Neely's Art

 Neely LOVES to draw.  She's often at the dining table, quietly drawing away.  It's amazing how quickly it changes.  One day she's drawing a circle with eyes and a smile, and the next day she's suddenly added limbs, often with fingers and toes, pupils to the eyes, hair, and even accessories sometimes.  :) 

A few weeks ago she drew me standing under a rainbow.

The other day she got out their book of superheroes and started choosing heroes to draw for us.  She started with Valkyrie.  I love the criss crossing straps on her legs, and her spear.  

Wolverine is also adorable.

 She spent half of that day drawing, actually.  Robots:

Mama robots holding their baby bots:

 She finished up with this cute one of us riding a giant caterpillar:

8 Months

Reed is 8 months old.  He has an adorable profile.

He's the sweetest.

He gained only another 6 ounces, so I think he is following the same plan his siblings were on-peak fatness around 6-7 months, and then start crawling and gradually burning it off.  He is 20 lbs 2.5 oz,   He is also 29" long, which is what I got last month.  So I'm terrible at measuring length. Anyway, that's 75.8 % for weight, and 91.9% for height.  (By the way, a while back I realized they were using the wrong chart at the office, and giving me percentages based off of breastfed AND formula fed babies, when they should use the WHO charts which are based off of breastfed, and it makes a difference just in case anyone cares.  So I always go online for the WHO chart after his appointments and calculate it myself)

He has four teeth now, and the cutest space between the top two.

He is very mobile, and crawls all over the place. He's pretty proud of it too.  Especially when he's on the wood floor for some reason-you can see how big he feels.  He goes around collecting things he's not supposed to have, and giving us naughty smiles.

 When we take them away he will either happily start searching for the next item, or yell at us, depending on his mood.

Ever since first pulling up in the crib, he pulls himself up to stand on anything and everything.

We've started cloth diapering him finally.  I was worried our new HE washer wouldn't do a good enough job, but it works perfectly.

Reed is SO active compared to our other kids when they were babies, but he can also still be VERY cuddly.

He does that wonderful baby thing and pats your shoulder or chest when you're carrying him, or your hand or knee when he's in your lap.

He likes to softly twirl my hair around with his fingers while he nurses.  It's so sweet.  He also likes not as softly grab hair when he's NOT nursing.

 He's been getting plenty of backyard naked time, which seems to make him happy.

Still LOVES his siblings and wants to be in the middle of everything.

He loves Paige's keyboard and listening to her play.  

Then he likes to play a little himself.

His favorite thing is having his cheeks smooched big time.  When he's calmer and sleepier it just makes him smile, but sometimes he tenses up so hard and cracks up.  I love it so much.  I try and get pictures of it, but they always turn out a little blurry.

A few days ago I was in the playroom with him, kissing his cheeks right off, and he turned toward me and started doing it back.  At first it seemed like a reflex or something, but he just kept smashing his drooly mouth into my face and wiping it back and forth across my mouth and cheeks like I do to him to make him laugh.  I couldn't stop laughing, and he'd pull away and smile at me, and then start doing it again.  I've never had a baby so obviously do it BACK to me.  It was so cute and hilarious.  Paige took video with my phone, but she did it through Instagram and it accidentally got deleted.  I'm a little sad about that.  The boy is fantastic.

Summertime So Far

It may not be officially summer, but it's hot enough now to feel like it.  We've been spending more time outside when it's not TOO hot, and the kids entertain themselves either in the playhouse, out front catching snails...
 
or being wizards, or kings and queens, or whatever they feel like..

...or "swimming" in the baby pool we got for Reed (Bigger one for the other three coming soon)...

...or playing baseball...

(don't worry about the little ones-it's a soft, squishy ball)

Their new thing is entertaining us with "rock shows".  Basically we sit on the porch swing and the kids set up their show in front of us.  The rocks are always in a cup of water for some reason, probably because they look glossier and more vibrant when wet, and they pick them up and display them while we "oooh" and "aaaah". 

They've been drawing a lot lately too.  Cason likes drawing people surfing.

Neely's drawings have been changing a lot.  She's definitely doing pupils in her eyes now, and very recently started adding hands and feet, complete with fingers and toes.

 We definitely have some lazy time on the couch too.

The littler lady has been hilarious.
  

They've been playing really well together for the most part, but there's the occasional fight too.  Usually it's between the girls.

Misty needed me to watch the girls most of last week, so there was a lot of time hanging out with cousins.

 A lot of braiding...and then anger from Cason because the girls want to spend their time braiding.  Ha.

We also had a spontaneous hike with the Cassons last weekend, which was a lot of fun.  Sarah already wrote about it, so here are a few pictures.

 

 I'll leave you with this picture that cracks me up.  We were leaving Arby's one night a week or so ago, and there was the NICEST cool breeze.  Jess made them all stop and soak it in.

(Reed is 8 months old TODAY, so I'll be back to post about him soon)