So, I thought it would be a great idea to get some family photos taken while Nicole was visiting because she knows how to use a camera. Well, ...she knows how to use HER camera. Ha! It is 100% my fault that I didn't give her better instructions on how to use my lens. Her lens is different from mine and focuses in the middle, ...mine focuses to the left and THEN you have to center it. So needless to say a lot of the pictures turned out like the one below. Great, ...but out of focus. Ha! She felt so bad. I didn't though. It was so hot and muggy. You can see it in my frizzy hair
(that I straightened beforehand, I swear!) and the sheen on our melted faces. It was a bad choice to take Summer pictures. In pants. Or at all. No wonder most people like to take family pictures in the Fall.
Anywho, it wasn't a total failure though. I managed to snap a few shots of the kids while they were looking all dressed up and cute-like. But literally a few. They were so done. And in standard family-picture fashion, we all were.
I figure I might as well do updates of the kids while I'm a it. Let's start with Zoe.
She's 11 months old and the sassiest little thing as you can tell from these pictures. She's so full of personality
(and mischief) and so busy. She loves the stairs right now, which means I have multiple heart attacks per day. She likes to stand right at the top of the stairs and clap and bounce around, often alllllmost losing her balance. Today I even saw her take a step toward the top step and I could not move fast enough across that room. What a dare-devil! She also somehow manages to keep finding ways to pull pictures of the kids drawings off the fridge, which means she finds the magnets and they go RIGHT into her mouth. Of course. If she were my first I think I would have had a heart attack each time I found a tiny something in her mouth
(the stairs give me enough). I think I manage to do a finger sweep multiple times a day. All in a day's work, right? ...And then the poor kids find their treasured pictures on the ground crumpled up and eaten. Ha! She's a quick one. If you look closely you can see her snaggle tooth on her left side. But I don't think it will be lonely for long. In fact her bottom left tooth has also come through, so now she looks even more like a mutant. The other three up top look like they are going to come through any day now. Please bless. She started taking her first steps a couple of weeks ago and is now up to about 10 or so steps before she figures that she is faster when she crawls. In fact, her new thing is diving into a crawl from standing position. The other week at church in Relief Society, she was on the other side of the room
(well, she was all over the place) and I was trying to get her attention, so I picked up her snack and shook it and she DOVE to her knees into a crawl. DOVE! It was so funny
(all the old ladies not paying attention to the lesson thought so too). A total class distracter. Usually you can rely on other little babies to make you feel not so noisy but there is only ONE other kid ...and he's quiet. I feel sorry for whomever teaches RS for the next 9 months before the blessed and beautiful day of nursery begins. Why does that sound so far away? Actually, she's not totally awful. Yet. She hasn't found the piano so we can all count our blessings, but I'm sure it's only a matter of time. She also loves to mimic. I'll pop my lips or ferbert my tongue and she thinks it's hilarious to copy me. Or all I have to do is sing a song about dancing or bouncing or clapping or waving and she will do whichever I'm singing about. I love it. Also, her hair grew. All the sudden she has all of these beautiful curls that have no rhyme or reason. They just go wherever they want. She gets most comments about her lovely curls. Probably because they can't really comment on her snaggle tooth smile. Ha! She has adopted a blankie that used to be Ellie's
(it's the mini-one with tags of ribbon that her Auntie Sarah made), so when we put her down for a nap or snuggle her before bed, she grabs it and takes it straight to her face while she sucks her bottom lip and her eyes roll back. She also loves to touch my face while cuddling and just stare into my soul. Although she is usually a happy and outgoing baby, she knows when Joe and I are going on a date and gets ticked when the babysitter comes. It's pretty cute but probably not for the babysitter. Tee hee. I guess that just means we don't go out sans kids enough! Story of our lives....
Ellie is three and a half going on sixteen.
Help! Actually, I feel like she's come a long ways over this past year with all of the adjustments. If I am sweet and use a kind and loving tone with her, then she will reciprocate. Simple as that. It's when I try to discipline her or get upset with her that the screaming or irrational behavior comes out. So, I honestly pray all the time that I can have the patience I need, but sometimes my words come out sarcastically. "You got hurt? Again? For the thirtieth time today? You poor thing. Let me kiss it better." And all the while she remains clueless, but at least she's not screaming. When she's not screaming, she's actually quite sweet. All she wants to do is play with me or whoever is in the same room with her. That being said, she is also very good at playing all by herself
(usually with her ponies these days). She loves to snuggle and read books together. She is obsessed with a Disney Princess look-and-find book. But we've read it so many times that I have to make it more difficult by having her count this or that. She's also just recently finally learned how to spell her name. I've sat down with her a few times over this past year but she does things on her own time line, ...and I'm pretty sure it was one of the boys that made it happen! I other words, she doesn't listen to Mom. Often she likes to see if I am really paying attention
(or anyone in the room) by saying things like, "What's Jasmine's name?" or "that Lego guy is a girl." It also makes the boys furious. She already knows how to push buttons so well. We are all in trouble. Ha! If I told you she loves to sing, that would be an understatement. She sings CONSTANTLY! Sometimes it's made up stuff, but often she can hear a tune once or twice and be able to sing it back. Like, full songs. Not just a line. For example, we've been trying to teach the kids the song, "Love Is Spoken Here" during FHE. The boys still have no idea what half the words are, but after only a few times singing it I hear Ellie randomly singing it to herself. Not just the girl part, but both parts. So, I think it's safe to say she has some musical abilities. Aside from Princesses, her passions are ponies, macaroni with a ketchup happy-face, asking for fruit snacks every five minutes, asking for a band-aid anytime she gets the least bit hurt
(I made the mistake of buying pony ones) and wearing her "down-down dress"
(which is her only long jersey fabric dress with black and white stripes, of course). On a side note, the picture of her eyes below are the real thing. I did NOT touch them in photoshop. What a beautiful colour they've turned out to be! Who needs blue?
Noah would only give me the time of day to capture one picture, so this is all I've got! He is my five year old scruffy voiced cutie! I think I turn to Joe every single day and say, "He is SO darn cute it hurts." Now that he's FIVE officially he is a brand new kid in his mind. He'll say things like, "I'm five now, so I like pizza now." Or "I guess I'll try that because I'm five." It works wonders for dinner time since he is the kid that dislikes every food on the planet that isn't peanut butter and nutella sandwiches/wraps or toast or noodles. He is always doing or saying something adorable, whether it's trying to tell a joke that he finishes off by laughing uncontrollably because he doesn't know how to end it, or trying to make Zoe laugh by making silly sounds. And it helps that he still can't say his "r's" so everything is extra adorable. Although he didn't give me the time of day to take his picture, lately he's been giving Ellie the time of day, which is a rare treat! I think Summer has been good for their relationship. Jackson likes to do his own thing every once in a while leaving the younger ones to play together. Ellie with her ponies and Noah with his Lego guys. But together. It's kind of a dream, ...as long as they don't fight. He will help her organize her ponies in her doll house too. In fact, one morning I woke up to a clean rumpus room and found out that it was Noah who cleaned up without being asked or without any help. What? Did I birth an angel? He has his grumpy moments too though, but he's so cute when he's grumpy that it doesn't even count. He grunts and stomps his foot and tries not to smile. Yeah. It's pretty cute. He's also really latched on to swimming. He's always been really active but just doesn't always have the patience to hang around long enough to learn this or that to better his skills. However, with swimming he's pretty determined to be able to swim in the deep end without floaties or me. Just one more thing to stress me out this Summer, but he's honestly catching on pretty quickly. Thank. Goodness. And may I just brag a little? Speaking of determination, the library has given a 12-book-Summer-reading challenge and Noah really wants his prize at the end, so we've been taking time this Summer to sit down and really read. He is still in the very beginning stages of sounding out words
(almost to the point of frustration), but I beam with pride whenever he gets a word on his own without needing my help. And so does he. In fact, each time he finishes each word, he looks at me for approval just to make sure he said it the right way before moving on to the next. I don't need to tell you how adorable that is, ...but also how slow-going reading can be with him. Ha! And I know each time I update him I say how cuddly and sweet he is and I keep wondering when the sad day will be when I will regretfully have to announce that he has stopped. I hope it never goes away. Actually Joe and I were joking that it'll just transfer when he's a teenager to girls! Ack! But seriously, he's such a sweet and cuddly kid. It kills me. I finally taught him the arm-tickle game during church a couple weeks ago where you stroke your finger up the other person's arm and they open their eyes just as they think your finger is in the crease of their arm. We play it all the time now. Love that game. Why didn't I think of this sooner? But it also makes me sleepy, which is not a good combination at church. Noah is also growing like a weed. Like to the point where sometimes I can't tell between him and Jackson. Sheesh! They are looking more and more alike every day!
Jackson. So glad he's my first. The steadiest and most responsible six year old I know. The tricky part is knowing where to draw the line of how much responsibility to give him. Sometimes I ask him to keep an eye on Zoe if I have to run into another room to do something, but I ask
him because I know he will do everything to make sure that she is happy and safe. He would do it all if I asked because he's such a good, strong, steady, obedient boy. Every once in a while, he gives me sass. Like for example when I made him wear this outfit for family pics. He wanted to wear shorts like Noah and it was too hot for a long sleeved shirt, etc. but we didn't have anything else nice enough that matched with all the outfits. He is very particular when it comes to clothes. It's not that he doesn't like
this outfit, but he wanted to be the one to choose. He was a bit ticked during family pictures. I don't think there was one shot where he was smiling, which I guess doesn't really matter since they all turned out fuzzy. Ha! But the majority of the time he is a pleasant and happy kid. In fact, more and more he is turning into a spazz. Way too much energy for me! I think those kids stay up until at least nine at night doing flips on their bed. No joke! Please send some of that energy my way! Jackson loves to build and create. He is constantly showing me this or that Lego spaceship that has a slot that you can put this Lego money through and then you can take it out this way and if you open this slot over here it goes to this passage over here, etc; Or He'll build a tower out of blocks that has a secret passage for his Lego guy, etc. He is very innovative for such a young boy. Anywho, Jackson loves doing extra jobs to make money, and I love being able to give him jobs because I know he'll do them without complaining and he'll get it done right the first time because he wants to earn that money! He is obsessed with making money. He has a piggy bank and then a tithing jar and is totally on top of paying tithing. Noah hasn't quite gotten into money yet because when I asked him what he wanted to spend it on he said he wanted to give it
all to the Bishop. Too cute. But this morning before I even had a chance to get out of bed came to me with his piggy bank and said, "Mom, can we see if I have enough money to buy that lunch bag at Old Navy?"
(Last time we were there, which was a few weeks ago he said he wanted it and I told him that he already has one, so if he wants it bad enough he has to save up for it. So he did! I honestly thought he would forget about it and use it to buy candy or something, but he's a very mature six year old in many ways. Kind of reminds me of my genius brother Jared sometimes. He was always good with money at a very young age). Jackson loves having his Daddy-time with Joe before bed. The boys live for that. Joe will go lay down on their bed with them and talk about who knows what, but I DO know that some of that time is spent telling jokes, which is Jackson's newest love. He is turning into a Dad pre-maturely with the puns that come out of his mouth. In fact, he even got a joke book from the library last time we were there to help hone his skills, although I'm sure many of the jokes go right over his head. Heck, they go over my head too! Jackson is also the kid that reminds us to have family scriptures and to take your hat off before the prayer, etc. He's just on top of things. He is already such a great leader and will make a fantastic husband and father one day. ONE day far, far, far, FAR down the road. He already looks old enough in these pictures!
I wish I would have taken more time to get all of the siblings together for a group shot or even a picture of Joe and I but there were too many tears
(Ellie) towards the end so we had to call it quits.
But I am so glad I had the thought to get these two goofs together for a picture. They are such good little buddies. Love these "boys"
(as Ellie lovingly calls them). Until the next family-photo-shoot. May it be far enough away that I forget how horribly grumpy everyone always seems to be for pictures.
