We just can't get enough

My, oh, my. I caught Michael going up the stairs on Friday. There's no turning back now. Every time its silent, I run to the stairs. He doesn't b-line it for the stairs, but if he sees them in passing he tries to traverse them. He, of course, does not understand gravity at all yet and has come close to falling several times.

We are working on figuring out some kind of gate as a normal gate won't just attach on either side.
So fun.

He's also found after nap time to be playing in his bed, standing. He just talks and babbles and waits for someone to come get him. If he gets sick of waiting he cries, because its too scary to just sit down in his crib I think (it looks like its up higher than it really is). Here are a couple crib shots.

We found a great projector/white sound machine and we have to hide it behind the humidifier because he likes to stick his fingers all over the lens and try to catch the image.

He lately likes to stick things in his mouth and then let them sit there; spoons, dive sticks, markers....doesn't matter.

For some reason I just really like this one. He's ready to eat ALWAYS. 

Michael found Dominic's scout hat on the floor and so I put it on him. He thought it was a funny game and tried to get it off as fast as he could. I got some cute giggles out of him.

He then crawled around with it on his head and over his eyes. He bumped into the oven because he couldn't see where he was going. Do you like the line of drool falling down?

And this picture, it just melts me. I love those teeth!

Sorry, my other children are getting photographically neglected it seems. 

We just can't get enough Michael around here!

Penny Pictures

This picture made me laugh out loud. I can't tell you how many we have of Penny's face on our computer. Lots. Sometimes though, she captures something really silly. I can't delete them. Its a window into her world when I'm not looking and I love it.

We haven't had the kitty at our house in quite a while, but it made an appearance last week and stayed all day.

Lately, she loves to take pictures of Michael and I. Since they are mostly of me in grubby clothes and without my hair even combed they will never make it to the blog. The ones of Michael, however, are alway sweet. G-gma Doris came over to play the other day and she captures her in a few shots.

This is a typical grandma pose. She's always smiling when she's around her Great Grandkids.

Also, Penny is getting quite bossy behind the lens.

"Look at me. NO, this way."

"Smile, but not too big."

"Be still!"

"Don't grab the camera Michael."

"Mom, you're not listening. I said don't smile."

Oh Penny. We love you.

Busy busy busy

I love these Carharts. He's almost outgrown them. =(

What a proud boy. One thing he learned to do today was sit himself back down after he stands up to something. Up until this point, he would just cry and whine for help to get down. I mean, come on! 3 feet is a long ways to fall when you're only 3 feet tall!

Stella!

We got a call on Sunday from Stella's parents asking if she could come stay the night (Stella's dad is Sean's cousin) on Sunday and stay all day Monday. We love having Stella over and so of course we said yes. Great Grandma with 2 of her 4 great-granddaughters. They read book after book after book. Great Grandma Doris stayed till almost 9pm playing with the kids.

I had a church meeting Sunday night and when I got home the girls started getting ready for bed. Dominic was already asleep as he'd been staying up late the last 2 nights and it had finally caught up to him. Penny and Stella wanted me to read them some stories. Stella didn't make it through the first book before she fell asleep....she tried and tried to keep her eyes open but it just didn't work. So cute.

Penny's eye was starting to weep and get goupy towards the later part of the afternoon. With all my kids I'v used breast milk (when I've had it) to ward off eye gunk (my kids especially get it as newborns when their tear ducts get clogged). Expressed into a zip-lock bag, I then clip off the corner of the bag and squeeze it drop by drop into their eye. Anyways I did it once during the day and then again right before bed time. By morning, her eye was a little puffy, but not weeping and goupy at all. I mean, breast milk has tons of antibodies so why wouldn't it work right? 

Kinda weird but whatever, get over it and just do what works, especially if its all natural.  =)

Look at the gem I found in Penny's hair after she fell asleep. Her hair makes the perfect ringlets that will stay in all day if I just take a few extra minutes after I wet and comb it, to wrap sections around my finger and then let them go. Now that her hair is just a little longer, it needs just a teeny help to curl all the way to the scalp. 

I love how her face is squished into her hand. My sweet, sweet Penny.

Michael's first word

Michael's first word, more a copy game that he doesn't know is a word. But, a word nonetheless. We all think its pretty fun that we can say something and he'll repeat it. Oddly enough, this was Dominic's first word too.

Ice Cream

Just in case you were wondering. This video is playing in real time and not fast forward. ;P

Family Fun

Michael discovered the tunnel. He loves it and giggles and switches direction when he sees someone on the other end.

Penny liked the tunnel too. Heck, we all love the blue tunnel!

Michael just wanted to play video games with the boys.

While the boys play video games, Penny likes to relax on the couches. 

Happy Valentines Day!

Sunday night I realized that we hadn't finished making Dominic's Valentines for the following day. Chris and Melody and their 5 kids came and stayed a few nights with us and so we put them all to work cutting out lips and mustaches. It went surprisingly fast with all the extra hands helping.

Penny and Jeremiah

I like how Joseph's lips are upside down.

Sean looks rather dashing don't you think?

Michael just hung out by the couch pulling himself up to standing. He's really good at it now. In fact, today he acidentally let go and stood there for a second before he was able to grab the couch again. It scared him and he started to cry. Poor sweet baby.

We had valentines dinner by candlelight with Papa Murphy's heart shaped pizza and a veggie delight pizza and salad. So yummy! Then, Penny and I made a large heart shaped brownie for dessert. 

Beside the fact that I started the day off completely upset at Sean because he was Mr. Grumpy pants the more part of the weekend while we had company, we had a great discussion in the evening about it and a wonderful night anyways.

One of the many things I really love about Sean is that he's a great communicator (when he's not tired and/or hungry), he doesn't let me get away with shutting down when I'm upset, and he's able to talk about things without getting offended. We are both good about trying to get to the root of a problem instead of deal with all the distracting issues that can get in the way of seeing the true problem. When I apologize, he immediately and completely forgives me....and from his example, I've learned to be able to do the same.

He's mine forever and I love that.

catching up

Penny's favorite book from the library this go-around is a book titled Francis the Scaredy Cat . At the scary part (she already knows the ending so she's not scared anymore) she's helping Daddy not to be scared by holding him. So funny.

I love this little guy. He's almost 9 months old now and is finally crawling around (not just army crawling). He can also pull himself up to standing to the couch and pretty much anythign else. His favorite gerber foods are peas or green beans (who is this kid right?) He likes to eat whenever we eat. He needs a diaper specific for night time or it leaks by morning (even when I sized up a diaper). He fits 12-18 month clothes and a few 2T. He's 23 pounds and has 6 teeth.

He loves books and things that he can use to bang on other things. He loves it when Dominic comes near and continues to try to play with Penny's hair. He notices the smallest of things on the floor and gets them directly to his mouth. He squeals in delight when I play the "I'm gonna get you" game as he tries to scamper away as fast as he can (which in his excitement really is much like the fainting goats).

And here it is in its full glory (last week). ALL FOUR...count them, 4...... TOP TEETH. I thought I was really going to miss that gummy grin, but these teeth are so stinking cute that how could I be sad about it?

So far so good with the nursing, he hasn't started biting yet though I had a 1 week stretch where I thought I was a gonner. He still drinks about 1 bottle of formula a day (about 5-6 days a week usually). He doesn't seem to care which one he gets as long as he's fed. If he's not feeling good though he just wants mommy's milk.

Baby Signing Time

Every time he smiles in this video, its because Rachel is on screen. 

He LOVES her.

This week

Michael's favorite thing to play with is the stuff under the TV. He really likes how the tan basket feels as it has little whisps of straw-like tufts coming off of it and he likes to try to grab the little tufts. If anyone is playing playstation, he wants your controller.....not a different one that isn't being play with, he wants the one you have.

Hi, meet Snaggletooth Louie. I was sad to say goodbye to his gums but these little teeth coming in are so super cute. This picture was just last week and only one had broken the skin and come down a significant amount. Today the other 3 broke through and he should have a pearly white smile here pretty soon.

Penny has started to add eyelashes and other details to her smiley faces. 

You have to put him upside down to see his teeth, hence his chub falling upwards on his face and neck. =)

Sometimes Penny locks herself in the pantry and eats spaghetti noodles. Sean opened the door to find this:

All 3 children ready for church. I love these kiddos.

Sean, Dominic and I (another friend Sean was playing too but he had to leave before we finished) played electronic Monopoly on Sunday night. Sean kicked butt and knocked me out of the game quite early. He strung Dominic out for quite a while. Notice all his properties are mortgaged.

The nice thing about electronic monopoly, there is no paper money to fumble with. The downside to electronic monopoly : everything is done by a debit card so its hard to know at any given time how much money you actually have (you can put your card into the scanner and it will tell you, but there is just no visual and I'm a visual person). 

This game is tons of fun. Can't you tell by Dominic's face? 

Orange picking

The Cambridge's Great Grandpa has an orange tree in his backyard that is about 40 years old. Its an AMAZING orange tree AND I've never picked oranges so Naomi decided to fix that. We all went out there yesterday after we picked our kids up from school. On the way out Dominic said he was so excited and then added, "plus, I'm really good at picking things like that."
And, he is. He's always been good at picking blueberries, strawberries and raspberries back home.

We picked to our hearts content.
Funny thing is, there were still more oranges on the tree than we picked.
We hardly made a dent.

Isn't the tree beautiful?

I got WAY UP in the tree. My childhood tree climbing days came back to me real easily. This picture is zoomed it but I'm up about as high as I could go and out on the limbs. This made Dominic really nervous and he said several times, 

"Mom, I don't like this (meaning you being up in a tree that high) at all. I think you need to come down."  and

 "I'm serious mom, please come down right now."

He's so very protective of me. 

He climbed pretty high too. This was so fun for him. 

Penny gathered the oranges that the boys handed down and carried around the bags. She was loving all the work involved.

She tried to climb.

Dominic is a little nervous of heights. Which is fine, it makes for a cautious boy. At one point on the ladder, a bug fell on his arm and he screamed bloody murder. I seriously could not figure out what was wrong till I looked where his eyes were looking and saw the bug on his arm (he almost fell off the ladder). 

It was kinda tricky trying to hit the bug off his arm and keep him ON the ladder at the same time. 

Poor guy.

There were lots of oranges just dangling off the tree, but we tried not to pick those as they were the ones that their great-grandpa walks out and picks for breakfast. I would seriously love to do that. Next house requirements; an orange tree.

Michael and David were in our arms for a lot of the time, but as I started to clean up all the rotten oranges on the ground (I figured I could work a little for my oranges) they needed a place to play without the danger of falling into the pool. Meet, the cage. =)

Penny and Catherine each picked 3 oranges while up high on the ladder. 3 because they're 3.

Dominic hard at work.

This was sooooo fun and oh my, there is NOTHING like a fresh orange from the tree. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to eat an orange from the store again. There really is NO OTHER ORANGE like it.

So at dinner, we started the orange frenzy with my favorite orange drink; an orange julius. I haven't had one in years. 

Recipe:

4 oranges peeled and put into blender

2ish cups milk

2ish cups ice

2 tsp vanilla

1/4 ish cup sugar (I think I used a little less)

blend it up and drink it!