Surrounded By Love

I am never alone in my house.  I use the bathroom with company, I shower with company and I pump while surrounded by my kiddos.  I scold myself whenever I start feeling claustrophobic because I know that someday I will desperately miss all of my babies being within arms reach (I'm still on the fence when it comes to the dogs, though. :-P)  I decided I want to photograph it for myself for when I do find myself with ample personal space again.  This is how it looks every evening around 545 when I am  pumping as dinner is finishing cooking...

I am seated on the floor next to the fireplace, with the babies in their infant seats for a feeding.  Sissy insists on sitting on my lap, preferably holding my hand and rubbing my thumbnail, while Emmy is on my left side. (She even has the audacity to ask me to scoot over so she can see her show better-to which I remind her that the entire couch is vacant.)

The dogs are behind me.

"Snow" Days!

We've gotten probably a collective total of and inch and a half of snow for the entire winter so far, which is plenty of snow for us to have some fun!  The first day, we had an elaborate Easter egg hunt that Emmy had coordinated for us, and then scraped what snow we could off of the deck to build a snow man!

The second day, which was most unexpected, we connected up with our friends that are family, the Andrjeski's, for some sledding at a local business establishment in town!  There wasn't a ton of snow, but the weeds were still slick enough to offer us a great course!  After Nick and Hannah broke the sled, we turned our fun to making snow balls (and charging Nick with them) and then building a frosty the snowman.  We had to pry ourselves away for lunch and naps...I can't remember the last time we had so much fun!

Hannah and her entourage.

Oh, the drama!

I took a photo of this to commemorate the first time that I'd heard Hannah identify a color.  She told me that the handle was yellow!

I should mention, that Hannah, absolutely refused both socks and a jacket.  Because my parenting approach is allowing them to learn the hard way; she did.  She decided to put socks on.

Emmy hard at work "finding" the Easter eggs she's just hidden!

On a bear hunt.  For Baboo.

Baboo!!

Working on our snowman.

ROUND 2!

Jace!

Hannah thinking of something important, no doubt.

Snow angels.  Emmy had kind of a hard landing the next snow angel she made.  Totally underestimated the shallow depth of snow.

Hailey was our test pilot!  Derek took videos of each of his kids before they took off down the slope, telling them that "it'd been fun."  I still laugh to myself when I think about it.  

Lauren!

Juju snoozing in the warm car.

Committed Daddies. :)

I love Nick's faces in all of these.

I was peer pressured to participate.

Sledding over!

Working on Frosty!

Jace and Hannah, very sweetly, asked me to make them snowballs.  So I did.  After I handed Hannah hers, she promptly chucked in in my face, point blank range. 

Just Kickin' Around