The Bite of the Sewing Bug

It seems like I end up sewing more during the winter than the rest of the year. At least that is how last winter was. Before Christmas I was making gifts, then afterwards I had several things that I wanted to get out of the way before Jeremiah was born.

I just got my first "load" of fabric for this winter's sewing delights. Be prepared for pictures of sewing projects over the next few months.

For now I will show off my babies and see if you can tell the three apart.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

Exhibit C:

These pictures are the boys in order, as you may have guessed. Jeremiah is 7 months and the other two are about 5 months. He kicked his feet when I was taking the picture, which adds to how much bigger he looks than the others.

Nathaniel -- 2 Years

Nathaniel's birthday was about two weeks ago. We always get together with the family to celebrate birthdays.

Kimberly made this adorable owl shirt for Nathaniel. Do you see the little leaf detail on the back?

I think this picture is so cute just because of the face Nathaniel is making.

A present from Grandpa and Omi. Yes, that is a fishbowl, with a fish in it.

Nathaniel, getting his first look at his new fish, which he and Edmund named Otto, after the fish in A Fish Out of Water.

This may be my very favorite of all his birthday pictures. We had just finished singing, and he is saying, "yay!"

A little side story: Since the beginning of the summer Edmund has been wrapping up various articles to give to me, Jaired, or Nathaniel. He sings Happy Birthday, cheers, then hands over the gift to be opened, so that is how Nathaniel learned to cheer every time someone sings Happy Birthday.

It only took Nathaniel two puffs to blow out all his candles, which is pretty good for a two year old. Yes, he is two. There are three candles on his cake because we always put one to grow on. :)

Enjoying his cupcake.

I love this little guy. He is such a lovable little boy. He loves to snuggle, and is never shy about go up to our friends asking to be held. He is an funny mixture of big boy and baby. He loves reading books and drawing pictures. He is really getting into playing with Edmund, and is able to understand a lot of what Edmund wants him to do in the games they play. But he also still loves his pacifier. He can be such a baby sometimes when he is sad or not feeling well, but a lot of times if he gets hurt he will come to me crying and wailing and as soon as I kiss him on the head he shuts off like a switch and goes back to whatever he was doing. He is still very attached to his Gorilla and Dog, but he also goes through times when he has some other special thing he likes to carry around. This week he has been carrying around all my baby washcloths.

Speaking of Gorillas, we went to the zoo last Saturday as part of Nathaniel's birthday. Of course we took him to the Gorilla House. This one was right next to the window (as you can see) and Nathaniel was pretty excited about it.

Look at how calm and nice the gorilla looks. Well, just after taking this picture it sprang up and hit the window with all four feet. It was sudden, and loud, and kids don't know all about really thick, strong glass. That other little kid just about died of fright. Nathaniel handled it pretty well, his lip just trembled as he backed slowly away. But he didn't want to see the gorilla anymore. And when we went into the money house he refused to look at the monkeys. He still loves his Gorilla. :)

We love you, Than-than. Happy Birthday!

Jeremiah -- Six Months

Half a year; where has the time gone? For me this age is a big I-don't-want-my-baby-to-get-any-bigger/I-wish-he-would-grow-faster stage. Babies are so sweet and cute and I love it when they can start interacting with people, but at the same time teething and the increased mobility along with a growing curiosity make this time bittersweet. Why can't they stay this cute and innocent always?

Jeremiah has been very busy the last three months:

3 months -- rolling from tummy to back

4 months -- progressed to rolling from back to tummy, then learned to roll over either side.

5 1/2 months -- army crawling, sitting up

6 months -- first tooth, with the second one expected to pop through any day.

Jeremiah weighs approximately 16.5 lbs. He loves to growl and blow raspberries.

Our camera broke and we have yet to get and new one, so I don't have any six month pictures, but here are some from the last few months.

Learning to sit up. (Like his angel halo?)

Resting after a long day of sightseeing in Yellowstone.

An unwilling little traveler.

Bouncy, bouncy!

Don't roll off the bed, Jeremiah!

Rawr, I'm a little bear and I'm going to eat you!

Happy baby. He sleeps with that little moose that he got from Aunt Chava.

Beginning to scoot.

And that's it for now, I guess that was more than a few pictures. ;)

Our Household Monster

Yes, we have a monster living in our house.

It looks something like this:

Image courtesy of the Internet.

Our vacuum cleaner.

Of all my children, Edmund has always been the most fearful of the vacuum.

When he was a baby I would vacuum during his naps. As he got older he felt pretty safe if I sat him down on the couch before vacuuming. But he always had to be in the same room as the vacuuming; almost as if he felt safer if he could keep an eye on the situation.

Now, he asks to be allowed to plug in and turn on the vacuum, then he runs around the room shrieking and jumping off of the furniture. Playing a sort of "keep away" with the vacuum. His game seems to have done away with some of his fearfulness, but he still gets nervous if he gets in a corner and thinks he is trapped.

Disclaimer: No, I do not try to scare him or chase him with the vacuum cleaner. I am a very nice Mama. :)

Vacation 2010 Part 2 -- Yellowstone

A few more mountain climbing pictures...

Getting ready: Walking sticks, check. Water, check. Cameras, check.

Halfway up the main mountain we climbed.

A beautiful (the fuzziness is due to my picture taking, sorry) view of the Grand Tetons range from the highest point we climbed. There was a big grassy, sage bush covered plain on top of the mountain.

On to Yellowstone!

After spending a few relaxing days in the Teton area (yes, even with the mountain climbing it was relaxing!), we headed up to Yellowstone.

Our good friend Robby Haselwander was working just north of Yellowstone for the summer, so he was able to come down and hang out with us for the weekend.

We also met up with a good portion of Jaired's family on his mom's side for part of the family reunion. It was great to see the non-Missouri relations, and one of Jaired's uncles was able to take us on the main Yellowstone tour loop since he is so familiar with the area, so we didn't have to hire a tour guide. I don't seem to have any good pictures of the adult relations, but one of the boys' second cousins came, and she and Edmund had a great time playing together.

Joanna and Edmund on one of hikes.

Edmund and Jaired resting in the shade.

The boys slept well every night from all the exercise and fresh air they were getting. They shared a bed the entire trip and did a great job.

Edmund loved all the geysers. Here he is watching Old Faithful erupt. We stayed in the Old Faithful cabins, and we could see the geyser from our cabin.

Jeremiah, like his brothers, loves being outside, and he enjoyed being held a lot and getting first dibs on the stroller.

Nathaniel with his Aunt Kimberly, those two are really good buddies.

Nathaniel is a great walker. He doesn't even complain as much as Edmund does about having to walk instead of getting to ride in the stroller.

Visiting Mount Rushmore on the way home.

Oh boy, that trip home was crazy. Ellie returned with us, as the rest of the family continued on to Montana for the rest of the family reunion. We had decided before even starting the trip that going up in Montana was going to be too much driving for our boys, and I sure am glad we came straight home from Yellowstone. The drive through Northern Wyoming was grueling. We left Yellowstone through the East Entrance and drove through the Big Horn Mountains. The pass was crazy -- switchbacks and road construction! It took us about three hours to drive the 60 miles over the mountains, and Jeremiah was screaming almost the entire time!

The second day of driving, is when we saw Mount Rushmore and drove through the Badlands. About halfway through the day Jaired asked Ellie and I if we wanted to just skip that night's hotel and head straight home. We drove right through the night and got home twelve hours earlier than the original plan.

It was so good to be back home, but the humidity that hit us when we stepped out of the car was not welcome. It was 6 a.m. when we got home and the temperatures were already in the high eighties! We turned up our air conditioner and went to bed. :)

Vacation 2010 Part 1 -- Grand Tetons

We went on our first family vacation in June/July. We drove through Kansas and Colorado into Wyoming to spend time at both The Grand Tetons and Yellowstone Park. On the way home we visited Mount Rushmore and the Badlands. This was my first visit West. (Not counting flying to California when I was six.) The scenery is amazing and the weather was beautiful.

We tried to take a slow, laid back approach to the vacation, so that we would be spending time having fun, rather then stressing about getting places on time and worrying about cranky children. We traveled with Jaired's family and had one of the girls with us each day of the drive. They were an amazing help caring for the boys in the car.

I packed a lot of books and toys, as well as our portable DVD player, so Edmund and Nathaniel were pretty well entertained in the car. Jeremiah did not have quite as much fun; he was temporarily scarred by car travel, and for the second half of the trip would start crying the moment we entered the car. Fortunately, he has recovered.

These are some of my favorite pictures from the trip:

Edmund entertaining himself in the car with a Duplo "recorder".

Car break! We stopped in Kansas City to enjoy some delicious Lamar's doughnuts. Yum! I love how the boys are all looking in different directions, but none at the camera.

One of the rest areas in Wyoming had a Prairie Dog village. The boys had a great time feeding them our wilted grapes and lettuce.

The view from the family's cottage on Slide Lake. The beautiful Grand Tetons mountain range. We stayed in the cabin that you can see on the right edge of the top picture.

Hiking. Nathaniel took possession of Justice's hat for part of the trip. Family picture, nine bumps on a log, and two besides. The man who took the picture opted to get a good close up of us, rather then show the mountains in the background.

Mountain climbing at Slide Lake. These small mountains are MUCH bigger than the Ozark Mountains!

In the top picture you can see Slide Lake, and the slide it is named for. In the bottom picture is the 20 foot cliff we climbed down as we made our descent.

There was good food in abundance.


Plenty of playtime with relations.

Lots of rest and hanging out.

Edmund got inventive in his play. Books for a train track, and there is something about those plastic water bottles that makes them so fun to drink out of, much to the owner's chagrin.