This KID

He's always so cute and sweet, but it seems like every day he sets aside a little time to be especially cute and charming.  It's ridiculous. 

We had a busy morning, so after lunch I spent a lazy half hour with him on the couch with me.  He's an active fella, so I was happy he was in the mood to hang out for a bit.  He had a sock in one hand and a piece of paper in the other, and was pretty proud of his treasures.  He kept giving me the cutest smiles, and chatting with me.  Showing off BIG time.  I don't even know what to do with myself when he's like that.  Usually Jess and I exchange those "What in the HECK?!" looks, almost disgusted at how cute he is.  Haha.  There was nobody here to do that with though.  (Cason and Neely were happily playing in the playroom together).  So I settled for taking a picture to post to Instagram. 

He was being so cute I took close to a trillion pictures.  Mostly I was talking to him about how wonderful he is while taking them, so I was pointing the phone at him without really looking, and most turned out kind of blurry.  You get the point though.  Here are my favorites. 

 

He's well aware of what he's doing here.

 Especially this next one.  What?!!!  COME ON.  

 Then he remembered he's big time stuff, so he wanted down on the floor, where he continued to bat his eyelashes at me.  

 Finally he finished things up with a bashful head against the couch move.

Dreamboat, this guy.

Neely

Neely is at such a fun age.  She says and does the funniest things, and has plenty of personality.  

She's pretty opinionated.  She loves purple, and gets SO excited when she sees a purple car.  One day we were driving and Jess told her "Look Neely, there's a purple truck!"  She looked bored and said "I don't WIKE purple twucks.  I onwy wike purple cars."  Another day a song played on the radio and she said "This is the worst song anybody could wike."

In the mornings she stumbles out of her room with bedhead and sleepy eyes, and will tell me "Good morning, mama" with her voice still all crackly and sleepy sounding.  So cute.

 

 She's also quite a feisty one.  She is a little bit sensitive, so if we are unhappy with her it bothers her, but she tries to act like it doesn't.  (This was one day when she was upset with us and was going to run away to Aivree's house once she got brave enough to hop off the wall)  Aivree is one of her favorite people.

The only person who never makes her mad, though, is Reed.

 

Her best buddy is Cason, and they play together all the time.  She can be pretty bossy with him, but she also adores him and wants him to be happy.   One morning while we ate, he was telling me about his bad dream the night before, and Neely started patting his head and comforting him while she ate.  Haha.

 

She and Paige already have typical sisterly fights a lot, but there are a lot of sweet moments between them too.  

One day they were taking care of their babies together and Paige asked her if she wanted to feed her baby "by bottle or breast".  Haha.  The wording cracked me up.

 Neely LOVES Frozen and constantly pretends to be Elsa, wandering around the house singing "Let it Go", sometimes wearing her queenly "cloak".

 

 She's always singing the songs from the movies, and doing very dramatic dances, always with a big finish.  One of her favorite new things is when she kind of whisper sings, and I pretend to not know where the beautiful tune is coming from, and whip my head around searching for the source, and saying something like "Huh?  Where is that beautiful song coming from?" She always starts laughing, does it a few more times, and then finally says "it's ME!"

One day the three big kids were acting out one of the final scenes-when Anna jumps in front of Elsa to protect her from Hans, and freezes just at the right time.  Neely was so happy they wanted to play Frozen.

She's a sweet, cuddly girl, which I love.  This is a highly unflattering picture of me, but she's pretty cute in it, so oh well.

She really likes drawing and coloring.  Lately robot factories are our thing.  I just cut out a bunch of shapes from glittery foam and construction paper, and give them markers and googly eyes and buttons and glue.  Then they create robots.  

I love this one and her long blonde locks.

She's imaginative, and one day after Cassie left from her last visit, she said "Cassie gave me this makeup." and started applying her tape dispenser blush with a key.

She has a gift for making everyday things extra fun.  She walks around humming and singing, and is never bored. 

She's started getting her own dates with us.  One night she asked me if we could have "a fwashwight date".  Ha.  I had no idea what that meant, but we just went outside and walked around shining our flashlights at things and talking about it.  It was pretty fun actually.

She's our little honey.

Reed-7 Months

Reed is seven months old now.  He grew a good amount in length, and is 29 inches long now, which is 98th %.  He only gained 7 ounces this month, which didn't surprise me.  I told Jess he wasn't going to have gained much, because he hasn't had as good an appetite, I think because of his sore gums.  He'll act like he wants to nurse, but it ends up being a very short nursing session-a minute or two sometimes.  So he is 19 lbs 12.5 oz, and 81st %.  He DOES still enjoy most of his baby food, especially bananas and pears, and likes to gnaw on the spoon.

The day he turned 7 months old, he celebrated by sitting up for the first time and crawling for the first time.  He'd been able to sit himself up for weeks, but was supporting himself with his hands until then.  

I haven't managed a good picture of him sitting yet, but here's a blurry one.

He was also basically crawling since before turning 6 months old, but had never taken all four "steps" up on his hands and knees until now.  So this made it official.  He has been doing it pretty often since that first day, but if he wants to get somewhere quickly he resorts to the army crawl. 

Yesterday Neely decided she wanted bangs again and asked me to cut them.  I put Reed in his crib while we did that, because I have a nice view of him there in the mirror.  He played with toys happily for a few minutes, and then I glanced at him in the mirror and he was standing up, holding on to the side.  I went running because his mattress is still set pretty high in there and I was scared he'd topple out.  He looked pretty proud of himself, but I startled him by running in, and he fell back down in the crib.  

He's such a sweet, happy boy.

Even on days when his teeth are obviously hurting him, he'll give us smiles mid-cry.  He will search for an escape from his discomfort, reaching for Jess, and then after his pain doesn't vanish, he reaches for me again.  He'll just go back and forth like that for a while. 

He has discovered the "p" sound, and likes to kind of fold his lips in, and then make a little whispered one, kind of a popping sound.  Riding in his carrier on my back has grown on him, and I can get a lot done with him in there.  He'll usually fall asleep.

 He really likes his blocks, and always crawls to that area in the playroom, sits himself up with a block in each hand, and knocks them together.

He still loves all his siblings, and they make him laugh with ease.  You can tell he knows he's one of them.

 

This picture sums his personality up pretty well.

Half a Year of Reed

You gotta be kidding me with this "6 months old" stuff.

HOW?  I had him a week ago.

It really feels like that.  I can remember so many little moments from his birth, and after, so clearly.  

Here he is, though, weighing 19 lbs 5.5 oz and being 27 and 3/4 inches tall.  That puts him at 80th and 81st percentiles for weight and height.  He is scooting all over the playroom...almost crawling, but can't quite stay all the way up on his hands for more than a few seconds at a time yet, so he does the army crawl on his elbows.  He is up on his knees a lot of the time though, and I saw him get on his hands and knees and rock back and forth for a few seconds the other day.

He's practicing sitting up.

We got out the jumperoo a while back, and he started to play in it, and one of the tethers snapped!  Thankfully there were at least three so he was still supported, just hanging at an angle, and I was right there and grabbed him right away.  So I guess 7 years of use was a few years too long for that thing.  The Cassons let us borrow theirs, since their little one won't be ready for it for about a year.  :)  He isn't really bouncing in it yet, he mostly likes to turn and play with the toys.  He only lasts five minutes or so before he wants me, but that's long enough to do a few dishes at least.

He'd rather be on the floor in the playroom, so he can go wherever he wishes.  I have to be right there though, because it's impossible to perfectly babyproof when you have other young ones around, playing with toys.  Cason is very dedicated to protecting him though.  He'll freak me out sometimes, and start yelling about how Reed is going to grab something and choke on it.  I'll be looking around frantically, wondering how I didn't see that he was close to grabbing some tiny choking hazard, and finally I'll realize he's talking about some little piece of fuzz on the carpet 14 feet away.  Haha.  Nothing's happening to Reed on Cason's watch.

The day he turned 6 months old, he got to try his first food.  He had been very interested in what we were doing when we ate, for several weeks.  First he just looked weirded out, then intrigued, and finally pretty interested in trying some himself.  He got sweet potatoes first.  He loved them, and kept grabbing the spoon to try and shove more in himself.  I remember Cason being similar the first time he ate.

He has since tried bananas and peas too.  Loved bananas!

Not a huge fan of the peas yet.  Lots of gagging and less spoon grabbing.

He's got two teeth on the bottom, and I'm pretty sure he's working on more.  I haven't been able to get a good clear picture of them yet.  In this one you can see them, but it's blurry.

 He's had a few rough days, just wanting to be carried around while he goes back and forth between happy and SO sad, and kind of sucks on his lips.

He'll REALLY gnaw hard on those fingers sometimes too.

He loves baths, and gets all calm and quiet for them.  He does NOT love the hydration station though.

After the lotion is on he's usually okay again.

He's our wildest one for sure.  If he's not in the mood to be on the ground trying to crawl, he wants us to hold him, but not just anywhere.  We have to carry him around the house, walking and walking while he kicks his legs and slaps our shoulders happily.  He wants to be doing things. 

He's so sweet and cute and happy.  He's already trying to make us all laugh.  He LOVES it when his siblings think he's funny.  He knows how to pose for a picture, and how to rock a tank top.

He really loves daddy, and gets so excited, trying to crawl to him when he comes home for lunch.  Once Jess is holding him, he'll gaze at him so sweetly, and go for his tie right away.

We might be a little biased, but we're still pretty sure he's the cutest.  LOOK AT HIS FACE.