Milestones

Lil' guy cut two teeth today.  One started coming up a couple weeks ago and then went back down.  But now they are both up.  He also rolled over on Mr. M's birthday.  I told M it was D's present to him and Mr. M thought that was pretty cool. Yesterday he rolled over and over and over again both directions.  I'm torn on being excited, upset, and worried he'll find something to choke on.

He's a completely different personality all of a sudden.  He is more hyper, more into everything around him, and sleeping less.  He grunts and groans constantly.  He never goo-gooed and gaa-gaaed, he just grunted.  It's really funny.

I haven't been keeping a baby book so I have to make sure I keep up on this.  Love my lil' people even if I was a complete grouch almost the entire day today. 

My Super-Hero

Mr. M,
My sweet, sweet boy.  I love you so much.  This past few months you've been very into super heroes and it has been the best thing ever.  You will do anything for me when in super hero mode.  I just ask you to use your super hero powers to go get a diaper and you're off and back in a flash.  And when you run to do it you say, "Sure fink! (sure thing)"
When you want something to eat but aren't sure whether I'll say yes or not, you'll say, "Mom, I really smell like pudding right now."  Whatever you smell like, you need to eat.  It's hilarious.
You are an amazing big brother.  I wasn't sure how you'd be with the new baby, but man, you are good.  You'll do anything for him.  You love to make him laugh and smile. You love and kiss on him and smother the both of us. Things are more touch and go with Miss L, but you love her also.  Usually you two will play for hours and hours together and listening to you is the one of my favorite things to do. You often will help her out when she's upset.  Just yesterday when I refused to push her in the swing (I can only handle it for so long) she sobbed and sobbed, but you stepped up and pushed her so she wouldn't be sad.  You find her bear for her (another thing mommy refuses to do after the tenth time) and you get really upset when I threaten to throw that stinkin' thing away. I have no doubt you will be her protector for the rest of her life. 
You love knock knock jokes.  They make absolutely no sense, but you love them.  "Hey mom!  Knock, knock!"  "Who is there?" "Banana." "Banana who?"  "Banana and ant fell down and squished his nose and slipped in poop and giggled all the day." You know, stuff like that.
You are sweet to everyone.  Your pre-school teacher says you are really smart and really sweet.  You can entertain yourself for long periods of time and you are a perfectionist (sound familiar mom and dad Osborn?) if your work is not perfect you get very upset.  At home you throw it on the floor or crumple it, but your teacher hasn't mentioned that.   She just said you will work on something long after everyone else has moved on. You love to learn and show it off.  I am always amazed at how smart you are.  You tell me all the time that you know everything and you'll be sure to teach me what I don't know.  Tonight, however, you did admit that you don't know everything...we see how long that lasts.
There are so many good things about you I could go on and on.  I love you and am so happy you are in our family.  I'm excited to see what great things you do with your life as you get older.  You are destined for great things, I know.

Love,
Mommy

Salon Day

 (Is it just me or is my nose getting larger as I get older - or maybe it's just the haircut.  Either way....it looks huge!)

The other day I talked Miss L into blowdrying her hair straight.  It is soooo long.  Then I let her take pics of us.  I have to hold the camera but she goes crazy with the button pushing.  Such a pretty little poser. :)

For the Fun of It

The three of them are starting to play well together.  Miss L has taken to showing Lil' D how to do things.

 Leading him and guiding him.  It's so sweet.

 He thinks they are so silly and fun.  But as you can see below, he still thinks Mom's the best.  I love how they look at mommy with such adoration at this age. 

 Babies are so precious. The thought of not having a sweet, little, innocent baby around actually scares me.  I have always loved babies.

People ask me all the time how many kids I want.  I have no idea; but I know I'm not done yet.  And no, I'm not announcing anything.  I'm just musing.

The Birthday Party

We've had a month of birthdays around here.  I decided to do M and L's parties together because they pretty much have the same friends.  I enlisted Ashleigh to make the cakes and realized two days before that that was going to be a lot of work (for anyone really) for a mom of four and one of them being two months old.  So I went over to help.

With seven kids six and under under-foot we made these two cakes.  It was pretty insane but makes for a great memory. Ashleigh always does a good job and I was pretty impressed with myself for being a first-timer. Buzz was a lot of work.  He has waaaaayyyy to many details.  Dora was pretty simple.  I did a few things on both cakes but the biggest thing I did was Dora's hair.

 We did and egg/spoon relay and dropped clothespins into cups from nose-height.

 Miss L wanted to play but looked like we were torturing her.  She was actually rather ornery for the whole party.  It was her party and she cried when she wanted to!

 They recieved some amazing gifts.  They have very thoughtful friends I think.  Everyone found perfect gifts for them.

 Miss Lucy climbed into the baby swing and was stuck.  I left her there to her own devices for awhile. :)

Thanks for coming everyone!  We appreciate and love all of you.

First Presbyterian Pre-School Valentine's Day Party

I was in charge of M's Valentine's Day Party. 

I should have signed up for more parties. 

I did the least amount of work at this one out of them all.

All I did was call people to remind them and then help with a game.

(Was I the only parent who didn't dress my kid in red?)

 His class has very involved parents.  Most of them were there and just did what had to be done.

 Daddy surprised both of us and showed up!  It was so exciting.  Mr. M really wanted him there instead of me, so it worked out. :)

5 Months!

 The Lil' guy is five months.

 Things are like night and day.

 It's hard to believe we were struggling so much sleep-wise just a few short weeks ago. 

 We went from pretty much no sleep.

 To him being a pretty darn good sleeper.

 And now I can relax and enjoy the precious moments even more.

 Because I'm not afraid of falling over dead from lack of sleep. 

 No matter what though.  This kid is precious.

Dear Damon,
Lil' buddy!  You are so amazing.  We enjoy you so much.  Daddy doesn't see you a whole heck of a lot because he gets home at 6:15 at night and you go to bed at 6:30 at the latest, but for the fifteen minutes a day and the weekends he get to enjoy those cute smiles you hand out. You are such a happy baby these days.  Everywhere we go people comment that you are the smiliest little guy they've ever seen.  And you do smile at everyone.  It's sooooooooooo cute.
You talk a lot these days.  You love to groan and grunt.  You no longer like to lay on your back, you spend the entire time trying really hard to sit up - it's really rather funny. You don't like tummy time because you can't see enough of what is going on and yet you won't even try to roll over.  You just lift up on your hands and holler for someone to come get you.
You think Malachi is pretty amazing.  I think he may be passing momma up in coolness in your eyes but it's so cute I don't even care.  He'll pretend to be in the circus and spin in circles and run around like a crazy man and you laugh and laugh.  It's great because it's the only way you'll let me put you down without crying.  You are the happiest baby in the world as long as you are constantly held.  I figure you'll grow out of it someday (although Libby hasn't so maybe that is wishful thinking) so I just try to enjoy it. 
Miss L loves to love on you (as shown in the pictures).  I spend a lot of time during the day propping you up in the boppy while she shows you how to play with toys and she kisses and loves on you.  She and Mr. M. still fight over who gets to hold you.
I'm chopping my hair off because first of all it's falling out and second of all you LOVE to tear it out.  You yank, pull, and twist and out comes chunks of my hair.  I find it wadded up in your fists all the time and have to check your fingers and toes all the time to make sure none of it is wrapped around them cutting off circulation.  You also love to pinch, suck on chins, lick and taste anything that comes your way, especially faces. 
You started to get a front tooth this week but it's just sitting under the surface irritating you.  We're all hoping it sinks back in or breaks through really soon.
I try to picture you older and am sad to see it go so fast but excited to get to know you more and more and see you learn and grow.  I'm really so lucky.

Love you,
Mom

Cake Boss and Disaster

We LOVE Cake Boss around here. I think it's not helping me loose the weight, but I can't help it, I LOVE it.

They use cereal treats a lot to make some elements of the cakes.  So I've been wanting to make things with the kids.  It's harder than it looks!  I think our treats needed to cool longer or something.  But we loved eating them.  This my sculpture of Criddy Sock (Mr. M's tiny teddy bear).  It pretty much looked nothing like him.

 Mr. M made a snowball.

 I don't know what Lib's was but she was certainly happy about it.

 We also got their Valentine's ready to pass out.  Mr. M sat down with his class list and wrote all of the names himself.  It was so cute to watch him concentrate and work so hard at it.  And just to brag a little, he was the only one in his class to do it, some of them signed their own name, but not the friend's name as well.

 We've had several people over for dinner lately for various reasons.  One night we knew the kids wouldn't go to bed easily anyway so we let them sleep in Lib's room together and just let them do whatever they wanted as long as they stayed in the room.  This is how it looked the next morning.

I can't help but smile.

So I Thought I had Nothing to Blog About but I Guess I'm Behind

Let's start with the snow.

It's actually been kinda cold here.  Last week it was in the single digits but with the wind was in the negatives.  Man, it was cold. I'm an official wuss.

They did black-outs with our power for a few days.  It was irritating, but things in life often are.

Mr. M. didn't get ready fast enough on this morning and missed his chance to play outside with Lib before school.  Man, was he upset. 

Life pretty much shuts down here when it's cold and especially when it's accompanied by a bit of snow.  They just don't have the means to function (why buy snow plows when some years it doesn't even snow.  Although, in my observation, plows don't get the roads cleared completely so the one inch on the ground is pretty much the same).  It stinks for those of us who can drive in one inch of snow (or a few feet).  But once again, sounds like life, right?

I hate being trapped inside.   I think raising my little kids here is good for me.  Like right now, my kids are out jumping on the tramp and giggling.  It's nice. We can save the snow for visits to Utah for all I care.