Thanksgiving visit

We had family in town over Thanksgiving. It was busy, but we all had such a great time. We hosted three cousins and a Grandma at the house. We are tired, but glad everyone came! Here are some highlights:

 Grandma Jani got to have lunch with the boys! Two cousins came along for an added bonus!

 Since it was "vacation" iPads & iPhones were fired up with games going. We did make them stop and actually play together.

 Lots of help walking! Our kids are going to miss their cousins!! Lillie included. She had seven extra people to walk her around all day.

Everyone played lots and lots of hangman. Sometimes the words were made up; sometimes there were some creative spellings (we had two 1st graders & a 2nd grader), but I'm sure there must have been some learning. Ermias learned that Christmas is spelling with a C and not a K.

And, of course, we had lots of food, but I didn't get any pictures of that. We are still eating the leftovers and will be for a few more days. Waymond loves that part of Thanksgiving!

Toys

Lillie went in search for the perfect toy. She crawled under the table and dumped each box of toys to find the one she wanted! Our pediatrician says that at 9 months the personality and temperament of your child is usually how they will be forever. We think we have a very detailed, determined and happy little girl who knows what she wants to chew on!

Standing

It has finally happened. I went to get Lillie from a nap on Tuesday and she was standing up in her bed. Waymond lowered the mattress that evening so she wouldn't fall out or try to grab the picture on her wall. She is just growing up so fast!

Pretend

Ermias still really likes to pretend play things going on in his life. Saturday he put together "lunch with the principal." He was the principal.

Lillie enjoyed her wooden hamburger!

Everyone had fun and Waymond played the part of the overactive, needs lots of attention student very well.

More reading

The boys enjoying a library book with Lillie. 

I'm sure they all loved learning about flies.

10 Months

Ten months old today! 

I can't believe that in two months we will be 

celebrating Lillie's 1st birthday and Ermias' 7th! 

Lots of moving around these days. She is still crawling on her arms and toes, but occasionally gets up on her hands and knees, she just doesn't go very fast that way. If she could, Lillie would just take off running every where she went. She tries to stand by herself and can walk by herself along the sofa or ottoman. She wants to keep up with her brothers. She has learned to scream at them if they aren't paying attention to her. They think it's funny so she keeps doing it. It's very effective; she gets everyone's attention. They love it when she does it while we are out in public! She screams, they laugh, and everyone near us looks our way; lovely! Grocery shopping with three kids is not my favorite past time; I try to leave all if not two at home usually.

More art

This is Ermias' playdough underwater ocean scene, 

including a sea-star, shark and a home for the shark!

reading

I got out of the shower one morning this last week to find:

Our boys are really into reading at the moment. As I'm sure you remember, they were bribed this summer with doughnuts for reading (which worked amazingly). Isayas was telling me about a book he checked out of the school library. He finished his story with, "I really like to read now Mom. I learn a lot from books." Let's hope he keeps that attitude forever!!

Cars

I'm not sure if we need to buy any toys for Lillie. She seems to take over her brother's toys. The boys had their cars out the other day playing. They were nice and gave her a couple of her own to chew on, but it didn't last long. She NEEDED to be in the middle of what they were doing and chew on any and every car they wanted to play with.

Isayas' soccer

For those who would like to watch a little of Isayas' soccer team:

The skills

Last week I pulled out the camera to get a picture of Lillie and the mess she had made (she likes to dump things and move on) and I'm glad I did. We got a first hand view of her light saber skills.

The teeth

Lillie has four teeth! That fourth one took weeks to break through; we could practically see it for days and days before it came through the gum. Thankfully she's a pretty good teether. She might have her momma's tolerance for pain (and thankfully not her daddy's).

It's hard getting a good shot of teeth! This was the best one. She is going to have a huge gap between her front teeth, which is going to make her even more cute (if that's possible)!

For the Grandmas

Because the Grandmas live far away, here's another video. I took it for Isayas so he could see what happened to his pyramid while he was at school. Lillie is compelled to knock down anything that's stacked.

Happy Halloween

The boys carved a great pumpkin with Waymond.

Ermias slowly decorated our front window with hanging bats, spiders (plastic & paper), webs

a scary face, ghosts and a couple of pumpkins.

Lillie was going as an 1980's aerobics instructor (she has lots of leg warmers) 

and I made a boom-box out of felt for her to chew on.

In the end she stayed home with me, she wasn't feeling well today. 

She'll chew on the boom-box post halloween.

The boys dressed as ninjas, but I didn't get pictures. 

Waymond put their outfits together and they were amazing!

Masterpiece

I bought a bunch of opened packs of pipe cleaners at a garage sale for $.25, and while looking for something else Ermias ran across them. He's been working on this masterpiece for two days. It was hanging from the fire place, but it got a little heavy for the tape he used to hang it. It's a Christmas decoration and Lillie REALLY wants to eat it or at least taste it!
Best quarter I've spent, and he has more pipe cleaners left.