quote

“A home without books is like a room without windows… A library is not a luxury but one of the necessities of life.” ~Henry Ward Beecher

Love it.

naked pizza

Sarah carefully pulls off the cheese and meat from her pizza. Afterward, she picks up the slice and hands it to Tiff and says "It's too naked for me. It's because the cheese is all off."

10 months

Ryan is 10 months old as of last week. Where has the time gone? We took him in to the doctor on Wednesday for his 9-month check-up and he's a healthy 24 pounds and 29.5 inches. We have a referral to see an allergist next week to figure out his food issues. Ryan loves to eat... he's just limited as to what he's allowed at this point. The preliminary blood tests only revealed allergy to egg whites (and negative on the peanuts). His diet consists of cereal (as long as there's no fruit added), rice Chex, Cheerios, homemade bread (no eggs), beans and formula. Pretty boring diet if you ask me! Hopefully we can figure it all out and get him eating more.

Ryan at 10 months is:
Pulling up on everything and cruising along furniture.
Loves to push the little push-toy bus around. He almost gets giddy when he's doing it.
Climbs up and down stairs very well. It's a relief that he's figured out the "down"!
Yells and screams right along with his sisters. I'm trying to break that habit!
Is very snuggly and loves to give kisses. He doesn't bite as much as he used to :)
Has 7 teeth.
Is amazingly content. Even when he's exhausted he's a good baby. I love that!
Still eats anything and everything he can find off the floor. I have to sweep the kitchen floor multiple times a day to keep him from eating something he's not supposed to (aka: something the girls dropped)!
Loves his daddy. Always lights up and crawls over when Steve enters the room.

I love my little guy!

At this same appointment we weighed Sarah and Katie and found out Sarah weighs 2 1/2 pounds more than Katie! We were very amused.

More from Sarah

Sarah just says funny things.

Sarah comes down crying... "Ellie being mean." pause... "Mommy- you have a big nose."

After she wakes up this morning (the last one) she's sitting on the stairs and I say, "you were a tired little girl, weren't you?" "No! Not a little girl!!!" She does not like being called little these days. She's a big girl!

Random Thoughts

Here are just a few things that have been running through my mind lately...

It always amuses me when I have friends complain about going shopping/ running errands with one or two of their kids. Oh... it's just soooo hard. Picture this: it's pouring rain, the wind is gusting up to 30 mph, temp is hovering around 30 degrees and I have 3 places I need to go. I could wait, but the next day it's supposed to be colder and even windier. So of course, I take all 4 kids and we run in and out of the stores. Sometimes we're out for 2-3 hours running errands. Is it always ideal? Ha! Far from it. But mostly they're really good and that makes me happy. Oh- and today, when it would have been ideal to stay inside all day, I have had 6 kids to run around. I guess you never know your limits until they're tested?

Cooking. How can a girl reach the age of 14 and not know how to cook? I hope I don't offend anyone by telling this story, but it's really taught me the importance of letting my girls be in the kitchen with me. Our babysitter is usually solicited over dinner time so we can do a dinner date. In the past I've just let her do mac & cheese or frozen pizza. But my kids had eaten both within the week and I wasn't going to feed them that again. So I put out pancakes and sausage. You know- add water and cook the pancakes. Defrost and heat the pre-cooked sausages. When we got home Steve said, "what's that smell?" Needless to say, she had charred both the pancakes and sausage. I think my girls were less than gracious about it, but it looks like they ate it anyway. And maybe she just never cooked that kind of food before? Or maybe it was my stove? I hope so. But again- I plan on having girls that can cook the basics by the time they're that age.

And finally, what is it about turning 30 that made my metabolism stop? I've picked up exercising again lately (finally am healed well enough to actually get a good workout) But alas, all this exercise is not giving me the desired results!

asleep...asleep...

Tiff was tucking in the girls last night and was singing the Christmas carol "away in a manger" to and got to the part where the song goes "asleeeep, asleeeeep, asleeeeep, asleeeep..." and Sarah interrupted her showing great concern and said "nuh huh! and then proceeded to sing "awaaake, awaaake...."

Sarah the 2 yr old

Sarah at Breakfast: I want pink milk.

Steve: Well, we don't have that right now, but would you like some orange juice?

Sarah who normally gets defensive and demands her original request shrugs and says off-handedly: "whatever..."

Katie and Sarah on the bed arguing over a picture frame...

Tiff: What are you guys doing?

Sarah, who was just yelling, very calmly says: Just fighting

Tiff: Why?

Sarah: Cuz me do.

Steve: Girls, I'm headed outside and if you guys get ready, maybe you can come out and play too.

Sarah: Or maybe not.

Candy Corn

Sarah came up to Tiff and I just now and was holding our wedding photo album. She declared while pointing at Tiff, "Mommy got married!" and Tiff said "She sure did!" and then asked, "Who did I marry?" Sarah said, "Um.... daddy." And then she stared at the picture a second while thinking and then pointed at the awards on my chest, "And daddy have candy corn!"

Halloween pics

Finally, here are some Halloween pictures. Most of these were taken 2 days after Halloween, when the weather actually warmed up so we could get pictures outside. It was much toooooo cold on Halloween to take them!


Ryan didn't seem to mind his costume, but I just could not get him to smile while wearing it!

Here are a couple pictures of Sarah. This upset look is one I see more often now that Sarah has started asserting her independence. It cracks me up. But no fear, that frown didn't last long. Here's the sweet Sarah we know and love.

Fall Photo Shoot

I did these last week for a birthday present for my Mom. It's been forever since I've taken any pictures of all 4 kids together. I did this single-handedly and I think they turned out great. Of course, Steve's photoshop expertise later on helped a little bit :-) I was lucky to have very cooperative kids that day. These were taken the day after the video in the last post.

Leaves

We actually have leaves this year to play in and the girls have really been enjoying themselves. Here's one of our piles.

And Ryan is caged because he keeps eating and gagging on leaves whenever he can get his hands on them.

Sleepy, sleepy

There's something about sleeping children that has such a serene quality. Almost makes me want to just sit and watch them.

Katie and her Cheetah, which is her latest favorite stuffed animal. And amazingly she wears headbands 24/7. I would think that could get uncomfortable to sleep in!
Katie usually falls asleep on our bed, with the light on (she's acquired an interesting fear of the dark) and usually has a book somewhere near her.
On nights when we insisted she fall asleep in her own room, this was common...
But now Ellie has been sleeping on Sarah's floor since we removed the crib from Sarah's room a few days ago and moved her into a toddler bed. It was the only thing that would keep Sarah happy and in bed. What a sweet thing for Ellie to do. We hope to move them all into the same room soon.

And then there's Ryan who may someday get his own room. He insists on being swaddled with a pacifier to go to sleep, but rarely remains in it for long.
At the end of the day, especially a rough one- these sights tug at my heart, put a lump in my throat and remind me that I love my children more than anything in the world. I am a proud mommy of these sweet angels.

Ryan's new tricks

Here are some recent pictures of Ryan.
First of all, Ryan was receiving the royal treatment from the girls. He was much easier to push/pull than the sisters were :)He can now hold his own bottle and feed himself. If it's too full he still drops it, but he's getting better!
And then today he decided to show off his newest skill- standing up in his crib. Looks like it's time to lower the mattress! (notice the monkey in the lower left picture)That reminds me, I don't think I've ever mentioned Ryan's "room" before. Since there are 3 bedrooms upstairs, Ellie and Katie share one room, Sarah has her own, Steve and I have our own room... and Ryan gets our walk-in closet. I'm hoping to move Sarah in with the other girls soon, but first we need to get her to sleep in her toddler bed.And I can also say that Ryan is officially crawling. He crawls when he needs to go slow, then does his breast-stroke army crawl when he wants to get somewhere fast. I love this little guy!

Raspberries

We went over to Pontious Farm with Mom and Dad Friday to do some u-pick raspberries and we all had an awesome time. Hale Bales (according to Ellie) were a big hit. There were also horses, llamas, goats, and the friendliest cats and dogs. We will definitely be going back there again soon! Oh, and the raspberries are tasty, tasty!

Ryan’s first swim

The labor day parade: