Fun at Home

We are in the double digits and I can't believe it! 10 months!!!

Eva continues to be so busy with learning new things and growing so fast. She loves clapping with us!

She has started pointing and has waved a few times. She climbs on everything and loves to be standing! She isn't cruising around on the furniture yet, but I'm sure she will be before we know it. She also LOVES to dance. Anytime there is any kind of music she starts wiggling back and forth. She also gives kisses now! She always does them two in a row. Sometimes she doesn't want to when the kids bother her too much for them. She has started shaking her head no when I think she actually means it and has said Momma a few times that seemed like it was calling for me. Growing so fast and doing it with much adorableness!

She continues to be such a happy girl!

She still loves her Momma so much and mostly only wants me. She doesn't let me take one step away from her either, which makes it hard to get anything done but it is so very precious being loved so fiercely by such a sweet pea. Dave took this picture as I was walking her up for bed time. She's a big snuggler before going to sleep.

We got Benjamin a new bike (which he's still learning on, so no pictures yet) and that meant tall Collin gets Benjamin's big bike. He is super excited and looks HUGE riding it!

It's adorable and a little sad (to see him being so big) all at the same time.

Eva had her first taste of watermelon. She liked it!

However, she did not appreciate it when we took it to turn it around back to the edible side.

Silly faces with Daddy.

Dave continued the silliness and cut super pieces for round two.

Everyone loved it!

Collin preferred to give me silly faces instead of watermelon pictures. He's a goofball like that. ;)

Argh!

Benjamin hasn't been able to enjoy corn on the cob this summer with his missing teeth (we're up to 5 lost), but he can devour watermelon happily!

I think Eva enjoys sensory things because she loves to play and explore her food. For the first few times I gave her berries, she wouldn't eat them....she only wanted to explore what they felt like squished in her fingers. The same thing happened with the watermelon. After she filled her tummy, she had a blast playing in it. There was watermelon juice everywhere!

So we headed up to the bath tub. Eva has hated baths since her newborn days. She cries hard every single time, any way we try. Finally we started putting her in this sitting baby tub and letting her play with toys and then filling the tub with water and she doesn't cry. Yay!!!

The girls were super cute playing together. Anna even helped wash Eva. I love the way they interact with one another. Anna is going to make a great Momma some day. She is so nurturing. When we get together with friends she will play Momma to littler kids and carry them around everywhere. It's adorable how she talks to them.

So relieved to finally see a happy baby at bath time!

They had a lot of fun!

Next up it was time for the boys!

After we got clean, we were silly and made crazy hair.

Collin had to do more silly expressions too. :)

Haven't done any funny/cute kid sayings in awhile, so here goes: 

Collin brought me his little plastic elephant that was broken again after Daddy had already glued it back together once. 

Me: Maybe it's time to throw the elephant away, since it isn't staying together.

Collin: No! We can't do that.

Me: Why not? Is it one of your favorites?

Collin: Because, the elephant has a baby!

Me: (Realize he's right, there is a baby that goes with it and then tear up that my wild, tough Collin is also so thoughtfully sweet)

We had been trying to decide what we wanted to do for our anniversary since our first idea didn't work out. We figured something out that we're excited about and the next day I was telling the kids (they're invited). When Dave got home that night, he was excited to surprise the kids and tell them we were going to Brown County for the evening. He said, "Guess what guys? I have something fun to tell you!" Anna comes over and in the cutest voice says, "Daddy, I already know what we're doing for our anniversary." It was so funny how she said "our anniversary".

As the youngest of the three big kids, Collin prides himself on getting bigger. That comes with a lot of cuteness as well. For instance, when Benjamin and Anna had their yearly check-ups a few months ago Collin was paying attention when the doctor checked their muscle tone. (She had them make muscles with their arms and then tried to push their arms down.) So, Collin will now come up to you and make big muscles and with the sweetest voice that is FULL of confidence and a twinkle in his eye say, "Try and push them down." He also likes to taunt me about his getting big. When he does or says something that makes him seem so much older, I will playfully tell him that he's getting too big and he needs to stop. He will reply with the same twinkle in his eye and say, "I am. I'm gonna be four." It is so funny and adorable how he says this!

One more, Collin doesn't watch much TV so he didn't pick up on recognizing his letters as quickly as the other kids did (since they are in almost every show for kids these days). I was starting to work on them with him and decided to use his talent for rhythm to our advantage. So I made up a little song to help him learn how to spell his name. We clapped out his letters C-O (pause) L-L (pause) I-N and then shout "Collin!" We did this one afternoon for about 5 minutes and that was all it took to stick. After that he could easily spell his name doing his little chant. After a few weeks, he dropped the clapping, song type way and will just spell the letters, but he always yells "Collin!" at the end. :)