Tophams on Parade: January 2016

Playing video games with my boy! It was a pretty even match up...

Hayden loves to have me spoon feed him...while he sits sideways on the chair and props his feet up on my knees!

A selfie with my Maliya-girl!

We do Katie's computer preschool downstairs every morning. These two are such little buddies and love to hold hands as they walk down. Hayden and I hang out with her until she is finished. Then she picks out a treat for herself and for Hayden, and they run upstairs and hide under the table while they eat it together. Such funny bugs!

Katie wanted to take a picture of me. What can I say? I'm hard to work with.

Then it was my turn to take their picture. I think they might be more photogenic than me...

The wind blows the snow into an awful snow bank at the end of our driveway. Every. Time. This wasn't so bad, but you can definitely see that it just builds up in that one spot. When the snowbank gets to be 3 feet deep and reaches 9 feet into the road...let's just say it gets a little difficult to get in and out of our driveway.

Netflix recently got season 4 of Phineas and Ferb, which has renewed my kids love of the TV show. Here is Rachel's depiction of the summer-lovin' boys.

Brian started doing 8 minute abs in the morning. He gets it playing on his phone, which is propped up on the baseboards in our room. The kids LOVE watching it!

I found a couple of fun selfies from my little goofball...

Hayden, lining up his cars. Definitely a favorite activity.

I took the girls sledding with our neighbor Sophie, down at the retention pond at the bottom of our neighborhood. It was PERFECT! The hill was just small enough that the kids could easily walk up it over and over again all by themselves! :)

Hayden, rockin the shades...

And a quick break from shopping to do some "yoga"...

Katie, rockin' the boots!

Hayden loves having me shoot him with his dad's nerf gun. Then he helps me reload it so I can do it again!

Sharee, Camille and I ventured to the aquarium with all 12 of our kids! It was a lot of fun! That exhausting-for-mom's kind of fun :)

We went to one of their 4D movies, Hayden was terrified and hated it. The other kids liked it. Katie said it was "scary-fun."

Hayden could NOT get enough of this awesome tank! He could have watched these exotic fish all day.

Brian and I did some SERIOUS canning, in January.

And the kids made use of the boxes. What else would you do with a big box, but tape Rachel inside of it?

...And then Maliya?

Hayden had some serious concerns about his sisters being taped into the box, though...

Then we gave the taped up box to Dad...for a present!

Best. Presents. Ever!

The sun has started rising, again, right when the kids are leaving for school. So I got some more pictures!

I sent the kids outside to play in the snow and told them they weren't allowed to come back in until they had built me an awesome snowman. They decided to RIDE the snowman DOWN THE SLIDE, instead...

They also built a fort, on the south side of our back yard. It has been well used, and often added upon. It is now one very tall wall of ice!

The good news is that, 3 months later, Hayden is finally getting used to the snow!

Rachel thought that, instead of building up the fort, the shovel would be better used by throwing snow on me!

Hayden got snow on his glove, so he took it off. Then he got snow on his hand...that was sad.

Maliya and Rachel celebrated their 100th day of school! Maliya dressed as a grandma (which I forgot to get a picture of!) complete with curlers in her hair, and I put Rachel's hair in braids to form the numbers 1-0-0.

Had New Beginnings: Girl on Fire!

And a birthday party for my nephew, Isaac.

Katie was really excited to go to the "shot party" to get her Kindergarten shots. Our Dr's office does an awesome Kindergarten fair complete with face painting, balloon animals and treats!