
She did this all on her own one morning. I have many mini heart attacks whenever I turn my back on this baby for a minute.
We went to the Wonderscope Children's Museum with a friend and cute baby had a blast.
My adrenaline junkie was nuts for the slide. I'd drop her down on her tummy and as soon as she got to the bottom she'd start cackling and trying to climb back up to go again.
So generous feeding her big sister.
It's good her older siblings are all crazy about her because the feeling is decidedly mutual.
The boys have had a bit of a love fest lately. It's nice that Patrick knows that whenever he wants to get into Bradley's good graces he just needs to hunt him down and hug him aggressively.
The Chiefs won the Super Bowl by the way. Patrick's preschool class went a bit crazy on Chiefs activities and apparently the giant child in Patrick's class who looks like a linebacker has a father who is actually a linebacker and he used to play on the Chiefs before he got traded. He came by and had the kids try on his old helmet and show off their game face. Patrick's game face is legit.
So are Patrick's treasure hunts. The love of tape and confusing clues continues. I love it so much.
Eleanor got yet another Daddy Daughter Dance, this time through our church. It was Hawaii themed and it was even more fun the school one I'm told.
Patrick's friend Mabel went and hung out with Eleanor a bunch and yes, Patrick was jealous and thinks he should have been there.
Nathan and Bradley continue to be besties.
Nathan helped Bradley and his friends make paper airplanes at scouts.
And then he got to go to Bradley's adorable 2nd grade musical where Bradley was a groundhog and even had a speaking part!
Bradley's fan club #1
Bradley's fan club #2
We started having dinner and game nights with my folks on Friday evenings again, which is thoroughly enjoyed by everyone. Last night we played Kid Charades and all of the kids participated and if you've never played charades with small children you are missing out on one of the best life experiences.
Juliet makes sure she's involved in whatever is going on and howled at Nathan until she got to be on his lap and messing with the Battle Sheep pieces from this game.
I've been filming videos on how to play games and Bradley has seen a few, so he requested that he get to film his own video on how to play the game he made up at school. Um, yes, we can film the most adorable thing in the world.
The video:
And then Patrick begged to film a video so we had him demonstrate Orangotwang. These sweet kids.
The video:
They have been begging for sleepovers with each other lately so we've said yes as long as it has been a weekend. We went in to check on them and found this the other night.
It's so fun to wake up and have a buddy to play with right away.
Nathan keeps taking virtual Pokémon pictures with the kids which I think is pretty silly but then the pictures turn out so cute ...
Juliet loves getting in on reading time in the evenings. She's a bit of a pest but she's so cute about it, no one really minds.
We watched Honey I Shrunk the Kids a week or so ago and there was a smoochy bit so Nathan and I yelled out "Smoochies!!!" while the older two hid their faces. Meanwhile, Patrick made a beeline for me and started kissing me. A lot. Love this boy.
More of Juliet and her cozy coupe. We've discovered she mostly likes to get in and out of the car, that's even better than going for a ride.
The kids won't stop picking her up and they generally do it while she's happy and playing with something peacefully, but I get that it's so fun and exciting to be able to pick up your baby sister so I keep letting them do it even though she's invariably very annoyed by the time they're done moving her around against her will.
I took the kids to a library bookmark contest. I thought I did a reasonable job telling them to draw something generic about loving books or loving the library, but apparently I didn't quite get through.
Bradley drew very cute Pikachu pictures. He did involve a book at least.
Patrick drew whatever this is and then gave up. I see a book at the bottom at least.
And Eleanor spent 40 minutes copying the cover of a Junie B. Jones book while Juliet tried to tear apart the entire library. I finally encouraged Eleanor to call it good and forgot to take a picture of her submission while we grabbed our books and got out of there.
But don't worry, Eleanor isn't suffering too much. I got some new eyeshadow for myself so I got one for Eleanor while I was at it. Eleanor picked it out herself, it's rather splendid. And if you look closely, she has sparkle cheeks because I got her body glitter too. She SO happy about all this.
On Valentine's Day I had the kids write in a card for Nathan and they were so excited to give it to him.
It's good they were so nice, because he agreed to take them to the new Sonic movie on the day it came out. They were thrilled.
And we've already planned Eleanor's birthday party to take a group of girls to see Scooby Doo in the theater so she was super happy to see advertisement for her movie too.
Meanwhile, I was at home with this. She's such a menace.
She gets so much attention. Which is good, because every time we turn our back she's up to no good.
Juliet came in to cuddle with big kids after yet another sleepover. When can a baby be invited to one of these!
My little cuddle baby. She's pretty irresistible.
Park outing with Grandpa!
Reading time! Please note Bradley reading his own book on the far end. I don't know how I found this library book but it says "butt" a lot and Nathan and I edited ourselves while reading it but Grandpa didn't and the kids were so excited. Grandpa found out about this and so the next time he read it he just had Patrick say the "potty words" for him. Apparently this was the best solution of all, it was met with great happiness by all the children.
The other day my dad was driving Eleanor over to his house when following conversation occurred:
Eleanor: Grandpa, can you pause the song?
(song paused)
Eleanor: Do you know your heart doesn't look anything like a heart in a book?
Grandpa: Oh really?
Eleanor: It looks DISGUSTING!
Thank you Jump Rope for Heart for teaching Eleanor the important stuff.
Another sleepover. We figured out that it's best to have the sleepovers in the boys' room because the kids don't all get woken up when Juliet starts fussing at 6:30 am. Eleanor's shared wall with the baby room is a bit of a pain currently.
I took the whole crew to The Museum at PrairieFire the next day. Please note Juliet's dangling legs as she works hard to keep up with the big kids at the dig pit.
Juliet LOVED the sandy area and screamed at me whenever I tried to move her anywhere else.
More digging with Eleanor while the boys work on a puzzle together in the background. I love how Juliet is using her little brush.
And then back home for laundry basket time while Patrick puts away clean clothes. I seriously don't know what this baby would do without her super fun siblings.
Boys on the tablet together while Eleanor was gone on a playdate.
What bedtime reading time looks like with four kids.
And Juliet eating at her favorite spot. She had a bit of a cold and I think she's teething so she was screechy and mad at me while she sat in her high chair and was mostly refusing to eat anything. So I let her get down and then she was scavenging for crumbs on the ground. I put Cheerios on the seat of her high chair and she crammed handfulls of the them into her mouth. Sigh. How much have I given up? A lot. But they're all happy, healthy, and know that they are loved. The baby eating real meals in an actual seat would just be a bonus, right?
We just hope she survives all the love she gets from her siblings. I did make them stop doing this, but it still happens more than it should probably. She likes it, what am I supposed to do?
