I'll be the first to admit it I am not always so great about some of the "boy stuff." Thank goodness Deke has got that all covered and in my defense I think I have learned a lot since first having Hunter. Back in November we were out on a Saturday morning checking out a neighboring community garage sale and stopped by a house. Deke noticed this little red pocket rocket street bike in the piles tagged for $5. Instantly he was over there surveying the thing asking the lady questions, telling me that these ran in the $100-200 range brand new. It looked too small to me but it is supposed to be that way. On the bike it says ages 8-12 years old. That's a great deal babe lets get it Deke suggested. The lady proceeded to tell us that her son just never rode it and that they didn't have a charger for it anymore. Ah ha! I thought to myself that is the catch, sell the bike for nothing but then we either 1)will never be able to find a charger for it because they don't make them anymore or something or 2)the charger will cost us sixty bucks plus shipping because we can only find it online, then it will just become something that sits in the garage in the name of "I'm gonna find a way to get it working..." I was not so sure about the idea. After reminding me that it was only five bucks and that worse case we find out it is too expensive and just bag it I agreed. Deke and Hunter were very happy and brought it home and washed the thing up. Then the holidays hit and the bike took a backburner for a little while. Then last week Deke started looking online for a battery for it and found a place in tempe that sells batteries for scooters and small dirt bikes. On Saturday we went down there and sure enough for only $24 they had a charger and within four hours of charging the bike was humming. We decided Monday night for family night would be its first official ride. Now comes the part where I am still working on the boy stuff. Sunday afternoon I started worrying, worrying about him crashing and hurting himself, running into something, losing control etc. etc. etc. I told Deke I wondered if he would do okay on it and that I was worried he was going to get hurt. Deke assured me he would be fine and that he was a boy and needed some of these experiences. I can't figure out why I was so worried, as a kid we wakeboarded, jetskiied, rode every crazy rollercoaster, rode on the back of motorcycles with our dad and all other number of "possibly dangerous" activities. I loved doing those things and never worried about any of that. Being the mom is different, that kid is one of the five most precious things that have ever been part of my exsistence and my responsiblity to protect them is second nature, instinctual I guess you could say. He is just so special to me and the thought of anything happening to any of the kids after what we have already been through with Ethan and Dylan I guess makes me sometimes overprotective. Deke was right though he would be fine and he did need to get the chance to do this. So we went and pumped up the tires, had him put on pants and a helmet, he of course felt he needed the shades : ) :) We picked up some water bottles and snacks and headed to this dirt field not too far from our house. 
Deke opened the back of the van and we all sat and watched. The first few times were very squirrelly and he took a couple of good spills. This picture was his favorite....
Not because it is of him crashing but because he thought it looked "so cool the way he kicked up all the dirt" then he added "next time we ride I am going to stay on the bike and kick up dirt like that but leaning way close to the ground. That'll be awesome."
He also scared me half to death when he was felt like he wanted to get more speed and gunned it and then panicked and ran head first into thank goodness a pile of leaves. Thank you for not being a wall or giant pile of rocks. 
Soon he started to get in a groove and learning to work the throttle and lean to balance out the turns. Within about ten minutes he was riding it confidently and cracking us up with his "yeah I'm tough" look when he would ride by.
He would come around and the girls would start jumping up and down and waving at him, he would without breaking a smile give a little chin raise/head nod thing. He thinks he is pretty cool right now I thought to myself waiting to hear him say something about what Allison would say about this. Emma and Avery acted like he was a celebrity that had just completed a death defying feat, it was cute. 
Twenty minutes later the novelty had worn off and the girls settled for finding "pretty rocks with diamonds in them" in a giant dirt/rock pile.
Hunter rode for about an hour and had an absolute blast. It was really fun for all of us and I am so glad that Deke made it all come together for him, he is seriously such a great dad. 
Before we packed the bike up the little ladies of the household wanted to have their "feel the power" biker babe moment so they each got to sit on it. Emma sat right on it and grabbed the handlebars then looked at Deke like, "alright start it up."
Avery practically jumped onto it, couldn't stop grinning and said, "I want to ride it, I can do it." Yeah, no. Knowing her she would probably attempt a wheelie or head for a dirt mound in search of a great jump within the first five minutes. Soon enough kiddo.
Hunter however has already been begging to go out and ride again so I think I know where he and Deke will be going out to play.
Emma is so busy these days running around the house pretending to talk on the phone, taking care of all of her babies and trying on a million different shoes every five minutes just like her big sis. With turning two, two months around the corner it is hard to accept that she isn't a baby anymore but a full blown toddler. 
She is saying so many new things one of her latest is "excuse me" when she walks by you and bumps you, or if you are in her way and she needs past. The funniest is when she says this to a non living object. ex.- the other day she wanted to color at her little table, as she walked around it one of the chairs was blocking her way. "Excuse me" she said politely and then stood and waited. "Excuse me" she said this time leaning down closer in case the chair hadn't hear her. Waited, nothing happened. "Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me!!" she now was practically yelling at the chair. I was dying. I decided it was time to intervein and try to explain. "Okay" she said after I talked to her about the chair not being able to respond and I wondered how much she had understood. Ten minutes later she was walking through the living room and stepped on a toy. "Excuse me" she bent down to say to the toy and then headed on her way. Silly kid. When she can't find something she will come over and say "Mom!" with a wide eyed worried look and when I ask her what she needs she will ramble on about something pointing and nodding. "Well where is it?" I ask. "I don't know!" she will say exasperated and then hold her arms up and shrug. Again makes me laugh. 
She is my most affectionate kid, all my kids are snugglers but she takes the cake. She will come up to me throughout the day and say "hug" and put her arms out then run off and play. Or stand at my feet making little kissy noises with her lips repeatedly until I stop what I am doing and give her a smooch. Lately she has learned her color, has gone on the potty several times, her favorite words right now are: Ariel, how about...., snack, Deke (Dad is not so thrilled that she loves calling him this) Avery, shoes, excuse me and many others, she talks up a storm
How does she know how much her little happy presence makes my day. She is such an easy going little girl, mellow and happy but always doing cute silly things. She is amazing, I am so grateful to have her. Love you Miss E.
Since Christmas Avery has been wanting to have her friends over to play in the playhouse. It seems like the weeks have gotten away from us with starting school again for everyone and lots of things going on. Finally last week I got it together and told Avery we would have Claire and Sophia over to play in the playhouse. I told her we would make it a "mini party" a "housewarming" of sorts and have them come play dress up and have some dinner. She loved this plan. So we made a little invite and sent them off to school with her.
Then decorated the house up a little bit to make it nice and cozy and inviting....
As we were getting things ready Emma was following us around and she kept pointing at everything and repeating "party...party" "Yep are you ready to have a party with the girls and get dressed up pretty in dress ups?" "Yeah!" she would say grinning ear to ear. Ave and Emma went in and picked out things to wear. It was cute to watch Avery help Emma pick out a skirt and then of course made sure to outfit her with shoes.
Why is a little girl in a tutu so stinkin cute? We let her hold the bunch of mini lollipops for the party and she was more than happy to assist in this job. I couldn't resist getting a picture of her holding them because she looked so sweet.
Me and my cute girls, they are so adorable, I am having so much fun doing all the girly things with them and getting to be their mommy.
The girls came in their dress up outfits and hurried out back to start playing. It was really cute to hear their reactions to the sight of an actual house that was their size. Within minutes they had all chosen roles as a sister or mom or aunt and were busy ironing, cooking dinner and talking about how to take care of their two new babies. I was in girl heaven. All princess dresses, playing house and cute little conversations. Heaven. 
I was really impressed with Avery and how she always let Emma in to play with them without me telling her to. She is such a good big sister. She always, always includes Emma even when her friends are there.
After playing for awhile we had them sit out in the "front patio" of their residence and served them dinner. Tortilla wraps from Costco with chips and sugar cookies with frosting and little heart sprinkles
It was fun to sit and listen to their conversations as they ate their dinner. They seriously sounded like little women on a luch outing. They talked about their rooms and which princesses they liked, stuff they were doing in their classrooms, stuff about dance etc. etc. 
I think their favorite part though was the lemonade and the fact that they could keep coming back on their own and filling up their glass. They thought that was really fun. They would sit and eat for a few minutes then one would check their glass and say "Oh I think I need some more lemonade" and get up to get some. Within seconds the other two were following sure that they also needed to "top off" their glass.
Emma kept trailing along behind them wherever they went grinning and occasionally coming over to hug me and hurriedly ramble something off before running off to join them. She was loving having all the girls there.
Big brother who watching the whole thing was dying to get involved somehow and decided to put on a magic show for the girls. This ended up being very entertaining, he did a good job and the girls liked it.
After some more playing we colored some paper houses that they could take home and cut out and construct.
Then more playing until the very last second that they had to go home. After they left I told Avery to go get changed so we could get stuff picked up. She hurried off to her room and then stopped half way and turned around. She came over and squeezed my legs tightly. "Thanks Mom, that was so fun" she said and without waiting for a response headed back to her bedroom. I looooooove her. It was so much fun. Sitting here typing about this makes me think about the fact that we haven't yet opened Hunter's CSI fingerprint analysis kit from Santa yet. Thoughts of a planned "who dun it?" mystery for Hunter are starting to swirl around in my head. :) :)
