Kalahari

Matt had to attend the WI Association of Orthodontics meeting this week at an indoor waterpark in the WI Dells, so the girls and I tagged along. We had fun, but for some reason it didn't occur to me that he would be in the conference all day long and I would have four kids in a pool by my self. No one drowned! Yay!! Becca and Tia got frustrated though because they had to stay in the shallow area with the little two where I could reach them. I got one of those disposable water cameras for the trip so the quality of these pics is pretty bad...







(These pics were all taken in the couple of hours that Matt was able to play the day before the conference. I didn't get any while I was alone the next day.)


We have had a few really beautiful days here, so we have been enjoying as much time outdoors as possible. I bought a couple of swings to hang from one of the trees in our front yard. And Cecilia says she wants to learn to play baseball so she and Matt spent some time playing catch.





I guess that's all for this week, here's the random pics...



Liv loves to help play the DS. She thinks the stylus is a great teething toy.
I am loving Becca being old enough to read bedtime stories!!

Saturday it snowed all day long but that didn't phase the girls one bit. They still thought it would be a fantastic idea to camp in our backyard. They thought because they had sleeping bags they would be plenty warm enough. I had to use my mom-veto power, but in my defense, I did compromise and let them camp in the living room floor instead.


Tess and Tia and I bought some carrot, watermelon and pea seeds and some tomato and strawberry plants to put in our yard this week, but we still get below freezing every night so I have to bring our "babies" in after the girls go to bed. The guy at the nursery said it is usually safe to put them into the ground shortly after Mother's Day. (Have I mentioned yet how much I love WI weather?!?) Tess is LOVING spring! From the moment she gets up until I drag her kicking and screaming into the house for lunch/nap, and again until I drag her back in for dinner she is outside. She has figured out how to pedal the bike in the picture this week, but it is too tall for her to get on all by herself. She loves watering the plants and she likes to push her babies around in a stroller.

I guess that's all for this week. A couple random pictures from the week:

Tia update: She learned all about gardens this week at school. They planted seeds and opened a "plant shop". She says her favorite thing this week was the pizza party they had Wednesday though.
O update: She has started to realize that if she pushes really hard with her feet when she's on her belly she can move toward things on the floor. Crawling is just around the corner! She also started saying "Mamammmmmmmmmmm" when she is hungry!

Becca update: She got in trouble at school again on Wednesday which she blamed on Tia keeping her up all night talking the night before. So they no longer share a room. Trying to eliminate all of a seven year old's excuses is like trying to get rid of sand at the beach.

Translation of 2nd video (just in case you didn't catch it): "You are my sunshine, when you don't wake me up...when I go nappy you never wake me up." I swear those are NOT the words I taught her!

Two weeks in a row!

This picture says it all! It was warm enough here to go to the park!! Liv got to play in the sand box for the first time. She thought it was very tasty. When I asked Tess if she would like to go to the park, she didn't know what a park was! Winter is waaaay too long.




Matt and I were so excited about the good weather we went out and bought bikes for ourselves with our tax refund! Of course with four kids we also had to buy this trailer and a little "hitchhiker" for Cecilia. (I will put up a pic of her and Matt soon...they are too cute on it!) Our whole plan hinged on Becca being able to ride solo. (She's been getting better so our plan was not that far fetched!) About four houses down the road Becca jumped off her still rolling bike into the grass and scratched her hand. That was the end of our family bike ride. No amount of bribery, threats or coercion could get that kid back on her bike that day. (we tried!) Matt and Cecilia kept going though and ended up having a great trip to the park together.


Random pics:


Here is Becca trying to escape one of Livvy's very enthusiastic kisses.




I believe Tess has officially entered the "terrible twos". This picture was taken immediately after her attempt to bite one of her sisters was thwarted. Although I don't really remember the last time she wasn't making an evil face. I was blaming it on teething for awhile but I'm not buying it anymore...


Here she is playing with Pup. Pup lets her do whatever she wants to her so they still get along great!





'Til next week...

New Blog

I've been told numerous time by several friends "just do a blog" it's much quicker than emailing everyone separately. So here we are, the Noyce girls are officially entering blogdome. There are so many of them doing so many different things all the time that I hope to be able to update weekly with some new pictures and anything interesting going on in anyones life, but no promises. I do have four kids after all!

So here are a few of our Easter pics. We had a laid back Easter, Becca and Tia woke everyone up around 6:30 A.M. to check out what the Easter bunny brought and hunt for the eggs he hid which was great because otherwise we wouldn't have had time to find the eggs before we had to get ready for church. After we got home I made my traditionally untraditional Easter dinner (potato salad and deviled eggs to use some of the 4 dozen eggs we dyed, guacamole, salsa, and of course some ham) and the girls watched the movies they got in their Easter baskets.









We just bought our annual pass to the WI state parks, so we went for a hike:





The big girls were exhausted by the end. As you can see so was Tess. She is sound asleep in that last picture! She didn't look to comfy to me. It was kind of hard to hike anyway since there was still a good couple of inches of snow on most of the trails. Yes, we are still waiting for spring here!

A few more random pics to round out the post:

Tess sharing her toys with Dad.
This is how Tess plays in the snow. Hop on the sled and make Becca pull you around!

Livvy eating her toes.
Becca lost another tooth. Doesn't she look so grownup!!!