These pictures were taken on Thursday afternoon.
These were taken this afternoon.
We spent the weekend camping with friends in Eastern Washington. We had a great time and got a few looks wherever we went with our 7 boys and 2 girls.
Grandpa and Grandma R are here for a visit. Within their first hour of getting here we headed to the tulip fields.
Easter Sunday
Holly singing away
Tyler in the bottom right hand corner
Joey (minus the dance moves!)
(Lucas didn't want to sing so he sat this one out)
The boys were baptised on Palm Sunday 3 years ago. Mia sang with the pre-schoolers, Eric was holding Lucas, Grandpa VH was holding Tyler and Grandpa R was holding Joey. It was a great day!
Mia had her first soccer game of the season.
Her very own cheering section.
Dad, our magnolia tree should be about perfect by the time you get here. (the tulips, too!)
Milkshakes and movies to end the day!
...we headed off to the ER with Joey last night after he and his brothers were wrestling and his face found the corner of the wall. Speaking from personal experience, I know head wounds bleed...A LOT...but according to my husband I didn't handle this stressful situation very well! :) We were supposed to be leaving for dinner with Eric's family to celebrate his mom's birthday and Aunt Joan was going to babysit, so Aunt Joan to the rescue, I called her to come a little earlier and we headed out with Joey. When he was being checked in, the nurse asked him to point to what his pain level was by pointing to the face he most felt like. He looked at her and said "I'm happy!" Thanks, Joey, now we'll have to wait even longer! :) 
As you can see, the little red Hummers are still hummin' along!
When we found out we were going to have triplets a lot of thoughts entered our minds of how we were going to possibly do this but I have to say the following is not one I really, truly thought would ever be an issue! Since day one, our main way of identifying the boys was by color. It started with painting a toenail on Lucas and Tyler, one blue, one red. Also, a lot of our gifts were clothes and they sometimes happened to be blue, red and green (sometimes the third color was yellow or white so Joey had a little more variety) :) So, naturally, Lucas started wearing blue, Tyler wearing red and Joey was green. Who would have thought 3 years later this would be sticking and I'd have created a color coding monster (or maybe you've been thinking I was creating a monster all along). For example, they love (or insist) on drinking out of "their color" cup or eating out of "their color" bowl when it is available. We were at Target the other day and there was a group of Target employees standing together and Tyler announced "Those ladies all have my color." When driving around they pick out each others color cars. I guess it's true when "they say" not to label anyone, it can have very long term effects! So, I guess I better get off of Joey's color couch and head to my bed that is Lucas' color!
This picture is of Joey at naptime. He's supposed to be sleeping (like Tyler in the background) but instead he and Lucas were busy filling his bed with every thing they could get their hands on.
We got together on Sunday with the whole gang to celebrate Marissa's birthday. We also decided we needed some new family pictures with Lily on it. You can sometimes take it for granted that you live near each other and have to remember to take a photo every now and then of the whole bunch.
So, Mia and Holly have found a new "fort". It's the front closet and they have it all rigged with lighting and entertainment. We are not sure why the smallest space in the house has become their favorite but they are having fun and not fighting so why argue, right? As for the boys, well, hanging onto my leg seems to be a favorite spot for some reason.
Happy Valentine's Day! All the valentine's are made and the parties almost done. We stopped by Aunt Joan this morning to wish her a happy birthday. Everyone left happy since nothing says "I love you" like Aunt Joan's fruit snacks!
So Eric can't just plan something the "normal" way, he usually goes all out. This weekend was no acception. I thought the weekend was going to be a normal weekend at home until Wednesday night Mia read a cute poem telling me basically not to worry about them, it's all taken care of and that Eric and I were going away for the weekend. So all I had to do was pack and be ready to go at 1:00 Friday. This is basically what our friends told their wives, too. We were fairly clueless accept for a few hints "accidentally dropped" by a few people but nothing that gave away what we were doing. We drove down to Bellingham Bay and Eric starts backing down the boat ramp (without a boat!) and says to get out. There was a boat at the launch but we didn't recognize it. It turned out to be a friend of Eric who offered to bring us to our destination when they found out what we were doing (the only other way there was by ferry). They ended up bringing us to Rosario Resort out on Orcas Island. It was a so much fun, just talking and laughing and doing nothing! Saturday we woke up and it was beautiful and our "private water taxi" came and brought us to Friday Harbor for lunch and then back to Orcas. What a awesome weekend out on the islands!!
