So proud of himself

Our life has changed drastically in the last two weeks because of this little guy's new-found mobility. He is now a full-fledged crawler. He thinks he's pretty hot stuff pulling himself up on all our furniture, too. He's not all that stable on his feet yet, so I am on constant alert both with the pulling up on things and with the crawling. I have a few helpers who keep me pretty well informed on his whereabouts, though, especially when he's getting into their things. :)

Big Sister, Little Brother

The big kids were both at school, so I just had the two littles at home on Thurs and Friday morning. Almost everyone is healthy again! Hooray! Grant has an ear infection (yes, another dr visit for us this week) but is on the mend. I *think* we just might all get to go to church together this weekend!  

8 months

Grant turned eight months last week. It was a busy week, so I didn't get around to posting or taking pictures then. These were all from this last Saturday. He had a fever and a snotty nose, but he was pretty happy that afternoon.  It was a big day for him (big day for us, too, with our house selling and all!). His first tooth came in, specifically the front bottom left tooth (the baby book is packed away, so the blog is my only record for now). He also learned how to crawl forward on Saturday evening. I told you it was a big day!

He is better at going backwards and gets stuck often. It sure is cute to see him crawling, though! I got him to go forward by putting my cell phone out in front of him. He REALLY likes the cell phone (most babies seem to prefer the real deal), and it was big enough motivation to figure it out, I guess. He's our earliest crawler. Way to go, Grant! He pulled himself up on our coffee table yesterday, but he is not stable at all, so that could be a problem. Here come the bumps and bruises.

It wasn't super warm outside, but the sun was out, so he got to experience grass for the first time. He didn't care for it much.

That index finger is his finger of choice for teething, and it has a nice red mark to show for it. Can a finger develop a callous on the middle knuckle?

Before he got sick again, he was finally down to only getting up once or twice at night, but now he's back to multiple times. Sigh! I have hope, though, that once he's all well, we can get back to the once a night routine.


In a lot of ways Grant hasn't followed in his siblings' footsteps--kind of doing his own thing in the sleep department and moving around earlier than the others. However, there is one area in which he has decided to follow their trend, and that is in the nursery at church. He is inconsolable until they come and get us. He gets that hiccupy cry as he's calming down, coming out of his panic. He likes his mama. What can I say? He's my last baby, so I'll enjoy the extra cuddles and snuggles as long as he'll give 'em to me.

One out of four

Look who finally got well! Unfortunately, he passed his sickness on to his sisters (Kari missed all five days of school last week) who then in turn passed it on to their baby brother. I *think* they are all finally starting to get better after being down a solid week. I am hoping Kari can go back to school tomorrow. It's time! I took these this weekend. Joel was lonely without his usual playmates who were only up for lying on the couch watching some more Rugrats (don't even ask which season they're on--we've been utilizing that Netflix subscription!), so Greg went out on the trampoline with him. 

Our happy, healthy Beaver fan following Daddy and "helping" with yardwork on Saturday morning.   So thankful to have our cheerful Joel back.

It's off

Our house is sold!
And the kind buyers are allowing us to rent from them until we find a new house!

It's up

Our house is officially on the market! RMLS #11308357 if you want to see it. Also on our terrific real estate agent's page (Inverness Ave). :) The house is clean; the sign is up, and we're ready for all those potential buyers. Spread the word!

An update

Our family is finally all well... ...April Fools! Joel has been sick for the last week with a virus yet again. His fever was 105.5 last Saturday night, so I spent some time on the phone with the advice nurse at 2am, and we were in the doctor's office the next day. And then this morning at 5am he woke up crying and said his ear was hurting. So, back to the doctor we went. It's another ear infection. It's never good when the doctor takes one little peek and says, "Wow, I wish I had a med student with me today." Poor Joel. We sure have been saying that a lot. I quit keeping track of co pays lately, but the computer hasn't (neither has our bank account), and I was curious, so I took a look. I found that our family has been to the doctor 18 times in the last two months. Eighteen times in two months!! Can you believe that?! Two vists were "well child" appointments (ha!), but the rest were sickness, and a couple of those visits, we had more than one sick kid checked out. Absolutely ridiculous. The winter of 2010/2011 will be memorable, that's for sure. Hurry up, Spring!

In the midst of all this, we are trying to get our house ready to put on the market. We've outgrown our 1100 sq ft home, and while it's very scary to me to think of selling and not knowing the future and where we'll live, we've prayed about it a lot and feel that it's time to try to sell. We have A LOT of stuff in this little house, and we have a lot of packing/purging/organizing to do in order to get it "show-ready." Hopefully, in the next week or so our house will be tidy and sparkly. And then I have to try to keep it that way!

We have been doing some other things lately, but I haven't had the camera out. Kari has been taking gymnastics classes (she loves it!), and we started swimming lessons this last week, too. Joel had to miss both lessons this week, but maybe he can go next week. We decided to wait to enroll Aubrey. She does NOT want to do it, so we'll just hold off on that one for now. Maybe she'll change her mind after watching for a month or so and want to do the next session, or maybe not. :)

Kari has always liked to help with things, and lately her desire to help has surged. Her favorite thing to help with right now is dinner. She wants to do all the prepping and cooking but isn't fond of the cleaning (not my favorite either). I am trying to let her do as much as possible, but as you can see here (notice stove top), sometimes that makes more work for me. It takes longer, too, but I know it's important to let her try and to teach her along the way, so I'm choosing to put my perfectionism and preferences aside to let her "help" me. It's not often that she actually asks to do things with me, so it could be a bonding time for us as well. That is, if I can keep from getting frustrated during one of the most difficult hours of the day. :) Ok, my time to sit at the computer is over. Off to pack some more!

Trip to Sisters

The trip almost didn't happen. Aubrey's fever went up not down after Wednesday, which was strange because she seemed to be getting better and everyone else who had had it was better, but then her fever went up to 103 with ibuprofen in her on Thursday evening. We were SO bummed and so frustrated by all this sickness that was ruining our plans. We decided to wait until Friday morning to make the call. We were up most of the night with Aubrey, and then finally at 6am Friday morning she said, "Mommy, my ear hurts." I was so relieved to hear her say that! That meant there was hope that this was something that was fixable.  I was almost giddy when I went back to bed and told Greg what she said. We got her in to the doctor at 10:30am, and sure enough, her left ear drum was infected and bulging. We filled her prescriptions, picked up Joel from preschool, ate some lunch, packed for the weekend in 1 hour (a record for us), and were on the road by 1:15pm.  Aubrey and Grant both slept through the snowy drive over the mountain, and we enjoyed our trip over as much as you possibly can enjoy a trip like that with 4 kids in the car.

Ryan and Michelle moved to Sisters (central Oregon) back in August, but we hadn't had a chance to go out and visit them yet, so we were excited to finally go. Michelle is having baby Brennan in less than two weeks, so we squeezed in a visit before his arrival. It was nice to just relax, chat, catch up, and have fun together with no big agenda for the weekend. We went to the bakery Saturday morning, let the kids play at the park where they saw a bunch of deer, and then went out to a farm of someone Ryan works with where the kids got to chase chickens and ride on a horse. We went to Ashlynn's last basketball game Saturday afternoon, and I got to see my aunt and uncle and their new house in Sisters, too, while we were there. Aubrey wasn't feeling good for most it, but the medicine kicked in Saturday afternoon, and she perked up. The guys had a good time watching basketball all weekend. At one point they had 4 different screens set up--the TV and three laptops--so they wouldn't miss a bit of March Madness.

Lorelai and Joel looking at "Bunny."

Aubrey wanted nothing to do with that horse. It was pretty cold and windy, too, so she just hung onto Daddy while we were there.

We had a nice little surprise Saturday morning. We woke up to a few inches of snow on the ground.

Ashlynn enjoyed mothering Grant for the weekend. She's going to be one excited big sister in a couple weeks! She's going to be quite the helper for her mama.

Not expecting snow, we didn't bring snow gear, so they couldn't really play in it much, but they did have fun brushing off the cars.

We had a great time, and the drive back home wasn't bad either. Next time we see them, they'll be a family of five!

10 days and counting

That is how long someone (or multiple someones) has been sick with a fever in this house. Here's Aubrey at her "post" on the love seat. She's doing a lot better today, despite what this photo portrays. She just couldn't muster up a smile for me. She's sitting up, and she got dressed today at least! She spent two days without her hair done in the same princess nightgown, mismatching pajama bottoms, and Zoe Sesame Street slippers. She's on day 4 which means she should be doing better by tomorrow if she follows the trend of the other 4 people in our family who have had this sickness. I hesitant to even type the words, but yes, I am the one person who has not had it. I am convinced it's only by the grace of God. I'm still praying that I will stay well, as we have plans for the weekend that would be a big bummer to have to cancel and because I'm not sure how my family would fare if I were to go down. It's been quite the season. I think the kids are going to go through TV/movie withdrawal once everyone is well.

Watching the news and reading the paper this week sure has given me some perspective while we've been sick at home. While praying for the people in Japan, I've been feeling especially thankful for our home and for the safety and overall health of our children. This little illness will be over soon, and it doesn't seem like any big deal when I see the images of the suffering and devastation across the ocean. It's all a matter of perspective, I guess. Makes me grateful we have such a big, powerful God who is in control and that He cares about little ones with fevers and tired moms as well as earthquake victims suffering deep loss.

7 months

Seven months finds Grant happy and ear infection free (we do have an appointment scheduled with the ENT, however). He is rolling all over the place but can't quite figure out how to move forward. Backwards, side-to-side, and in a circle are easy but forward is just frustrating! He'll figure it out soon enough. We can no longer store magazines or newspaper on the shelf of our coffee table because eats them. He is enjoying his real food, too. Haven't found much that he doesn't like yet.

Now that he's well, he's sleeping better, not great, but better. I'll take it. :)

Right now I am doing everything in my power to keep him from getting the latest virus plaguing our family. Greg has been home sick for three days, and now Kari and Joel both have fevers, too. We had one wonderful week of wellness and that was it. This winter has been brutal for our family health-wise. None of it is major stuff, but our immune systems could sure use a boost.

I'm trying to focus on the many blessings in our life and not on the discouraging things going on around here. This little guy's smile brought a smile to my face today.

Museum trip

The library pass made it our way again, and we had a great little trip to the Children's Museum this morning. Joel was VERY excited to go and enjoyed every minute of it. Oh, and yesterday he was finally declared strep-free! It sure has been nice to have well kids again. This last week was nice and "normal."
















We were some of the only people there first thing in the morning, which is how I like it. We had the water area completely to ourselves, and the kids played in there a long time. Joel had a smile on his face almost the entire time.

The plus side of doing the water area first was that there were no other kids. The down side was the fact that the kids were wet from the start. Aubrey's pants, socks, sleeves, and hair all got doused. She didn't seem to mind too much, though (and had a blast doing it). If it had been another one of our children, that would not have been ok.















played in here a while, too
















Grant did great just hangin' with Mom.

Can you see it?

Some people say something about Aubrey reminds them of my mom, and I've never really been able to see it. Then I saw this photo of my mom, and then I saw it. I totally see Aubrey in her smile.

My dad has been scanning all his old slides and sending some along. I've never seen a resemblance before, but I see Aubrey in some of my little kid pictures, and sometimes a little bit of Joel, too. I have yet to see any of my genetic material (at least physically) in Kari or Grant, but I don't expect to. Greg's got that one covered, I think. :)

I love old pictures. Here's Brian and I.

Denee, this one's for you. Look at us up at camp. Weren't we cute, dirty little things?

When I turned 3.
I had that doll cake (variations of it) many a birthday. It was one of my favorites.

Aubrey Ann turned 3

For the last six months or so, people have assumed Aubrey was 3, and now she really is! She got to go to her first birthday breakfast with Grandpa--and LOVED every minute of it. Funny how things work for younger siblings. Kari went for the first time when she turned 6, Joel went when he turned 4, and Aubrey when she turned 3. We were joking that maybe Grant should go when he turns 2. Wouldn't that be fun, Grandpa? :)

And we had her big family party on her actual birthday, too. I do believe this much anticipated day lived up to all her expectations. She was one excited birthday girl. Thanks for celebrating with us, everyone!

Here are some of my favorites of Aubrey from her party: