11 months

This is the last post I will write about Adam until he is 1. Of all the years of my life, this one has gone by the very fastest! Crazy!!!

We still adore this little guy. Are you surprised?

Next month I will be compiling all the laundry basket shots for one big collage to show his growth in the first year. I am excited to see how that turns out.

Current news about Adam:

This kiddo still does not crawl, though he is close and certainly gets around in his own crazy way. I am not surprised that he doesn't crawl. My boys have all reached physical milestones on the late end and with him being a preemie on top of that I expected it to be later. Plus, his temperament is just SO mellow and easy going. I think he is for the most part perfectly content where he is, so why bother crawling?

That being said, what kid sits on his mom's lap during a 3 hour church block without wriggling or whining or anything? He is an angel!

We have discovered that he loves books. He loves to hold them and play with them and he loves to sit and have a story read to him. He also has 2 big brothers who love to read stories to him.

Isn't that sweet?

Adam is NOT a performer. Nathan had a million "tricks" at this age. Adam, until recently, had none. Just not interested. But now, he loves to do "bonk." We tell him to do bonk and he leans forward and bonks forehead with the person holding him, then giggles.

Still tiny but I tell you, this kid packs it in. And will eat anything you put in front of him. Love that!

Can't wait to celebrate his birthday!

Let them make cake

This is random and old, but for the blue and gold banquet Nathan and Josh (with the help of Jack as well) had to decorate a cake and I thought this should go down in the history of our family. Pretty impressive:

Little Sports

Last week we started "Li'l Sports" with our fellow ward members. One great dad has arranged a whole sports league for our kiddos that is no pressure, low cost and amazing.

We started with baseball. This is Dal's first time getting to play a sport and he was in heaven. He slid into 1st base after his first hit. He told us and everyone he saw that day that he hit a grand slam. The bigger boys felt great about themselves too. Jack even says he hit the ball so hard he cracked the shell.

(In June we will do soccer, then later in the summer football.)

Good times! There were even flags set up all around the field for opening day. Here are some pictures:

 Dal at bat:

 Nathan in the field (wearing his shin guards and soccer socks because we had soccer games right after this. You can see the flags in the background. And way in the background, our neighborhood.)

Snood

By the way, do you know what a Snood is? We didn't know when we started calling Nathan that. We do now. Oh well, we're still calling him that. (It's the red hangy thingy on a turkey's beak.)

I wanted to write a post about Nathan because some pretty special things happened to him back in March.

At his school the older grades get to participate in The Battle of the Books. The kids get a reading list of 20 books and have the whole year up till March to read as many as they can. They are then formed into teams and they compete in a quiz contest to see who knows the most about the books.

In true, over the top, over-achiever fashion that we do in our family, Nathan read all 20 books. (OK, really, I pushed him on that a little. I didn't realize that the average that most kids read was 5. But we are book lovers in this family and he loved doing it, so that's ok.)

His team rocked it. I got a phone call Friday afternoon from my friend who was in charge of the Battles. She said Nathan's team was going to be competing in the semi finals in about 5 minutes if I wanted to come. I had just put the baby down for a nap but I grabbed him and Dal and off we went.

Nathan's team won.

So, Monday morning they were in the finals. This was huge and this was fun. The lights were out, spotlights were on, each kid got called by name and got to run into the gym while the crowd cheered. Cosmo the Cougar (from BYU) was even there. It was really neat.

Nathan's team lost-by 1 question!! Bummer. But it was so neat.

AND, bonus. While I happened to be there to watch the Battle, Nathan got called up for another award. He was given the "Above and Beyond Award." He was so nervous and cute while getting it and it was so special for me to get to witness it. I wouldn't have been there if not for the Battle of the Books that day, so this was great. Here is what his teacher wrote to me in an email about it:

"I thought maybe I should explain the recognition Nathan received this morning because I think it got a little bit lost in translation.  I thought Nathan should receive recognition for going "above and beyond" with his assignments.  If I assign one paragraph, Nathan writes three.  If I ask them to read a book, Nathan reads two.  If I ask them to draw a picture, Nathan creates a whole mural.  He extends all his activities on his own. That is so rare!"

I am so proud of that sweet boy of mine. I just wanted to make sure I always remembered this special time for him. 

Superboy

These pictures have no real story to them. I just made Dal a superhero cape and mask and took some pics and they are so cute I thought I would go ahead and post them:

I love little boys dressed up as superheros.

Holi

I have a bit of an obsession with India after having several good friends from India back in San Diego. And I really want my boys to learn a bit of culture in this sheltered Utah environment.

While my mom was here visiting I made Indian food (not a hit with my family...they're nuts) and then we did our own version of Holi, an Indian holiday celebrated in the spring. It celebrates the brightness of spring and to do so, they throw bright colored chalk dust at each other.

I'm either a really great mom or totally and completely insane. I am definitely thinking the insane part is more like it. We did this in our backyard:

The boys loved it but oh the mess it made. We have several completely ruined items of clothing, towels, etc. Oh well. Not something we will do often, but fun while it lasted.

10 months

Now that Adam is well past 10 months I guess I'll go ahead and write his 10 month post. My mom was here visiting when he hit 10 months, so I'll use that as my excuse. Though I did get the laundry basket pictures on time:

 It's funny, because really he doesn't change all that much size-wise from month to month. At least it doesn't seem like it. Maybe it will more when I line them all up.

Adam is still just a happy, sweet angel. I think that later children (as in the 3rd, 4th, etc.) maybe just have to be happy and content because they don't get as much coddling. Well, except from big brothers who ADORE them. Well, and his mom and dad do, but still, there just isn't as much time to see to a fussy baby, so he just is perfectly happy.

Anyway, he is on the verge of crawling. Uncle Jason was doing some training with him yesterday...he's getting close but truthfully doesn't seem in all that big of a hurry.

He had his first bath with Dallen this month:

That was awesome until he decided he was tired and face planted into the water.

His brothers put him in a milk box. He loved it. (See what I mean-easy going 4th child)

And here he is posing for a picture of the frog towel I made for my other blog. I love this picture. And it's starting to be all over the internet. He's famous. :)

 I love and adore him. What more can I say?

Besties

I think I have said it before and I will probably say it again, but one of the greatest things about living in Utah is how many of our friends we get to see when they come to visit Utah.

Back on spring break our best friends from Madison came to visit their family in the area and we got to spend an afternoon with them.

Let me just say that we only lived near these guys for 2 years but we spent SO much time together. Our kids were little and the winters are long and lonely in WI, so we got together just about every day. Sometimes more than once. It was hard and sad to leave that.

And really-can you tell why we fit so well:

 Ya, that would be two 8/9 year old boys (Trey just turned nine, Nathan's about to), two 6 year old boys and two 3/4 year old boys. There's a friend for everyone!

That is until Nanci messed up and had a girl. But then she reassured me that she was planning to unite our families forever by marriage. Meet Adam's fiancee:

It's ok that she is literally twice his size. We're sure he'll catch up eventually.

It was SO much fun to see them. The kids clicked immediately just like old times. And it was just like old times for me and Nanci too. So much fun.

Nanci, you better hurry! The lots in our neighborhood are going fast! :)

Lemonade Stand

(This is going to be a bit of blogorrhea this week as I try to catch up on posts that I have been neglecting because I am obsessed with my new blog)

For Spring Break back at the beginning of April I came up with a list of activities for me and my boys to do during that week...one for each letter of the alphabet. We had a blast doing them and definitely one of the favorites for my boys was letter L. A Lemonade Stand.

They've never really done one before and I have to say, this one was quite a doozy! Our backyard is right at the tee box of a golf course, so they sat in our yard and caught all the golfers passing. At 25 cents a cup (and they sold some cookies for 50 cents each) $15 total is not a bad profit! They were stoked. And wanted to do it again the next day. I told them they couldn't or the city might shut them down for making too much money. :)

Here are some pictures of the happy salesmen: (I told them to show me what success looks like)

 (Thankfully, we have all had haircuts since these pictures were taken)

 Nathan's sign. I told him to be descriptive and convincing. In case you can't read it, it says: 25 cents for delicious, suculant, awsome, scrumptios, sweet LEMONADE! Superawsome! Think! 25 cents (with a pic of lemonade). And my favorite part "no chemicals" That kid...

I guess it was pretty convincing because hardly a golfer went by without buying some. And it kept them entertained for a good 3 hours, though I stayed close by to supervise. I am sure we will be doing this again during the summer.