crawling

the day after he turned 7 months, 

he started to crawl.

why is it that my last baby has grown up the fastest?

he's been in size 9 month clothes for 3 months,

and had 6 teeth by the time he turned 6 months old.

slow down...

please?!

he's been doing his "downward dog" yoga pose for awhile,

but couldn't get his arms out of his bulldog stance.

we tried various motivational props--

you know, remotes, phones, keys...

all things awesome parents give their kids.

ha.

but what finally motivated him was pliers.

it was a proud moment for his daddy.

check out those meaty thighs-- 

apparently mama makes buttermilk!

 

i missed the "action" the first time, so we tried it again:

he was so proud of himself.

"i'm almost there!"

"...but i'm getting worn out."

i love my pudgy (not so) little man.

 

sweet potatoes

i don't ever start baby food at 4ish months.

i wait until they show interest, and then we skip the rice cereal

and dive right in with the good stuff.

maddox is 5.5 months old

and has really started grabbing at food and drinks,

so i made him some sweet potatoes.

i don't even have to tell you what he thought of them...

easter day 2011

this post is going to be super picture heavy. 

i have to let the pictures speak for me for the most part.

i've been "sick" and it's now affecting my concentration.

for reals.

i have fluid on my inner ear, and i thought that maybe it was a blockage,

so i tried to fix it myself.

well, i got even more fluid in there and ended up with vertigo so bad that i couldn't walk.

i am on medication...that is almost gone...and while it helps if i religiously take it every 6 hrs,

i don't have a refill and immediate care won't do anything unless i pay another $90 to come in again.
(that's not going to happen since they already told me the first time they can't do much in that setting).

i found a comprehensive symptom list for labrinthitis,

and i have a lot of those symptoms, 

including difficulty concentrating, short term memory lapses, confusion, etc.

i have a hard time finishing a blog post,

so i hope you don't get too bored with me!

...in the mean time, if you think about it, say a prayer!

hopefully it will remedy itself in the next few weeks,

but jesus works better than medicine!

the kids woke up to their easter baskets filled.

we don't do much candy. they get plenty of that throughout the day,

but i like to have little surprises for them:

happy first easter, max!

they went on an egg hunt as soon as they were done with their baskets:

we were ready for church early, so i wanted to get some pictures:

this was ali's pose automatically.

i'm in trouble.

..aaaand then we were 15 minutes late for church.

after church was an egg hunt,

and then on to my mom's for another egg hunt,

and we finished up with church at our dear friends' house,

loving and praising the Reason we celebrate easter.

it was a long, wonderful day.

hmm..

so i ended up saying a lot.

if my pictures are speaking for me for the most part,

heaven help me.

the end.

a sore mouth

after the flea market on sunday (pictures to come), we met back up with the guys at  kyle's. after lunch, we were getting ready to leave to pick our girls up from mom's. jax had been eating a sucker, and all of a sudden jax started crying.
he had fallen, and blood was already coming out of his mouth when drew picked him up. we don't naturally panic when our kids get hurt, but we were concerned with the amount of blood there was. it was hard to tell where he was cut, and it looked like he had knocked a tooth loose, or even knocked it out.
we soon realized that it wasn't a tooth, but a sucker stick in his mouth. my stomach dropped all over again, afraid it was lodged in the back of his throat. thankfully, jason's EMT training kicked in and he swept it out without any trouble. we knew he had already eaten the sucker part of it, but he had chewed part of the stick off too, leaving the small part that was in his mouth, hence the reason we were afraid it was stuck somewhere.
ok. no loose teeth, no lodged sucker stick. but the lip, it was deep. we knew mouths bled a lot, and that they are rarely stitched, so we just worked on getting the bleeding to stop. he was really sore and fussy, so i was glad he was able to fall asleep in the van on the way to mom's. we had jason's dad come over to check it out that evening, just to make sure it would close ok since it was still gaping so bad. thankfully it was ok.

here is a picture of it 2 days after it happened:

he's been able to eat and talk just fine, but good grief it looks sore. 

it still looks about the same as the picture today.

i'm really, really surprised that this is the first time we've come close to visiting the ER.

given his nature, i'm sure it's in our future!

christmas morning

i was absolutely not into the holiday spirit this year. in fact, if we didn't have children, i would have opted to skip it altogether.

i'm so glad we didn't.

it was a really, really nice christmas. it was the slowest paced one we've ever had in our 6 christmases together, and we were so thankful. here are some pictures of our christmas morning:

we bought a fake tree this year.

wow.

A LOT less hassle. i did miss the smell of a real tree, but not enough! =P

ali's 1 had-to-have-it gift, baby alive;

a fairy hair styling set for sissy

they each opened a new bedding set, too.

(seriously? i had no idea that bedding was so stinking expensive for even kids!)

we had them sleep on their toddler bed mattresses on the floor in jaxon's room 

the night before. the reason?

new beds!!

she was shocked! =)

there was no disputing who got which bunk

this picture right here repeats itself about 100x / day

max finally woke up and enjoyed his first christmas:

first thanksgiving

maddox was so happy to celebrate his first thanksgiving!

i even got a picture of the 1 out of 3 times he's taken a pacifier!

kyle made the hat. isn't it adorable?

this has to be the latest thanksgiving post ever.

good thing you're nice enough to read it anyway.

more catching up posts are coming!

*all pics by iph0ne, another reason i've been a lazy blogger.