A Post

I'm not blogging much lately, so here's a post about very little.

The little girl mastered eating this morning. She had a little on her face, a little on her bib, and didn't get it anywhere else! She ate more than she got on her body. Ha.

She's been awfully cute lately, acting all shy when someone besides her parents or siblings talk to her. At the park last night I had her in the carrier in front of me, facing out. People would say hi and she'd arch her back, turn her head to the side, and and put one arm up by her face while she grinned her shy smile. I need to try and get a picture of it.

For now, here are two unrelated pictures:

I Wish I Was a Ballerina

Paige and I had a date at In-N-Out the other day. She was in a chatty mood, so we had fun.
She said things in such a grownup way. I told her I need to make something for my cousin Michelle and her baby, and I told her the baby's a boy. She said, all girly and grown up sounding: "Oh, how exciiiiiting!"

Yesterday Grammy took us girls to watch a ballet. Neely wasn't AT ALL happy on the drive there. I sat in the backseat with her, and I think me being that close but not getting her out and holding her, made her mad. She started off with a sad cry, but after a while she was pretty mad too, trying to hulk out of her carseat straps while she cried.

The big girls were happy though, and excited, and really cute together in the backseat.
We stopped for some Tylenol, and I fed Neely as soon as we found our seats. I thought she'd be asleep after nursing, but then she sat up, smiling, and watched the first couple of dances. She started getting excited, and was talking and cooing loudly. I wondered if she was loud enough to be distracting people, so I fed her some more and she slept through the rest of it.

The littlest group of girls did a really cute dance, with rainbow tutus and balloons tied to their wrists, to the song from Up. It was so cute.

Neely woke up from her nap, still happy.
And we went to Red Robin.
We had a fun girl's day.

Then we came home and Neely sat herself up for the first time. She's been able to support herself sitting for a while, as long as I PUT her in a sitting position. But this was the first time she moved from lying on her belly to sitting, all by herself. We missed the first one, but a while later she did it again, and I sprinted for the camera, making it back just in time to get a picture of her from the nose down, just as she burped and spit up. Haha.
Oh well, just know she can do it and she's proud of herself.

Well once again I missed a day or two and now I'm overwhelmed and can't decide what to (and what not to) blog about.

Neely's still scooting around, starting to get a little bit of rug burn on her chubby knees. She's starting to get up on her knees and rock back and forth more often too.
For a minute I thought she'd do a downward dog.
Like Paige liked to do as a baby.
Neely's also been bonding with Gia lately. Gia licks her hand or feet and makes her laugh.
Paige has been dramatic the last few days.

The other night she was mad at us, and ended up being sent to her room for yelling at us. She was crying loudly in there so we could hear. After we didn't come in and show our sympathy she opened the door and wailed "How could you guys say that to me?! You always love me!!"

Then last night we were telling her she had to eat her dinner and she said "You guys make me mad ONCE a DAY!"

But overall we've had nice days. Yesterday was rainy. We went outside for a short while in the afternoon.
I decided to move in to start dinner, when it really started raining and started to get chilly. So the older two bundled themselves up and wanted to stay out in the rain. A few minutes later I heard thunder, a blood curdling scream and Cason crying "I want my mommy" as he ran in the house. I picked him up and it took him a minute to calm down. He said "The punder scared me." So I took him to the couch and set him up to watch his favorite movie, The Iron Giant.

He was so cute on the couch, smiling while he watched the movie, with tears drying on his cheeks, wearing Paige's purple Tinkerbell sweatshirt, her boots, and his Toy Story swim trunks. He loves that movie so much.

He made me draw him a robot yesterday. I didn't realize it was supposed to be any certain robot, the iron giant specifically, until he told me to add the fire to his feet and "the little boy and his mama". But he didn't seem to notice the robot looks nothing like the robot from the movie. He carries it around the house, telling me he's "never gonna lost it."
In the movie the Iron Giant saved the day and afterwards Cason said "the robot died, but he save his friends". His heart is quite good.

A Messy Baby, a Slapstick Guy, and a Surprise!

Paige has ALWAYS been a clean eater. Even as a baby I barely had to clean her up after feeding her baby food. Then Cason came along, and was more like I'd expected a baby to be, with food all over his face and some on his hands a lot of the time too. Now we have Neely. She gets it on most of her body and every surface within her reach.
And still really wants to hold the spoon herself.
We had a playdate today. The kids were in the other room and Veronica and I were talking in the living room, hanging out with the babies. I got up to check on the other kids and found Cason like this:
Totally staged, just waiting for someone to discover how hilarious he is. He's such a slapstick comedy kind of guy. Jess says he'd LOVE the Three Stooges.

We got a suprise package today from Uncle Michael, and to their delight there was a giant Candy Land game inside!
Paige wanted to play SOOOO bad, but Cason and Lily were rolling on the mat, being wild and ignoring her pleas. She smiled for the picture, but she was NOT happy with them.
She got so frustrated she threw her gingerbread guy down and ran to her room crying. They followed her, laughing and tormenting her more. But when everyone went home Paige and I played a couple rounds, with Neely's "help".
It's a hit Michael, thank you!

When Jess got home from work he played outside with the kids so I could start dinner. He came in to show me Neely's new favorite thing. They were pretending to be a soccer team, with Jess as coach. He had a whistle, and would blow it and bark orders, and Neely would laugh hysterically. Like he'd blow it and yell "THAT'S IT! You're off the team!" and she'd laugh SOO hard.
Jess will love that one of him, but it's my favorite of her laughing pics, so sorry.

Too Much Love

I babysat Lily and Aivree for a little while yesterday in the morning. We mostly hung out in the backyard.
They were all really good. And we even had an exciting event while they were here. Sammy emerged from hibernation.
We didn't even have to rescue him.

Cason wore this ensemble.
When he pulled on Paige's boots he told me "Somebody's gonna say this is cool."

Caso would rather play than sit down to learn the way Paige likes to. If I show him a letter or number and ask him which it is, he'll go "Ummmmm....nuffing" and run off to play. Ha. So I was wondering if I was doing a good enough job teaching him that basic stuff to prepare him for school. But the other day I heard him putting puzzle pieces away and counting them as he went, and he counted to ten easily, so apparently he IS learning that stuff, even though he does his best to pretend not to know it. Ha.

Paige told me the other day that she doesn't want to go to dance OR Sunday school at church. She usually loves both, so I was surprised. I asked if she didn't like them anymore and she goes "Oh, yeah, I do. I just don't want to leave you. I love you way too much." Haha.

When Daddy Comes Home

Since I posted that Neely always leans on her hands when she's sitting, she decided today she'd stop using her hands.

It's always made me happy to see our kids' faces light up when Jess comes home from work. Once they're a few months old it starts. When they're about 5 or 6 months old, I've made a point to get a picture of each of them when he first walks in the door. Here's Neely's version:

Crayon Crawl

We had a crafty day today. It was in the 60s outside, but after all those warm days it felt really cold. So we stayed in, going back and forth between being lazy and hanging out on the couch, and doing little crafts. Paige and Cason DID step outside long enough to pick which rocks they wanted to turn into ladybugs.
Paige and I did a little rainy day picture.
When it was done she drew the little girl walking a "cat wearing a raincoat". :)

Then they got out coloring books, which we colored on the floor so we could keep Neely company. Neely was crawling over to our crayons and stealing them all. At one point she was lying on the crayon pile so we could hardly get any of them.
I LOVE watching babies use their hands. It's so cute how much focus it takes for them to control their own chubby little fingers.
I'm thinking (hoping) that Neely might be a little more like Paige in one way. She played with crayons and scrap pieces of felt I let her hold, for a long time and never once tried to put any of them in her mouth. Just twirled them around, and stared intently at them. I never had to worry Paige was going to try and eat something weird and choke. Hopefully it'll be the same way with Neely. Seems like it so far.
She doesn't sit up all the way yet without using her hands. She prefers to lean forward.
She also prefers to hold the spoon herself when she's eating baby food. And by "prefers" I mean loses her cool if you don't let her.