Miriam at Seven Months

Miriam is now seven months old and is officially crawling. She still isn't super fast which I am grateful for but she can officially make it all the way out of the living room with a combination of crawling and scooting. It has been a challenge to keep things up and out of her reach these days. She loves to go for all the little tiny things the girls leave out and puts them straight into her mouth.

Miriam is now wearing size 3 diapers and nine month clothes. She learned how to wave and it is the cutest little thing. She loves to "give kisses" and says "dada" all the time. She has said "ma" a few times but has yet to say mama. The last few times I had someone else hold her she stared at me the entire time and kind of whined at me so that phase might be coming soon. She loves her daddy and her sisters but when she is tired or hungry she will only go to me.

Miriam is the best at just going with the flow and fitting her day into whatever we throw at her. Most days we don't really know what we will be doing and Miriam is content to sleep in my arms or car seat, or baby carrier, or bed. We were so busy for a while and she got out of the habit of falling asleep in her bed so I usually have to rock her to sleep and then put her in her bed. 

Miriam sits really well and can go from crawling to sitting to crawling again with ease. She loves to play with toys and she loves bath time. She still sticks out her tongue all the time. She likes to be exploring on the ground but she also likes to be held. She loves to stand on my lap and to hold onto my finger and walk around the living room.

Miriam has gotten to try lots of new foods and so far I have yet to find something that she really likes. She seemed to like applesauce and mixed veggies at first but kept spitting them out last time. Whenever I feed her she insists on holding the spoon all on her own. I usually give her a spoon that she can hold but even then she tries to take mine after every bite. She would much rather feed herself. She does seem to enjoy eating things like eggs and crackers more than other things and she likes to feed them to herself. Only about half of them make it into her mouth but she doesn't try to spit them out. 

Miriam got to go outside and play in the grass for the first time this month. She looks sad in the picture below but she seemed to like the grass. She got to cuddle with a puppy and was super intrigued with watching it. She likes to watch animals. We gave her a little ride in our swings outside and she didn't seem to love it but she didn't hate it. I am excited for warmer weather so we can take her outside even more next month. 

Miriam is such a sweet little baby. She is super easy going and happy. She makes being her mom lots of fun. We are all enjoying getting to watch her grow and be a part of her life.

Annalyn is Seven!

This fun loving girl turned seven years old last month. Lately she is obsessed with unicorns and she still loves all things pink and sparkly. She loves attention and likes to pose for a picture. She is loving first grade and has made lots of friends this year. She is becoming a pretty good little reader and is doing well in school. Here are a few fun facts about miss Annalyn. 

Favorite Colors: Pink and Blue

Favorite Songs: "If you Don't Walk as Most People do," and "Party in the USA"

Favorite Games: "Unicorn, Unicorn Magic" (It is basically duck, duck, goose), and "Red Rover"

Favorite Movie: The Last Unicorn

Favorite TV Show: She Ra

 Favorite Animal: Unicorn

Favorite places to go: School and the park

Favorite Foods: Chicken Nuggets, Meat, Mac and Cheese, and hot dogs

Favorite Desserts: Ice cream, candy, and gum

Favorite Drinks: Grape juice, Root beer, and Chocolate milk

Best Friends: Reese, Nora, and Nolah

Favorite things about school: Art, Recess, Science, and PE

Favorite toy: Unicorn

Favorite Sport: Soccer

Favorite Book: Anything about Unicorns

Favorite Holiday: Christmas and Easter

Things she is good at: Running, and Somersaults

Favorite Outfit: Anything that has unicorns on it

When she grows up she wants to be: A mom with four kids and a doctor. 

The best part about being six: Christmas

Annalyn hates wearing socks and seems to prefer soft cotton dresses or shirts and leggings. She is still our best eater and she sleeps the best. She is our only kid that stays in her bed and sleeps in there all night once she is tucked in. We are so thankful for that. Annalyn loves to dress up and get fancy. She likes to play outside and spends a lot of time swinging. 

Annalyn sure has grown a lot since she was a baby. I love watching her grow and learn new things and see how her personality grows. She is older now but her personality and looks are so similar to what they have always been. She is super strong willed and likes to pick on Brynlee. She loves to have fun and has the best laugh. When she gets really mad she usually retreats to her room and will come out when she has calmed down. She loves to make gifts for people and bring them presents on their birthdays. 

Annalyn hates it when other people go in her room or mess with her stuff. She loves to make crafts and wants to save everything. She hates throwing things away. She was doing a super great job at keeping her room clean for a long time except she would make huge piles of all of her crafts and stuffs in every single corner of her room. It took us a long time to clean out her room so we could vacuum. 

Annalyn still loves to play with dolls and barbies. She likes to play with friends and do crafts. She loves to watch television but is also content to stay at home and do nothing. She plays well with her sisters most of the time. She gets angry easily but is also quick to laugh. She is one fun loving little girl and I am so grateful for her. I had my sister in law Heather take a few picture of Annalyn. I will share some more later but here is a quick sneak peak at some of the pictures. This girl is good at posing for the camera.

February

The month of February started off with Brynlee complaining that her throat hurt. She was convinced she had strep so I took her in to quick care where they tested her but she was fine so I sent her to school and then picked up Kyla from Grandma's house and took her in to see the ENT doctor. They determined that Kyla still had a lot of fluid in her ears and since her tonsils were so big they talked about removing them. They gave us a few things to try to get rid of the fluid and set a follow up appointment for the next month. 

We celebrated both of my parent's birthday this month. My sisters and I took my dad out to lunch for his birthday and then we surprised my mom by cleaning her house and making dinner for her. When she came home from work the house was decorated and everyone was hiding. I think we gave her a good surprise. We had fun eating cake with her. Right after the party is when Kyla went to pick up Miriam and she twisted Miriam's arm. I was just getting ready to leave and Joel had taken the older girls to get a tool from his brother Jake's house. Miriam cried every time her arm was moved and was pretty miserable so I decided to take her to the doctor. My mom offered to take my other kids but they had plans to go to the movies and I hated to make her watch my kids on her birthday so I just took them with me and tried to call Joel several times. Of course I got stuck behind and tractor and I had to wait for a train so it took me a while to get there. I finally called Jake and told him to please send Joel my way. Just as we were going back to see a doctor my parent's showed up and took Kyla and Summer from me. I was super grateful that they were willing to change their plans to help me out. I went back with Miriam where they did an x-ray to make sure her collar bone wasn't broken. She looked so tiny and fragile on that big mat. While I was waiting for the results Joel showed up and waited with me. Miriam was in a lot of pain. I was trying my best not to move her arm at all. The clinic I went to was supposed to close at 8 but the doctor and nurse waited with us until 8:30 when we finally got the results back that Miriam's arm was just fine. The people in there were super nice and helpful. She had just pulled a muscle. Luckily we had a lot of help that night and Miriam is just fine.

Towards the end of the month I took Miriam in for her six month check-up. Summer had been running a fever so I tried to get an appointment for her as well but they couldn't fit her in. The next morning her fever was worse and she was saying that her ears hurt so we went back in to the doctor's office again and found out that she had an ear infection in both ears. She really liked that medicine she got to take. We also went to the dentist. The girls all did great but Brynlee had two cavities that she will have to go back in to get filled. 

It snowed a few days this month and Summer was a good helper at helping me to clear up the sidewalks. Kyla did not want to play in the snow very much and most of the snow was gone by the time the girls got home from school. We had a few days where it rained and a few days where the girls were able to play outside but for the most part it was cold outside and our family spent a lot of time inside trying to entertain ourselves with toys, games, and cleaning. I spent a lot of time trying to reorganize several of the rooms in our house and I finished editing some of our home movies from when Summer was a baby.

Brynlee and Annalyn celebrated their 100th day of school and Annalyn got to dress up like she was 100. She insisted that she needed to wear jeans for the day because that it what all of her grandma's wore and she wanted it to look realistic. Kyla is still loving preschool and got to see a real llama and make a llama craft when they went over the letter L. Kyla was the only kid who didn't pet the llama but she liked looking at it. 

In other new we went to the library, had lots of play dates with friends, I went and played Bunco with some friends and went to a Relief Society activity. We had a day with no school where the girls all had friends over.

The girls had some Wahooz passes that we used this month. Joel and I went with all the girls and they had a fun time. Summer tried the Frog Hopper ride that they have and she hated it. She screamed in terror the whole ride. Kyla would not even get on that ride this time but she loved the bumper cars. Her and Summer both went in the Ballocity thing and they loved that. Everyone loved getting prizes and playing the games. We had a fun time. After the trip to Wahooz Joel and I dropped the girls off with Alesha and we took the baby with us out to eat and we went and got some shopping done. It was nice to sneak away for a little date and the girls had fun. Joel and I got to count it as our Valentine's date.

Joel spoiled all the girls this year with balloons and stuffed animals for Valentines' Day. He got me some candy so we all felt pretty loved and spoiled by him. He also brought home a heart shaped pizza. I got to help in Anna's class for her party and that was fun. We made treats for Joel and had a little treasure hunt for him. 

In other news, Brynlee decided she wanted her hair short again so my sister cut it for her, we did lots of crafts, and They split our ward in half and added a bunch of new people towards the end of the month. We all lost some good friends that will no longer be in our ward so we were sad about that but at least we are still in the same ward as grandma. The also changed the name of our ward so instead of the 6th ward we are the Avalon Ward. 

Life sure can be crazy and is full of all kinds of crazy and unexpected twists and turns but it is also lots of fun.