What we've been up to

These pictures show what we have been busy with lately. The backyard used to be all cactus and rocks, and now we have beautiful grass. This was a great family project, the boys (and Brooke) helped a lot. It was really fun to see the boys having such a great time. They mostly loved the digging, the dirt, and the trips to the dump. Chad has been working so hard on this project, and now that the grass is all in he is building the fence. Yay! The backyard looks great, and I can't wait till the grass can be walked on (they said to wait 3-4 weeks, I don't think that little feet count do you?) Thank you Chad!!!!

Rock, paper, scissors

So it has been very long since I have posted. It is like the longer I wait the harder it is to write. We have been quite busy with Baseball, both of the older boys are playing and having a great time. My camera has officially broken, so the only pictures are from my phone, but I will post some later. But the real reason why I just had to post...

So today on the way to baseball Dylan started a conversation with me. I love his conversations, they are actually quite insightful. Here is how it went from where I started listening,

Dylan:(talking to Spencer) so we are all Layne's except mom, she is a Jordan (my maiden name)
Me: No, I am a Layne now too
Dylan: Well, I guess. So when two people get married, whose name do they use, is it the mans?
Me: Yes, the wife changes her last name to the husbands.
Dylan: (after a few minutes of thinking) So if there was no prop 8 would they just do rock paper scissors to decide whose last name they would use?
Me: (trying not to laugh) I don't know, that is a good question Dylan. I'm not sure how that would work. (Seriously, how does an 8 year old think of questions like that?)

I can't wait for the questions he asks as a teenager =)!!!

Yo Ho, a pirates life for me

I'm not sure what the boys are doing here, but it looks dramatic. I think they have seen one too many pirate movies. Maybe Spencer has a future as an actor. Notice how realistically he draped himself over the treasure box. Maybe that could be our backup plan for income, have our children become child actors and then use their money.

"A dream is a wish your heart makes"

We went to Disneyland for two days this week since the boys are out of school. This is who Brooke got to see...Cinderella!

A friend of mine who also has 3 boys and then a girl was with us, and the two girls had so much fun seeing the princesses. We had to stand in line for over 45 minutes to see the princesses. What we won't do for our girls. By the way, this was the longest wait we had all day.Posing with the princess hats that they wished their moms would buy them.

Mirror, mirror on the wall...Brooke loved looking in the mirror with the princess hat on.

And a big surprise...Brooke was actually tall enough to ride on the Matterhorn. We couldn't believe it. She had her hands up the whole time.

Chad was mid-cough when I took this so he looks kind of funny, and they took off too fast to get another picture. Brooke was so excited to go on a "big kid ride".

The kids had so much fun with their friends that happened to be there on the same day. Our kids are all pretty much the same ages so they all have a buddy. The girls are the farthest apart at 2 and 3 years old. It's great. Yes, the boy in the middle is about to cry. The 6 boys squished together a little too hard.

Why is it so hard to get all 4 kids looking at the same time. Oh well...

This was Spencer as he went to go hug Goofy. Goofy turned around right as he was coming up to him, and then he was playing with Spencer and then put his shirt over his head, it was pretty funny.

As usual we had a great time playing at Disneyland with the family. One good thing about Chad being out of work is that he can spend all this time with us, and especially when it is at Disneyland.

p.s. The quote of the week was made by Chase on this trip. It went something like this...We were eating breakfast at Denny's before we went into Disneyland and Chad said that he had gotten an email about a job fair that he should go to the next day. After we were talking about it for a few minutes Chase said this "So dad this is for people that are jobless" and Chad said yeah, then Chase thought about it for a few minutes and then asked "So people that don't have jobs just go and play games? What kind of games do you play?" We were laughing so hard. Get it? He thought it was like a fair where you play carnival games. Hilarious.

Snow Day!

The week before Christmas we went up to Chad's grandparents house in Tehachapi. Lucky for us there was still snow on the ground. The kids had a blast playing in the snow. For Spencer and Brooke it was their first time seeing snow.

Yes, you are seeing right, the boys were in shorts. I know crazy Californians. Dylan of course never wears pants and this was no exception, but I couldn't figure out why Spencer wouldn't. Oh well, they were the cold ones.

The boys remembered really quickly how to have a great snowball fight.

Being in the snow and the numerous times the boys went outside to play almost made me wish that we lived where it snowed again...and then after I had 3 pairs of clothes for each child wet and cold, and dripping wet shoes, I remembered why I am glad that I don't live where it snows.

Brooke thought the snow was great.

And what better than a swim in Grandma and Grandpa's hot tub after a cold day in the snow?

The kids all had fun spending time with grandma and grandpa. Here is Brooke with her Great Grandpa Layne.

Thanks Grandpa and Grandma for a fun trip!

"Cinerella"

So for the fourth time as a mother I am at the "I wanna watch it again" stage. As I write this I think that Brooke is on her fourth time of watching Cinderella...today. Ok, so not four times all the way through, we have just had it on four times. But she really loves it. And so far it has only been "Cinerella" as she calls it. And I love the fact that it is Cinderella. I love Cinderella and have never once had one of my boys ask to watch it. So finally I get to watch Disney princess movies over and over and over again. Chase's movie was Toy Story. I can't tell you how many times we watched that movie. Dylan's was... (okay now picture me embarrassingly shrugging, cause for some reason I can't remember much of Dylan's early childhood, but I am sure that he had a favorite movie.) And Spencer's was The Incredibles. So it is so fun to finally have singing and dancing and pretty dresses. Funny though today she was watching it and all 3 of my boys plus 2 other boys that were over playing all sat and watched most of it. So maybe the boys will like having a whole new genre of movies to watch.