Where does the time go?

That question is one I often ask myself as I see the kids growing and changing.  I see my oldest, now 14 years old and look up at him as he towers over me, now a tall 5ft 11inches and growing by the day.  I remember when he was Veronica's age (16mo old).  Where does time go, for it goes too quickly.

Augustin will be 5 in another 9 days and that means that Matthias will be 7 in 2 short months.  How did the oldest two of the "little boys" get to be not quite so little?  Then there is Samuel, the sweet adorable red head, who is also the most verbally opinionated little 3yr old you've ever met.  He is really coming into his own and starting to see things and people outside of himself.

I really need to do a better job about keeping up here. I love looking back at old entries, seeing what the kids were doing or saying and I've done a terrible job at it lately.  Pictures sit on my camera for weeks now before I do anything with them and it isn't for lack of time.  It is simply, I'm out of the habit.  So here it is....an update of sorts, which will of course contain recent pictures, since I love nothing more than picture updates.

Brad refinished an old pew we had and turned it into a bench for the kitchen table.  We were in need of extra seating without getting a bigger table.  This is working very well.  Of course Veronica had to get in on the picture.

Veronica is the sunshine of every ones life.  The boys all adore her and she is so different from the boys, that we just sit back and marvel at her "girliness".  She loves all things girl....purses, shoes, dresses, dolls.  And of course we love it.  Grandma and Grandpa got Veronica a beautiful doll cradle for Christmas that sits in her room by her bed.  She loves to put her dolls in it to sleep (and the boys love to play with her).  I found her playing quietly in her room one afternoon and found her sitting in her cradle holding a stuffed animal.

Now on to the really fun stuff; well not really.  The re-doing of the kitchen floor.  It isn't fun, but is needed, so we took the plunge and Dad and the big boys have been working had.  The picture below is of the back hall, but at this point there is no ceramic tile left in the entire kitchen and it all looks like this.  They will be hard at it again this week.

We have had some amazing weather for March.  We haven't had much snow at all this winter, but I kept expect it to get back once we were ready for spring.  It has felt like spring since January which is a little strange when you live in New England.  Even though the weather has been nice for winter it's been wet and damp, which leads to mud and that isn't great for little ones.  Veronica hasn't been out much, but a few days ago it was nice and warm in the afternoon and the ground was fairly dry, so we all went out.  She of course loves being outside.

Here she is with Dennis (the cat).  She loves the cat, but wasn't quite sure what to do when she rubbed up against her.  For those that are new to reading my blog, Dennis is our cat, Dennis is also a girl (that is the part that throws people).  Dennis was named by Parker when he was 3.5yrs old and thought Dennis was an ideal cat name.  So all these years later, we still have our girl cat named "Dennis."

She loved the wind in her hair

And the Papa let her wear his hat...it didn't get any better than this

And since we have all this nice weather we have been spending more and more time outside.  This weekend Brad and the boys spent time working on a tree house platform. 

Grant and Matthias

Samuel spent the afternoon playing by himself digging in the dirt and bringing me buckets of "soup" and then he made chocolate cookies since we ate a good dinner.

It's been a great start to spring already and it's just beginning.