Jumping Fools

Here's a little recap of our February:

For Austin's 5th birthday he wanted to go to a place with wall-to-wall trampolines and he kindly invited us to join him there. The girls were only too willing.

We had so much fun bouncing everywhere, especially doing the big jumps into the foam pits!

Too bad none of our pictures turned out very clearly...oh well.

What is this boulder that Avery is relaxing under you ask?

It's just another of Joseph's crazy ideas for a Sunday afternoon at home that the kids loved.

The love sac was piled between the couch and chair with only a gap big enough for the kidlets to squeeze through (believe me, I let my kids talk me into trying it and my claustrophobia kicked in big time before I could work my way out!)

They had a blast piling in together and forcing their way out of the blockade of pillows we threw up to make it even more challenging.

William must have gone through dozens of times and was a big, big fan.

For Valentine's Day this year a friend in our moms group hosted a Pinkalicious tea party at the park. Avery, Will, and I went while Sophie was at school and had a great time.

The girls were invited to a friend's pirate birthday party. His creative mom had them all decked out in pirate paraphernalia by the end which they were big fans of. (By the way, I think we just might be raising two pre-pubescent boys in those two girlies. They think it's hilarious when someone burps or farts and talk potty talk all the time when they think we're not listening. They love Star Wars and bugs and gross things. I don't know what happened to my sweet little girls! Maybe they'll get the potty humor out of their systems now so they won't think it's funny in 10 years? I can only hope!)

Sophie continues to love her Transitional Kindergarten class and got rave reviews from her teacher at my conference with her two weeks ago.

Avery took a karate class with some girl friends of hers and they had a blast. She seems to have a natural talent for it and picked up on everything pretty quickly.

She loved learning to punch and kick correctly, and how to count to ten in Japanese.

But her favorite thing, aside from the running, was learning how to use the nunchucks.

She whipped those puppies around like she was born doing it! It was fun to see her loving it.

The girls still love gymnastics and this last class session were lucky enough to have their cousins Austin and Gabe join their class. Those 4 had so much fun together, swinging on bars and jumping on the trampoline and sailing across the room on the zip line.

Sophie and Avery also like it when we have enough time to sneak over to the big gym and watch the big gymnasts do tricks on the floor, beam, and bars. They sit mesmerized by the acrobatics and I must admit it makes me nostalgic for being able to do those tricks as well.

Because we just don't ever have enough cousin time, we went swimming in February with our favorite OC Lambs one day.

Avery and Sophie's best buddies on the planet, Gabe and Austin.

The highlight of this trip to the pool was swimming with Uncle Geoff. He tirelessly threw the kids up high in the air over and over again as they'd squeal with delight...

...and I think a teeny bit of terror, too. That's what makes it so fun though, right?

I LOVE this shot my dad got of Sophie! She's looking like she'll either be a future gymnast or cheerleader. That's the makings of a really great toe-touch I think!

Will and I hung out in the hot tub most of the time. He has this funny thing he always does in the water which is to lay down and then put his hands under his head like he's just kicked back and relaxing in the sun. It's so cute.

When he'd get too hot he'd make his way over to the pool and Uncle Geoff would throw him high too. He was a little terrified by it but didn't complain much.

It must be growing up in Southern California but all our kids are such fishes. The 4 oldest all swim really well and I'm glad we have so many chances to practice, especially with such great weather all year round. We really are spoiled here.

We enjoyed having my parents in town that weekend, even for just a very short trip. "It's always fun when Grandma comes, when Grandma comes--hooray!"

This little guy loves life! He is (usually) so happy and so much fun to be around. He's a total ham; if he sees he's done something to make you laugh he'll do it again and again to keep getting a reaction.

Will has learned how to sign "please" and whenever anyone gives him something he will say, "Ta-tu, Mamama." I love hearing it! Then I'll say, "You're welcome, Buddy! I love you!" and he will blow me a kiss. Melts my heart!

We sure love having this sweet boy in our family.