Sweet summertime and some firsts!

The past few weeks have brought about our "new normal."  That is a good thing.  We are getting out, having company in without asking for a current shot record... just kidding (but only a little bit!) and experiencing some summertime firsts.  In the past two weeks Jack, Lilibeth and West have gone from sitting to sitting and reaching without falling (for the most part).  I see creeping and crawling in our near future!  I hear that this is not something that I should look forward to, but I am!  I tell Klint, "I'm so sad that this is going so fast!" but in almost the same breath I am talking about how excited I am that someone or two or three is doing something new and totally gifted :)

Here are a few of the things that we have been up to:

We love to eat!  Jack is thanking Ben for making him a great lunch.  We are eating peas, carrots, sweet potato, squash, avacado, banana, blueberries, rice cereal, green beans (we turn our noses up to green beans!), mango, pear, peaches... I'm sure I'm leaving something out.  Many, many thanks to our fabulous chef, Jill, for making us such yum-o baby food!

Here is Jack.  He was born 7.5 months ago weighing 4 pounds, 8 ounces.  Mama has been feeding Jack, West and Lilibeth well.  Jack weighs about 19 pounds now.  He is wearing some pajamas that are size 9 months.  (In his defense, I think it is a 9 months "slim" edition.)

Oopsie!  Jack seems to have outgrown his 9 months "slim" edition PJ's.  We were tired of those anyway!  This pic is especially for you, Linz!

Lilibeth and Papa playing

Choo-choo!  Here we come.  Thanks, Marsha!  I know it is intended for our great excursions out of the home, but it is a great help when we don't know what to do but cry!

An armload of boys

A shopping trip with Ben

Lilibeth is enjoying herself thoroughly

West: "When are we leaving?"

Jack: "And why are we here in the first place?"

The girls had a great time!  The boys had a time.  It is so nice to be out.  I am working on making my loading and unloading a little more efficient.  It gets better every time.  We use a single stroller and a double stroller to avoid stares and comments.  Most comments are very kind... others make me need to go home and brush up on some scripture.  Back to the loading.  On our first shopping outing with Fancy, it seemed to take about 15 minutes to unload, then another 15 to reload.  Our trip with Ben was a little faster.  On our most recent trip to Costco on Saturday (bad idea!), I think I whittled the load and unload down to about 5 minutes each.  It's funny the things I focus on in this new experience! 

Sweet boys sharing

We knew that wouldn't last long!

Thanks, Becky!  We LOVE the Zebra pool!  Daddy filled it up for us today.  Let the fun begin!

The children would like to report that a swim diaper can really ruin your Summer 2011 swimwear look.  Elmo is so 2010. 

Little Lilibeth.  Klint and I PROMISED as wanna-be parents that we would NEVER let a daughter of ours wear a two-piece swimsuit.  How many words will I have to eat in this parenting process?  Let's amend that... we will never let our daughter out of diapers wear a two-piece swimsuit.  What is a mama to do when Baby Gap sold me this cute little number for $3 last summer?  Well, that's what I thought, too!

West is a fish!  We couldn't get him to sit much.  He wanted to be on his back so that he could kick those little feet in his pool!

Happy times

Did you already get our season passes to Splash Town?

Jack had a great time batting at the Zebra's head on the pool

A few things I love about Jack right this minute:   

He is so observant and he has a great laugh!  One morning this week we noticed that Jack was coughing to get our attention.  He had to have a swallow study a few months ago (which turned out fine) to determine why he was choking.  The big medical determination: he's just a choker-type kid.  All this to say, when Jack coughs, we respond quickly.... and this week he picked up on that.  I've got the boy coughing wolf!

A few things I love about Lilibeth right this minute:

She's sitting with her daddy and she adores him!  She is currently growling at him.  This trick is a few weeks old.  She growls, but she also laughs, laughs, laughs!   In the past week, she has become pretty loud.  She talks to her brothers all day long.  She is probably the most stable while sitting and loves playing on the floor.

A few things I love about West right this minute:

He loves the water.  Every night during bath time, he kicks enough to swim across a pool of Olympian proportion.  He has a great belly laugh.  His daddy brings this out in him.  I keep trying.  He is kind to his mother and laughs an obligatory laugh, but lets loose when daddy gets home!  He loves music and will calm immediately when we start jamming to Barnyard Moosical or some silly business like that!

So excited about summertime with our family and friends!