8 is Great!

We've hit 8 months old around here (Adam that is) and he's still tiny but adorable. Starting to fill up that laundry basket though. I'm planning to make a collage of all 12 months of laundry basket photos when he hits a year and I think it will be fun to see the growth.

 Love that cute, sweet face. He was blowing raspberries at me here:

 I think this kid's going to be trouble. Doesn't he looking like he's scheming here:

 Some updates on my guy:

He is a great eater. I am happy about that since I have several not good eaters. He has only rejected two foods so far-peas and beef/veggie dinner. His favorite thing? Biter Biscuits. The kid can chew and swallow a full biter biscuit in like 2 minutes flat. His arms and legs start flailing when he sees us bringing one to him. Here he is enjoying his biscuit:

 And a new discovery...waffles and pancakes. He is sitting next to me mauling a pancake right now. Keeps him happy for a while.

He finally has two teeth busting through. These are his first and are several months later than my other boys. Not complaining. He hasn't been too fussy about that experience.

He still doesn't sit up. The crazy kid is fully capable but just not interested. I am hoping he will learn to soon because I think emotionally he needs to be getting around more, doing more, etc. but physically he just isn't quite there yet. He is starting to wriggle his way around just a little. Going to have to start keeping a closer eye on him.

He like strings. On blankets, on jackets, bonus when they are on his own clothes! He loves to chew and suck on them.

He's a mama's boy. I am not sure whether to love that or hate that. I mean, how flattering that he wants me all the time and looks for me when someone else is holding him but how obnoxious when I am cooking dinner and he wants to "help" (ie. I hold him while I cook). When daddy gets home daddy picks him up and carries him all over so this kid is getting spoiled.

He still adores those brothers. Dallen is the only person who can really get belly laughs from this kid. He is stingy with the laughs. I have a few tricks that usually get a giggle but I have to work for them.

Josh has got him saying "adadadadadada" sounds now. Prepping him for his first word I guess.

He loves baths and drinks his bath water. He just turns his head to the side and takes a sip over and over and over when he is in the tub. I can't get him to stop.

He's a sweetie!

Perfection

In the scriptures the number 7 often symbolizes perfection. Adam is 7 months old. And has achieved perfection. I just don't think they come any cuter than this: (Slight bias acknowledged, but come on, this is CUTE!!)

 I love it when he sucks on his lower lip like this:

This is probably one of my new all time favorite pictures ever. I love how he looks like he is up to something:

 And our 7 month laundry basket shot:

What Adam is up to:

Still tiny. I tried weighing him on my postage scale the other day and I think he is about 14 pounds now. He seems to be having a growth spurt this week though and will not stop eating. He ate 3 containers of baby food today on top of tons of milk.

He can sit up but he doesn't sit up. It's like he has the muscle power but not the desire, so he just doesn't. I think it is coming soon though. Dr. said that as a preemie he has until 8 1/2 months to sit and still be within the normal range.

He loves to eat all his baby food. The only thing he hasn't liked is peas. I tried biter biscuits recently and apparently they don't make the really hard suck on till the are just a wet mess kind anymore. I handed him one and within seconds he bit a piece off. Bummer. We will have to wait on those I guess.

He has no teeth yet.

He has started doing a fake laugh that is so funny. He does it all the time lately. He also makes kind of a purring sound when he is looking at someone he likes. Very sweet. He is squealing and talking a lot more all of a sudden. I am working on getting him to learn the ma ma sound. :) No luck so far.

I love him.

Family Pics

I never posted these and I need to. I was kind of waiting for Christmas to pass since they were our Christmas card pics and I didn't want to spoil the card.

For a long time I have been a really big fan of my friend Liz's photography. The thing I like most is how bright and light they are and how happy they make life look. I like bright things and I like to thing that I look at life in a bright way, so they speak to me.

She came out to Utah to visit in August and asked if she could take our family pictures. Um, yes. Please!

I love how they turned out. I need to get a bunch printed and framed on our walls. Here are some of my favorites. Thank you Liz!!!! (I posted a few of my favorites of Dallen on his birthday post already)

Awards

Back in November we had some big awards in our family. Big awards to the boys, awards that meant a lot to them and I haven't posted about them, so I here they are now.

Jack entered the Reflections contest at school and he WON!!!! I admit that I was really surprised when I got the phone call saying he won. I just wanted him to enter for the experience, I didn't anticipate him winning.

Winning was a HUGE deal for Jack. Since then he knows he is good at art and maybe he will be an artist when he grows up. He gets out his water colors all the time to paint. And it has boosted his self confidence a lot. He even took his medal with him to Denver at Thanksgiving to show it off. I am so proud of him and so happy with the impact this contest has had on him. Here are some pictures from the award's ceremony:

A week or two after that, Nathan earned his Wolf badge at Scouts along with like 3 beads, a pile of belt loops, 4 or so Arrow Points and the World Conservation Award. He was pretty excited. He got really motivated and did tons of work to get all of this done and we are proud of him. I am not sure what we are going to work on between now and June since has done almost everything he could do. He has such a great leader and so much fun in scouts! 

Matching

Adam and his Uncle Jason have the same hairstyle:

What do you do...?

When in the middle of the night you have 60 mile an hour winds that feel like they are going to knock your whole house down and when you wake up the next morning you find this:

Ugh! Luckily, the golf course guy drove by as Josh was attempting to deal with them and told him he could throw them in the golf course marsh behind our house. So they are gone now. Though the wind blew away a whole bunch of our wood chips and scattered them all over our yard and down our window wells. We'll be dealing with that later.

Bug Bite

After refinishing Josh' piano in December, the refinishing bug has bitten. I want to do more and lots more!

I went to Saver's thrift store and bought an ugly chair:

 Ugly and dirty and scratched:

And I refinished it:

I love how it turned out. I wasn't planning to keep it for myself. I was actually hoping to sell it on craigslist, but I like it so much that I just might keep it around.

This is how I fight the January doldrums. With projects.