7 Months

It's amazing how SLOW 7 months go by when you are praying and hoping for a baby. Each month seems like an eternity. And yet, when you are blessed with that baby, the first 7 months of her life go so FAST!

Elizabeth has grown up so much in just the last month. She is quite the little explorer. I put her on the carpet with plenty of toys all around, and she almost always goes for the tile and heads either into the kitchen or towards the entryway!
She loves to play with anything in the house within her reach, like moss in the potted plant and drawer pulls. Here she is playing with the knob on the bathroom drawer:

She is becoming quite vocal with words like, "muh, muh" and "ba, ba, ba". Nathan insists that she has said her first word of Momma, but right now it is just a bunch of cute noise. She also loves to chew on everything.

The last few days she has become interested in her hands. She puts them together a lot, like she is clapping. We're not sure if she is imitating a Baby Einstein movie she watches or if that is just something babies do at this stage. Either way it is really cute and she smiles as she does it. She has also discovered splashing during her bath and has quite a fun time in the water!

Elizabeth loves to stand. She will sometimes crawl over to one of her brothers' low reading chairs. She can pull herself up to a kneeling position with her hands on the seat, and then she will sometimes stand! The other day I put her standing at her toy basket, and she stayed there for quite a while. I have a feeling she will be an early walker!
She is still so happy and mellow! She is not sleeping as much in her car seat anymore. . . I used to be able to run errands during her nap time, but now she will stay awake most of time. Thankfully, though, she will still stay in her car seat for church most of the time.

She is small for her age. I am just about to start switching her clothes from the 3-6 month size to the 6-9 month size. For her brothers, I've usually switched right at the 6-month mark. But don't worry -- she has plenty of chunk in her thighs and cheeks!

Crazy Winter Weather

This winter has been less white than the last few. The boys got sleds for Christmas and have only used them about twice. It did snow kind of substantially about the middle of January, and Nathan got excited about making a snowman. He did it all on his own, while I stayed inside with Elizabeth.
May I present . . . Nathan with Mike the snowman:
Then about a week into February, Nathan got stung by a bee at school. Stung by a bee? In February? It is 40 degrees outside! I guess the bees were as happy as we were to have a good week of sunshine and "warmth" for winter. It got him right on the ankle -- the bone that sticks out. His pants were long and went all the way to the ground. He must of smelled great, because the bee had to work pretty hard to get up his pant leg and then sting him through his sock!

The school called me just as we were about to have prayer on lunch. Benjamin and Joshua were so good to not be upset about leaving their untouched food to run to the neighbor's house while I went up to the school to help Nathan. I stayed with him for a little bit and then watched him hobble off to class. The poor kid hobbled for about a day and a half!

Now a few weeks later the sunshine has disappeared and it is raining. Crazy Utah weather!

Look who is 6!

With the long weekend, we celebrated Benjamin's birthday for 2 days. First we took 3 neighbor friends to the local miniature golf center. I had thought it might be a nice enough day to do one of the outside courses, but we woke up to a rainy day. So we had fun on the indoor course that uses black lights. The only problem was that a few groups all started golfing fairly close to one another. So we would finish a hole and then have to wait patiently (and all 6 boys were fairly good at being patient!) for the people in front of us to finish.
It's fun watching little boys golf. They would just hit the ball, chase it, and keep hitting it until it went in -- not caring about keeping score or even waiting for the ball to stop before hitting it again!

Benjamin
Nathan
Tanner
Jace
Drew (chasing his ball)
Joshua was a great golfer, but had given up by this hole (#17)

Our family tradition is for me to make a shape cake for each kid birthday. Benjamin wanted a golf club and ball -- here is how it turned out.
The next day, Benjamin's actual birthday, was a regular school day. He was so excited to bring home a birthday crown and a LONG paper train made by his classmates. He chose to go to Winger's for his birthday dinner. Then we opened family presents back at home. Here he is opening a little golf set we got him that he can use in the yard. He also got Legos, Bakugans, Bendaroos, and a V-smile game. He loves all his new toys and they have kept him and his brothers busy the last few days -- which means mom loves them too!

Train Brain

It's no secret that Benjamin loves trains. I first noticed it when he was 15 months old. We went to the "Day Out with Thomas" at the Heber Valley Railroad. Nathan was 3 at the time and we thought he would love it. I remember being surprised when Benjamin also got excited and would say "chooo choo". It seems from that day on, he lives and breathes trains!

Earlier this school year, he went to an assembly where he learned about a program called the Great Brain. It is an independent research project that the kids can do at their own pace, but no one is required to do it. When he saw that he could get a medal for completing a Great Brain, he decided he was going to do it!

The school provides a checklist of steps. The first step was to brainstorm a list of possible topics, and of course Benjamin's list never got longer than "trains"! We did the research slowly in the fall. In January he decided he wanted to receive the medal at the next assembly (in February), so he worked hard to complete his project and study what he was going to say.

He got to present what he learned to his class the last week of January. For the main part of his presentation, he showed pictures of different trains and described what he knew about them: steam, diesel, commuter (light rail), high speed, and monorail trains.
When I picked him up from class later that day, his teacher mentioned how impressed she was that he didn't need much help with what to say.
A week later was the monthly assembly. Because he has morning kindergarten and the assembly is in the afternoon, we went together and he sat by me until they called him up. He was so excited and a little nervous, too.

This is Dr. O, the principal, presenting him with his medal and certificate.
He was one of only 6 kids who completed their Great Brains within the last month!

So proud!

His teacher rated his Train Great Brain at the highest level: Genius

6 Months

Elizabeth turned 6 months at the end of January. She is growing up so fast!

She is 14.2 pounds, which is the 17th percentile. Although you look at her and her chubby legs and arms, and you would guess she was in a higher percentile. All of our kids have small heads (about 5-10 percentile), so I guess that's how she is so chunky and not heavy!

Elizabeth is as friendly as ever. She loves to smile at anyone in her line of sight. And one look at those beautiful blue eyes gets everyone smiling at her! She is enjoying eating solids -- her face lights up every time she sees the spoon coming her way!

She is always so content -- I am spoiled. At church, she will still stay in her carrier the entire Sacrament Meeting. I think both Benjamin and Joshua insisted on getting out around 4 months (Ryan sat with me at church for Nathan, so we didn't bring in his carrier). This definitely makes church easier for me, since I often need my hands free to encourage one or more of the boys to find reverent things to do!

For a few months she has enjoyed "eating" her clean diapers when I change her. She just twists to the side and grabs one or two from the pile. Now when I am done changing her, she rolls to the other side and rolls/crawls to the doorstop (we change her on the floor -- don't worry!). She loves the doorstop, although she is too young to have figured out the full potential for noise. At this point it is more the texture and another fun thing to try to get in her mouth!

On Sunday, just 4 days after turning 6 months old, she figured out how to do an official crawl! She was so proud of herself, which she should be because she's been trying hard everyday for what seems like weeks. Here is the evidence:

Nothing like your sister trying to eat all your toys and ruin your school papers for a boy (or 3 of them) to finally clean up! I'm still getting used to the crawling idea, too. This morning I left her on the floor of my room with some toys (like I usually do) and I walked into the bathroom. I peek my head around the corner not more than 60 seconds later, and she surprised me by doing a full-on crawl right into the bathroom -- moving quite a bit from where I put her. Now we just need to work on helping her enjoy her saucer a little more, since she will be spending more time there so I can get things done!

Nathan's Got Talent!

This last summer, Nathan got a magic kit. He has dabbled with it here and there. When we were visiting Grandpa Anders over Christmas, Nathan had a lot of fun learning new tricks from him.

So I don't know why I was a little surprised when Nathan told me a few weeks ago that he wanted to audition for the school talent show as a magician. He worked hard the night before the auditions to choose the tricks and practice them. He did a great job auditioning, but he only had to do it for 1 adult in a regular setting. I was worried how it would be different for him on a stage in front of the whole school.

He waited anxiously all weekend -- they were posting the results of who made the show on Tuesday. He made it!

I don't know who was more nervous -- Nathan or me! We had practiced exactly what to say, but I was worried that he might forget some of the little details and thereby mess up the magic act. But he did great! His teacher told me later that she was so impressed at his confidence and composure!

He did 3 tricks:
1 - pulling different colors of lollipops out of his hat until he found his favorite flavor; when he went to share the rest with the crowd, the lollipops were gone!
2 - pulling scarves out of his empty hat
3 - he called on different audience members to name different colors, which he then wrote on pieces of paper and put in his hat. He then called up an audience member (happened to be his classroom teacher, Miss Wood) who pulled one paper out of the hat and looked at it. Then he read her mind and correctly guessed the color!

He said that the next day there were a lot of kids that would see him in the hall and tell him what a good job he did. And he wants to do more magic tricks next year!

Here he is doing the first 2 tricks: