Tay @ 10 months

Tay turned 10 months a couple of weeks ago. The biggest news is that she's crawling!!! She started crawling May 30th thanks to my SIL Nikki. I had tried to entice Tay with anything and everything I could think of, and then on Sunday, Nikki took out one of her earrings and held it out for Taytum to see and she just up and started crawling for it. Slowly, of course, but crawling nonetheless. She has since picked up speed and has discovered the joys of being able to go where she wants to. She loves heading over to our bookshelves with all the children's books on them. She also loves scavenging under the table for leftover treats. It feels like I have three kids now instead of two kids and a baby.

Her 10 month stats are: 19lbs (43%) & 29 in (83%)

Taytum is sleeping great in Andi's room. They are really good about going right to sleep. Tay wakes up a little on the early side most mornings and occasionally, if she won't settle down after giving her her binki and it's way too early, we'll move her to the pack and play in the laundry room so she doesn't wake Andi up. She will usually fall back asleep there for another hour or so.

She doesn't love her binki. She likes it and will take it, but she'll fall to sleep without it and it's not her favorite go to thing when she's sad. She has started to crawl to me when she's sad and it's extremely cute.

She does love getting her bottles during the day. She gets all excited and will start twirling her hands and feet and smile and talk.

Everyone comments about her twirling hands and feet. I think a lot of babies her age do it, but maybe just not quite to the extent Taytum does. Whenever she's excited she will just twirl her wrists/hands and ankles/feet around and around and around. People get the biggest kick out of it.

Tay LOVES to eat. I'm not quite sure I've found anything that she doesn't like.

I have had multiple people tell me she looks like the Gerber baby... what do you think? Maybe if she was making that face? Maybe it's the big eyes?

And we get oodles of comments about how beautiful she is. And she is.

Something to think about:

"The spirit helped me to recognize that having a blog was not the problem- devoting too much of my time and energy to it was. I had literally been giving portions of my life away: trading away quality time with my children and husband, trading away time for serious, in-depth study of the scriptures, and even trading away hours of sleep that affected my ability to serve others, to be sensitive to the Spirit, and to maintain a healthy lifestyle." (Ensign June 2010)


Just because something is good is not a sufficient reason for doing it... Some things are better, and others are best. - Elder Dallin H Oaks

CTR 4

As some of you know, I teach the CTR 4 class at church. That's all the little four year olds for those of you who don't know. I have a very rambunctious, out of control, loud, funny, beautiful group of kiddos. I love them dearly, but our lessons are usually not very spiritual and go something like this.
"In Nephi, sit down please, chapter 4, keep your chair on the floor, verse 3, touch your nose if you can hear me, Nephi was telling, please keep your dress down, his people, hands to yourself, that, we'll get a drink in a minute...." You get the point. I am pretty sure they don't hear the half of what I say and it is truly a miracle if anyone learns anything.
Well, last week we had a beautiful moment in class. We were talking about who Jesus loves and in the middle of the lesson I told them I had a picture of somebody who Jesus loves very much and that I wanted them to come up one at a time and see who it was, and not tell anyone who it was until everyone had a chance to look at the picture. One at a time I had them come up and look at the picture, which was actually a piece of paper with a mirror glued on it, so they saw themselves. That's who Jesus loves very much. Each child came up and when they saw themselves they got the biggest smile on their face. Everyone was completely silent the whole time while taking turns coming up. It was possibly the first time that I felt the spirit in our class and I totally teared up. It was such a sweet moment.

Pics from last week....
Josh, Summer, Reece & Remi

...courtesy of these guys: Sam, Nikki & Jameson

Everyone's laughing and riding and cornholing except Buster...

Oh what a week. Last week my sister and her family came into town and my brother and his family came down mid week to join the fun. Man did we have some good laughs. Our kids get along so well together and I got to love on my new little niece Remi and nephew Jameson. The weather was less than cooperative, but we still managed to have some good fun....
Andi's new shirt and headband from Aunt Sumo: (Cute, right? You should check out her blog at summossweetstuff.blogspot.com)

We spent one morning at Rafiki's. It's a huge indoor playplace for kids with dress-up clothes (where my kids spent the majority of the time), a kitchen with all the fixins, a craft area, mini climbing wall, toddler area, and a huge play place. I was so glad my kids didn't try to take off their clothes like they normally do while playing dress up.

All the girls wore these matching shirts that Gramzee made them, but we failed to get a picture of them all together before Taytum spit up all over hers and everyone was a mess.

Carter is in the Hulk outfit with some other random friend he made there. They palled around together for quite some time. It's so funny how kids can just make friends at that age without having to know each others' names or carry on any sort of dialogue.

Andi and Reece having a moment. It's so strange to me that Reece and Taytum will be in the same grade and not Reece and Andi.

Summer and I got a wonderful adjustment from Dr. Harmon and spent a couple rounds on the roller tables. We know now why there are curtains to block you off so no one can see you.

We attempted to go to Meridian's Saturdays Market. Big mistake. There were maybe seven booths, at best, and we ended up spending more time next door at the Lollipop Stop than at the "market."

The few afternoons that it was dry we headed out on some walks around the neighborhood.

The only picture I got of the adults. We spent a lot of time playing Five Crowns, playing the Wii, watching episodes of Arrested Development and eating a lot of good food. There may have been a little laughing involved and possibly some cornholing.

Andi made sure the babes were taken care of.

And on Monday before everyone had to head home we hit up the outlets and shopped around and enjoyed lunch together.

I decided that living under the same roof as my siblings again might be a really good idea. It may be a little too much fun and interfere with having jobs and a real life however. I can't wait for Sunriver when we have all the sibs together. Good times to be had.

Pierced.

We finally got Taytum's ears pierced on May 19. We just took her to Claire's. I called beforehand and got the rundown and made sure someone experienced would be there. They did a great job. Were very professional and clean and it went great.
Here's Taytum pre-piercing:
Wait for it....

I really think that more than the piercing, Taytum was ticked off that I had to hold her head down. She does the same thing at the Dr's when I have to hold her head for the Dr to look in her ears.

Look at that sad face:

And not five minutes later in the car.... all smiles!

I don't have a great pic of her ears with her earrings, but they are dang cute and super girly!

The last few weeks:

Family night service night. Though I don't know if you can call it service when our friends fed us and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. The boys laid sod while the girls bbq'd and watched the kids. Jeff, Luke & Garren.

6 of our 9 kids enjoying dinner on the new lush grass.

Jill (8 months pregnant and just before heading into work) and Michelle.

Carter and Andi did this about twenty times. They love each other.

We took a Sunday stroll in one of our downtown parks and ate a picnic dinner there. It was beautiful.

Story time with Dad is the best (second only to story time with Mom!)

Father/Son

A couple weeks ago was the father/son campout for our ward. To say that Carter was excited would be an understatement. I wanted so badly to be there for his first experience camping, but was so glad that he and Jefferson had that special time together. Carter just is so fun to watch when he's excited and trying something new.

They had a great time and the weather was nice for them. The place they went camping is located on a hot springs and had a heated pool, that was apparently on the too hot side. But Carter and Jefferson had a great time swimming.
There were hot dogs and marshmallows and playing in the sand box and on the swings.

Carter and Dylan are buds. They are in joy school together and Carter talks about him a lot. I guess Dylan does too because that night in their neighboring tent Jefferson could hear Dylan asking his dad what Carter was doing and every time Carter would turn on his flashlight Dylan would say, "Dad, I can see Carter's flashlight."

Zach, Dylan, Ryker & Carter (with sticks... the dads must be "watching" them)
Though they remained warm, the night was a little on the short side. They stayed up late and were up with the sun.

At about midnight Carter said, "Dad? There are two teams out there. A red team and a blue team and they're trying to get each others' flags." He had been laying awake in bed listening to the older kids play capture the flag. I was impressed he gathered all of that! It was a great first experience and we can't wait to go again this summer. (even if it's only in our backyard)

LADIES' NIGHT:

Well, while the men folk were out having their fun, we had ladies' night back at our house. All day Andi asked me when the girls were going to get here. She was so excited to have the girls come over. She wore a new outfit and I painted her toes and let her wear a little make up. She ate it up!!! There were about seven of us girls (and a few little kids). We ate dinner and dessert and made pearl bracelets and chatted and ate some more. Andi just wanted to sit at the table and be with the girls. She is growing up too fast already. We found space for all the kids to go down for bedtime and we stayed up and chatted a little longer. It was a great night and fun to be with the girls, especially my little girl.

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