Brian and the kids at Rock Creek Park

Ben hucks a rock into the pond and poses at the bridge

Jeffrey is an intrepid explorer

Megan likes to feel the wind in her hair.  She fell in the water shortly after this picture was taken.

Easter Baby

This picture is courtesy of Karen Parker who never fails to bring a camera when I forget mine. :)

My First Somewhat Successful Attempt at Crocheting

Daddy's Latest Invention: The Kid Train!

Wrestling With Elder Thomas

Elder Thomas is helpless against Ben and Ashton!

My Boys

Happy 5 Year Anniversary to Us!

Ben's New Glasses

It only took 1 week for Megan to break Ben's first set of glasses.  We finally got them replaced (thanks to the warrentee).  These are a little more "sister resistant," but the lady at the clinic said if she could make glasses that were baby sister resistant she'd be a millionaire, so hopefully we'll be able to keep these from little Miss Megan for a while.  Here is the picture of Ben with his new glasses for all the Grandparents!

Stolen Pictures

Alas!  We have some pictures to post about!  These are courtesy of a trip to the park with Stuart Winkler and family.  We had to steal these because our camera has been "misplaced" for the last several months.  I finally caved in and ordered another online yesterday, so even more new pictures to come shortly!

This is a very nice shot of Brian and Ben at the park.  Brian is in his surgical scrubs (his normal attire these days).  You'll notice that the beard is gone.  Evidently in the O.R. they make you wear a really funny looking and annoying mask for your beard if you have one, so we said so long to the beard for the next 8 weeks.  Have no fear, it's coming back soon!

Doesn't Jeffrey look like he's having such a great time on the swing?  Notice his footwear.  Yes, those are Thomas the train slippers that he INSISTED on wearing.

Ben playing swords with the Harris' grandson (I forgot his name).  He is super obsessed with sword fighting right now, just like every other boy his age.

More sword fighting.

Ben swigs a drink after all that hard play.

Ben bites the dust again...actually it was more like the concrete bit him. :(

This poor kid just can't catch a break!  Mommy and Ben were hurrying down the driveway to get on the bus when Mommy slipped and brought him down with her and this was the result.  FYI, this was AFTER most of the swelling went down, it was the size of a small baseball originally!  Don't worry, we called his pediatrician to see if we should take him to the E.R. and they think he'll be okay, but if we end up having any changes that would require it later they could get us in faster if we call them first.

A Trip to the E.R. with Ben

Here is the only picture we have so far of Ben's little accident.  Long story short, he wanted to brush his teeth in the middle of the day and was standing on the toilet to get to the sink and slipped and cracked his head open on the way down.  He got 2 staples in the back of his head that come out this Friday.  If I can find my camera later today I'll take a picture of the actual staples.  This was him living it up in the E.R.

It doesn't LOOK like we're not feeding her enough, but she'd like to prove otherwise!

Yes those are raw, and yes that sour cream container came from the trash!

YUCK!

Christmas Presents

Benjamin poses with gifts from Great Grandma and Grandad Sapp. Each of the kids got a set.

Benjamin sports a cowboy hat from Grandma and Grandpa Osborne.

Opening the presents from Great Grandma and Grandad Sapp.

Shelly shows off her new ski jacket from Grandma and Grandpa Osborne.

Cowboys and Trains. Life is Good.

Ditto.

The little buck-a-roos.

Benjamin opens the cowboy hats.

Megan loves her horsey from Grandma and Grandpa Osborne.

Opening her present

Megan wakes up and gets to open her first Christmas present.

Megan just waking up to join the fun.

Benjamin enjoys making Playdough "snakes" with the toy he got from Grandpa Nyberg and Ciara.

Jeffrey plays with his new spelling machine from Grandma and Grandpa Osborne. See the funny video of Ben arguing with it about the pronunciation of "Z" below.

Ben loves his playdough.

Brian sports some of his awesome gifts: a leather jacket and some styling gel from Shelly, and Les Miserables from Grandma Osborne.

Jeffrey gets into water colors on Christmas morning. This was one of his stocking stuffers.

Shelly helps Ben open a present from Grandma and Grandpa Osborne. It was a workbook for tracing lines that should really help him improve on those fine motor skills.

Christmas morning before the chaos began.

PS: There were many more wonderful presents that couldn't all be mentioned here. These are just the pictures we took. Thank you all for your wondeful gifts.

American Coyboy vs. Canadian Spelling Machine

Thought you'd all enjoy this video of Benjamin arguing with the spelling machine about the proper pronounciation of the letter "Z". The machine was calling it "Zed"; it must have been Canadian eh?

Snow Day

As most of you probably know, the East coast got loads of snow dumped on it recently. For us, the timing was great since I had just finished my last exam for OB/GYN on Friday (which went great, by the way) and it was our first day of winter vacation together. We hope you enjoy the pictures from our day of snow sledding at our friends, the Egbert's, house.

Daddy, Jeffrey, and Megan get ready to sled down the hill together.

Daddy tries to bring 2 sleds and 3 kids back up the hill. He ended up needing Mommy's help.

Jeffrey makes a new friend, Brianna

Mommy is cold, but still cheers us on.

Daddy and Jeffrey prepare to embark on a sledding adventure.

Ben and Daddy marching back up the hill for another round.

Megan stays warm with her Daddy.

Megan flashes her famous cutie-pie smile in the snowsuit Grandma Osborne got her for her birthday last month.

Ben loves throwing snow balls. This one's got your name written all over it!