B learns to clap

Here is some video footage of B learning to clap. He charmed everyone!

B is pulling up!

B is a lot faster with the physical things than our other kids have been. He's been army crawling for a long time, and recently switched to the traditional hands-and-knees mode (although he'll revert to the army crawl when he's really in a hurry!). The biggest difference is that he's been pulling up for over a month now. I clearly remember posing T for a picture on the eve of his first Christmas, so he would have bee exactly eight months old, and he could sit up but I had to take the picture quickly because he was still wobbly. So to have a baby not eight months old yet start pulling up was a shocker to me. I know some kids even walk as early as eight months, but mine don't!

He loves to pull up but has only managed to get himself down twice. His preferred method is to start yelling when he's tired of standing. Works every time, especially since when he first started this trick, he fell over more often than not once he was on his feet. I'm glad that at least he doesn't fall over everytime he pulls up anymore. In these pics he is standing under the "craft table", one of his favorite places to pull up.

H turns 7!

I can't believe it. I can't believe H in seven. I really don't think it's quite fair that time speeds up every year.


H got a gameboy for his birthday, much to his surprise and delight. Hurray for ebay! He's had to be told to stop a few times when he's been planted on the couch for a little too long, but his attitude has been pretty good overall. The problem is the little green monster haunting T, but he'll get over it. Builds character, right? And H really is pretty good to share with T.

H asked for these strawberry shortcake snakes for his birthday cake. They were truly a labor of love. They are pretty simple, really, but I needed to make eight of them and it just took an inordinately long time, and the cakes kept threatening to crumble, and I have no desire to make them ever again. They are sloppier than in the magazine photo, but pretty cute, right? Right?

Here are Auntie E and Grandpa B saying good bye at the end of a nice birthday!

B loves the swing!

Just a week or so after Valentine's Day, the snow melted and it started to look like spring might actually show up! H wanted to go outside and play, and he asked if he could take B with him. It was still pretty damp out, so we compromised by putting B in the outside swing and letting H play with him there. B loved it! H really dotes on him; it is quite adorable. L got in on the act as well!

I'm dreaming of a white... Valentine's Day

This has been the snowiest Provo winter I have ever seen. On Valentine's Day we got another fresh blanket of snow. The kids were excited, and they all wanted to go out in the snow. They all had fun, too...

except for N...

Turns out, poor N was getting sick. He spent the next couple of days very much not himself. Can someone please explain why my kids always throw up when they're sick? I mean, they don't get sick all that much, but when they do, it's the vomiting. Every time. Sigh.

B falls asleep at dinner

T wins the 3rd grade Spelling Bee!

Here is T displaying his certificates: one for winning the spelling bee in his class, and the other for winning the spelling bee for the whole third grade. Only fourth graders and up go on to the school spelling bee, so he went as far as he could go!

He was pretty thrilled. He told me, "This is the second best day of my life!" When I asked what the first best day was, he said, "My baptism of course!"

For some reason I keep remembering a little five or six-year-old T, presenting me with flowers and saying, "Here's a 'boo-ket' for you!" "Thank you!" I said, "What a nice bouquet!" "Mom, it's 'boo-ket'-- there's a t on the end." So I explained to him that "bouquet" came from French so it didn't follow English rules. At first he was pretty disgusted with that renegade word, but for the next little while I remember he would finds words like "ballet" and say, "That's because it's French... right?"

Random memory!