The Birthday Dog, Smiling Bean and a weighlifting little boy

Happy 4th Birthday, Bella Moo!

Happy Mikayla!

She was in a great mood

Bella thinks she's part cat

Noah was working out (he was really annoyed that I would let him put in the work-out video since he went and found it on the DVD shelf)

And one.. two.. three..

My big kids!

Getting ready to go for a walk

Mikayla riding in the stroller like a big kid

My favorite little boy in the whole wide world (and on the moon too, Noah)

Getting some sugar from the Mama

Mikayla taking a snooze this morning

The Gardening Gatchel's

In an effort to spruce up the house and welcome in spring this weekend, Grant and I (with some help from the kiddos) spent all day Saturday landscaping out front. Florida Family, you will be most happy to know that all the hydrangea bushes are still alive. We trimmed them back and transplanted them to the other side of the house. Hopefully I will be able to continue to nurse them back to health and we will have our lovely bushes full and flowering in a month or so. I don't have any pictures of the finished product (we were short one bag of mulch so I guess it's not completely finished yet) but there are of course pictures of the kiddos :)

Mikayla all ready for spring

She loves being outside!

Noah putting on Mama's gloves

He was a good helper

So then he got to play :)

He was so good about playing in the pool while Grant and I were working

Cranky Noah and a Rollie Pollie Ollie

We've had another full couple of days around here. The kiddos (like usual) are non-stop. Noah was a bit of a handful yesterday (as the pictures will show) and Mikayla picked yesterday to roll over from her tummy to her back (she had already managed her back to her tummy) Grant says she is doing 360's :) She's officially ahead of her brother on this one as he couldn't go in both directions until he was over four months old. Now if only she's start to put on some weight like her brother did... ;-) But she is a very very happy baby, gurgling, cooing and smiling all the time. We've even had some genuine laughter and giggles the past couple of days which makes me happier than almost any other noise in the entire world. Just thought I'd share a few of the pictures I had - hopefully they will make you smile as much as I did while I was taking them. More soon...

Literally kicking and screaming

I told him he looked silly - this was the look I got

Mikayla LOVES to suck on her hands and fingers

Mom, why is big brother throwing such a fit?

Back to his regular cheesy self

Mikayla and Daddy after her bath

Lots o' Mikayla

Mikayla in a boob juice coma :)

And she's out for the count

Too cute

All clean!

What are you doing, Daddy?

Clean and shiny

The big bro with one of his new bubble pipes

Happy Mikayla!

This makes my day every time :)

Noah and the Bubbles

Today has been momentous in the Gatchel household. Mikayla (finally) slept through the night last night! She was down for almost eight hours! And while she did wake up a few times in need of her binky, she went right back to sleep. I was able to sleep until 7 this morning before getting her up for some cereal and her feeding. After feeding Mikayla I was able to get my work-out and a shower in before going and getting Noah up. I noticed that he was a little wet and decided to quickly throw him in the bathtub before I got him dressed so he didn't have to be the smelly kid all day. (I'm such a good mom ;-) ) While in the tub, he told me he had to poo-poo. I asked him if he wanted to use the big boy potty, he said yes, and it was as easy as that :) My little boy successfully tackled the potty this morning!! As a reward for the first time, Grant and I took him to Target tonight where he was able to pick out a small toy (it's an M&M reward from here on out). He picked out a really neat bubble set (yay for toys that we can use outside, especially since the fence will be up soon!) and we came out and got to try it out. I've included pictures of him chasing bubbles and a video, too. I know updates have been a little lacking lately, but there have been three today so I hope that makes up for it at least a little. More soon!

Grammy Caren visits

Noah trying out Mommy's shoes

Daddy and Mikayla

Weeeeeee!

Climbing off the whale

Noah and Grammy Caren

Noah and Daddy checking out the slide

Such a serious driver

Back to the whale

Walking the bridge veeerrryyy carefully

Careful, careful.... ;-)

Up the steps at the beach

Such a big kid, has to do it all by himself

Noah and Daddy on the beach

Collecting shells in Grammy's shoes

Noah and his "Ga"

Going for a walk on the beach

Looking for shells

He was really concentrating on finding the best shells :)

My car is now full of them...

Noah riding on a whale

Bouncy, bouncy, bouncy

Such a big kid

Rocky, rocky

Look what I did, Grammy!