Julia at 9 Months

 Julia turned 9 months old on Thursday.  It's getting really hard to get good pictures of her because she's on the move.  She's been crawling for about 3 weeks and decided it would be fun to try going down our stairs.  We all decided afterwards that that was a really bad idea, and we won't be letting her do that again.  Her sleeping has gotten a bit better but the last few nights have been rougher.  She has a cold and she just cut her third tooth.  Hopefully, things will settle back down now that the tooth has finally broken through the gums.  She continues to be a smiley baby and has gotten a bit chatty.  She'll say ba, dee, ga, gee.  I've heard ma a time or two and da da a couple of times.  She is laughing quite a bit, too, and that's really cute.  I've stopped nursing; it was just getting too hard.  She was easily distracted, so I couldn't do it around the other kids.  I had to take her upstairs and turn on her noise maker and turn off the lights.  Then, the whole time I had to worry that the kids were okay downstairs.  On top of all that, I'm pretty sure my supply was down, and I was having to supplement every feeding.

I took her to the doctor yesterday, and she weights 17.5 lbs (26%).  She's 28.5 inches tall (82%), and I can't remember her head circumference, but she's in the 90th percentile.


Here are a few pictures that I was able to get.  There were a few good ones:

 

 

Laundry area redo

 When we moved into our house, one of the things we wanted to do was update the laundry area.  We "inherited" a nice washer and dryer with the house, but the laundry closet was not big enough to hold the new high efficiency washer and dryers.  So, there were no closet doors on the laundry closet.  We wanted to change that. 

 This is the before photo, cabinets and washer and dryer all exposed:

In order to be able to push the washer and dryer as tight against the wall as possible, JD had to alter the plumbing and dryer vent.  The dryer originally vented from the back:

We wanted it to vent from the bottom, so we bought this thing to change the vent direction:

So, now it vents through the bottom of the dryer:

 

And, JD had to cut a hole in the floor to vent it through the floor:

 

 

JD had to build a bulkhead, so that we could install closet doors:

 

And we removed the cabinets and installed shelves:

And we changed the lighting:

 

 With the closet doors:

 

Down on the Farm

 Last week the big kids were on spring break, and they spent the week at my in-laws'.  While they were there, they visited a petting farm and saw "all the animals on Noah's Ark."  When I asked if they saw giraffes, they clarified that they saw all of the animals on Noah's Ark that live where Nana and Granddaddy live.  Those animals include pigs, rabbits, goats, and llamas (???).  The kids had a great time, and I enjoyed a bit of quiet and the ease of only having one baby in the house.  Thanks for letting the kids come down!

Heritage Festival

Every second grade class at the kids' school participates in the Heritage Festival.  The kids spend time researching their ancestry, and parents can participate by hosting booths from their respective countries.  Madelyn chose to do England, and she was so excited with this project.  While I feel that it is a project for a slightly older student (since all the parents I talked with said they had done most of the work), I think it was a very enjoyable experience. 

We worked with another family since there's only one booth per country, and we set up a tea party and a poster display with facts about England.  The kids spent 5 minutes at each booth, so we did a few etiquette tips and discussed some of the facts with the kids.

To start the festival, there was a parade of nations and the kids had to wear costumes.  This was pretty tricky because English fashions aren't that different than American.  Madelyn wanted to dress in an older style outfit, so we just got her a colonial style costume.

Then, the kids were divided into groups and "toured" around the world with their groups.  Madelyn thought it was so cool that she got to "visit" 14 countries in one afternoon.

Pierce's Transformer Party

Pierce loves Transformers and asked to have a Transformer party.  We invited all the boys from his class and a few other friends from church.  We had 11 6 year old boys here, and I was a little nervous about that.  Thankfully, the weather was beautiful, and the boys were able to spend some time outside, which made the afternoon pretty easy and quite enjoyable.  We had pizza, fruit, and lemonade, and then the boys watched a 1980's Transformer cartoon.  Pierce received the entire collection--hours and hours--of old Transformer cartoons for Christmas and loves them. 

The kids were really into the cartoon:

Then we played "Put the Autobot symbol on the Autobot":

Then it was pinata time.  This was the toughest pinata; JD had to finish it off by pulverizing it.:

Then it was cupcake time:

                      I think all the boys had a great time, and Pierce said his party was "awesome."

Pierce is 6!

My baby boy turned 6 on Saturday, and we had a small celebration because his real party is this Saturday.  He is such a sweet boy.  He loves school and is doing well, is reading and can read pretty well when he's interested in the topic.  He is apparently very popular among his classmates, and we often hear reports of "so and so has a crush on me."  "How do you know?" "So and so told me." Uggghhh...I really don't like that, and I don't think he's too fond of it either.  He seems to take it in stride, though.  He has a great memory and can easily memorize scripture for AWANA, and he loves Transformers, Star Wars characters (even though he's never seen the movies), and Legos.  He can ride his bike pretty well and scares me with his fearlessness on his scooter.  He really tries to get along well with his siblings, and while he gets bored with her pretty quickly, he is really cute and sweet with Julia.

Devouring his Transformer books:

We love you, Pierce!

Madelyn's American Girl birthday party

 Madelyn wanted to have a birthday party and invite her classmates, and she wanted an American Girl doll party.  I wasn't exactly sure how to pull that off, but I decided to make it relatively simple and do patriotic decorations.  The invitation just asked the girls to come and bring their favorite American Girl doll or other loved doll.  We ordered pizza, had fruit, and cupcakes.  We watched Kit (the movie starring the American Girl, Kit) for the first part while the girls ate pizza.  When everyone was done with pizza, we played "Put the flag on the flagpole" and busted up the pinata.  Then we sang happy birthday and ate cupcakes while we finished the movie.  It was a simple party, and I think the girls all had fun.  Here are some pictures of the decorations and festivities:

Madelyn started the flagpole game:

 Notice the "flagpole" to her far left:

 

Here are the results:

 In honor of the Great Depression (when the story of Kit takes place), the two girls who hit the flagpole received a dollar.

Then it was pinata time:

And cupcakes: