It's a BOY!

We are so thrilled to welcome Lars Robert Henriksen into our family.  He was born on Tuesday March 13th at 3:37pm.  He measured 21" tall.  His birth and the moment of finding out he was a BOY was so exciting and unforgettable.  It is still sinking in that we have 4 boys!!!  Finally today, after 6 days of calling him "Quatro," we officially have a name.  Here are some pictures I took this morning of our handsome little guy......

Family Love

It was a Partaaaay in my hospital room the night Lars was born.  I think we had 25 people come within an hour of each other!  We might have scared the nursing staff a little:).  Our family and friends were so cute to be following the "play by play" of the labor earlier that day through texts my mother in law was sending out.  They could not wait for the big moment of finding out whether we were having a boy or girl.  I will never forget the moment just seconds after his birth that I realized he was a boy.  I get all teared up just thinking about it.  I was so happy, the tears just started flowing.  Though I would have been thrilled to have a girl, I just love my boys and being a mom of boys.  It makes me so happy to think that I have 4 BOYS!!   Not long after we were married, Rob said we would have all boys.  He is quite proud to be "4 for 4."  We were so happy when the family showed up to see Lars in person that night.  It truly made having a surprise baby even more fun, and worth every second of the wait.

I will never forget when Liam, Lance and Lincoln came to the hospital to meet their little brother.  We wanted them to find out if the baby was a boy or a girl in person.  They walked in and Lincoln was so confused, he knew there was some sort of surprise and he thought it would be something loud for some reason so he was covering his ears for about 5 minutes, it was so funny.  Liam and Lance could not tell whether he was a boy or a girl so we told them, "It's a boy!"  Lance was thrilled, he really wanted a brother.  Liam was kinda hoping for a sister, so he shed a few tears.  However, it took only a couple of minutes before he was convinced that having a little brother was going to be a lot of fun.  We told him he would be able to teach him how to play ball, and that he would love to play super heros and go camping and bike riding and all the things Liam loves to do!  

 Here is Lincoln, still a bit nervous....

My boys.......

A family of 6, AHHHHH, scary!

Finally an update!

It has been a LONG time since I blogged:)  I think that my pineapple paintbrush blog just about blogged the life out of me.  I had a lot of fun making artwork with my kids and sharing the projects through my online art class.  I am still so happy with the great response I received from it.  However, I decided to walk away from it after a few months because it was taking too much of my time and energy and it was only meant to be 6 weeks long.  I can't believe it has been almost a year since I posted on this blog!

I just thought I would let you know that we still are around....  Life is a bit crazy.  I am expecting our 4th baby very soon, I am scheduled to be induced on March 13th.  If you are wondering whether we are going to have our 4th boy, so am I!  We are kinda crazy and decided not to find out this time.  We will really be happy either way, which makes the wait tolerable.  However I am feeling quite unprepared for a baby girl.  I have bought a few things but they can all fit into 1 target bag.  I guess I just don't believe it is possible that I could actually have a girl.

The new baby on the way gave us the motivation to think about moving away from our home that we have loved for almost 6 years.  We just can't fit one more thing in this house, and if you saw my garage you would believe me.  After months of searching for a house we decided to build instead.... and our builder officially broke ground last week.  It will be hard leaving this home and this neighborhood that we love so much.  We moved in 1 week before Liam's first Birthday, and soon he will be turning 7.  I am just glad we will not be too far from our friends here, we are only moving 10 minutes away!  So we are in for a crazy but exciting few months of having a new baby, selling our home and moving.  Our new house should be finished and ready to move in at the beginning of July.  Wish us luck, we need it!  Here is a picture of our big pile of dirt.....  It is hard to imagine there will be a house there soon.

First Day of my Online Art Class!

I just wanted to let you know that today is the first day of my little online art class.  Can you tell from the pictures that we have been having a lot of fun doing art projects?  My class is geared towards 4 year olds (my son Lance's age).  It will last for 4 weeks and we will have a fun exhibition night at the end.  If you would like to see my art project ideas I hope you will check them out and follow along with us.  I have also posted about all of the materials that we will be using, my favorite brands, and where to get them on my site.  This is going to be a fun little adventure.  I am so excited to be documenting this class and sharing these ideas with other parents.  My site is www.pineapplepaintbrush.com.  Oh and if you want to see my little segment on Studio 5 there is a link on the left sidebar of my website.  I still can't stand to watch it.  I am still recuperating from the anxiety it gave me - silly I know.  By the way I thought I would give you a head's up that the instructions for each project will only be available online for 2 days after they are posted, but you will still be able to see pictures of the projects after the 2 days.

Studio 5

Oh my.... I have so much to say to catch up on this blog.  I would love to journal all about this crazy last month that I have had.  This month has been a doosey.  It all started on February 1st when Design Mom posted my article about 3 abstract paintings for kids.  Since then it has been crazy.  I have had thousands of hits on my little art blog from all over the country and even Switzerland, New Zealand, Dubai, Canada, France.....  If you don't know what my little art blog is about, I am teaching a little 4 year old art class for Lance starting on March 14th and I am documenting all the how- to's and step-by-steps online.  It is about 4 of the 7 elements of art: shape, color, line and texture.  You can link to it by clicking on the picture at the top of my blog.  I had no idea so many people would want to follow along.  I am excited and overwhelmed at the same time.  I am wondering what happened to my quiet and sane life?  I go back and forth between being excited and being overwhelmed and confused.  However, I have decided to just roll with the craziness and before I know it the class will be over and I will hopefully have a normal life again.  I do hope to inspire other parents out there to sit down with their kids and have fun with art, so that makes the class worth the craziness I guess.  Well to get even more crazy... KSL's Studio 5 asked me to come on their show tomorrow and show how to do the 3 abstract paintings I did for Design Mom.  So if you live in Utah check it out at 11:00 am tomorrow - Thursday.  I am so nervous!  They said they might want me to come back as a regular - wow.  Well I just thought I would quickly write this post because I feel so bad that I have kept some of my best friends out of the loop in the midst of all this craziness.  I hope to post soon about a few other adventures we have had this month including a trip to Miami, Florida and Ann Arbor Michigan.  Crazy but fun times.

Joyschool

 I know I say this every time but I LOVE our joyschool group.  These kids are adorable and I just love it when it is my turn for joyschool.  This was a fun week because of Groundhog Day and the Chinese New Year.  So we talked about Groundhog Day on Tuesday and the Chinese New Year today.  We read books and played games and made crafts.  We also worked a lot on letters and their sounds - which they are learning so well,  I am so happy to see their progress.  We also reviewed all the colors and shapes and counted all the way to 100!  Lastly we had a great time singing the fun songs that we are learning for their little graduation in May. Here are some pictures that are in random order....

I pulled out my magnet kit and the kids loved it!

They colored Chinese New Year pictures

More magnets!

Making little groundhogs that come out to see their shadow...

They ate "groundhog food" for fun - I was not sure what they would think of this snack but they loved it and asked for more!

Liam is totally into being my helper during joyschool.  He asked the kids to call him Mr. Liam.  Here he is reading a book to the kids.  I just noticed what is in Lincoln's hand ..... a fork and a butter knife - hello mother of the year here!  I bet he got into the dishwasher - he is obsessed with it.

I can't believe I only teach 2 more weeks of joyschool before it will be summer.  Crazy!

Check out my article on Design Mom

Hey there friends,

I have been so bad about posting lately.  I have lots to catch up on.  However, in the meanwhile I just wanted you to check out my article on design mom that was just barely posted.  I know I am a dork but I am super excited about it cause it is one of my favorite websites!  Since you are some of my bestest friends I thought you might want to see it and if you feel so inclined leave a comment on the site.  I love you all!

Dani