Video #4

While I'm putting up videos....here is Levi reading! His teacher sends home books to read every week, and he had read this one a few times and so doesn't have to sound out all the words anymore. At the beginning of the school year I thought he'd never get what it meant to sound out words or letters, but he has really caught on! I always forget, though, that videos can only be in one direction, so it's sideways.....

Video #3

Ellie is finally taking off - she has realized she can get somewhere without a toy luring her along. We now find her all over the upstairs!

Video #2

Here's another sweet song.....

Video #1

Caleb and Levi participated in the Christmas concert at their school, and my camera batteries died during it. Luckily for them, they have each other to sing with at home! This is one of my favorite songs they sang: "No L"

November 2011

Sweet little Ellie's hair is finally long enough for a ponytail!

Caleb loves to read books to her. And she likes it, too!

Every November Ian's school does a turkey trot, with one team member from each grade (minus kindergarten, so Caleb and Levi didn't participate this year), so six members per team. Then they race by grade, adding up the team's scores at the end. The lowest score wins certificates for a turkey. Ian isn't the fastest runner in the third grade, but he ran the whole thing (we figured it must be about 1/4 mile) in the snow!

This is the first snowman Caleb has ever built completely by himself - not too bad! It snowed about 2" just once, and hasn't snowed again. Very different from last year, when November had record amounts of snow!

What would Ellie do without three doting brothers to entertain her?

Ellie and Daddy, with her mohawk she usually has since she doesn't keep her ponytails in long. We went to visit grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins over Thanksgiving and had a great time! We truly have many things to be thankful for. We've been keeping a jar to add a candy to when someone either says, "thank you" to someone, or says something they're thankful for. The jar is over half full, so hopefully that means we're learning to be thankful. My very favorite was from Levi - "I am thankful for that we have noses so we can get all the gunk out."

So this month seems to be a lot about Ellie.....here she is standing! So, she only can last a few seconds leaning on the couch like this, but she can do it! She also can copy things like sounds you make, panting, and things you do with your hands like tapping and waving. She's working on clapping. She's really good at spitting. When I put on her pajamas her hand usually gets stuck, and I ask where her fingers are and then say, "there they are!" when I pull them through. She's picked up on that and will say, in a super cute little voice, "there they are!" She even says it if you play peek-a-boo and say, "there she is," etc. And, she'll copy "ta-da!" She will be a talker yet! Over Thanksgiving at Grandma's house she really started pulling herself forward on her tummy. Since we've been home she will now go after a toy across the room, rather than just right in front of her. Soon we may find her all over the house!

Also in November Ian had a musical performance at school. They did two dances and sang four songs. It mostly had an African theme, and each class used instruments for one song. He participated and sang and had a fun time at it!

October 2011

It's still funny to see Caleb and Levi often sleeping in the exact same positions! Shortly after this, we rearranged rooms - the plan was to put Ellie in with Ian, but he kept getting sick. So then I was going to put Ellie with Levi, who rarely gets sick anymore. But the day I was going to do it, Levi got sick! So, I moved Caleb in with Ian anyway, and moved the crib into my room, so for now Levi has his own room and Caleb and Ian share. Of course, nobody has gotten sick since then, but it's still working out letting Ian get used to sharing, and to split up Levi and Caleb - they go to sleep so much faster these days! Soon we'll switch so Caleb has a chance to have his own room.

We went to a nearby apple orchard to pick our own apples. Then we spent a really long day making lots of applesauce! This was the set-up, inside and out.

The boys were excited to help, and figured out their own rotation - one squished it down, one turned the crank, and one watched to make sure nothing overflowed. It worked out pretty well, leaving me to fill the bottles, etc.

Our shed before, it really needed help!

Our shed after painting - it still needs green trim, but we ran out of paint and warm weather.

Halloween! Halloween seemed to have lasted forever. We went to the hospital where Ellie was born one weekend to attend a NICU reunion Halloween party. This is where this picture was taken. Then the next weekend our ward had a trunk-or-treat, where Ian and Ellie stayed with the same costumes (Ian is a spy) but Levi and Caleb chose new ones - a cowboy and Winnie the Pooh (we have enough dress up clothes they kept changing). Then on Monday Caleb and Levi could wear costumes to school (Winnie the Pooh and a train driver) and then they went trick or treating at night (Ian was sick) and they were both firemen. They had a fun holiday!

Levi was a very cute cowboy!

And Ellie finally became a stable sitter! And, her top two front teeth finally came through. She still has four more I can see ready to come in!

Also in October, Ian played soccer. I don't have any good pictures, though. Could have something to do with three younger siblings to keep happy during the games. There were only two third grade teams so they just kept playing each other every game. He improved with each week, which is great!

All three boys are still loving school. Ian is learning cursive, and loves it. It's fun because he's learning to write letters and Caleb and Levi are learning to print their letters! Ian is also studying chemistry which he likes. Levi and Caleb are both doing well with starting to recognize words and to sound some out. At first it was really hard but they get better at it every week!

One Year Old!

Somehow in the last year, Ellie went from this tiny 2 lb 3 oz, 13.5" baby......

to this! She's now 14 lb 15 oz, 26" long. That's an impressive gain, although even for a 9 month old (her adjusted age, from her due date) she's still very tiny.

She went from her Daddy's hands being bigger than her body,

to this!

From Daddy's wedding ring being able to fit on her arm (we didn't want to push it on but it would have gone up her arm),

to this!

From her arm being the same size as Mommy's finger (I couldn't find a picture from when she was born, she was about 6 weeks old in this picture),

to this!

From being the same size as her teddy bear,

to this!

Ellie didn't care too much about her birthday, but her brothers did. She had a rainbow cake and really wanted the candle (which we never lit). She grabbed at the cupcake I gave her, but never even licked at it. She wouldn't eat any ice cream, either. She's not too big on eating these days.

The inside of the cake was rainbow, too, I stole the idea from my cousin's wife.

Ellie can roll over, almost sit up unassisted, babble, make lots of sounds with her tongue/mouth, she loves certain toys, and she loves her brothers. She's a pretty easy going baby, so sweet, so happy, and we sure love her! She does not love eating, which hopefully is a result of her getting three teeth all at once. One year ago she was such a different baby, it's amazing how much they change in a year! Last year she definitely couldn't do this......

September 2011, School, and House Painting

The boys play mostly where Ellie plays, so it's not too hard for her to get to their things now that she can roll easily! Thankfully when my parents were visiting my dad helped get the gate installed at the top of the stairs!

She's like King Kong or something. Destroying innocent sidewalks.

Time to go to school! Ian is excited for third grade, he can't wait to learn multiplication. When he found out he'll learn cursive, too, he was ecstatic! Caleb and Levi are both super excited for kindergarten. They got to have grandparents here for their first few days of school!

Ian, the big third grader, all ready for the first day!

In order to conserve the number of pictures on here, I put Caleb and Levi together. This is them ready to go to their first day. They go to afternoon kindergarten, and then come home the same time as Ian. They are in the same class, only because I requested afternoon school and there is only one class. So Levi will always wear stripes to school, to help everyone tell them apart, and save them from answering who they are all day long. Caleb loved that his pants had pockets, I don't think he took his hands out of the pockets until he was at school!

Our lovely house, half primed, and needing to be painted badly! John spent countless hours prepping the house, scraping, power washing, and sanding.

We were so blessed to have my parents come and help for a week with the painting! We got the majority of the painting done that week. Our house is quite tall, making it a challenge to paint. John has a really tall ladder, which we could reach most of the house from it. But then there is the chimney which is even taller - so John got a little creative getting it painted.

All finished! All it needs is a little trim work and it's all done!

Last year Ian was going to enter a lego creation in our county fair. But when I ended up in the hospital at that time, it didn't happen. So I was trying to convince him to enter something this year. I read off all the things he could do. I forget how old Levi and Caleb are getting, they both were the ones excited to enter something! In the end, Ian made chocolate chip cookies, Caleb drew a picture, and Levi painted a potato - they had a potato-head contest and this is what he wanted to do. They all got red ribbons!

Ellie got her first haircut. She had two places, in the back on the sides that were growing really long and nothing else was growing much, so I decided she needed it cut.

I don't think she even noticed I was doing it, Daddy was reading her stories. It's much better now that it's all even! For the time being, at least!

This one is for my sister, too bad I didn't bring this shirt this summer or Ellie and M would have been twins!

Ellie wanted to get in on the construction play that she sees all day long!

We canned a lot of pears (and some peaches, too). Caleb and Levi took it upon themselves to sort them out. Their teacher is doing a great job when Caleb is able to apply his knowledge at home - "some of them had two attributes - both small and smooth!" It sounds so cute coming out of the mouth of such a little guy! They actually did a pretty good job of sorting the ripe pears, too.

Where's the bunny? All Ellie needs is a red and white striped hat like Waldo!

July and August 2011

This summer seemed to go by really fast! June was taken up with finishing school and swimming lessons, we were out of town to reunions and visiting most of July, and August included more swimming lessons and getting ready for school. And along in there we celebrated our ten year wedding anniversary!

On the Fourth of July we went hiking. Ellie didn't enjoy it too much, but the boys had a great time!

Ellie's cool shades on the Fourth. We set off some fireworks in our yard that evening, which Ian stayed outside for the first time and actually enjoyed himself! Ellie watched them intently, also, from the non-mosquitoey indoors.

We had a great time visiting both sets of grandparents and almost all the cousins, aunts, and uncles during July. At one family reunion we hiked 2000 feet down a mountain. This is how Caleb and Levi went down half the mountain :).

July means birthdays! Caleb requested that they celebrate their birthdays with Grandma, with whom the share the special day, and we did (we've gotten to celebrate with Grandma every year so far!). This is Levi with his train cake, driven by Woody.

And Caleb with Buzz and his rocket. It's hard to believe they're five years old!!

When we came home we celebrated again with Daddy (who was not there for their actual birthday). We did it on two different days to let them each have their own special day (although I realized they're wearing the same shirt!). We did Caleb's first, and let him blow out candles again and open presents.

The next day it was Levi's turn! He's very excited to be five!

Ian didn't have any formal cub scout meetings in the summer, but he worked a lot on his requirements. One was making dinner - this yummy pizza!

We got some caterpillars in August, to watch them turn into butterflies, which is absolutely an amazing thing. Here were four of the five already in their chrysalis.

Then they turned into these pretty painted lady butterflies, which we released when grandparents were here to visit. Two of them didn't want to fly away, and Grandpa was able to take them out on his finger and place them on a flower.

I got a pretty decent picture of the four of them! Just for fun.

We watched some grain being harvested - that's big entertainment around here! It makes me wonder what Ellie will find interesting - right now any kind of machinery keeps little boys' attention.

And, we built a sandbox to play in! John also spend countless hours prepping our house (which you can see some of how bad it is) to be painted, which we also did, pictures to come one of these days........

I guess there's not too much about Ellie's summer - she got to watch a lot of swimming lessons, she met all her extended family, and did pretty well traveling, even the long 10 or 13 hour drives. She got two teeth, and learned to roll from her back to her tummy while at Grandma's house! Other than that, she's just been a happy little girl who loves her brothers!