Winter Indoor Fun

With a nice, long fall and a mild start to winter, I cannot complain! We are now in the middle of cold though and don't get out as often. We did venture out on a little walk today but that doesn't happen too often. So, here is a quick look at what we spend the majority of our time doing in the Spark house all day...

 Building forts...they come down about as quick as they go up:)

 Reading books-LOTS of books! Thankfully Coops is starting to get into them as well.

 We have a puppet tent and a play tent. Tim is really creative with the boys and will do things like "Letter B" tent where they can only bring things into the tent that start with "B".

 My all-time favorite...LEGOS!

 The boys also love playing with their train set. This also gets destroyed as fast as it is built...

And what seems to be the boys favorite thing to do is play with pretend food:) Random but they come up with different, creative things all the time. 

So far, winter hasn't been too bad!

Ring Around the Rosie

This video is from before Christmas but I forgot to post it earlier. I love how the boys play together but wow, do they play rough!!

The Spark Triplets

 Carter at 3 Months

 Cooper at 3 Months

Crosby at 3 Months

They aren't identical but they all definitely have the Spark boy "look"!

Quick after church Photo Shoot

 It is soooo hard to get a good picture of the 3 stooges (as Great Uncle Hal calls them:))

 Carter's cheesy smile...and ooops, Cooper has underwear on over his pants...again!

 I LOVE when Cooper says "cheese"...so cute!

The youngest stud

It is so fun watching Carter and Cooper bond!

Another cheese smile!

 Well, we tried...no framers but it was fun!

Crosby's Coos and Smiles

We finally captured some of Crosby's adorable smiles and coos! He has a very happy stretch after most meals...so sweet! 

Laundry for 5

It seems like I am doing laundry every other day which is okay because it is one of my favorite chores. However, I'm finding so little time these days to do anything that I've had to make it into a kid-friendly production...

First-dump out the clean clothes on the bed. Often times Carter and Cooper will throw it around the room. Occasionally I can actually get them to sort out their clothes into a pile.

We've made sock sorting into a puzzle game...find the matching pairs! Carter is pretty good at it:)

And we finish it off with laundry basket rides. Cooper will say "more" until I'm so tired I can't do it again...he never gets tired of a basket ride!!

Crosby is 3 Months!

What a crazy month it has been! We've been traveling a lot over the holidays and somehow in the midst of all the transition, Cros has started sleeping through the night. I always hesitate typing that because the other boys did it for a season and then went back to being up, but for about 2 weeks now he has consistently slept from about 11pm-8am. I can't quite express what a blessing that has been!! On the other hand, he continues to be a bit fussy/colicky during the day (especially from 9-11pm). It seems like right when I get Carter and Cooper settled down, Cros gears up.  I suppose he has to fight for attention somehow! Anyways, we'll take the fussy days for the sleep-filled nights:)

Besides sleeping, another really fun change has been how much Crosby smiles, coos and even giggles. After he eats he is especially chatty and we will go back and forth cooing for quite a long time. It melts my heart and his brothers try to join in the fun as well!

 Getting some loving from our dear friends Britta and Steven

 I unfortunately have not been able to capture his smiles on camera. Every time I pull it out, he gets all serious on me. I'll keep trying though!

And this pretty much sums up Crosby's life lately...his brothers are WILD and LOUD and all up in his business and he can't do anything about it. But watch out big brothers, Crosby will be able to hold his own soon!!

Santa's Hips

Great Aunt Kathie and Uncle Larry sent our boys a singing Santa. They loved it...and Carter was quick to notice his swinging hips:)

Carter is 3 Years + 5 Months!

 You are growing up so fast Carty Man! You are such a good big brother and not only look out for Coops and Cros but you also love to tell on them too! At times I'm grateful, like when you let dad know that Cooper was running around with a knife or on top of the dining room table, AGAIN. You still love doing crafts-mostly coloring, stickers and play-doh. Lately though, legos have been your favorite toy.

A couple random things from this past month:

-Any time he sees any sports team playing on the TV he yells, "Go Hawks"!!

-He heard the song, "Life is a Highway" from the movie Cars and loves it. He'll sing it all the time and when we get on the highway he belts it out.

-When he talks to Cooper he usually drops his voice a bit...almost like he is trying to sound authoritative.

-When I ask him what he means about something, he'll reply the exact thing he said but really slow and loud. For instance:

Carter: "Where is the bowl?"

Me: "What do you mean?"

Carter: "WHERE   IS   THE   BOWWWWWWL?"

Me: "Oh, now I get it" (Just kidding...I try not to be sarcastic with the kids...yet)

-Mimi took him to a story time at the Stillwater library and he sat front and center again. He even corrected the librarian who apparently read a book incorrectly. You can't misread any books to him that he has heard before. He has such a great memory!

Carter quotables:

-When we ask him a question he isn't sure about he furrows his brow, puts his arms out and palms up and says, "Well, I don't know. It's a mystery!"

-After waking up from a nap he usually lets us know how it was. Yesterday he said, "Mom and Dad, I had a real good, old, long, great nap."

-While playing with legos, Cooper destroyed one of his creations. He just looked at me and said, "Mom, the walls are falling down just like Jericho!!"

Cooper is 1 Year + 11 Months!

 One month until this little guy turns 2! He has become quite the extrovert saying "hi" to every person we see in the grocery store or at church. He has such an endearing smile and it has been so fun watching him try new words each day and get proud of himself when we understand! One crazy thing this past month-he looked at Tim and pointed to his diaper saying, "potty". Tim took him to the bathroom and he went poop on the toilet! We'll still wait a while to actually work on it, but fun to see he sort of gets it:) One other thing from this past month is that he calls us Daddy-o and Mommy-o. We aren't sure where he got that from but it is really cute!

Christmas in Edina

 After a couple of days with the Sparks, we headed over to Edina. 

 Crosby is still a little colicky but my dad was always good about holding him and trying to help him out.

It is always fun to be with Sawyer (and Shan and Bud too, of course!).

Cooper and Sawyer still might enjoy the gift opening more than the gifts!

 You never know how a toddler will respond to a gift of clothes... 

 ...but Nana's excitement rubbed off on him!  

 Just chillin'

 

 The  most random gift...dad gave mom wax lips! I'm sure she'll be so mad that I put this on the blog, but it was hilarious!

 An areal picture of the cabin that we had framed for mom and dad.

 Dad gave the boys a gag gift of pink pool sticks. He had them thinking it was for real...

Until the good ones were revealed!

Lots of laughter on that one!

Auntie Shan with Cros  

 Sleeping in front of the "fire" 

Jam session-the perfect way to end a great day!

Christmas in Stillwater

Our first stop during our Christmas travels was Stillwater...

 The weather was nice enough for a wagon ride!

 The big boys have bonded lately and this is how they'll often end up during video time. Of course they still do their fair share of fighting too:)

 Crosby's 1st Christmas

 The boys loved having Whipper around. She is so good with the boys and even let Coops feed her dinner, piece by piece!

 Making a fire with Gramps

 Present time! New undies!!!

 Coops got a 3 wheeler from Mike and Sherah

 and they also gave the boys a drum set...wow, THANK YOU Mike and Sherah! We will pay you back some day:)

 And of course, Carter spent a little time organizing his gifts!

Drummer Boy