Weekend

Penny made a picnic in the living room on Saturday. All her babies were invited to lunch and Daddy too. She was a giggling mess over all this.

Her she is feeding her baby a piece of cheese. She loves to take care of her babies.

Dominic and I wrestled it out on Sunday after church. You can tell by my face that I'm totally winning.

Penny took this picture of Michael, which I love. He has such a sweet puppy dog face in this picture. He's chewing on a flashlight. Lately, its his toy of choice.

Teeth

Don't know if this will get big enough or not, but this is what Michael has been dealing with since Wednesday; 4 top teeth coming in. They are still just barely under the skin. Hurry up already and break through!
Coughing and runny nose are a constant right now though the fever only lasted 1 day.

He's going to look so different with 4 top teeth. Where is my baby going?

Movie night!

We had Grandma, The Cambridges and some of the Ragan kids over on Friday night to watch Despicable me. It was the perfect night with pizza and friends followed by movie and popcorn (oops I let someone borrow my vaccum).

Before people showed up, Great Grandma read Penny a book.

And Penny didn't make it through the movie (Despicable Me). Naomi and I looked over to find this:

I went and changed her into pajamas and let her snuggle with G-Gma until the movie was over. So sweet.

Amazon Mom

Amazon Mom has amazing prices on all those products that mom needs for baby. Right now I pay .25 cents per diaper from Costco and .03 per wipe, as well as .44 per pullup. When I signed up for the amazon mom services and opted to be on their auto-ship program (you can choose to have them send your order every 1, 2, 3, or 4 months..... they'll send you an e-mail before it goes out and you can postpone or cancel the order) I immediately saved 30% off their amazon prices......with free amazon prime shipping included (for the first year) because I signed up for Amazon Mom. This brought my diapers down to .17 each, my wipes down to .01 each and the pullups down to .32 each. As if that wasn't good enough................

Barnes & Noble is offering a one year subscription to Parents Magazine for just $1! Parents is the place to score 20% off Amazon diapers coupons for the last few months. There’s no guarantee that they'll keep printing the coupon, but at $1 it’s worth the gamble! Here’s how to do the deal:

:: Go to Barnes & Noble and add the subscription to your cart. It’s priced at $9.97.

              :: At checkout, use the code K9B9J4H and the price should drop to an even $1.

AMAZING SAVINGS and the best part is, they arrive at your front door. No more putting them in a cart, into your car and then bringing them into the house.........they just SHOW UP.  Normally, I hate couponing because you end up with lame products that I don't already purchase but HELLO...diapers are expensive people!

Click on the Amazon Mom link in the top right of my blog to get started! Enjoy!

Clapping

His clap is so cute because it starts from above his head. He also LOVES to watch himself clap in the mirror (which he is doing in this video).

Cub Scout Cake!

Tonight was the Blue and Gold Banquet and the boys were asked to bring a cake for the dessert that they had helped make and decorate. Dominic decided he wanted to do a rainbow cake but a happy face (I gave him some ideas and he chose to do those). The theme was positive attitude, happy, or cheerful. It was a really fun cake to make especially at an even like that where you can't tell that the inside is going to be a rainbow of colors (and food dye! eeeek! ha!)

To bake this we used 2 white boxed cakes and divided each box into thirds using 1 1/3 cup mix in each 9 inch round pan.

We cooked two pans at a time, each with a different color for the different layers. (pre mix the food coloring into the batter before adding into the pans).
After they were cooled (we cooled them stacked on top of eachother with wax paper between each layer) I cut off the rounded tops and then began layering the flat layer together on the cake stand with an adjacent layers color of frosting until it looked like this :


Backing up a little. I got to teach Dominic how to separate the egg yolk from the egg whites. The first egg he held straight up in his hand as the yolk was dripping down and the egg whites basically ran down his whole hand getting to the bowl....good thing we washed! But, redirection made for a perfect separation with the second egg. He thought that was pretty neat and did a pretty good job until the 5th egg, he punctured it. But, since the batter wasn't going to end up white it really didn't matter anyways. He had fun learning a new skill!

Since Dominic was wanting to do a yellow smiley face cake, I pre-frosted the whole cake yellow and then he put the decorative flower on the bottom edge. He did an amazing job with this part. I had one finger on the cake stand turning it for him and sometimes steadying the tip, but other than that, he did the rest. His hands were quite steady!

He then started into the smiley face. I really had to just walk out of the room for this part so that it could be his creation (not without pictures though!). I tend to hover too much if I'm watching.

I love these next two. His hand was so steady!

See how great his flowers look?

And here it was all done and at the banquet right next to the pizza cookie (looked so real!) and wolf cupcakes

I forgot to take a picture of my slice so here is a picture of what was left of the cake! It looks so neat when its cut.

Good job Dominic. That was yummy!

Into EVERYTHING

To say he is mobile is an understatement. This kid GOES and he's only getting faster, braver and stronger. He doesn't stand yet but will pull himself onto his knees to get a taller view into things he's never been able to reach before.

He's been cutting his 4 top teeth yesterday and today. One finally broke through and we can see the other 3 just under the skin. No more toofless grins for this baby. Meanwhile, he's been in all sorts of discomfort over these new teeth coming in. Poor little guy.

Just cruisin. He ALMOST crawls. He takes about 3-4 steps with his hands and then goes down and army crawls....its just what he's used to and gets him around plenty fast.

He can fit almost his whole body into this basket trying to get the toys at the far back.

This was his first real attempt at trying to get up on his knees and IT WORKED! He was in all kinds of excitement over what he found only to find that he didn't know how to get down. He tried to reach over to that hope chest to the right of him but needed another 2 inches to actually get to it. He tried 3 or 4 times though before I finally decided to just get him before he toppled over.

I love this picture. I was calling his name and he was starting to look over, but something caught his eye just as he started to turn his head. I think it was those orange bristles. So funny.

The only thing keeping him sane right now is his basket of toys. Mid playing though, he'd just burst out crying because of those darn teeth coming in. He's so sweet and just wants to cuddle when they are hurting.

Getting some snuggle time. He just sat like this for who knows how long. 

Daddy took a turn snuggling him too. Its no fun to have a child not feel good, but I sure do like the snuggle time.

So, I decided to try to get some shots of his upper gums before the teeth are visible and so I put him in his high chair today to take those photos. He can't handle NOT grabbing for the camera.

There they are, gums in their glory. Say goodbye babyface..... =(

so goofy.

We read lots of books today and then he decided that the book also made a good pad to hit on with the thermometer. (photo by Penny)

There are two things I love about this picture. One, the slobber on the wooden toy tells me he was trying to bite at the velcro in the middle of that slice of bread. Two, he was trying to take off his socks but just couldn't quite get the leverage he needed to finish the task.....on both feet. He was very busy in this one spot for quite some time. He musta really been working on those socks. Oh, I love him.

So, besides cutting teeth, he's learned a lot of things since turning 8 months old.
He can clap, crawl (almost), get up on his knees, climb (oh joy!), sleeps through the night in his crib again, eats pieces of banana bread and cheese in small chunks, turns and looks at me in his carseat in the car as well as tries to (and I think can) look at the TV in the car when its on, plays a funny slapping game with Dominic where he waves his hands at Dominic's face while laughing, sign for milk (he's been doing this since about 6 months old but only if I grab his arm otherwise he can't focus all that energy to his hand. Isn't that funny?), turn pages in a book, uses pincer grasp, licks himself in a mirror.

See him just lose it and start crying at the end of the video. Poor baby just not feeling good.

The Wrestler

Wrestling season is well underway and Dominic is loving it. Sean has been practicing with Dominic at home since he has seen a few matches and knows where he needs to improve. This year he needs to work on how to shoot and how to defend himself when someone shoots in on him. A few matches that he did he just stood there while the guy shot at him and took him down. He had plenty of time to react, he just didn't.

He's loving it though and it will start to click soon. He's still so little that I'm not stressing it. He's having fun and thats all that matters.

Penny took some pictures of Sean and Dominic practicing at home.

One of his matches this last Saturday. It was a novice tournament (how did I get to be an adult and not know what novice means? I had to ask Sean. Or is child rearing turning my brain to mush. ha!).

Some more pictures Penny took. I had a YW activity this night and took Michael with me so that Sean could get some work done. Apparently all he did was play with the kids becasue I have no pictures of him working. Thats a good daddy. =)

Dominic wrestled at 60 pounds.

Beautiful People

We call him squishy because he is....especially when you do this to his face.

Penny wanted to try also.

And Dominic seriously could not figure out how to squish his face without his hands covering his whole face so I told him to do a reverse one instead.

Mess face. Nothing like a chocolate ice cream cone in your pajamas AFTER bathtime. Seriously Dad, what were you thinking. Ha!

Mom time

Something great happened tonight. I rewarded Dominic for cleaning (vacuum upstairs and downstairs and empty the dishwasher) with being able to stay up an extra 45 minute with ME doing whatever he wanted (since everyone else goes to bed). I had the reward of video games on the tip of my tongue but I just couldn't say it. We had SO MUCH FUN. After FHE, Sean and Penny went upstairs and Dominic and I played with Michael until he got tired. I fed Michael a bottle while Dominic looked at toys on amazon.com. Then I put Michael in his crib and Dominic and I decided to do our personal scripture study (something that neither one of us have been very good at doing everyday). He decided to memorize the 5th article of faith and I helped him by putting the first letter of each word on the chalkboard. He learned it in a matter of 5 minutes or so. Then we tackled some stuff from his scout book. We talked about things.......we had fun, laughed, cried (not like last time) and made funny faces at each other. This is what mom's are supposed to do........where have I been?? How have we been missing this?? No more rewarding...this is just gonna happen but shhhhhhhhhhhh, lets continue to let him think he has to work for it.

He left Dad a note on his computer for him to see in the morning (see, he felt good too. It made him want to do an act of service). It said, "LOVE you so Much. Have a good day!"

There's my boy.



Our FHE was this video and then I made a chart consisting of 4 handcarts on one paper and then used a sheet of labels to make a bunch of stickers of things we do during the day to fill our cart. I made a weeks worth, one sheet per day for our family. Each day we can re-assess and empty things form our cart and not put them back in for the following day. The kids really enjoyed filling up their carts.

So what,

So what if this is the 5th blog post I've done in 24 hours. I had lots of pictures to blog. I've gotten other things done too including cleaned my bathroom (right Annie?). She can verify because we were on the phone and she heard me gagging as I pulled the hair out of the drain. Penny had to leave the room it was so gross (remember, she has a super sensitive stomach/gag reflex to gross stuff).

Aaaaaanyways. Also, so what that Cassie's camera phone takes better pictures than my camera. Minor detail.

These are pictures Cassie took while babysitting Penny and Michael.
Penny got out the....facepaints (I tell you, these face paints are well loved around here).

I'd make that face too if I was surrounded by these girls!

She painted her own face, except the white mustache that Cassie gave her. =)

Thank you Cassie and MoMo!

Michael's new game

We all love playing this game with him.

when a 3 year old finds the camera

and I had to line them up just like this. Its almost like a panoramic! =)