She Walks!!

The above pic is of Reina's favorite thing to do. Climb up on the containers of the kids toys. She will even try to climb them when they are stacked, although she can't really. Notice the face, she is very pleased with herself.

Reina is getting pretty good at walking. She is starting to prefer walking to crawling so we think it is official.

And what blog would be complete without some new craziness of Enoch's. He was doing this for about a half an hour by himself before we noticed. Apparently it is very hypnotizing when no one is laughing at you.

Easter Fun

Wow, two blogs in one month, I'm doing good.

We've had a fun Easter weekend. On Saturday we colored our eggs which with four kids is an adventure.

Enoch was fascinated, he just kept putting them in and out, in and out.

We also had the usual accidents.

Even Reina enjoyed herself.

Here are our finished products.

On Sunday we had church of course and Reina wore her new dress from Grandpa and Grandma.

She wasn't too sure about the hat though.

We also got a picture of Reina practicing standing on her own. She usually lowers herself down right away if she notices that you let go of her so this was tricky to get.

Lauryn and Enoch were playing train.

Enoch was being silly as usual. He is like this very often, (read almost always).

On Monday the Easter Bunny came and brought too many treats. The kids enjoyed searching for the candy.

The Easter Bunny even put eggs in Spiderman's hand...

... and a jackpot in Reina's walker.

Reina enjoyed finding eggs...

...but she enjoyed eating them more. These clips were taken in sequence.

Happy Easter Everyone!!

January, February, March

Here we are at the middle of March and I haven't posted in awhile although at least I'm doing better than Jo. Just thought I'd post a few pics of the kids from the last three months.

January:

We are still in love with superheroes at our house.

and the kids are still crazy and silly.

Reina is as cute as ever although she is growing fast.

Grandpa and Grandma, your gift was a hit. Lauryn loves to play with her Littlest Pet Shop home. As you can see, she has quite a few.

February:

We haven't posted any pictures of Reina in the tub but here is a cute clip. She loves the tub and gets very excited when she hears the water running when she is in the bathroom.

We had a number of snow storms in the past three months so we took the opportunity to play outside.

There was a fair bit of snow but it wasn't that sticky. We did attempt to build a snowman on our porch but it kind of just looks like a slug. The kids had fun with him though. They liked sitting on him and turned him into a throne later on.

March:

Eva got her hair cut at the end of February and new glasses at the beginning of March. Her hair was really long and I cut it more than I planned to. It was supposed to only be shoulder length but we had to go shorter because I'm not the best hairstylist. Here's the before pictures....

....and the after with the new glasses. Fortunately she really liked her new look. It turned out pretty good in the end.

We have been plyaing a lot of Lego and Duplo lately and the kids have really been getting into it. Here are some of our best creations.

Enoch and my ship (please note, Spiderman, Wolverine and Captain America. They were very important to the completion of the ship.)

Lauryn's truck which she built by following the instructions, all by herself.

Paul and Enoch's Batboat. (Paul built it, Enoch played with it.)

Reina has a new past time. She discovered she could climb onto this chair all by herself and so now it is her favorite chair. She also likes to climb up the stairs but hasn't learnt how to come down so we are always chasing her.

We're not quite sure why she climbed in here but she thought it was hilarious.

Paul had the opportunity to go with Lauryn to her preschool for parents day. Here is some of the fun they had.

Snack time!!

Playing in the teepee and...

exercise time. They do excercises everyday but the kids like doing the chicken dance the best and so wanted to do it for their parents.

Since Eva turned eight she has been involved with Activity Days at church. One of their activites was to build temples out of sugar cubes and icing.

This is a typical picture at our house. We were trying to take a picture of Lauryn's braids but Enoch really wanted to be in the picture. He really wants to be in every picture. So he found a way in. For every picture we have that doesn't have Enoch, we have two that do. He LOVES having his picture taken and of course seeing himself on the back of the camera.

Don't you just want to give her a hug and a kiss?

Update (since we are pathetic bloggers!!)

Well, here finally, are a few of our favorite pictures from over the holidays. Our only excuse is that we've had at least one person sick everyday since we got back until a couple of weeks ago. We are still fighting the bugs but now we are down to only one or two exploding diapers in a day and no buckets needed. It only took over a month but I guess that is par for the course with big families. We apparently are a big family now.

In December, we decorated cookies to give to our neighbours. They take Eva to school everyday and most of the time pick her up after school as well so we wanted to give them something for Christmas. We didn't do it the Salmon style as I don't have icing tips but the kids had fun.

Enoch enjoyed eating them,

although he did try to ice them as well.

While in Calgary we celebrated Lauryn's 5th birthday. It was actually the day before but with packing and getting ready we didn't celebrate.

Lauryn looks as if she is really loved in this picture. Lots of presents. Although they weren't all for her, she and the rest of the kids did just fine over the holidays.

The kids also enjoyed playing with the big exercise ball

and Alita's fish Sparkle, but this clip is funny just to hear Jeff in the background. Turn up the sound.

The kids loved seeing their Uncle Jeffrey. They all still talk about how funny he is. We love you Jeff!!

We also had the traditional Salmon family nativity, with (unfortunately) the typical sacreligeous moments. Please note Enoch and his bazooka, which also was a sword and a trumpet thoughout the performance.

And Christmas Eve wouldn't be the same without a white elephant gift exchange. I think our family did the best and Enoch really enjoyed his new water toy.

Santa came in full force as did all the family, so too many presents!! With all the birthday and Christmas presents we flew home with about 100lbs more stuff than what we came with.

One of the gifts from Santa was a singing Spiderman.

Enoch was a little hesitant at first but he warmed up quickly.

It is also the most annoying gift. We have hid it and he gets to play with it for short periods of time, every so often.

Reina enjoyed her first Christmas, although I think the paper was the best part for her.

On the 26th we drove up to Edmonton to visit Grani (Paul's grandma) and then back down to Spruce View to visit and spend the night with Rosa, Aaron and their family. Grandpa Cesar and Angie were there as well. It was so great to see all of them as it has been along time. The cousins had a great time together.

They had a little beauty party going on in the bathroom,

while the two youngest, Reina and Jenny Jane got to know each other.

Racheal and Eva are only four days apart and are two peas in a pod. The were inseperable the whole time we were there.

Rosa and Aaron were in the process of moving and so had packed up many of their things so we didn't have chairs for everyone, but we all squeezed in.

Lauryn and Grandpa Cesar had a little after dinner dancing.

We all love Auntie Angie!!!

We also celebrated Eva's birthday and she received the bumps, from Paul, Grandpa, Angie and Aaron.

On the 27th we had another little present opening, here are pics of some of the favorites.

Lauryn got a purse,

Enoch got some tools from Grandpa. He was very excited. If you look at his shoulders you can see how excited he is, you can just hear the inhale of breath.

The next picture also gives you an idea of how excited he was. That is not a problem with our camera.

Our family also received the book "600 Black Spots" which was an instant hit with child and adult alike.

Here is just a really cute picture we took of Reina having dinner.

This was Reina's first time meeting her Grandpa Cesar. Although she didn't like anyone at first, he won her over and she allowed him to hold her.

Reina and Jenny Jane also seemed to get along fine. They were so cute sitting there together!!

It was so great to see all the grandkids together with Grandpa!

Thanks for letting us come Rosa and Aaron. It was great to see everyone.

After returning to Calgary, what did we do?!? Open more presents of course, this time with all the Salmon clan. I can't even remember which time this was.

I can't remember exactly where the piggy bank came from but the pennies were from John and Enoch loved them. He was busy for quite awhile.

We were very excited to meet our other cousins, Anya and David. Reina actually has cousins on my side close to her age.

The girls really enjoyed their new cousins. I thought this picture was very cute.

We also celebrated Eva's 8th birthday while in Calgary,

along with Anya and David's first birthdays.

I love this clip. Dip, Dip, Dip.

I included this just because it was too cute not to. It was super crazy to see my brothers as fathers but they are doing a great job.

And of course no blog would be complete without the "Bike Poster."

We are so glad the little ones could play together. Even if they weren't really playing together.

While in Calgary, Eva was baptized. It was wonderful to have both sides of the family there to participate. It sure meant alot to all of us.

Can you believe we are parents of an eight year old? She is sure growing up.

After the baptism the party really got going on Grandma and Grandpa's new dance floor.

The cousins had one final time to be crazy together before the Harpers headed on down to Magrath.

And one final picture as well.

The party continued...

even though kids started dropping like flies...

and Reina continued to enjoy drinking from a bottle.

We can't wait to see you everyone again.

Thanks for the great time. Let's do it again soon.

And if you made it this far in this blog you must really love us!!