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.

It's the Most Wonderful Time...

No, I don't mean January is the most wonderful time of the year. I am just late on posting about Christmas. January in fact, is probably my least favorite month, though weather wise it has been kind to us so far this year.

But anyway, Christmas this year may have been my favorite Christmas since Josh and I married. We had both of our families in town and we packed in a ton of fun!

Christmas Eve was my favorite day. We started the morning with a service scavenger hunt with my family. We divided into two teams and hit the town to see how many acts of kindness and service we could perform in about 1.5 hours. It was a BLAST! The highlight of Christmas for me. The best part was that the kids got really into it too. I think that will be a Christmas tradition for us now.

That afternoon we went ice skating. Even Grandma and Grandpa skated! The boys loved it and it was nice to have so many uncles and grandparents to help keep them on their feet.

For dinner we did fondue. The whole three courses-cheese, meat, chocolate. It was yummy but a lot of work. Then, we attempted to pack in acting out the nativity, singing Christmas songs, playing Tommy Wright, opening Christmas jammies, and playing Minute to Win It games. This is the one part of the day that was maybe a little too much. We were exhausted by the end of all that.

The boys got matching Christmas jammies made by mom. Adam loved his:

(On a side note, yes, Nathan has a red mark on his forehead. He is Harry Potter and that is his scar. Actually, Jack has one in this picture too. Nathan has marched around the house like that for several weeks now. At least our kids can never complain that we didn't let them be themselves. I didn't even make him wash it off for the picture!)

Santa brought sleds and some small Ninjago toys. We spent the morning of Christmas with my family, went to church, then went to Josh's grandparents to see them and his parents. Unfortunately Grandma was very sick and actually headed to the hospital while we were there, but the good news is she is feeling much better now! We really missed her though. After playing with Josh's parents for a while we came back to our house for Christmas dinner with my family. I think breaking up the day like this was perfect for the boys. They were so happy the whole day, very little whining or complaining or fighting. It was the best!

The rest of the week was filled with way too much fun with both of our families, and THAT is why January is my least favorite month. It's so boring after all the fun of Christmas. Of course there are always my many projects...but those are for another post.

Big D

The last blog post was titled demolition. That could be the title of this post too really. This post is about Dallen, and Dallen has been known to create his share of demolition.

Dallen turned 4 today. And we celebrated the only way we could think of for Dallen:

We flipped. Dallen's favorite place to go is Lowe's Air Sports Extreme. It's a trampoline and foam pit heaven and this little boy is a dare devil. The trampoline that he is flipping from in this picture is the same one that he back flipped off last time we went there while I wasn't looking. He loves to jump, climb, flip. Perhaps that's the cause of much of the demolition I mentioned previously.

Dallen is very thoughtful. I believe in a previous birthday post, probably the one when he turned two, I mentioned this same characteristic. We noticed it early on and it is still true. I love that about him. He constantly thinks of others in ways that I believe are beyond the scope of a typical 4 year old. He shares, he thinks to thank, he cares about others feelings. Today he said to me "sanks for the birthday." Love it.

He is also very fun. He has a ton of energy and gets very excited about things. He makes our family more fun because of his zest for life. 

Right now Dallen's favorite thing is Lego Ninjago, so we celebrated Ninja style today. His cake was a Ninjago face: 

His Joy School cupcakes were Ninjago:

He wore his favorite costume, his "Jays." (Jay is his favorite Ninjago character.) And his birthday signs hanging all over the house featured all of the Ninja guys. 

The lady who likes to sit behind us in church told me last Sunday that if Dallen went missing not to come to her house to search for him. I think she has a little crush on him. That's good because that was just after she had watched him break the hymn book holder on our pew. Did I mention destruction?

This picture sums up Dallen in a way that no words could. This is pure Dallen:

I took Dallen out to lunch this week for a free birthday meal and while we were there I interviewed him. Here are his responses:

Favorites:

Color: Blue, Red, White, Black. The Ninjago colors.

Food: French Fries, Hot Dogs and Chicken Nuggets

Drink: Chocolate Milk and Rootbeer

Show: Ninjago

Treat: Cosmic Brownies

Best Friend: Jack

Thing to do with Mom: Light Saber Fighting

Thing to do with Dad: Daddy Date

Thing to do with Brothers: Play Sonic and Mario Olympics (wii game)

Toy: (You guessed it...) Lego Ninjago

Song: Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer and Jingle Bells

If you woke up one morning and you could do absolutely anything what would you do? Have screen time all day. 

What makes you...?

Excited: Birthday!

Scared: Getting jammies or clothes wet

Happy: When some of my clothes are clean

Mad: When we have to go home from somewhere

What do you want to be when you grow up? 16

No, I mean what do you want to do for a job? Drive you to somewhere.

Best thing in your life? Screen time (as you can see, it's a good thing we limit screen time in our house)

Hardest thing in your life? When I make a big mess in my room

Love this kid!