12 Months Old

It was for sure the longest fast year there ever was!

Sweet little Georgia Jeanne is now a year old. She's weighs in at about 16.5 lbs. and is about 28.5 inches long. Her current favorite food is waffles. She loves to be outside and go for walks in the stroller. She can go up the stairs really quickly, but isn't quite sure how to get back down. She isn't walking yet which really surprises me - she's been crawling in some fashion since Christmas and pulling to standing since she was eight months old so it feels like she should be ready for the next thing, but I guess not quite yet. She is a noisy little one, but no real words yet. She likes looking at books and has a strange affinity for the church hymn book. Se has been clapping for awhile, but now days she claps for anything and everything. She waves, too, but not so much on command. And finally, we see how much the baby has grown (or did the bunny just shrink?). She was two months old in the first picture.

 

Jonah is Seven

Jonah turned seven this year. He did karate in the morning, opened some cool gifts, and then got to go to his baseball team party at the fun city pool. He picked out a little treat to take to his teammates in honor of his birthday. Basically, he got a birthday party with many of his friends that I didn't have to plan! That night he went to dinner at Taco Bell (his choice!) with dad. Jonah is our little video game addict, but he also really loves sports, loves to draw, and likes to ride his bike. He is a good brother. One of my favorite things about him is how excited he gets about things.

In his own words -
Favorite Food: Pizza
Favorite Thing to Do: play video games
Favorite Show to Watch: Adventure Time
Favorite Color: black
Favorite Animal: dragons
Favorite Toy: Nintendo 2DS
What Makes Him Happy: extra video game time
What Makes Him Sad: somebody steals my DS
What He Wants to Be When He Grows Up: video game maker
Favorite Song: I Want to Rock N Roll All Night and Party Everyday (Rock and Roll All Night by Kiss)
Favorite Friend: Landon
Who He Loves: Mom
What He Likes to Do With His Family: play Wii together
Favorite Place to Go: GameStop

Oliver is 5

This little guy is five years old! To kick off his special day, he had a doctor's appointment! Fun, huh? His birthday week was the week we were scheduled for all his new patient stuff. And, when the children's hospital says "this is your appointment" you don't ask for a different week or you'll wait forever! After the appointment, we went over to the mall because Jordan wanted to look into getting his iPad fixed (upside to Dr. appointment on your birthday? Daddy gets to spend some of your day with you!).

He really was excited about this, even though his face says otherwise

Getting Ollie all good and air dryed

Playing with all the "toys" at the Apple store is always fun, but we also stopped by the Disney Store to Oliver his special birthday pin and see his name on the big TV screen (Flashback! We did this for Jonah's 4th birthday, too). He also got fruit and fries at Chick Fil A, which he always thinks is super fun. He got Pokemon stuff, a camera, and sparring gear (he likes to spar at home with Jordan, so naturally he needed his own gloves and whatnot).  He also got some money from grandparents. I thought he'd really love Build a Bear, so I took him back to the mall the next week so he could, well, build a bear (though, naturally, he chose a dog). He named it Ollie and picked out a hat, shirt, and slippers for him.




In his own words -
Favorite Food: sloppy joes (without the bun, of course)
Favorite Thing to Do: watch TV
Favorite Show to Watch: Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood
Favorite Color: green, like dad
Favorite Animal: bunnies
Favorite Toy: I don't have a favorite toy
What Makes Him Happy: playing with baby (Georgia)
What Makes Him Sad: somebody steals my toy
What He Wants to Be When He Grows Up: work with the pet store (he didn't say at, he said with, maybe he wants to like do their advertising or something?)
Favorite Song: I Am A Child of God
Favorite Friend: Jack
Who He Loves: Jack
What He Likes to Do With His Family: play games
Favorite Place to Go: the zoo

Last Day of School

Skyler's last day of fourth grade and elementary school. He'll go to the intermediate school for fifth and sixth grade next year. He hates having the sun in his eyes, so I told him to close his eyes and open them when I counted to three. He also opened his mouth on three, it would appear. Jonah finished first grade. Oliver's last day of preschool was actually before we moved. I looked around for a place for him here, but then he decided he didn't want to go to preschool! Kindergarten is only half day here, and I think he'll do just fine with that.

Baseball Season #1

Since Skyler is signed up for summer ball, this will not be a one hit wonder for our family. So, it's the first baseball season of at least two and maybe many, we'll just have to wait and see.

Jonah begged me to sign him up for t-ball last year, but I couldn't find a good league for him. So, I tried again this year and found a good fit for him and us (meaning mostly for fun, not too many games/practices a week, and not too much money - when he's just starting out I don't want to go crazy!). He started out not being able to even swing a bat because, well, he'd never played before (Wii doesn't count, who knew that swinging an actual bat is harder than swinging the wiimote?). It was several games before he got a hit, and in yesterday's game, he had three! He's made so much improvement. He's always had such a good attitude about it and even when he would strike out (it's coach pitch), he'd still have a big smile on his face as he headed back to the dugout. He plays catcher quite a bit and it's been fun to see him go from pretty much just standing there (and the coach in the umpire position would catch and throw the ball back) to going for the ball and throwing it back to the pitcher. He also plays third base and various outfield positions.

If Only Everyday Was Like This One

If every day of summer were like this past Saturday, I wouldn't complain. There was karate, slip n sliding, a baseball game, pizza for dinner, and minimal screaming at bath time.  They certainly won't be. Maybe if I'm lucky I'll get a pretty high percentage, though. Based on the fact that by 8:30 this morning a certain someone was already bored of summertime, I'll hope for the worst and hopefully be pleasantly surprised.

She ate all the baseball snacks so she moved on to the dirt

Post ball game park time

11 Months Old

Some 11 month old highlights:

Georgia likes to eat grilled cheese sandwiches and has tried oatmeal now, too.

We took her swimming once this month. Though she didn't really seem to know what to think, overall she seemed to like it especially when she could just sit in the zero-entry portion of the pool.

She's mastered the straw cup, and actually does a lot better with it than she does with the traditional sippy cup.

She likes to play outside on the grass. She also likes to swing in the swings at the park.

She has enough hair for one little ponytail at the top.

She doesn't really want to stay still for her monthly photo shoots, and she's gotten so big that it's really not possible at all to hide the fact that I take them on a chair that's been covered with a white sheet (most likely fairly obvious last month and the month before, too. I try)

Yeah, her eyes do look a bit teary. This was not the happiest of photo shoots.

Monthly photo shoots were easier when she couldn't move!

Spring Break '14

You know what happens when you wait nearly two months to record your Spring Break memories? You forget them.  I know we kicked off the week at the zoo, and that we really did do something each day, but my mind is now kind of drawing a blank.

But I took pictures! Not very many, but enough to jog my  memory. So here goes

Monday was the zoo. Jordan took the day off and a cute little friend of Oliver's joined us. We have a great zoo here and we had a fun day. Since we had an extra boy with us, we got a lot of "wow, four boys and then finally a girl!" type comments. But no asked if they were all ours, which was kind of funny because they weren't!

Tuesday, I took the kids to a local park that's full of fossils. Really. Like, you reach down and grab a few rocks and most of them have a fossil or two or more on them. You are allowed to take some home, so I limited the kids to just three each. It was windy, so we probably didn't enjoy it as much as we might have without the wind, but it was still fun.

Wednesday, we met up with friends at a park that has a fun indoor playground. We also walked over to a waterfall and played in the outdoor playground too.

Thursday, it rained. A lot. And we probably picked the rainiest part of the day to go to the library. We got soaked on the way in and out. Poor Oliver slipped and fell on the way to the car and got even more wet.

Friday, we went to Chick-Fil-A to play in their play area and have a little treat. I actually remember this one pretty well because the kids were so excited to go, but pretty much cried and yelled at each other the entire way home because they were all accusing each other of cheating at the game they created in the play area. I guess that's so typical of them that that is why I remember it so well? I don't know.

Skyler loves the zoo!

Easter 2014

A family picture for Easter, it's what we do. Jordan was surprised by this little tidbit, but I imagine many of you faithful readers are not.

10 Months Old

Not a whole lot has changed from last month. We've added pears to her food rotation, and she's been given crackers and waffle too. She also has decided that Cheerios are the best things ever! She pretty much just shovels them in. She cruises around furniture a bit more and is starting to tolerate bath time. She does a good job of sitting up (and has been for awhile now), but she'll only sit up if she really wants to (and usually Cheerios need to be involved). She likes to move around, for sure!

9 Months Old

Nine months old now! How can that be?

- Not only does she sleep in her own room now, but we finally put the crib together, so she sleeps in a crib (as opposed to just the pack n play) in her own room!
- She pulls herself up to standing like it's nothing.
- She eats peas and carrots now, too.
- She still hates baths. I give her baths in the tub now (not the sink) and she's still not a fan.
- She crawls on all fours.
- She is starting to settle into a pretty decent napping and bedtime schedule.

Karate Kids

At the end of September, Jonah brought home a flyer about karate lessons. He wanted to give it a try. Then Skyler wanted to join in too. The rest of us just watched from the sidelines, but Jordan especially thought it looked like a lot of fun. Once he saw another dad join in Skyler's class, he decided to sign up too. In January, he and Oliver started. Oliver liked it, but decided he wants to wait a little longer before joining the class officially.

Jonah and Skyler have already earned their yellow belts for their age groups (Jonah - under 7, Skyler - 7 to adult). Jordan had to miss the belt testing night, but should be able to test soon for his yellow belt. Skyler thinks it's kind of fun to be learning different things than Jordan now.

With their new belts on belt testing night

Jordan participating in Oliver's class, so Oliver wouldn't be so nervous

8 Months Old

In February, Georgia turned 8 months old

• She likes to be under the kitchen table, where all the cool stuff to put in her mouth is
• She can go from a crawling position to a kneeling position
• She has discovered that there is more to the house than the small carpeted portion where all her toys are and She tends to like the rest of the house better (see #1)
• She added applesauce to her food repertoire
• She doesn't like baths so much. She prefers to stand rather than sit. 
• She likes diaper change time, as in she likes to try and roll away from me as I change her diaper. She thinks it's hilarious to try and get away from me.
• She sleeps in her own room upstairs now.

Seven Months Old

Georgia is seven months old!

She:

eats rice and peas and paper (we only encourage two of those)

moves around in sort of a hybrid army crawl/real crawl fashion

seems to always be making noise of some sort

has two teeth

has gotten that falling down the stairs thing out of the way*

*She was by far the least traumatized. The boys were told to watch her while Jordan and I were cooking dinner. In there defense, I told them to keep her away from the fireplace, and well, she didn't go near the fireplace. We have taken sufficient measures to ensure it doesn't happen again.

Call Me What?

Oliver likes to play with my phone. He likes to ask Siri silly things and ask her to find pictures for him. I once heard him ask for pictures of wiener dogs. Not liking where that had the potential of going, I quickly grabbed the phone away and suggested he ask for pictures of dachshunds instead. Another time, he was asking for pictures of Wild Kratts (this is what he was looking for), but he just wasn't being understood correctly. He was doing it ever so politely and saying, "Siri, can you show me pictures of Wild Kratts", but Siri was having a hard time and at one point apparently heard "call me" instead of "can you" and we suddenly hear "okay Alison, I will call you 'pictures of wild crack'. So, now when I ask my phone "Who am I?" (which I normally don't, but um, yeah), I get variations of "You're Alison, but you asked me to call you 'pictures of wild crack'".  It's funny.

Visitors!

I wrote that nothing in December was really worthy of a blog post of its own, and then I felt bad including this among those other things, so I gave it its own post! My parents and my sister came to visit us in December. We had so much fun doing so many things that I didn't get a chance to take any pictures! Sort of. Not really. We mostly just enjoyed hanging out together while doing a few little things here and there. We did do a mini Christmas of sorts and exchanged gifts. We all had such a great time and next time they come, I'm sure I'll know what all the cool activities are!

See, we opened gifts! I actually didn't mean to upload this picture, but since I did, I may as well post it. This is Oliver opening up a nerf gun from Aunt Krissy

This picture proves they were here because that's my sister in the foreground and my dad in the background and why on earth would they come without my mom?

December, Christmas, and All That Stuff

At this point (as in, two months after the fact) not much of our December is really worthy of its own blog post. So, I shall combine it all. Here goes:

We got some snow. And with that snow comes snow days! There is a small incline (notice I did not say hill) in our backyard that the kids think is awesome to sled down. They've been to the big sledding hill in town, but still like our backyard because though the trip down is fast, so is the walk back up!

We walked down the street to the city's tree lighting ceremony. We saw Santa, made some crafts, listened to the high school choir sing, rode in a horse-drawn wagon and drank hot cocoa because it was cold.  

I dressed the kids up in Christmasy clothes because that's what I do. But I only took a picture of Georgia. Which is a shame because the boys looked quite snazzy in their red and green sweater vests and ties. Jonah and Oliver wore bow ties. I think. See, I really should have taken a picture because I can't quite remember what they wore.

We made Christmas cookies! Not a huge thing, but I took a picture, so maybe at the time I felt that it was?

During December, the kids made these lego trees. There were 24 steps and each day in December, they'd get a new step and the pieces to go with it. At some each kid said "heck with this" and just built it their own way. Usually that followed the tree breaking and the kid not wanting to take the time to follow the directions to get it back to how it was. Whatever floats their boat. They thought it was fun anyway and I imagine they will want to do it again next year.

And then it was Christmas! I won't bore you will all of our gift unwrapping pictures, just this one. The boys made Georgia some hairclips out of felt and were so, so excited to do it and had so much fun thinking of designs (Jordan had to do most of the work when it came to making the designs a reality). She is eating one, so that means she approves! She doesn't have enough hair for a clip, but I clip them to headbands and they look very cute. My favorite is an elephant one.

Get used to the non-feminine snow clothes, Georgia! I hope you like Spiderman boots!

Georgia was not impressed

This right here sums up our Christmas quite nicely. Screens. Because we needed more, you see.

Six Months Old

At six months old Georgia -

-tried her first bite of food, a mum-mum
-can pull up on all fours and rock back and forth
-loves playing with toys
-likes to stare at the TV regardless of what is on it
-weighs about 13 lbs. and is 26 inches long. She's still just an itty bitty girl. 

She is such a happy baby and we are so lucky to have her!

Did I mention she likes to put everything in her mouth?

Oh, you're going to take away my bunny? I'll just eat your backdrop.

I'll just take that!