Autumn is 9 Months Old Today

You remember last month's "April Showers" pictures with the umbrella, right? Well, it's only fitting that we now have some May flowers:


And trying to showcase some of her recent milestones like pulling up to a stand:

Do not adjust your monitors. That's my bad. I'm still playing around with my new camera and that one was overexposed. Then, I'm not so good with fixing things in Photoshop so with my background already so black with my overexposed adjustments you can't see the chair she's holding onto that the bear is on. Oops. And that is one vibrant bear, eh? So much to learn, so little time...

Now here's this underexposed one that I don't even care all that much about trying to fix:


Now that she's mobile my little photo session was MUCH harder and MUCH blurrier.

In this last month my girl has popped two teeth, learned to crawl, to pull up to a stand, she took her first plane rides, and still doesn't really eat solids. :)

TOE-Tally Cute!!!

I painted Autumn's little piggies for the first time today! I asked Jason awhile back when he'd be okay with me painting her toes and he said, "Now" so I decided I'd wait till summertime. Well, today was Easton's last day of school and the last day of school always meant "It's Summer!!!" to me so there ya go.

They match mine but I picked out that color especially for her at Wal-Mart the other day...I didn't want it to be too light where it wouldn't show up but I also didn't want it looking too grown up or trampy worse.


I've wanted to get her ears pierced so badly but Jason wisely wants it to be her decision (which I totally get). He's fine with her having it done at whatever age, as long as she's the one who decides she wants it. Now I just gotta teach her baby sign for "Ears" and "Pierced". :) Anyway, in the meantime I'm settling for pigtails and bows and painted toes.

I was a little curious how I might keep her still long enough for them to dry and I was pretty proud of my idea to load her into the Snugli and paint them while she was in there.

She kicked her feet dry while I put on my make-up and made breakfast for Dalton and me. Then she sat in her booster chair while they dried some more.

Now we're all ready for summer! Especially poor Eastie...see the post below. :(

Last Day of School

The first day was exactly 9 months ago. Sure it wasn't Easton's first day because that was the day his sister was born but the other kids started August 24th and today (May 24th) they had their last day.

Easton has been hating school these last few weeks. We're not quite sure why. It was rather sudden so we're not sure if something happened or what and his teacher wasn't sure either. Easton tells us that it's so boring. And I know he had a fit at school one day when the whole class had to work on something that he really didn't want to do. He never caused any trouble at school...but Mrs. M did have to pull me aside after class that day. Ever since then it's been hard. He's cried nearly every morning before school. Even today, his last day he still didn't want to go.





Doesn't that just break your heart? It totally does mine. But he's fine when he gets there and does great while he's there.

But boy was he happy when I picked him up!


That same little buddy Jacob:


And Emily who he's always loved since they were in the same gymnastics class last year:


Easton originally wanted to marry Emily but she said she was going to marry Jacob so Easton asked Tabor instead. Tabor said yes but I think she's going to marry Jacob now. They go home together a lot. Then there's Mallory who Easton has always said was the prettiest girl in school. She also goes to Easton's Sunday school class and her mom told me that Mallory says she's going to marry Easton. Easton says otherwise. He says he's going to marry Kaitlyn (who he always calls Kay-lynn):

I think if you're gonna marry someone you should at least know their name. Plus, Kaitlyn seems to have a thing with Lochlan. They go on lunch dates a lot. With all this preschool drama I can see why Easton might be glad to be done! :)

He came out with a few pictures. This one he'd painted awhile ago for the art show:


And this he drew today:

It's funny to watch him draw because he pretty much always does it the same. I like how he always draws us in our favorite color. But his strange thing is that he starts with the feet when he's drawing a person. Different, no?

Anyway, I've got some more end-of-school festivities to report and more coming later this week. So stay tuned!

Schoooooooooool's. Oooooooooout. For. SUMMER!

Field Trip!

Easton only has one day left of school!!! I cannot believe he's about to be done with pre-K. But the end of the year often means field trips! Back on April 23rd, his class went to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science mostly to check out the space exhibit and see a show in the planetarium. (Basically the same thing Jason and Easton did on some one-on-one time a few months back. :) )

But, because Jason had gone with him before, this time I got to accompany my boy on the trip. They specifically asked us to try to make other arrangements for siblings to that it could be a special day for just our Pre-K'er. But, because it was a work day, Jason did arrange to work from home, but really thought he could only handle one kid...Dalton.

So on that rainy morning we headed down to the museum. Easton was so excited to spend some time with "just my mom and sister on Autumn's first time to go to the museum!!!"




Posing with his favorite species of dinosaur while we waited for the entire class to meet up:


His good buddy Jacob:


Moving some moon rocks around (and yes, he had to go potty):


Shooting marbles into sand with Kaitlyn to simulate how craters are made:


Exploring with Jacob:


We had some time to kill before the planetarium show so we went with Jacob and his mom to check out the rocks and minerals...except it was in the dark and Easton refused--absolutely refused--to walk a step further. Even when Jacob went on ahead, even holding onto my reassuring hand. I'm not sure when he got so scared of the dark. Poor guy.

But the planetarium was fun. Because Easton is so interested in space, he sure knows a lot about it. The movie worked backwards through the planets and even going that way, Easton knew exactly which planet would be next and he'd whisper various things about the planet to me. He had to hold Autumn for me for a sec so I could get ready to nurse her to keep her quiet during the show. :)


After that we had some lunch with our friends and then Jacob left so we stuck with Emily and Tabor:




We checked out the "Prehistoric Journey" where I was glad Easton wasn't paying attention to the movie they showed at the beginning because it contradicts a lot of our beliefs about the world. It was fun after that. Easton asked me to read him something and I had to say, "I don't want to" because I didn't know how to change it to fit with our Christian point of view on the spot like that. :)


Then we made our way home. Easton and Autumn entertained one another with raspberries on our drive:


She was a great little tagalong...and boy did she get a lot of attention. Just look at how cute she was that day:




Then Jason had to go in to work for the afternoon but it was a perfectly lovely morning with my biggest guy exploring his fascination with outer space.

It has been too long...

...since I've blogged. Because of our vacation. Because I'm kind of "over" this whole blogging thing most days. But tonight, because Jason is hosting another poker party and I'm hiding upstairs, I have time and desire to post a random assortment of pictures from APRIL for those that are still around.

Here ya go...
I don't even know what days all of these are from.

Doing some Play-Doh:




What gene is this expression on? (Don't they look like they're making the same face?)




Autumn playing with balls of socks in the laundry basket:


This was the day she got her first tooth: April 29th:






For the record, because none of these kids has a baby book, I noticed her second tooth today, May 22nd.

Dalton being a goob on that same day:






We still like to have fun around here:


I was scheduled to babysit Wyatt one Thursday last month. But then Tracy (Wyatt's mom) got a babysitting gig herself for that day and so she had to bring this strange baby and Wyatt over. The parents were fine with this, despite not knowing me, and my children were very excited to meet a new baby:



She didn't end up staying very long but it was fun while she was here. Even Autumn liked her. Easton told the baby she had a big nose!!!!

I took Dalton to Target with me one day (to pick out Holten's birthday present) and while we were there he decided to spend some of his own birthday money on a bunch of stuff for his babies. He bought a baby bath tub and a set with a playpen, booster chair, baby sling...all that. We have absolutely nothing against him pretending to be a Daddy (we encourage it, even)...I just wish everything wasn't pink. Oh well. He didn't mind a bit and it's so sweet to see him being so nurturing. Jason sets a great example for these kids:






Easton loved all the new gear too and Dalton was great about sharing...with Batman!


See what a great Dad he is?


That great Dad also recently took a Parent/Child climbing wall class with Easton. We had thought the parents would get to climb too but mostly they were there to help with the harnessing and encouraging. They did get to climb at one of the sessions. But, how perfect was a class like that for Easton?!?!






Rappelling down the wall:






See...this is why the kid needs climbing wall class:


Autumn and Dalton playing tea party one morning:


As we're not big gun people, Easton has always pretended this squirt gun is the tea pot. And his siblings carry that on:


Okay, so how was that for random? I told ya! I'm feeling better about being a little more caught up now. Carry on about your business. :)