Seven Sweet Months

Elin is 7 months old today & I can hardly believe it!  She is sitting and crawling so well & jabbering away. She's got lots of "da das" and "ka kas" with lots of squeals in between.  This one is gonna be independent, I do believe.  She figured out her sippy cup the first day, of course thinks she can feed herself, & rarely cuddles... we definitely savor those sweet moments when she gives in though.

Elin Kate: Six Months

Elin turned 6 months old on the 27th of August, & we went to her well visit yesterday.  She weighed 15.1 pounds and was 26.25 inches long. I missed the percentiles, but she is a little on the smaller side.  Our children seem to start out that way, but the Jake man was in the 95th for both height and weight at his last visit.  I'm sure Elin will follow suit!  To sum up Elin, I would use the words "quiet observer." She has a very soft voice even when she cries. Most of her days seem to be monopolized by watching Jake run circles around her.  She most of the time has a somewhat  inquisitive look about her, but when she does smile, her smile is wide, straight across, and her upper lip disappears in the cutest way.  Her smile is pretty contagious.  Another funny thing about her is that she has recently just started really laughing.... it has taken her about 2 months to get a good giggle down.  In the past when we would attempt to get her to laugh it almost sounded like it was painful and she would get the hiccups immediately, so we really kinda stopped trying to elicit a laugh even though we wanted to hear it so badly.  As you can see below, she has lost all the very dark brown hair that she was born w/ and now has a light brownish blondish color. I really didn't know if that would happen as it was so very dark at birth.  She can roll both ways, can sit w/ us guarding her, and almost go from quadra-ped to  sitting. The day after her 6 month b-day, she took her first attempts at crawling and now she can get around w/ a cross b/w an army and regular crawl.   She loves to read books w/ Jake and, like most babies, loves music...especially daddy's guitar.  Elin also goes crazy for toes, she is infatuated w/ Mommy's bright pink toes.  It's funny nothing else gets quite the response as my toes.  She also spits w/ the best of 'em, loves blowing raspberries.  Elin also studies her hands in that precious way that babies do, where they are almost waving at themselves; trying to figure out just what those things called fingers do. She is getting big so fast & we are loving every moment w/ our sweet sister Elin.  We are grateful for our precious gift & can't wait to see the personality that God has placed in her to make her uniquely ELIN.

David, the Shepherd Boy

So today, Jake was in the backyard playing w/ Loa when he came in the back door & asked, "Mom did David's father (w/ a Star Wars type, "father") give him food in a bag for his sheep?  I said, "Jake, sheep eat grass.  The food you are thinking of is the food his dad told him to take to his brothers."  Jake responded w/, "Well I'm gonna put some grass in my basket for my sheep," as he pointed w/ his plastic golf club to our dog Loa.  Loa by the way, was leashed to an exercise stroller, laying in the grass.  I'm certain she was loving this reenactment.   I probably looked at him puzzled b/c next he says, "Loa is King David's sheep...he ONLY has ONE sheep."  Then he goes back outside and puts some grass in his bucket and attempts to feed the sheep...AKA Loa.  Again, she looks thrilled.  A few minutes later he comes back through the house, and after going into Elin's room he comes back through where I am and he has a bright green headband on his head.  I said "Why are you wearing Elin's headband Jake?" He says, I'm David the shepherd boy"  (Enough said) and he goes back out.  I followed him outside, thinking I need a picture of this.  As I get my camera out to take a few pics of him in his green headband and his leashed sheep, he kinda poses and starts swinging his golf club in a circle around his head saying,"this is my stone mom!  I fight off the bears w/ it!" (Think he meant "sling" obviously) I love that he is excited about the Bible stories we are reading, but I never thought we would get quite this reenactment & neither did our oh so tolerating dog Loa.

So, not the greatest picture, but isn't it funny that Loa is yawing.. as if she has pretty much had enough! Hehe!!

YEAH! Daddy's Home!

Let's just say that last week was a bit on the long side!  Keith was in Milwaukee for 4 days for work and it felt a little more like 4 weeks.  I'm sure Jake was counting down not just the days but the minutes until Daddy got home.  We made him a card w/ Jake's well used phrase "Yeah! Daddy's home" and made him some chocolate chip cookies for a midnight snack when he got home on Friday night.  Jake pleaded to wait up, so I thought, "sure, he'll never make it." So we made a pallet in the living room floor and waited.  Believe it or not, Jake lasted until 11:30 pm before he crashed out ( I might be the worst mom ever... who lets their 3 year old stay up that late?).  Keith tried to wake him up for cookies when he got home at midnight, but let's just say he wasn't interested.  Anyway, needless to say we were all happy that Keith was home.