6 months

Half a year has just flown right by! This happy baby is such a delight. He's perfectly chubby and smiley. I love the feel of his cute, tiny hands grabbing my hair and face, how he ducks his head into my shoulder when he smiles, how he can army crawl across the floor by using his arms and his left foot, how he smiles with his mouth wide open, and.... well just about everything about him. I could do with a better sleep schedule. But I'm not very good at teaching my babies to fall asleep on their own. So then I pay for it when they need me to nurse them to sleep multiple times a night! But truly, he's a dream in every other way and I just love having this little guy by my side every day! He weighs in at 17 pounds 9 ounces and was in the 60% for weight and 20% for height. Cute little chub!

Christmas day!

I love Christmas, it's such a fun time to be a parent! At our house the kids each get 3 gifts from mom and dad (like the three gifts the wise men brought to baby Jesus) and the kids leave out a Santa bag and stocking. Santa usually leaves them one or two things in the bag, some candy and such in their stockings and leaves some special cereal, too.

Miles got some legos and a joke book from Santa. He loves telling jokes!

Sully got a toy bus from Santa!

Nora got an Elsa Barbie and a Bitty Baby dress from Santa.

All Sophie could think of this year that she wanted, was a basketball. Santa didn't let her down!

Brian and I got all the kids a gift card to go to Build-A-Bear. Miles was thrilled!

Scooter got some new balls!

Sullivan opening a present with some help from dad. 

Nora made gifts for everyone and painted this portrait of Brian.

Wesley's main gift was this awesome Imaginext Bat-Bot. He looks a bit concerned in this picture, I'm not sure why, but he has really loved it. It has a remote control and talks - pretty awesome for our Batman loving kid.

Miles really wanted a Hotwheels Streethawk flying car. It was the only thing he wanted. So he got it from Brian and I. We took it out flying on Christmas day and after about 15 minutes of crashing over and over again the wheel broke off. He was pretty sad about it, but after looking on-line at other options we decided to return it and ordered a different flying machine. Fingers crossed it lasts longer.

Nora's main gift was a big craft box! Nora crafts every day and our supplies were running low! She was pretty excited.

Sophie got a Kindle Fire! She is such a sweetie and would probably have never asked for one, thinking she'd never get it. It was fun to surprise her. After school every day she needs to use my phone or the computer to access homework information for school, so we figured it was time she had something of her own. Plus, it will be good practice for her to be responsible for something like this before she gets a phone in a few years. She was very excited, but was a bit sad to let go of the title "the only 6th grader without some form of technology of their own"

Brian's family always had a Christmas puzzle and Brian bought ours this year. It was a doozy. Out of 1,000 pieces the kids and I probably did less then 50 of them! I was all for getting out last years puzzle, but Brian persisted and stayed up late a few nights to work on it. I finally helped him and we got it done.

We made a real gingerbread house from scratch on Christmas day, which was pretty fun.

 A nice Christmas nap for Scooter. I gave Brian a calendar on Shutterfly for his office and I made him a tie rack for our bedroom. I got a handheld vacuum and an arm band to hold my phone when I run.

What a lovely, lovely day!