Joe at 6 months and 7 months

First I need to catch up on Joey. On December 3rd, Joey was 6 months. On his 6 month mark he started sitting up all by himself. He still tipped over lots, but he could actually stay upright for a bit. He went to the doctor that day and was healthy as a horse weighing in at 19.36 lbs and 28.5 inches long--82nd and 97th percentiles, respectively.

He continues to be the center of the household (okay, along with Mikey and Luke. It's a three-way tie.) Mikey and Luke never stop trying to make Joe laugh. And Joe DOES laugh. It's so darn cute.

Joey started in on solids this month. He was always anxious to get the food in his mouth, but of course immediately spit it out and all over everything the second it hit his lips.

Joey, at this age, is by far my best sleeper! And I've never really done any training with him. He just sleeps. He goes down awake and will often just talk himself to sleep. He particularly loves the heater. After getting out of the bath, he was crying and cold. I laid him down in front the heater and he immediately stopped crying. Then fell sleep. He stayed like this for at least an hour and had quite an awesome carpet imprint on his face.

Is there anything cuter than a sleeping baby? So cute.

Now after a few weeks of eating, he seems to be getting a bit more of the food actually down his throat. Of course, the mess is still just as bad.

Oh yeah. And he's just so cute!!!! Look at that face!

I can't get enough of it.

Now Joe will be 7 months tomorrow. He sits up like a champ and rarely tips over. If he does tip over, he just flips over onto his tummy and doesn't miss a beat. He has started to try to push up on his knees and between rolling and pushing, he sure can travel in a room. And everything, everything, EVERYthing goes straight to his mouth. Oh we love that kid.

Occupations according to Luke

Two stories.

First, a few days ago, Lance was joining me on a trip to the gym with all the kids during his break from school. He was getting all his running garb on which includes a bandanna tied over his head. Just as he finished tying it on, Luke walked by. He immediately stopped and yelled, "Hey, daddy! You're not a pirate!" So true, Luke, so true.

Then the next day it was just me and the kids at the gym. We were on our way home and it was quite the blizzard-y day. We all bundled up and with heads down started to run to the car. Half way there, we passed a group of some older grown-ups. One had a cowboy-ish hat on. I hardly noticed them, but Luke stopped in his tracks as they approached and yelled at the hat-wearing gentleman, "Hey, are you a cowboy?!" I don't know if the gentleman thought it was all that funny, but his friends sure did.

Red Ranch?

That's right folks. In our house, we have red ranch. We also have white ranch. Oh, and some of you might possibly call red ranch ketchup. (And according to Luke, you'd be wrong. It's red ranch.)

Mikey's New Spelling Skills

I have to take a quick break from studying for finals to throw this on here. Mikey has been very interested in spelling lately. He's starting to figure out his letters, and almost every time he says a word, he likes to tell us what letter it starts with. He's getting pretty good at it, so I was surprised the other day when he asked if I knew what letter "tree" starts with. I said, "yes, do you?" He said, "Yes. It starts with "J."" That threw me, so I proceeded to dig a little deeper. "What sound does tree start with?" I asked. He then enunciated, very clearly, the sound he thought was at the beginning of tree. When he says the word quickly and in a sentence, you don't really notice. In this little exercise, though, what I was hearing was a very clear "ch ... ch ... chree." We haven't gotten to putting two letters together to make a single sound, and "j" was the closest he could come to matching the sound to a letter he knew. Mikey's a "chreat" to have around.

Smile!

Joey is a super happy baby and a great smiler...when the camera's not there. As soon as we pull out the camera it completely distracts him and he gets all serious! So I was super excited to capture his cute little smile. I can't even choose which one is best. So you get them all even in their nearly identical-ness.

Happy Halloween!

And here we are. Finally our Halloween post. Like I said before, this is the year of the Superhero...you shall see that I was not lying. Of course, between family parties, school parties, church parties...and so on and so forth, the Halloween costumes get to be worn over and over. This helped Mikey make it all the way until Halloween for the trick or treating.

First up was the Halloween party at Mimi and Bampa's. As you can see, Spider-Man and Superman are ready to go. My favorite was asking them to pose each time. They didn't really have much variety in what they could think of for superhero poses, but they tried, plus the look on their faces was priceless.

And another pose.

I couldn't get enough of Luke's little face in his mask. To grandmother's house we go!

Hey. Even Spider-Man gets tired.

The excitement of Halloween was just too much to make it through the long car ride. (And if you know Luke, you know how amazing this is--he NEVER falls asleep in the car.)

Okay, not so uncommon for Mikey to fall asleep, but this was pretty deep. I thought he was going to fall out of his seat belt!

And the party begins!

And there you have it. Spider-Man, Batman, and Superman all in the same room. You can probably imagine the excitement.

So Mimi asked all the kids to do a trick and then they could get a treat. She warned us moms before hand and wanted to make sure the kids would be willing...silly Mimi. We couldn't get the kids to STOP doing tricks! Jumping, cart wheels, spinning, running fast....

Did I mention I couldn't get enough of Luke in that costume? I couldn't. He was the cutest.

And let's not forget Joey. I know, you're thinking, "that kind of looks familiar." Let me show you. Remember this? And how about this?

Actually, I was kind of disappointed because Joey wasn't in the greatest mood so we didn't get any super smiley ones. I just might dress him back up on a day he's in the mood just to get more pictures. But he's still my cute tiger.

And I made a cake. This didn't photograph all that well, but I thought it was actually one of the cutest things I've ever made! I loved it.

Okay, so these are more of the same, but this was the ward party. Still cute.

And finally time for trick or treating. They actually had a bit more bulk this night as it was raining on and off all day and it was COLD! So they had PJs on underneath.

And me and skeleton Joe stayed in by the fire answering the door.

Happy Halloween!!!

Luke

Yesterday I was trying to get Luke to lay down for his nap. I asked him to go get in bed and I'd bring him his bottle. Instead he stood and waited for his bottle, but once it was in hand he piled his bear and blanket up in his arms and started down the long hall to his room.

I was following him so that I could tuck him in and get him all settled. As he walked he kept slowing for a second and glancing over his shoulder at me. After doing that a few times he looked back one more time and exasperated said, "Stop following me!"

Lots of Joey

Okay, I'm always playing catch up. At least I try. I can't believe how big Joey is getting! He's getting cuter and cuter every day, but at the same time, it makes me a little sad that he's already not my little tiny newborn any more! :( Anyway, he was 4 months on October 3. He was about 17 lbs which is almost spot on with his brothers at that age. But at least by round three I know enough to just go ahead and put him in the 9 month clothes instead of trying to get additional use out of the 6 month clothes he was only in for like 2 weeks. (Yep, he's in 9 to 12 month clothes.)

Anyway, so here he is over the past month.

Sept. 24, 2010

Sept. 28, 2010


Oct. 3, 2010 (Exactly 4 months)

Oct. 4, 2010
Oct. 15
I just love his smile. It makes my day every day.


Oct. 17, 2010 I know, those big eyes, right? So cute.

Oct. 21, 2010


So that's Joe right now. We are having so much fun with him. The boys just absolutely love him. And Mikey can make him laugh like no one else can. He's just a happy and cute kid. I can't even imagine us without him now :)

Viewer Discretion is Advised (basically, this is gross)

It was Friday. I had just dropped Mikey off at school. I pulled in, Lance put Luke in bed and Joey in his room. I was coming up the stairs bring in some other stuff and Lance had just come back out to continue sawing some wood. Right then the saw slipped. Luckily it was just a hand saw. It slammed right into his left hand. He jumped back and immediately said, "I need stitches." We went to the kitchen where he rinsed it for awhile, eventually laid on the floor to prevent fainting, and I got the kids back up and into the car. We were off to Insta-care. An hour and a half, and 9 stitches later, he's good as new! Okay, well in 10 days he'll be as good as new.

Bleh. I don't know why, but I hate the look of stitches! It just looks wrong. But it looks better than the gaping holes down to his bone. And yes, morbidly today we were lamenting that I hadn't thought enough to take a picture of the wound before we rushed to the doctor. Stupid me. All focused on getting my husband to stop bleeding profusely.

On the one hand (no pun intended), Lance was mad because this was the ONE time he didn't have his gloves on while working. On the other hand, of course it could have been so much worse. At least it wasn't an electric saw and at least he didn't hit any sort of ligaments or anything to do permanent damage. Phew.

The Witches of Gardner Village

Gardner Village is a cute little girlie place here with lots of girlie and crafty shops. And at Halloween they make it all cute and Halloween-ie and full of funny witches. So we went with my mom and sister. The kids liked the witches and Halloween stuff, but mostly it was all about getting to be with their cousins. The weather was perfect and the kids happy. Basically a perfect combo to provide many great photo ops. :)

They are seriously never happier than when with their cousins. Here we have Mikey, Ben, Luke and Anna.

Just the boys

So cute

Okay, so it wasn't as special for Joey as he slept through most of it. But he's still cute.

We had to get a picture with at least one witch!

So excited

This was actually at the beginning and they were ready!

And this is what was going on while making them pose. It happens with just about every group picture, but we always love it.