The 3 Amigos

How sweet are these 3!?!

Gracie loves her brothers and they love her. I tell people all the time I think she sometimes thinks she's a 3 year old boy because she wants to be just like them! Don't get me wrong, she loves her baby dolls and playing dress up but most of the time she follows these two around like a little puppy. The boys are learning what the word "example" means because I have to tell them all the time to be careful of what "example" they are setting for their little sister because they know she always does what they do. Sometimes she'll be doing something she's not supposed to like climbing on furniture or jumping off of something and I'll ask James, "why is she doing that?" and he'll respond, "Because I did it and she does what I do" Gotta love all the teachable moments with little ones :)

James thought it would be fun to dress Gracie up in one of her princess costumes and then dance around the house! LOVE :)

Eventually John-Mark joined in the fun :)

Just to keep it real - I get this look A LOT lately with an "I not playing with you" or "I not your friend anymore" to add to it. But to be fair - she learned this from another little Allen

So, it's not a girl thing but I do think she has it mastered much better than John-Mark - could be because she does use it MUCH more than he does :) (What's funny is John-Mark was pouting about something so I told him I was going to take his pouting face picture then I asked Grace to show me her pouting face picture and she knew exactly what I was asking!)
Last week we took the older three kids to the circus. At one point when these martial arts guys were jumping through fire hoops and bending steel with their bodies I said to Jeremy, "this may not be the best idea for our boys to be watching". Sure enough a couple of nights ago I looked out and they had taken their shirts off (like the guys at the circus) and they told me they were pretending to be in the Circus. Thankfully they were unable to get thier hands on fire or steel beams - they made it work with sticks :)

And ofcourse we can't forget this sweet boy! One night while I was making dinner I turned around and he was passed out in his exersaucer - now that is one pooped baby :)

Benjamin is now just a little over 4 months and recently he has started blowing bubbles a ton and continues to "talk" all the time. Is it possible we are going to have 4 talkative kids?!? I don't see how any one will ever get a word in around here! He's also rolling over now. When we put him on his activity mat he rolls until he can't roll anymore! Also, now that he's able to roll from his front to his back he has become a full tummy sleeper. He still isn't in to the paci and while we've caught him sucking his thumb once or twice he's not doing it all the time yet.

Sometimes I hesitate to blog unless I have stories to share about all the kids because I want everyone to be represented evenly but sometimes it's hard. Inevitably one or two kids have more "blog worthy" things going on. Here are a couple updates on James and John-Mark.

This past month both boys went to the dentist for the first time (J has the pics on his iphone). They did great and had no cavities! We read a Dr. Suess book called "The Tooth Book" so I knew James would talk about that the whole time! The dentist told James if he quit sucking his thumb they would throw him a party! He has a friend that stopped sucking his thumb at 5 and since James is pretty influenced by his friends I told him about this and he is now saying he will "probably" stop when he's 5 (I like how he's leaving himself an out)

The month of January our church always does 21 days of prayer and fasting. Every morning from 6-7 we have corporate prayer at our church and now you can join on line. It was a great time and I loved the discipline of getting up every morning and knowing so many other believers were all praying at the same time. On the last Saturday I was able to actually make it to the church and I decided to take James so he could experience it. I LOVE our church and the children's ministry but sometimes I want my kids to see what the grown ups are doing too. He did a great job. He loved the worship and the last song we sang was one of his favorites "If our God is for us, then who could ever stop us" and he sang his little heart out! Precious! He was a little confused at the end and told me he never saw our Pastor take out one of the Christmas cards. We pray over a Christmas card every day with the kids and when I told him we were going to a prayer meeting he obviously assumed they did the same thing :) sweet boy!

Finally John-Mark. Good grief this boy is beautiful. He can be the sweetest little boy ever. Every night he tells me "hey mom, tomorrow it's going to be your birthday and I'm going to get you a prize" and I say "great! I can't wait!" He loves to hold my hand which is super sweet but can cause a problem seeing as I only have two of them and I am usually holding a baby with one and then only have 1 to share with 3 :) As I've said before he continues to show us that he is much more independent than his older brother. Especially when we go to a friends house. People always comment how well behaved he is because he gets lost in his own little world playing with new toys!

Recently we were at church and a sweet friend asked him if he would like to meet a friend of hers to which he quickly replied "sure Mrs. Nikki" then proceeded to walk over and shake her hand and say "hi, I'm John-Mark!" as handsome as could be! As much as I know James is a little extrovert he can sometimes get this shy thing going - so far John-Mark hasn't shown that side yet. It may come with age but he seems pretty comfortable in his own skin right now :)