Some of My Favorite Pictures and Quotes from March...

Micah Moo Conner and Sal
Showers are so fun!
The proud big brothers
A wall of markers
Micah was totally into the Mardi Gras beads the other day Lizard watching
Just hatched in time for Easter
Five of us
Two sleepy boys
Micah knows he's not supposed to pick his nose, so he's hiding! Winking Josiah
Micah slides
Sleeping babies are so sweet... Crazy Conner blows bubbles

Quotes of the month:

"Joey-shiah" -- What Micah calls Josiah.

"Thanks, Mom, for having a baby." -- What Conner said when he first saw Joey.

"Mina-ma Di-du-di" -- What Micah calls his beloved Spiderman vitamins.

"That wasn't too bad. No shots and no finger pricks." -- What Conner said when we were leaving the ER after he hurt his teeth.

"Well, I fell in the living room and I hit my teeth. The floor was very hard." -- Conner

"Mommy turn." -- What Micah says when he is finished holding Joey, about three seconds after he gets him.

Conner, as he and Micah were fighting over an Easter egg: "Micah, this is not all about just you. This is about God and Easter!"

Micah, every time he sees Joey's umbilical cord: "Eew, Joey-shiah new diaper, Mom." (He thinks it's poop!)

"Daddy, I keered. Mo-ter door." (Daddy, I'm scared. There's a monster behind the door.) --Micah. Daddy is supposed to scare the monster away, and then Micah gets a turn. Then there's a monster on the wall, and one on the ceiling, and one under the bed... It's a fun game!

"Mommy, can you solve this riddle: What sea animal has four legs but no hands, is fast in water but not on land?" --Conner. I was so impressed with the riddle itself that I had a really hard time guessing! (The answer ended up being a leatherback sea turtle.) Then I shared it with Bret and he was like, "Duh, that's from that new Diego movie!" I was crushed...I thought Conner had made that wonderful riddle up on his own!

Hooray for Grandparents! (part 2)

Just a little while after Gammie and Aggie left, Booboo and Yogi flew in. They got to meet Josiah:

Later that morning, Booboo couldn't help but join in the parade: Then there was the teeth injury and trip to the ER:The weather was so pretty. The big brothers played outside a lot.Booboo and Yogi helped soooo much with taking the Easter pictures. I really don't think we could have done it without help. Here are some of the silly ones:Conner got to go with Daddy and Yogi to the new Bass Pro Shop. Yogi got the big brothers matching shirts. (They didn't have any small enough for Joey.)Here's BooBoo and Yogi with all the grandboys:

They left Wednesday morning after we dropped Conner and Micah off at school. It was finally a chance for us to try "real life" by ourselves for a few days -- until the big brothers left for Gammie's house the next Tuesday...

Hooray for Grandparents! (part 1)

I just don't know what we would do if we didn't have the wonderful help of grandparents! All of the grandparents were here during the first couple of weeks after Josiah was born. I'm just now getting to all of those pictures...

Gammie and Poppy (Bret's mom and dad) came down the Saturday that Joey was born to help us with Conner and Micah while I was in the hospital. Then Gammie stayed for a few more days, joined by Aggie (Tiffany - Bret's sister). They all got to do some fun stuff while I did pretty much nothing except feed Joey and take naps!

Gammie and Poppy meet Josiah:

The next morning, Poppy went home, but Gammie brought Conner, Micah, and Sal back up to the hospital to see Mommy and Joey. While they were there, they had a McDonald's picnic...

...and Micah kind of went crazy!The next few days were just about getting us home from the hospital and surviving. Then Aggie came and she got to meet Joey.The weather was just beautiful, so Bret, Gammie, Aggie, Conner, and Micah ventured out to Fontaine Bleu State Park. (I know there are lots of born-and-raised Texans reading this...it's actually pronounced "Fountain Blue.") There is a really fun little playground there.Then they discovered that the beach had been opened for the first time since Katrina. I hear it was pretty cool. I can't wait 'til Joey and I get to come, too!But, this time, Joey and I slept while they were gone. They didn't even tell us they were going!Aggie is always sweet to play lots of games with Conner.Gammie and Aggie left early Saturday morning. We were sad to see them go, but we'll see them again soon. Thanks, Gammie and Aggie for all of your help!

Ten Things About the Wells Brothers' Mommy

I know that most of you who read this blog, read it to find out what the Wells Brothers have been up to, not the Wells Brothers' Mommy. But, I've been tagged! Heidi C. tagged me to list 10 things about myself. I've wracked my brain trying to come up with 10 things that are kind of interesting, and that not many people know... Here it goes:

1. My drinks at Starbucks (which Bret and I often refer to as "Four-bucks") are either a toffee nut latte (it must have whip), a vanilla frapuccino, or sweet black tea.

2. I am a morning person. My whole day gets off on the wrong foot and I'm pretty grumpy if I don't have a few minutes to collect myself and just be alone before everyone else wakes up needing stuff. If I can get a shower and get dressed during that time, even better. That often means that I get up at 4:30 or 5:00 AM, but it is so worth it to me - and the rest of my family, too!

3. I grew up in a small town, in a small high school, where everyone participated in nearly everything. I played the trombone in the band (concert and marching), played basketball and volleyball, ran track (mile relay, quarter, 200 m dash, and long jump), participated in academic UIL, and was the student body president my senior year.

4. I'm the oldest of four children, all born within 5 years. It was me, 13 months later my brother (Ira), 2 1/2 years later a sister (Lydia), and 17 months after that another sister (Jodi). As such, I am a typical oldest child - a responsible mother-hen type who is relatively boring. Thank goodness my kids and my husband are crazy and I have some excitement in my life!

5. I can't cook with dirty dishes in the sink. It doesn't matter how far behind I'm running, if there are dishes in the sink, I will wash them or put them in the dishwasher before I start dinner. I just makes me crazy! I also clean the kitchen every night. It's kind of the like the morning person thing - if I wake up and go in the kitchen to fix breakfast and have to dig to find the sink or the countertop, I get pretty cranky.

6. I like to watch Lost, Grey's Anatomy, and Live with Regis and Kelly.

7. I have been living in Louisiana for two years now. I still get homesick for my family and for Texas quite often.

8. The first time that I drove to southern Louisiana from Dallas by myself, I was in Jackson, Mississippi before I realized that I had missed a turn in Shreveport. (I had directions from Bret, and though he will argue with you, he did not tell me that I was supposed to turn there! I will admit, though, that it probably would have helped if I would have at least looked at a map before I left!)

9. Some common everyday things that make me happy are sunlight coming through windows, clean and fresh sheets, when everyone in my family actually happily eats the dinner that is put in front of them, and smile and cuddles from any one of my four boys.

10. I can deal with most critters -- spiders, lizards, worms, etc don't bother me. Though considerably harder, I can even deal with mice or snakes. Roaches, on the otherhand, absolutely digust me. I get all jumpy and nauseated, and have even been known to wake Bret up to take care of it instead of doing it myself. Last night we were watching Disney's movie, Enchanted that recently came out on video. There is a scene in which Jazelle has all of the city critters helping her clean the apartment -- pigeons, rats, and yes, roaches. I seriously thought I was going to vomit as the roaches were cleaning the bathtub and the kitchen, and then when she lovingly picked one up I thought I was going to have to turn the movie off. YUCK! If you haven't seen the movie, it's very cute, but be forewarned if you have an issue with roaches or rats! :)

11. Yes, I know I was only supposed to list ten, but Bret insisted that I add this one. I am vocabularily challenged. Bret is a lover of words -- he enjoys to learning new words and actually uses them in both his writing and his conversation. I, on the other hand, am perfectly functional and happy with my very average word bank. When Bret gets to talking about something he is thinking or reading, and uses a word that I don't know, it just goes in one of my ears and out the other, and I forget that I ever heard it. Lots of the time, I don't fully understand what he is talking about in the first place, so missing a word here or there shouldn't matter. He gets really frustrated with me, though, when we figure out that I not only don't know what a word that he uses often means, but really don't ever remember hearing it.

I tag everyone who reads this to say something about themselves in a comment!

More Easter Fun

Our Easter baskets are not beautiful and traditional…the baskets just get torn up, are hard to store, and that plastic grass stuff just gets everywhere. We have opted to just fill buckets up with stuff instead. It doesn’t look as pretty, but it certainly gets the job done! We were actually quite proud to have three of them ready this year. Right after Micah was born a couple of years ago, it wasn’t until Easter morning that the Easter Bunny realized that he should have gotten stuff for two baskets instead of just one! Oops.
The big brothers were totally excited with all their stuff. They were happy to help Joey go through his stuff, too.

After they were finished checking out their loot, it was time to get ready for church. Bret, as always, had to get to church about an hour early. I am still keeping Joey home for awhile longer and was not planning on going to church (besides, I haven’t had time to figure out if I have anything to wear that fits!), so we decided that I would just drop the big brothers off at church when it was actually time for class to start. I started getting people ready at 8:15...we were finally all buckled in the van, ready to go at 9:55. Class started at 9:30. Oops…I guess it takes me longer to get two kids dressed and four people out the door than I thought. The first Sunday that Joey and I need to get dressed, too, I need to start waaay earlier! So they missed class, but made it to church just fine. I had just enough time to feed the baby, change his diaper several times, and clip his fingernails before it was time to pick them up again…

After lunch and naps, we got ready to go hunt eggs outside.
And the hunt begins: (Yes, sorry, the yard does need to be mowed…the neighbor kid hadn’t been by yet. He's actually out mowing right now.)

Joey slept through the whole thing:

Here they are showing off their loot. Conner obviously got quite a few more eggs than Micah. Several of Micah’s were actually ones that he picked up off the ground after they fell out of Conner’s basket. Micah is still at that sweet, innocent stage where it’s not all about how many tings you get…it’s about how cool the things that you do get are. He wanted to open every egg as soon as he got it, and then eat the candy before he went on to find another egg. Conner, on the other hand, just went crazy running around the yard and was proud that he had the most eggs.
/They barely made it in the door before sitting down to check everything out:
As always, Easter was lots of fun. It will be fun to add Josiah to the mix a little more actively next year!