What do people do all day?

Well, this is what we've been doing all day - a little of this
and some of this

Goldie is so fun :)

and lots of this
If it's still a little chilly in the morning Gracie and I watch the boys from the house :)

Looking for airplanes! We live pretty close to the airport so we have lots of planes fly over our house and the boys LOVE it!Collecting sticks and rocks - "here's another one mommy" (the boys like to pile them up in their little plastic pool so they can "build a fire" like daddy)

Pretending we're fishing from the top of our play set - here sharky, sharky - Jeremy watches fishing shows with the boys so James started picking up sticks and telling me he was going fishing for sharks - love the imagination!And just being as precious as we can be :) With the nice weather I'm finally able to put Gracie in something other than sleepers - I'm starting to really get to dress her like a girl - I had no idea how much I would love this!The past couple of days have been SOO nice - sunny days in the 70's! We have been outside literally almost all of their waking hours. It's time for shorts, crocs and baseball caps! The boys go out around 9:30 and play until 11:30ish - then it's inside for lunch and naps - up around 2:30 and back outside by 3 until 6 then in for baths, dinner, and bed. It's wonderful! I wish it would stay this way but I know hot days in the 90's and bugs are on thier way :( Until then we'll be doing all of these things as much as we can!

Flashback Friday

Can you believe this is just two years ago!?! This pic was taken in March of '08, back when were just a family of 3!Even harder for me to believe is that this was just ONE year ago!! Look at all of James' hair!!

This is the life

Some days are hard here at the Allen house. How could it not be with 3 little ones. But some days are really great:

Beautiful weather, playing outside all day, pushing my babies in the swing and listening to them roar with laughter and say "higher mommy, higher" (well, not Gracie, not yet at least)

Then getting to throw the baseball with this sweet boy

And this sweet blue eyed boy grabs my leg and says "hold you mommy, hold you"

Getting to put Gracie in the swing for the first time and see that she loves it just as much as her big brothers!

Getting to enjoy giving this beauty a bath!

And look who's finally getting some tummy time - only just today she rolled over from her tummy to her back - so much for tummy time :)

Watching this silly boy swinging and peaking at me :)

And watching the best dad in the world getting in a little relax time with one of his boys - (they both sleep with their arms behind their head like this - genetics?!?)

Don't forget's for John-Mark

John-Mark is 19 months now and thinks he's 3! When we go to local parks he runs off and is the first to climb up the highest slide or conquer the rock wall. Because I'm not standing right on top of him other moms always run over to help him because he just looks too little to be doing the stuff he's doing! I always have to come over and let them know he does have a mom around and that even though he's little he has a brother only 1 year older so he thinks he's much bigger than he is. He rarely ever has any big tumbles or falls when he's climbing - he's full of adventure but also has some caution in him in that he'll only do something he feels very confident he can do. He LOVES to be outside playing in the dirt and "collecting" rocks. Praise God for this wonderful house that Jeremy talked me into moving to :) It is just perfect for these boys. I can open the door and let them run all over the yard and keep an eye on them while I'm inside feeding Gracie or doing laundry.
John-Mark seems to be the most liked baby I've ever seen! Little girls LOVE him and want to baby him. We have a friend with a 5 year old daughter who adores him and every time she sees him she promptly picks him up and carries her "baby" around on her hip which he loves. It's hysterical because she probably only weighs about 10 or 15 pounds more than he does. On numerous occasions we'll be at a park playing and some little girl will take a liking to him and try to carry him around and push him in swings, etc. And the boys love him too! All of James' little buddies are always asking for him. They come in the door and the first person they look for is John-Mark! He seems to be the kind of kid that everyone likes to be around - I always wished I was that kid :) It could be his infectious laughter and big grin. When he laughs I can't help but laugh too! He's so stinkin' adorable and fun - and he knows it too! He's quite the flirt! John-Mark is picking up on sooo much more than I remember James doing at this age - since we watch the Letter Factory all the time and James and I sing the ABC's all the time he already knows at least 8 letters or so and sings a good bit of the song! He also counts as well (more in a mimicking way) but he's headed in that direction. Still not up on his colors but it took James until almost 2 before he had those down. He is recognizing some shapes. Yesterday Gracie had a heart on her shirt and he walked up and said "heart mommy"! So smart :)
He continues to be a one-a-day short napper (about 1 1/2 hrs) most days then sleep like a rock from 7 - 6:30ish each night. You always know when it's 7pm when you're around John-Mark because it's like he literally slows to a stop and just crashes!
John-Mark loves his big brother and wants to do EVERYTHING he does. He loves to get James fired up and then run away and yell "no, no". We continue to work on sharing -which James does pretty well with but John-Mark hasn't really grasped the concept yet :)

Climbing the rock wall like a champ - James only figured out how to do this a couple of months ago - but like I said, if James is doing something - John-Mark is going to do it too!

At Pump-It-Up sliding like a wild man all by himself!

Brothers :)

I know I say it all the time but these two boys totally crack me up! This past week we had a couple beautiful sunny days where they got to enjoy entire days running around outside - then we've had several days of rain, rain, rain - with a bit of sun in the afternoon so that meant getting to play in the mud a bit! This pic cracks me up - first they have random mismatched play clothes on, then I had them in crocks (no point in dirtying up another pair of socks) which at some point they took off so they could enjoy the mud between their toes :) In this pic John-Mark only had one shoe off - the other was soon to follow :) Do they look like little red necked boys or what!?!

We LOVE our bathtime!

Cracking each other up :)

Enjoying a little dinner together :)

Gracie - 4 months

I know I just posted Gracie's 3 month pics but it's time for her 4 month post!
We haven't been to the dr so I'm not sure what she weighs - but I know she getting big - she's currently wearing 3 months clothes perfectly and quickly moving to 3-6 month. She still feels so tiny when I hold her, I guess compared to my boys, and because those chunky cheeks maybe make her look bigger than she really is :)
She's taking a 5 oz bottle every 3/4 hours starting at 7 am (most days :)) She usually takes about a 45 minute nap around 8:30, eats again at 10, then goes down around 11 until 1ish. Then up to eat again, play some and back down for another hour or so nap and eats again around5; plays some more and back down at 7/7:30. We wake her one last time around 9:30/10 for her last bottle and then she usually goes straight back down for the night. Her days are not nearly as "scheduled" as James' were just because we have to be more flexible in order to keep the boys busy :) but she seems to go with the flow pretty good and the fact that she is sleeping so well during the night allows me to be a lot more flexible with her during the day.
She's starting to spend more time sitting up in her bumbo seat and she loves to be held facing outward when you hold her so she can see everything. She's not a big fan of tummy time at all but she does like to lay on her back on her blanket and watch her brothers - she's yet to make any attempt to roll over but to be fair, she does still sleep in the miracle blanket so it's not really an option most of the time :)
Right now we're just enjoying our sweet, still, baby girl before we blink and she's running around the house with these crazy boys!
How cute are her baby legs!?! Love them!

Gracie - 3 month pics

Wow - Gracie will be 4 months old tomorrow! How crazy is that!?! A good friend came over a couple of weeks ago and took her 3 month pics. She is getting so big - as you can see she still is all cheeks :) She continues to be such a sweet baby - she loves to watch her brothers run all around her and as long as she's in the middle of everything she's happy :)
Here are some of my favorite from Gracie's 3 month pics - ENJOY!!!