He's Outnumbered...

Ian is outnumbered, but he doesn't seem to mind his sisters or all the attention they give him. Here are a few examples of him enjoying girly things over the past couple of months...

Princess wand becomes chew toy:

 

Sporting heart sunglasses:

 

He was pretty proud of wearing this pink headband:

Playing barbies:

His crib was taken over by dolls one afternoon:

I laugh at this picture because neither of my girls had enough hair to keep this type of bow in their hair at 7 months, but Ian does:

Enjoying playing dress-up:

 

Ariel is one of his favorite bath toys:

Let's go fly a kite!

I bought kites for the girls quite a few months ago - back in March I believe. But we hadn't had a chance to take them for a spin. On Labor Day weekend we went to Oyster Creek Park with some friends and took the girls kites along. It was a little breezy... Audrey soon lost interest, but Rachel was in love. And she had to work so hard to keep the kite flying. She ran and ran and ran so hard to keep the kite up. It wasn't quite windy enough... Next time we go to the beach, we definitely have to take our kites. It seems to always be windy there and I think it would be a bit easier for her. Here are some pictures of Rachel flying her kite:

You can see in the above picture how hard she was working. She was so hot and sweaty and red in the face, but she was LOVING it!

Summer Fun

Since summer has officially come to a close, I thought I'd share a few forgotten moments. I was worried about keeping Rachel entertained this summer. She got so used to school that I was worried she was going to be bored. But when you have 2 younger siblings, that just doesn't happen. We spent quite a bit of time at the pool. Not as much as we normally do, due to having a baby this year. I've never had to drag a baby to the pool. So many people would just suggest going when he was ready to nap, but I felt horrible having him sleep and sweat... So, we went in between naps. The girls LOVE the pool. Audrey perfected her underwater front and back flips this summer. Rachel loves swimming and was into diving for objects this year. I guess we were just too busy at the pool to take any pictures, because I seriously don't have any pictures. (Other than the ones I took the first time we went, which can be seen here.) I did get one photo of Ian that a friend took for me:

It was obviously time to head home for Ian's nap. He absolutely loves the lazy river and this particular time he fell asleep going around and around the lazy river. We enjoyed meeting friends and the Mackay's at the pool. Every once in awhile we would head out without planning on meeting anyone. Rachel would be complaining and then we would get to the pool and run into someone. We enjoyed the new pool that opened up this year and we also frequented an old favorite, the Magnolia Plantation pool.

When we weren't trying to stay cool at the pool, we had plenty of fun at home. Ian chewed on everything, including books:

 The girls got manicures/pedicures done by Mommy:

 

 We played dress-up A LOT:

During the month of July we finally got rid of all the wallpaper in the house... Then the walls were mudded, sanded, textured, and painted. Which led to a lot of dust, but I didn't bother dusting until it was all done. So, I chuckled one night as I climbed into bed and saw this on my nightstand:

We enjoyed snuggle time:

We had impromptu birthday parties... This particular one was for Elmo:

The girls discovered and fell in love with towel wraps:

Many concerts were put on:

We had fun playing at friends' houses:

We also enjoyed having friends over, playing at the indoor playscape, going on trips, and having family come visit us. Overall it was a great summer and went by too quickly!

8 months

Ian is 8 months old today. He's still my toothless little guy and I love it. Ian is my biggest fan. All I have to do is walk into the room and he gives me the biggest, most wonderful smile. Okay, so he's everybody's biggest fan. But I still enjoy it, because I probably get the most smiles. My favorite smiles are when I go to get him once he's woken up from a nap. He just smiles and kicks and is so excited to see me! 

Our little guy is doing well. Not sure on weight and size. Although we were at a museum last week and we utlized the scale to measure pet animals. According to that scale he's 18.3 pounds. So, probably by his 9-months check-up he'll be around 19 pounds. Ian has decided that he really likes Mommy to make his baby food. So, a good portion of the freezer is baby food right now. We introduced him to cheerios this past month and he loves them! Every once in awhile he's even lucky enough to get one from his own fingers to his mouth. He can grasp them, he just has a hard time letting go...

Ian is still immobile, which I love. I'm kind of dreading the day that he figures out how to crawl. Right now he's pretty content sitting on the floor or in my lap. He also loves his high chair and the stroller. So, we are loving this stage right now. When Ian really wants to get to something he'll roll and squirm, but overall he's usually pretty content just chilling. He is down to 2 naps a day now, which is really nice. He has a pretty good schedule going right now - 2 naps, 4 nursing sessions, 3 solid food sessions, and sleeping through the night. I can't complain! 

Anything and everything still goes into Ian's mouth. If toys aren't accessible, he's quite entertained with his feet and hands. He loves watching his sisters and other people as well. He is always good during Sunday School, because the teacher is a pacer. :) Today we saw "Cinderella" at the Miller Outdoor Theater and he was pretty happy just watching the actors on the stage. Ian can say mama and dada and lots of other sounds. He has no idea that he's addressing his parents, but we still like hearing it. We love this little guy to pieces. Here are a few pictures that we've taken in September of Mr. Ian.

Ian at the park waving his bag of cheerios around (check out those thighs!):

 

Chilling in his stroller at the Children's Museum last week:

Chewing on his sister's goggles at the swimming pool last Saturday:

Audrey's First Day of Joy School

Audrey started Joy School today! She was so excited, since her big sister started school last week. Audrey still has 2 years before kindergarten. This year we'll do Joy School (which is a mommy-based preschool with several friends from church) and next year we'll enroll her in a local Pre-School to get her used to a teacher and classroom setting. I'm really excited about Audrey's Joy School group this year. There's Audrey, Laci, Ashley, Caleb, and Wade. It's a good number of kids and I like the fact that I only have teach once every five weeks. We are focusing on the alphabet, colors, shapes, and numbers. Obviously within doing those items they'll learn about a lot of other things. They meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays for 2 1/2 hours. Two of the other mothers live right in our neighborhood, so Audrey likes to walk to Joy School when we're going to one of their houses, since Rachel also gets to walk to school. So, on Audrey's first day of Joy School we walked to Wade's house. 

Here's a few pictures:

Audrey wanted me to get a picture of her backpack (she's very proud of her initials):

Audrey with her escort:

On the way there we ran into this rabbit, which Audrey was very excited about:

I'm excited to see Audrey learn and grow this year. She's already learned so much this past summer, thanks to her sister. They love to play school. Audrey can write her name correctly most of the time, every once in awhile she makes a b instead of a d. She can recognize all her letters and numbers already (thank you, Rachel, for being such a good teacher). Audrey can count to 30. The other day she insisted on drawing a picture for her Primary teacher. She wrote "MorTon" all by herself. I just had to help her with her n. She surprised me by asking me if an M was an upside W. Kind of an different way to look at it... I think I always thought a W was an upside down M. Anyhow, I'm excited to see how much Audrey will continue to learn this year. She definitely loves to learn and she's a little sponge!

1st Day of 1st Grade

Today is the first day of 1st grade for Rachel. She woke up very excited and healthy! Thank heavens! Both Ian and Audrey have been sick with colds - here's hoping Rachel continues to avoid the bug. I was a bit worried about the morning being kind of stressful. Andy had a meeting he couldn't miss, so he was unable to go with us. However, he got the girls up, fed, teeth brushed, and dressed before he left. So, that was a huge help! I just had to get myself presentable, do Rachel's hair, and then Ian woke up right around 7:30. Perfect! So, we were able to get some pictures and get Rachel to school without a hitch.

When I told Rachel I wanted to get a picture of her she ran off to write this sign:

 

Then she wanted a picture without the sign so you could see Hello Kitty:

 And she also insisted on a picture with her escorts:

I wasn't sure how grown-up she wanted to be this year... So, I did walk her to her classroom but I didn't go in with her. We said good-bye outside the door and I grabbed one more picture of her underneath her banana:

We are excited to watch Rachel grow and learn this year. She has two teachers this year: Mrs. Jha and Mrs. Blackwell. I have heard wonderful things about both. They are Reading Recovery teachers for the school as well, that's why she has two teachers. They switch off so they can pull out students throughout the school who are struggling with reading. I'm excited for Rachel to have probably the best reading teachers as her teachers! :) Rachel has a few friends from her class last year in her class this year. And when we attended "Meet the Teacher" last week she also knew a fair amount of the kids from recess last year. We are all anxious to pick her up after school and see how her day went!

Our Rock Star

The girls were having fun last Friday and I had to get some video of them. In the background you can hear Rachel pounding away on the piano. To her credit, she did have The Children's Songbook open to the correct song. Rachel was very cute and modified the performance for Audrey's needs. Audrey was supposed to stand up at the microphone, but she wasn't able to strum and sing at the same time while standing.... So, she sat. Now we just need to get Ian playing the drums and we'll be set.

Amy and Liam Come to Texas

A few days after we got back from Tennessee, Aunt Amy and cousin Liam came to visit. We hadn't met Liam yet, so we were all very excited about their visit. Landon, Ian, and Liam were all born within 6 months of each other. Amy and Liam were here for a week and we had a really good time. Despite having to consider nap times of three babies and then keeping three older children entertained, we were able to do quite a bit. We hung out, we completed some projects together, we went to different pools, we went to the beach, we went out to dinner one night, and just enjoyed! Here are a few pictures of their vist.

Audrey thrilled to meet Liam:

Here are the three boys playing on the ground together for the first time. I love how you can see the different stages they're each in. Landon is mobile, Ian's sitting up, and Liam's trying to figure out how to sit up. So much fun!

On Saturday when the menfolk didn't have to work, we all braved the beach. We went early, since it gets mighty hot and it's not like the water is all that refreshing... We enjoyed quite a few hours at the beach. All the cousins together:

Here's picture overload of Ian, but it was his first time at the beach, so we took a ton of pictures. And there's so many cute ones... 

What's coming at me!

 Another wave and lots of mud:

Ian loved playing in the sand! He's never played in sand before and he was all about exploring it. And I think we only had to stop him once or twice from sticking it in his mouth.

 

We loved Liam and his shades:

Audrey playing in the sand:

She was freaking out about all this mud on her face. Before I helped clean her up though, I had to grab a picture.... And she doesn't look that upset.

 

Rachel out enjoying the waves with Andy. When Rachel found out we were going to the beach she declared she wouldn't go into the water. The last time we went, she got stung by a jellyfish. Anyhow, that didn't last long. Soon enough she was playing away in the water and luckily no one came across a jellyfish this time.

The big cousins playing:

Landon and Ian playing with their buckets:

Our family of 5:

We so enjoyed our beach day! After a few hours, the babies were worn out and ready to go, so we packed up. The big kids didn't want to go though. I would really like to take a beach vacation next year as a family. I know the girls will love it and Ian will be old enough to play longer by then. Plus, when you stay at a beach house it's easy to take one back for a nap. As soon as we strapped Ian into his car seat, he was asleep. The girls of course didn't sleep a wink the whole way home, but they were happy.

On Saturday evening we grabbed some pictures of the siblings and their babies and kids:

We're so glad that Amy and Liam were able to come down and visit us. We love visitors!!! I really enjoyed watching Amy as a mom. She's a wonderful mom to Liam and has stepped into motherhood beautifully. Amy has now moved back to Utah, so we are excited that we will for sure get to see them whenever we make it up to Utah.  I am looking forward to seeing these three little boy cousins spend time together throughout the years. Ian has really lucked out in the cousin department. Out of all our kids, he's the only one who has three cousins (2 on the Smith side, 1 on the Michaelson side) his same age. There's lots of fun memories to be had!

7 months

Ian is 7 months old today and we are all loving the stage he's in right now! You know, the I'm happy and content but not mobile yet... It's a very nice stage! We have started solid foods with him and are still going through introducing the different types of food. He LOVES rice cereal mixed with formula. I actually bought formula for the first time in order to mix his rice cereal - I'm being very lazy about pumping. Anyhow, he likes it and so it works. He'll do sweet potatoes, peaches, and applesauce with some enthusiasm. The others he just seems to tolerate. I'm anxious to see what he thinks of pears and squash - we haven't gotten to them yet. Overall he's enjoying solids and is still very interested in what we are eating. He'll be one happy camper once we can move to table foods. One thing Ian currently does not like is his vitamins. The doctor had me switch from just giving him vitamin D to a multivitamin with iron. He's not a fan and he can tell when I mix it with his food, so we are just torturing him each day. I'd rather have him eat and enjoy his food and just not like his vitamins. 

Our little guy still loves to talk. He was babbling quite a bit at church today and is pretty good at the "d" sound, which makes his daddy happy. Ian has pretty much mastered sitting up. We've gotten to the point where he sits in highchairs at restaurants and in the shopping cart. Which I'm very happy about, because when shopping with 3 children (2 of which can't/won't walk) it leaves very little space for groceries when a car seat is involved. And it's just too hot to drag out the baby carrier. Last night, we ate at a restaurant and Ian was so thrilled with himself that he could sit in the high chair. Ian has also started growling, which we laugh at every time. Audrey was a growler as well. 

Ian has pretty much grown out of all his 6 month clothes, so he's now wearing 9 and 12-month sizes. Craziness! If we have a prefect day where Ian wakes up at a reasonable hour (meaning some time after 7:30 am) and we are actually home most of the day, he's able to get 2 good naps in and be happy. However, most days he still takes 3 naps due to activities and waking up too early. I'm hoping once Rachel starts school and we are on more of a regular schedule he'll be able to fully convert to 2 naps. I feel like our house looks like a daycare right now. Ian's still content with his bouncy chair, play mat, and swing. We've also pulled out an exersaucer and lots of other hands-on baby toys. So, we're just full of baby stuff. But we love how he loves to play and it such a smiley, happy baby. Happy 7 months, Ian!