Reili Turns Six

On February 12, Reili turned 6 years old (I'm a little behind on posting because so much has been going on). She was so excited to be six finally (she is already asking when she will be 6 and 1/2).

For her special birthday breakfast, Reili chose to have Barbie poptarts. The girls both love these, so Amberly was excited too.

Reili got to choose two friends to have over for dinner and her birthday cake. This is Reili and Amberly with Reili's good friend Bailey on the girls bed. I wanted to get a picture of their new bedspread. I think it is so cute!

She wanted a pumpkin cake for her Birthday. I found this one in a magazine, so she decided on it. It turned out well. She loved it. I forced Tom to get in the picture with her, since he is almost never in pictures (and complains about it).

Tom got this good picture of Reili blowing out her candles.

Here are Reili and her two friends, Teagan and Bailey, after she blew out her candles. What cute girls! Happy Birthday Reili!

Look what I can do now

Just three days ago, Wesley pulled himself up to a standing position for the very first time. The bathroom tub seems to be the perfect height for him to stand up next to. He is now trying to get up all the time, but his success at the tub was so cute I had to take a few pictures.

It is always fun to see babies do things for the first time. You can tell they are so happy with themselves and feel such a sense of accomplishment. I honestly feel proud, even though this is my third and I've seen it happen many times before. This week he has also figured out how to go from a sitting to a crawling position and vice versa. I have been waiting for that for a while, and now it seems like it has all happened all at once. He will be 9 months old in a couple days. It makes me a little sad that he is growing up so quickly. But he just gets cuter all the time.

Last week we were stuck in the house the entire week. Reili was sick and then I got sick and Wesley got sick. We all had fevers and coughs and runny noses. Amberly was well for the most part though....she only got a runny nose at the end of the week. It was an awful week and by the end I was going stir crazy. I finally figured out that Amberly's hair is long enough to do pigtails though. Isn't she the cutest! It has probably been long enough for a while, but I just hadn't thought to do it.

The girls wanted a chance to take some pictures themselves. I finally consented since we were so bored. You can see Dora in the background. The one highlight of the girls' week was probably that Mommy let them watch a lot more TV and movies than usual. Sadly I was down for the count for two days...I stayed in bed or on the couch for most of them. Boy...I am so glad to be healthy again. Health is a great blessing for sure.

The last jar of pickles

Woe, Woe is me. How could it be that I am down to my last jar of homemade bread and butter pickles? I am truly saddened to report it. I felt so lucky this summer that a friend of mine grew cucumbers and had so many that she wanted to share. We got together and made my favorite bread and butter pickles. The ones that my Grandmother used to make. These pickles are not only exceedingly delicious (better than any nasty ones they sell at the store), but they hold a lot of sentimental value for me. Every time I eat them I am transported back in time to the weekly visits to my Grandma's (mom's mom) for lunch. We lived only 5 minutes away from her and she always had these on hand to put on a toasted cheese sandwich or hotdog (I only ate those at her house with these pickles). Many great childhood memories are tied to these pickles. I guess there is only one remedy now that I have the recipe....make some more.

Yesterday we had a visit from our Parents as Teachers educator. She brought a mirror for Wesley to look in. He was so cute with it I just had to snap a picture of him looking into it. He sat there like this for 3-4 minutes. It looked like he wanted to get in the mirror and get himself. Once the camera came out, Amberly just had to be in every picture. Reili was just as excited for Miss Andrea to visit. She has had to stay home from school since yesterday because of a fever and a sore throat. The only reason she isn't in the pictures is that she was asleep on the couch at the time.

Already 8 Months!

Time flies! Our Wesley is already 8 months old as of yesterday, January 9. I took the opportunity to snap a few pictures of him. You can see that he is a very happy baby, especially around Daddy. They are buddies.

Wesley is really getting places. He does it the same way his sisters always did, the army crawl. I guess right now it is more of a scoot. Luckily he isn't too fast yet. He also gets up and rocks on his hands and knees and then pushes up onto his feet and hands. In honor of the day, he got to try green peas for the first time (instead of cake). Yum! He seemed to think they were pretty good. We just can't kiss his fat cheeks enough.

Just in time for his 8 month day he cut his two bottom teeth. They are still pretty tiny, but maybe you can catch a glimpse in this picture. Amberly just had to get in on the picture action too.


Of course, once Wesley got a picture with Daddy, then everyone needed their picture with Daddy. Reili (who is almost 6) shed some tears when she thought she might not get her picture with him. Daddy is pretty popular at our house these days. So if you want a picture with Tom, get in line.

Happy New Year

Happy 2008 everyone! We had a very low key new year's eve this year. We all went to bed before midnight. Wes woke up around 11:30 to eat, but I think I was already zonked out again by midnight. Something about having young children (and especially a baby who doesn't sleep through the night) just makes staying up late so much less appealing. I need all the sleep I can get. This week has been one of less sleep because of Wesley. He cut his first tooth and most likely the other will come soon. I am hoping that is the cause of his insomnia because it will be nice to have it over. I have come down with some kind of sinus cold or something because of it all and I'm looking forward to that going away too.

The highlight of our new year so far was a visit from Gamma and PopPop Schell. The girls delighted over their grandparents and begged PopPop to play tickle monster with them all the time. Gamma read them stories and drew pictures with them and told them what to draw when they kept asking. We also had a nice dinner date with them to a Chinese Restaurant and Tom's mom and I were able to get in a few games of Skip-Bo. I only remembered to get out the camera last night and this morning before we left for church, so here is the proof of the visit. We love you, Gamma and PopPop!