My Micah Man

Finally! Some pictures of Micah! I don't have one (yet) of what I want to tell you about him, but he did 'let' me take some pictures this morning. I use the word "let" loosely, because he didn't cooperate at first until I guilted him into it by pointing out that Emilia and I had cooperated with his photo shoot earlier and it would be quite mean to not do the same. (Forget bribery, guilt works so much faster...just kidding...kind of)

Micah still twirls his hair when he's tired or bored. In this first picture, the loop of hair sticking out is what he had just been twirling.


Then he found out that I was taking his picture and he laid down so as to not participate in my picture taking.

You can see the furrow in his mad little brow in this picture.


This is him zipping his mouth shut so he absolutely can't smile for me.


Hiding from me


Checking to see if I'm still there


After the guilt trip...I mean, after he...well, no, I do mean "after the guilt trip." But look how well it worked!


And this one is my favorite from this morning. Isn't he just the cutest? How can I possibly care that he doesn't always cooperate with pictures when the times that he does I can take such awesome pictures as these? :)

New Things to Play With

First of all, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU to all of you who contributed to my camera fund. I am now the happy owner of a Nikon D80 and have been playing with it all week! I LOVE it so far! I'm still slow to find the settings for the look I want, but I'm getting better and thought I would share some of the pictures I took this week while I've been messing around.

This first set is some I took while Emilia was eating some cheerios one day after nap. I don't know what all the faces were about, just that she's a goober like that! :)




This is Josiah reading a bedtime story to Micah and John.


The other "fun" I've been having this week is that Emilia has been EXTREMELY clingy...I think maybe she's getting another tooth? Whatever the case, this is the face I see a lot of the times when I am not holding her:


Oh yes, and I had a birthday on Saturday. This is Josiah singing to me...with his fingers up his nose?? Don't ask, but he sang most of the song with one or both nostrils plugged by his fingers. Boys are so weird. :)


This next set is Josiah TRYING to be serious and have a stare down with me. He was protesting more picture taking, but in the end his good humor won out and he couldn't hold it in anymore.








Emilia LOVES books. She spends a lot of time at this bookshelf. I have to take her away from it because it is all of her brothers' books and she rips the pages. Her favorite book right now is "Gallop" by Rufus (something) Seder. Have you seen that book? The pictures in it "move" when you turn the pages. She loves to turn the pages back and forth, watching the animals move. She also likes to "hide" things she finds in the pages. For example, she found a puzzle piece, stuck it between two pages and closed the book. Then she goes through the pages until she finds her treasure again. She's also done this with her hand as the treasure, but it doesn't work quite as well :)


The books in these pictures is another favorite because it has animals in it. She is a HUGE animal fan. She loves our cats. When they walk in the room she kicks her legs (or bounces if she's standing) and flaps her arms and usually squeals, too! We were at a friends house not too long ago and they have a dog. She wanted to follow that dog everywhere! She didn't even care when the dog licked her in the face! She just giggled. An animal lover, for sure!



One more for now...Josiah has been "experimenting" with his science set. We haven't made any real "potions" yet, but he has fun pretending. He's made several pretend potions (mostly that turn the person who drinks them into a frog, but there's been a couple other transforming drinks) and he insists on wearing his safety glasses, even though he's only mixing air with air. Gotta follow the rules, ya know, and the rules say to wear the glasses. He's a first born, what can I say? This is him weighing some little red blocks--and wearing the glasses, of course. Those scales can be dangerous!!



If you are wondering about the lack of pictures of Micah it's because he can get very MAD about me trying to take his picture. I mean, screaming, crying, yelling MAD. You have to catch him at the right time, in the right mood and then he'll let you click away, but I haven't caught him like that yet, at least not at times when he's just by himself. I do have something about him I want to tell you about though, but it needs a picture to go with it, so hopefully soon...

It's a Big Day in My Neck of the Woods!

**Emilia slept through the night last night--all the way through the night! 8 p.m. to 7 a.m. SWEEEEEEET!

**Josiah has ANOTHER loose tooth! (the other middle bottom tooth)

**Emilia got ANOTHER new tooth! That makes 4 on top and 2 on the bottom!

I've got to tell you, too, that with all this excitement of losing teeth, learning to read, getting new teeth and all the other new baby accomplishments, Micah is feeling rather left out. He tries to come up with news about himself that is equally exciting, but he's not getting the same responses. Poor kid. It's really sad!

Finally! The Christmas Pictures!

If you can't see the pics or if it goes too fast for you to read the captions, just click on one of the pictures. It will pull up the album in Picasa. The pictures will be bigger and you can click through them at your own pace. Enjoy!

The Tooth Fairy Pillow

One of these days I really am going to get around to posting pictures from Christmastime...but that won't be today. :)

Here it is! Josiah's first sewing project. I cut out the fabric and pressed the pedal on the machine (because his legs aren't long enough...plus I'm not sure he's THAT ready to sew) but he chose all the fabric and which pattern to use for each part, he helped pin the material and guided the fabric through the machine, plus he sewed on the eyes and mouth. Great Job, Josiah!! I am very impressed.

And there it is! His tooth fairy pillow. The green at the bottom is the pocket for him to put his tooth in.

Today is equally exciting because IT SNOWED TODAY!! Not enough for a snowman, and it melted around lunchtime (although we do have ground cover again) but hey--it's SNOW!! Here is a picture of the boys watching through the window when it first started falling.


Micah didn't want to go outside and play in the snow. :( I asked him several times, but it was a no go. Josiah went out and played by himself and had a great time. Micah says if there is any snow left tomorrow he will go play in it. We'll see...Here is Josiah trying to catch snowflakes on his tongue.


And there you have it--the highlights from our day. Hope you had a good one, too!

An Even Trade...One Lost, One Gained

Do you see anything missing from this beautiful smile?


That's right...JOSIAH LOST HIS TOOTH!!
YIPEE!!!

He lost it last night. According to him, he was just sitting there wiggling it with his finger and...it just fell into his hand. BIG EXCITEMENT!! His tooth was getting pretty loose and I think the process was helped along by the apple he ate yesterday morning (that he first tried eating whole which pushed on his tooth and made it bleed...and oh, the trauma of blood!). Anyway, we are all VERY excited!! (There is a bit of jealousy on Micah's part...he's feeling a little left out and keeps checking his teeth to see if they are loose.)

But why does this make me feel so much older than the birthday I have coming up? For some reason having a kid lose a tooth makes me feel a lot older than having another birthday. Hmmmm...

In other tooth related news...Emilia sprouted another one this week and is now up to 5 teeth, with one more sure to pop through any day. She's averaging a tooth a week lately!

Last thing for now...this is my Micah Monster. He's such a goof!

Bits and Pieces

Still no pics for you because most of them are on my mom's computer, but I've got some stories to share while you wait...

I found where Micah cut his hair yesterday. There is a chunk above his right ear that is missing. Depending on how his hair is laying, though, it is very hard to tell (obviously since it took me so long to spot it!)

Josiah still hasn't lost his tooth. It's still hanging in there, but it is getting loose enough that he has trouble eating some things. We still haven't started sewing, either, but that's on the agenda for today or tomorrow. I'll post a pic of his creation once he makes it.

Josiah is also reading quite well now. Yesterday and today he has been reading a Dick and Jane book that we have and he is about 100 pages in and has read the whole thing on his own. I've been trying to work with him on reading because I knew he could do it, but everytime I tried he would get whiney and say, "I can't! It's too hard!" I have very little patience for whining and I didn't want to make reading an un-fun thing (because it is SUCH a fun thing!) so I let it drop. Then I decided he just needed a little motivation, a little competition. So I got a "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Lessons" book from the library (very simple lessons) and said I was going to teach BOTH the boys to read. Well, what do you know, that same day Josiah was reading on his own the same books that were "too hard" yesterday. :) (By the way, Micah did very well on the first reading lesson yesterday)

Emilia got a stroller/baby walker for Christmas and has been walking all over the place with it! She's pretty unsteady, but hasn't had any major spills with it, yet. She also has four teeth now, and two more coming in. YIKES! Oh, and a few days ago she was standing at one of the boys stools and then just....let go. And there she was, 9 months old and standing all by herself. What all this means is that instead of typing on this blog I should really be baby-proofing my house, especially since she is so attracted to wires! Add it to the list...

Micah went skiing for the first time last weekend. I think he liked it. He told me about learning to make pizza wedges and french fries. And Josiah got to go on the big lift and down the "big hill" this time. He was excited about that! They have both asked me several times about when I am going to ski...um, never. They don't like that answer, but too bad!

John's car has been getting some work done on it so the kids and I have been without a car for the last week. We're getting a little stir crazy, but so far, no one's been hurt....I'd say that's pretty good. So, for all of you still waiting for me to mail your Christmas presents and Christmas cards...hang in there--they're coming! But I am NOT walking to the post office with three kids, countless envelopes and several boxes. I'm not that crazy!!

That's all I'm coming up with right now. A photo slide show will be coming your way soon...at least I plan for it to be soon. Could be a week or more. Who knows. One of these days I'll get organized again. But not today!

I'm Sooooo Behind!

I can't believe how quickly the last month has gone by. We had a fun and busy holiday and hope yours was wonderful, too! I still don't have time to do a real post about Christmas and our trip to Texas and what all we've been doing, so I'll have to do that another time. But I did want everyone to know that we are doing well, having fun and have all sorts of new devolpments to report to you! For now, here's a picture of all the cousins down in Texas. Wouldn't you have liked to be in the house with all of these little ones for five days?? :) Although I do think the kids had more fun than the adults, we all had a good time (mostly)!