Six Reasons to Smile

Of course there are a million other reasons to smile every day... but here are the reasons behind most of the smiles around here.

Punky - nine years old now and as handsome as ever. So much more "man" and so much less "boy" in him every day.

Finny - seven years old and such a delight. This boy has the sweetest heart ever.


Goose - just weeks shy of his fifth birthday and blowing our minds daily with his wit and intellect. This one is probably responsible for more laughs (and more brows furrowed in thought over insanely deep questions and observations) in a day than all the others combined!

Girly Pie - just turned three and so full of light and life she might just burst. Or she may fall to the floor in an emotional puddle of tears. You just never know with her... ;o)

Lellybug - fifteen months old and the sweet little prince of the family. This boy adds so much joy to our home!

And Sweet Pea - ten weeks old tomorrow and the pride and joy of all her brothers and her sister (and her Momma and Daddy, too). This little girl has a smile that can melt icebergs - and we all love that she sticks her tongue out almost all the time, too!

Some pictures

Just a few pictures from Baby Girl's (I still need to come up with the right blog name for her...) first days, mostly of her siblings meeting her for the first time just an hour after she was born.

Girly Pie meeting her baby sister. She's so delighted to have a sister now. What a precious gift.

Goose thinks she's the most beautiful thing ever.

Sweet Punky. He is so amazing - and so proud to be the biggest brother. He thinks Baby Girl is the cutest thing ever, too.

My Amazing husband. Two little girls to raise now. He's thrilled... and terrified at the same time. ;o)

The whole crew of kiddos.

Finny is smitten. He may be the biggest baby lover of them all. Next to his Momma, of course.

Sweet Bug. He's only 13 1/2 months old, but so sweet and loves to cover Baby Girl with kisses.

Our sweet new baby girl.

Big brown eyes.

I love her little hands...

Cute girl!

Six Months

My Baby is six months old. How can that be? And yet, he is. As a matter of fact he'll be seven months here in about a week and a half, I'm just a little late in getting to post six month old thoughts and pics of my littlest man.

Little Bug is the cutest, happiest, smiliest, drooliest, spittiest, most content, most endearing baby on the planet.

He has been mobile for weeks now, scooting, inching, caterpillar- and army-crawling his way around quite efficiently. He still can't sit very well but he's close.

He loves his Momma and Daddy and brothers and sister - and whenever he sees anyone he loves his whole face lights up and his fat little cheeks stretch to the point of bursting - then he starts swinging his arms and bicycle kicking his legs like a wild man. There is no way to even try to resist smiling back - it's absolutely impossible to keep a straight face when he does that.

Little Bug has the bluest eyes and they are so full of light and life and love. When he smiles they light up and make him even more irresistible than usual.

He is a character - he has a temper like no baby I've ever met (and I've met a lot of them!) so it's best not to cross him if you can help it. As delightful of a baby as he is, I have to say I'm a little nervous at the thought of him as a two year old. But we've got a ways to go before we meet two year old Little Bug so I'll enjoy the sweetness now while it's here for the taking. ;o)

His expressions are hilarious. His will is strong. His curiosity is intense and his love for others amazing. His curls are still there (Bestill my heart, a curly headed child - I didn't know it was possible with our genetics!) and his hair is still a disheveled mop most of the time. His cheeks are edible and his neck is scrumptious. His thighs are massive and his ankles non-existent (we call those cankles around here). Chubby fingers and fat little wrists - oh the sweetness of a chunky little monkey.

Oh the darling beauty of our sweet Little Bug. His joy is contagious, his smile infectious. Thank you Lord for the gift of our Little Bug. We love him so.

An Oldie but a Goodie

Sometimes there is a reason that classic toys are just that...

Classic.

Last night I did some rearranging and pulled some old baby toys back into rotation for Little Bug. The other kids haven't seen them in quite a while, so whenever I rotate toys it's like we just got home from the toy store. ;o)

Girly Pie found the old Fisher Price donut ring stacker this morning and was smitten with it at first glance.

Something about that little toy has drawn in each and every one of my children at all different ages. The babies love to eat the rings. The toddlers love to wear the rings. The preschoolers tend to use the post as a sword and redistribute the rings all around the house so I spend the next several months trying to collect all five of them so I can put the toy away again (actually so do the school age kids, but I digress...). When they first hit the point of trying to stack them, the babies and toddlers always get them out of order and though some may patiently work at getting it right at times, most just proudly display the three rings they managed to fit on there and move on to something else. Then they grow a bit, and the stacker comes back into rotation (because inevitably another baby has come around...) and suddenly like magic they are able to stack all five rings in order without even breaking a sweat. It's amazing. It's inspiring. It's just plain fun.

And then of course once they've mastered it they lose all interest - and so it becomes a sword once again - and back it goes into the closet until - you guessed it - the next baby is ready to chew on the rings again.

So today when Girly Pie sat down on the kitchen floor I was not surprised to see then new knowledge of size comparison dawn on her as she started to put the rings onto the post. It only took her a few minutes to master, and she, just like her brothers in years past, was thrilled with herself.

I give it less than a week before she moves on - but none the less it was a great moment - and the pictures turned out beautifully, to boot. ;o)

Silly Girl

Sunday Dress - Check.

Hard hat - Check.

Tool Belt - Check.

Construction tools - Check.

One super cute girl - Double Check.

A few pics of the little guys - and a short update

Girly Pie loving on her baby brother!

This Little Bug has the cutest wide mouthed smile!



Almost looks like he's posing here... but it was just a random flap of that hand as he works towards mastering coordination of his arms. For the first time though this evening he reached up with both of his arms and caressed my cheeks. I just love this little guy!

Things are going well around here. I've been terrible at keeping up on my blog - but I don't figure too many people read it anyway. So I don't feel too bad about putting other things higher on the priority list. ;o) I'm excited to plan out school for next year and am poring over my homeschool catalogs every chance I get. Bug is 3 1/2 months old now and so cute and smiley. He's the first of my five babies that seemed to naturally know how to put himself to sleep. I say this in all sincerity - Praise the Lord! I had no idea how lovely it could be to have a baby who actually LIKES to sleep - and not only on his momma! He falls asleep in his bed - without any help from me at all! And if he does stir, all he needs is a quick readjustment of the binky and he's good to go. All my little ones were still napping on me at this age which is lovely for me (I love baby snuggles), but disruptive to the baby as I go about my day and makes it harder to do other hands-on things with the rest of the kids. So I'll take these three and four hour naps in his own bed with a big smile and a very thankful heart. God is indeed good! ;o) Oh - and he (mostly)only wakes once at night. A blessing I am also very grateful to receive!

Girly Pie is finally cluing in on potty training, and at two weeks past her second birthday (not sure if I'll get around to posting about her big day but it was a great birthday!) she is down to only an accident every day or two. Woohoo!

Goose is a crack up and says the funniest things. Can't think of any off the top of my head. But then my brain has been pretty slippery these past months. Oh well. ;o) Take my word for it though - he's hilarious!

Finny is doing really well and has really blossomed over the past few months. He adores Bug and is just a delightful 6 year old in general.

Punky is just a delight as well. I am amazed at how enjoyable his company is. Who knew 8 year olds could be such lovely companions?

Gotta run. Bug needs a readjustment, apparently. ;o)

Can you tell I just uploaded a ton of pics from my cameras?

My kids love the little African village area at our zoo. They particularly enjoy pretending the little hut is a jail. Look at all my cute prisoners!

And here is a very rare shot of me and my five beauties. You can just see Bug's legs hanging out of the Moby - but at least we're all together for the shot!

Pigtails, pretty dresses, a pink stroller, and her 6 year old brother's shoes. That's my Girly Pie.

Two of my handsome little men. Here Punky is holding Bug. Punky sure loves that baby. That boy is just the best biggest brother ever.

Somewhere over the rainbow...

My hubby took the boys out front to get a better look at the BEAUTIFUL rainbow going on out front before bed one evening... the picture does not do justice to the vibrant colors of the rainbow itself. But I just had to get a shot of Daddy and his boys' feet sticking out from under the umbrella as they watched it. So cute!

When 2 year olds dress themselves...

Girly Pie has quite the opinion when it comes to what she wears these days. Usually I can at least go with one of her choices and add a matching component... if she goes for stripy pants, I grab a solid shirt. She wants a printed shirt? I pull out jeans. No problem. But on this particular day, she had the whole outfit planned from head to toe. And really, it wasn't a battle I felt was worth the fight. It's not like I keep anything around that isn't appropriate for her to wear, so I'm not going to fight her on patterns and colors.

So. Crazy 70's print dress and striped tights. Go for it. And the cowboy hat from the dress up chest... Why not?

Just let me snap a picture before you pee in your outfit and the moment is lost. ;o)

Toys for moms

When Girly Pie was a few weeks old we bought a dozen BumGenius 3.0 one size pocket diapers for her and I loved them! They were the best thing ever... until all the Velcro went crazy. So after almost a year we took advantage of their one year warranty and got a whole brand new dozen diapers, hoping the Velcro issue was fixed. Sadly the Velcro was even worse on the second batch - the fuzzy part got super pilly and worn looking WAY faster than the first set, and the Velcro tabs started curling after just a couple of months this time.

My Little Bug is three months old today!

So when Little Bug was born, I knew the BG's wouldn't last until he was potty trained (I'm not even sure they'd last to his first birthday) so we discussed some diapering options with him. I really didn't want to go back to disposables, but was a little worried about reinvesting in a whole new set of all-in-ones or pocket diapers. But after discussing it with my hubby, pricing out several options, and weighing convenience and usability (my hubby prefers a one-step diaper, so if we went with covers and prefolds or fitted he'd be less likely to take part in the whole diapering process - not a good thing) we decided to get a dozen new Fuzzibunz one-size pocket diapers.

And - the whole reason I'm writing this post this evening - my new diapers arrived today. I can't believe how ridiculously childish I feel when I get something like that on the front porch. I mean seriously. It's like opening a new Barbie doll on the way home from Toys R Us (of course I don't plan to let my baby girl play with Barbie, but I sure liked her when I was little ;o) ). I couldn't wait to get into my package and admire the fabulous bright colors. They are a snap closure rather than Velcro, so they should hold up much better than the BG's did. And the elastic around the waist and the leg openings are all adjustable and easily replaced should they fail at some point. Big bonus.

Playing with the new camera lens... plus I just love baby toes!

So this evening was spent moving little button-holes around (kinda like those adjustable waist bands on most kids' jeans these days) and sorting out inserts and admiring the fancy bright colors. All of Girly Pies BG's were pastels, which were nice. But I was feeling much more bold with Bug. So he'll be sporting three diapers each in a bold red, a fun bright yellow, an almost too orange and (my personal favorite) a super fun almost-apple-but-not-quite green. He's got a great complexion for a little guy, so (even though he'll rarely just be in the diaper alone) he'll look really cute in those bold colors.

Don't you love those shocked baby expressions?

OK. I know. They're diapers. They hold poop. But still, they are so stinking CUTE!!! I am very excited to see how our first days in the new diaps go as I adjust for size and whatnot. He's in the first one now at bedtime so we'll see how the night goes.


Sorry if cloth diapers are not your thing - I know they are super boring to read about when you aren't into them. But if you are - than you know how exciting it is to get that box on the front porch and to dig in and start suiting up your little man in cute puffy bottomed brightly colored duds.

Can you believe my sweet Girly Pie will be two years old on Saturday? Crazy!

Oh, and my Girly Pie managed to make it to the potty every single time today without a single accident. (Did I never mention I had put her back in diapers a bit after Bug was born due to her complete lack of interest and my needing to have one less thing to juggle in those first weeks? Well I did. But she's back in undies now for good. ) So all in all, a great day for me. Dry underwear and new diapers. Happy, happy day. ;o)

This guy has a great smile!

(I'll post some cute pics of him in his snazzy new drawers soon!)

Little Bug

Here are a few recent shots of Little Bug. He's 2 months old now and smiling a ton. Of course the pictures of his smiles are never as good as catching them in person, but they are worth posting anyway!

Little Bug loves to be on his tummy and is super strong. He lifts his head and shoulders up off the ground easily and loves to look around from that perspective. He also loves to stand, and with just a little bit of support for balance, he can hold his own weight pretty well. The look of pride and satisfaction on his face is almost comical when you stand him up in your lap. He grunts and strains with the effort of holding himself upright, but he is just so pleased with himself while he's doing it. So cute!

Little Bug has started to coo and "talk" which we all love. He loves to converse with anyone willing to get at his level and chat with him, which as you may guess around here is just about everyone all the time! He does love to be held and has a particular love for his Momma, but he's happy to chat with everyone. The kids all love to hold him and pet his silky soft hair, and though he can be a bit persnickety about being passed around too much he's a pretty good sport most of the time. ;o)

He really is such a sweetheart and we all adore our Little Bug. His brothers and sister all delight in any smile they get from him and all love to help him when he's sad. Thankfully he likes his binky, so they can always help with that!

Just because he's so stinkin' adorable...

My Goose.

Smiley Little Bug

This little man has the BEST smile.

Look at that sparkle in his eye...

He's just getting started now.

But wait, there's more!

See what I mean? Look at that perfect gummy little smile. He's just perfect.

I think I'm in love.