Good Times!

I'm just giving you a heads up, this post will contain a bunch of pictures.  The majority of which will contain food.  Why does it give us so much enjoyment to take pictures of kids while they are stuffing their faces with cakes, cookies, chocolate, etc?  I don't have an answer to that question, except that it's kinda funny, as you will see below.  We will start with the simple eating of a frosted cookie: 

Exhibit A: How to eat a cookie in a dignified way

Exhibit B: How to just make a cookie disappear

Exhibit C: How to scrape the frosting that stuck to your hand with a leftover piece of cookie
that fell from your brother's cookie close enough to you so you could clean off your hands

For Valentine's Day, all of the kids (babies included) received a large Hershey's Kiss.  The older boys ate them down, no mess.  The babies on the other hand, are still working on perfecting the art of eating a kiss.  We have discovered that between the three of them, there are three different ways to eat one.  I give you:

Exhibit A:  The dainty princess way 

Exhibit B: The shove the whole thing in your mouth way

Exhibit C: I don't quite know what to name this one, except,
"What? Me? No, I didn't eat a Hershey's Kiss"

I am going to include some pictures of the oldest three now.  We generally don't take too many pictures of them, I don't know why, but since I have them I will put them up.  I guess that way in case they go missing on us in the next few days, we will have a most recent picture of them out there.  So, if you see them and you recognize them from the picture here on the blog, please make sure they are warm, and they are wearing their coats because it is kind of cold outside, and they might not have their coat on.  Thanks in advance (of course, that is if it actually happens that they show up missing):

Cooper, Age 7.  Missing several teeth

Luke, Age 6.  Missing 2 teeth

Ethan, Age 5.  Missing no teeth, but will soon be
missing all of his teeth if he keeps eating treats.

The most exciting thing happened to us while Emily went on her sister's retreat to Dallas (her leaving was not the most exciting thing), Cooper lost his "wooden" tooth!!!  All in thanks to Ethan's roughness, and the strength of his head against a loose tooth.  I have to put that in the happiest 10 days of my life, maybe even #6.  Getting married is #1, kids being born take up days #2-5, and day #6 would be the day Cooper lost that tooth!  It was even more exciting than finding out I got into dental school (OK, that's a lie, but they are pretty much one in the same right?  They both deal with teeth.)  Anyway, because I know you all want to see it, here it is (the tooth):

I placed it on a white paper plate, so you could see the contrast of the
color of the tooth vs. what it should have been

OK.  I will now put up a bunch of random photos, enjoy!

This is when you run out of boy jammies, and you have extra girl jammies.
Try and guess which is the real girl.

Speaking of finding the real girl

Here is a picture of the real girl, with a real big poop!  Yuck!

The real girl's foot is on the left, Bennett's is on the right.  Advantage: Bennett

Bennett and Ethan trying to find Waldo

Usually you see what is happening above the triplet table, here is a view of the under side of the table

Taya's mohawk after taking her antenna out 

Um, yeah

Taya wanted her blankie

Mom and babies

Have a nice day!

Free time...kinda!

I have a minute that is not needing me to study, or look something up for school, or anything else.  Emily is having a "Bachelor" party with about 12 ladies.  I am taking advantage and typing up an update.

Triplet update (13 months old today):  Anderson is walking.  Taya will kind of stand on her own, and we can put her hair in antennas!  Bennett walks as fast as anyone else in our family.  I think at one point or another, all 3 have fallen down the stairs (I hesitate to put this because it shows what negligent parents we are...don't judge us, at least until you have 3 VERY active, mobile babies).  The good news is that they are all still alive and thriving!  They all know what a cell phone is and they all get very mad when they don't get to play with it, so if you get a random call from us, and hear nothing but "dadadada, bada bada" that is one of the babies, unless it's late at night and Emily is on her Ambien.

The Stair "Masters"

Taya's Pigtails

Anderson

Taya

Bennett

The Brothers Update:  Cooper and Luke started basketball, and love it!  Ethan is riding the bus home from pre-school now and loving it.  That's about it, since these three have been walking on their own for a while now a frequent update on these guys just isn't necessary.

Cooper

Luke

I don't know what else to say.  It has still been very cold here, just like every other part of this nation.  Emily went outside today to take the kids to school and wanted to take her jacket off because it actually felt nice...then she saw the temperature, 4 degrees!  The reason it felt nice is that the wind wasn't blowing!  We have had high's in the 30's but the wind chill hasn't put us above about 5 degrees for at least a month, and we are usually sub zero.  Last night the power went out because of wind, like 50+ mile per hour wind.  So, 4 degrees with no wind really does feel "nice"!

Hard to see through the ice and snow on the window, but it is snowing horizontally

Power Outage, at least the house has a propane fireplace!

Popcorn night, we just throw it on the floor and watch them go to town

Waiting for Daddy to come home

Missouri! It's Official!

We are now Missourians, officially.  We have the license plates and the driver's licenses to prove it.  Now, in our short 10 year marriage, Emily and I have been Utahns (3 separate times), North Carolinians, Georgians (2 separate times), Floridians, New Mexicans, and Missourians.  Given that I am a Mormon, I will say that I am grateful that Missouri has recently (in 1976) ratified the "1838 Mormon Extermination Order" so we can now sleep in peace at night!  Sorry, bad attempt at humor.

There have been some great times here, and there have been some things that we can do here and no where else we have lived (that might also be because we have never lived outside of city limits), like gettin' our Redneck On!  We have learned how to Recycle, we have learned to build our own targets in the winter time, and how to catch mice.  It has been fun, but I'm pretty sure Emily misses her favorite store, Target, so I don't think we will be able to live like this for much longer.  Plus we live in a winter time icebox!  Just this last Monday we had a high of -2 degrees, and if I remember correctly the wind chill was like -22 degrees, yes, it is cold!

Redneck Recycling

Cooper shooting at his homemade target

Here are some random pictures from the last little while, Enjoy!

From April 2013

From Jan 2014 (Dad has the same shirt on in both pictures,
looks like he needs a trip with Emily to Target!)

Grandpa with Bennett

Who is this stranger?

Taya finally warmed up to Grammy

Crazy!

Crazier!

Almost OK for a picture

The Snowman we built

This is a Taya Tantrum, usually she is screaming her head off, pelvic thrusting and pushing herself head first into whatever object she runs into first.  She saw the camera and quickly lost the screaming to make a quick pose...Diva!

Happy Birthday Luke...Oh and Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!  What a night!  It was full of parties and fireworks, and Martinelli's!  Well, not for us.  We were pretty much asleep.  I was reading Sherlock Holmes deduct some crime scene, and Emily was asleep when the clock struck 12.  I told her Happy New Year's and gave her a kiss (which I can guarantee that she doesn't remember) then fell asleep.  What a party, wahoo.  But what else happened when the clock struck 12 besides the year changing?  Someone in our household also changed a year.  Lukey has officially turned 6, and the end of our crazy week of birthdays is now at a close.  Thank heavens!

Birthday Breakfast

He wanted a Spider-Man Cake...but he almost got a
Wonder-Woman Cake though for almost getting to "3"

Grammy and Grandpa Hutchings even came to say Happy Birthday from Panama!

Where do I start with Luke?  He is our son that is VERY full of energy, and likes to play Devil's Advocate in just about everything.  He loves school and is really excited about being able to read.  His school does the "Book It" program with Pizza Hut and Luke takes it very seriously, he wants to get his pizza every night.  Not only is he passionate about reading, but he is passionate about everything he does, especially speaking/arguing with his parents.  He is so fun to play and wrestle with.  He is such a good brother, he even has the teasing part of being a brother down to perfection, he has currently mastered the "copycat" game that no one likes.  He is loved by everyone that meets him because he has such an infectious personality.  He makes friends faster than any of our other kids.  We love this little kid!  He fills such a special place in our family!  We love you Lukey!  Happy Birthday!

Birth

1 Year

2 Years (We call this the Lukey Face, he now has it perfected )

3 Years

4 Years

5 Years

6 Years

Here are some of my all-time favorite pictures of Lukey-Man:

Our Animal Talker

The Wise Man

He sucked these 2 fingers so much that he calloused them! 

The Beach Bum 

Strong Man

Mother says: Lukey Bukey!  What a guy!  You have taught me more about being a parent than anyone of my other kids.  You have challenged me to be more humble, seek the Lord more in aid, and have offered me the ability to receive more promptings in response to raising you.  Thank you.  I thought I was a super awesome parent until you came along, then I realized that Cooper was just a super easy kid.  You have made me better.  You, by far, can be my sweetest child...when you choose to.  You are so helpful with the babies and they love you.  You have a real ability to make people love you.  You make friends so easily.  I love when you do "chores" for your brothers when they forget to do something.  You just tell them, "don't worry, I got it".  It is really sweet.  I love you!!  Happy Birthday!