Family of Five, all dressed up...It's a beautiful spring here, we've had so many sunny days it's hard to believe we live in Central NY! I've been washing all our winter clothes and flannel sheets and hanging them out in the line. The whole house smells like clean wash. The only problem is, we've run out of empty Rubbermaid containers and storage space to store them! So there are mountains of clothes hanging around waiting for me to get creative with space!
Part of the reason we have so little storage space at the moment is that Evan has framed in a basement bedroom! It's going to be great to have a real guest room, even if it means giving up space to accumulate stuff. I try to keep our "stuff" to a minumum, but with holding on to clothes for the next kid on the hand-me-down line and other such necessities, things do pile up. (There might be just a few boxes of books, too. Highly important!) Evan has the wiring just about done, so we should be able to embark on the wonders of sheet rock and sheet rock dust soon!
Marilla has been doing great. She's a very normal baby, a fussy period in the evening and quite a few nighttime wakings, but she is finally smiling, so it makes it much easier! While I love babies, I do appreciate it when they start responding more and seem like a real little person to take care of. I have been loving Bethaney's present to me-- a Moby wrap for holding Marilla-- I have no idea how I ever managed without one for the other two! Evan must really love it, too... I can actually cook supper if I can snuggle Rilla down in there and have two hands. (Not that I always DO cook supper, mind you, but at least there's a possibility!)
So the Moby wrap speaks to the hippie in me, and the other more consumer-oriented part of me loves Bethaney's hand-me-down swing. Swings have come a long way, even since Cheyenne's time! Little Roo (Elliott's name for her, rapidly becoming a universal name) looks quite content in her little swing nest.
"Roo" was the evolution of our nickname "Rilla-Roo" (I have no idea why we started saying that!) . Since Elliott can't pronounce Rilla or Marilla, "Roo" became his word. Cheyenne's been listening to Winnie-the-Pooh books on tape, so Kanga's baby Roo is largely on our minds.
We've been traveling with our new family. Evan and Justin went with Dana to a trade show in Rhode Island at the end of March, so Bethaney and I congregated at Dana and Marilyn's while the guys gallivanted off. Marilyn helped Bethaney and I not go crazy being single mothers for a few days! We had a lot of fun, watching the cousins play in a new place.
Lillian was six months old while we were there, and she celebrated with a grown-up two ponytails!
And another picture of her-- it is just the cutest age!
Elliott and Orianna are still the Evil Twins, causing mischief and mess everywhere they go. Here they are in a more serious moment-- Elliott takes his dental hygiene extremely seriously!
Bethaney and Justin had been at our place Easter Sunday morning, so we had chocolate egg hunt. Don't think they were quite old enough-- the eggs were in REALLLY obvious spots, and we still had to point them out. They sure did have fun eating the eggs, though. I stored the leftovers in one of our cabinets, and Elliott still points to the cabinet and says "Egg?" when he wants a treat. Cheyenne has reminisced in a very grownup way about, "wasn't the Easter Egg hunt so much fun?"
We've also been to Grandpa and Grandma Vaughans', where Grandpa Lee rather enjoyed having two babies to snuggle. Poor little Marilla had such wicked baby acne this weekend, I didn't take any closeups, as it would scar her psychologically when she got older to see how scary she looked as a baby. On the other hand, Lillian was rather photogenic AGAIN. 
Owen and Ashley were there, too, and spent the time addressing their wedding invitations. To use all the cliches, hard to believe my little baby brother, the one whose diaper I changed so often, is getting married! We're looking forward to having Ashley in the family, and we're also looking forward to the whole family being together at the wedding!
Cody's home, too. He found a car through some company that matches a car with someone to drive it coast-to-coast, and he had a great trip from the Pacific to the Atlantic, culminating in delivering the car to NYC. Now, being back in NNY, AND it being spring, ergo mud season, the erstwhile Bronco was pressed back into service, as you can see by this picture.
Lindsey is also here, after a two month rode trip with her roommate, Vera. They hit quite a bit of the USA, and now Lindsey is spending a few weeks here in NY.
Cheyenne "helping" with dishes. (Note the perfect little calves and ankles-- I love seeing her on tippy-toe!) She's wearing her summer Crocs, she was heartbroken when she outgrew her last year pair. Not that they're actually Crocs, of course-- more like Chinese-made Gators for Girls or something of the ilk that can be purchased much more cheaply!
She's still enthralled with her little sister...
And her swing that she can swing on by herself now that's she's so big...
And sticking out her tongue (very cute, depending on the circumstances. NOT when she tried it on Daddy when she was mad!)
Elliott has been totally engrossed in learning the alphabet and his colors lately. For a kid who is "delayed," I'm wicked impressed with how well he does with both. Here he is, writing "i" on the chalkboard. (He told me he was-- this isn't just an overproud mother assuming so!)
He is loving being able to play outside. Evan taped the latch on our screen door so he can get in and out-- he's too short to reach the handle. So he's been spending most of the past couple of days doing just that-- going in and out. He loves his car, now that his legs are long enough to use it.
Auntie Lisa was here on special meeting rounds, and she brought bubbles for the kids. It took Elliott a while to figure out the blowing part, and then he did it with gusto!
This is the last of the pictures for a while-- our camera is not working (less than a month after the warrenty ran out, of course), so we will have to get that fixed soon. I do have our older camera, or "Cheyenne's camera" as it's now known, but the pictures are pretty bad. Poor Marilla will definitely be one of those third kids that doesn't have many photos in the photo album. (Or pictures in the slide show, in modern practices!)
