I don't know if this is sad or funny. . .

We have some new excitement in our lives (which I will post about later. . .bet you're excited to know what it is!!)  Anyway, with this new excitement, I was subsequently helping Grant wash his hands at the kitchen sink.  He climbed up the stool and while I was washing his hands looked down at the sink and said, "It's empty!"  I said, "You don't usually see it empty do you.  Mommy did all the dishes this morning."  Grant then responded,  "Sometimes you can't do the dishes because you are milking Kate." 

That guy kills me.  Sad that my 3 year old was so startled at seeing an empty, clean kitchen sink.  I also love that he says I am 'miking'.  I feel so bovine. 

A good laugh

After church today, I went to get the kids from their Primary classrooms.  Grant was excited to see me and wanted to show me his picture from Primary.  Here is what he showed me:

I realized as the girls also showed me their papers and I read what it said that the children were supposed to draw themselves in the oval.  Grant then said, "I didn't know how to draw myself, so I drew a forklift instead".  Oh my goodness did that give me a good laugh!

Here is it up close:

Grant loves to draw anything with wheels.  Mostly tractors and trucks.  Today it was a fork lift apparently. 

In other news, Kate is 6 weeks old today.  Emma is such a good little mother to her.  She really is very helpful to me.  I had a friend tell me when Grant was still under 1 year old and all my children were still very young that it would never be that hard again.  With the next children, the older ones would be older and more able to help.  I am really finding this to be true.  Here is Emma with Kate:

On Friday, Emma walked into the kitchen like this.  My initial reaction was, "Emma, No!"  But, Kate really did look so cute in the doll stroller that I said, "Keep a close eye on her and don't let her fall out and I'll take your picture".  Then we had a talk about safety with the baby.  

In other news, we finally found a dining room table!  Hooray!  We've been looking on Craigslist ever since the offer was accepted on the house, but haven't found the right one until now.  I love it!  And we got a great deal on it, too.  So, now I just need to clean it and we're set to have people over for dinner.  (Painting over the bright orange paint in the dining room would be nice, but I'm not sure quite when that is going to happen.)  I bet Grant won't be delighted when the table goes up.  He has lovingly named that room 'the ball room' because it was the only room in the house where I'll let him play with balls, i.e. no furniture/decorations to hurt!  I'll have to share pictures when I get it set up. 

Bit, Bang and Biff

a.k.a. Emma, Arianna, and Grant. 

Poor kids!  They're still smiling, though!

Daddy took these 3 sledding on Friday evening and they had a blast!  Unfortunately, the last run of the night the 2 girls got pretty well banged up (Isn't it always 'the last run'!).  Even though they got hurt the night before, they were still up for going again Saturday morning.  Once again, the last run of the morning, Grant and Emma were going down the hill, lost control at the end and Emma unknowingly got on top of Grant, pressing his face into the crusty snow.  Not so pretty.  Luckily, they are small children and heal quickly.  Next time we will try to go when the snow is new and soft- not so hard and crusted over. 

The next day at church everyone could guess what we had done that weekend!

Here are some pictures of the sledding adventure on Saturday:

The whole gang sledding.

Daddy and Grant

Whizzing down the hill- look at that smile!

The view from the sledding hill.  Notice the grain elevator.

The other direction is another grain elevator and a water tower- there's one in every town!

Love that little man!

Little Kate and I just came along to take pictures and pull the kids to the car.

In other news, Kate is 1 month old as of Sunday!  Hard to believe!  She is beginning to sport the double chin look.  She is doing great.  I am not ready to leave the house with all 4 of them by myself.  We had a disastrous trip to the library last Friday which proved this to me.  Good thing it's a very small library, with few patrons, so my 3 year old screaming only disturbed a few people.  On the othe hand, in a town with only a few thousand people, remeaining unanimous is not possible.  As I left the library that day I seriously wanted to move I was so embarrassed.  It's better if we just all stay home for now.

Bathing Kate is a family affair- the kids love to 'help'!

Emma loves it when Kate sucks on her chin.

She's getting bigger!

I caught a little smile on camera!

Arianna loving baby!

Arianna's latest crazy smile. 

Grant is enamored with his new little sister, even though his disappointment at her not being a boy still creeps out regularly.  On several occasions in the last month he has asked me if there was another baby in my belly.  He really wants a brother!  He calls Kate the cutest (and most interesting names!)  He regularly coming over to her and says, "Good morning, Sunshine!".  Other times he calls her 'Pinkalicious' (which actually sounds like 'Pinkayicious' with his speech-it's quite adorable!).  If she's in purple it's Purplicious.  My favorite though is when she's hungry.  Then he calls her 'Hungry, hungry Herbavore'.  One day he even called her 'Dictionary Power'.  What a funny guy!

He loves to snuggle her

And gaze into her eyes. . .