More milestones!

So the little guy is crawling in his own way. He gets up on his hands and knees and moves his hands and moves his legs and gets going forward -- but it isn't very coordinated yet and he often lunges forward to get something and then gets back up on his knees again later. Nothing is safe from him now though -- he gets all around the downstairs now. He seems to like getting caught up under the baby swing, something I seem to recall one of the other boys doing too.

I rearranged the living room and plan to donate the baby swing away. I need to go find our box of childproofing stuff as I need more outlet covers and such. He hasn't discovered the stairs yet, but I assume it won't be long, so we need to think about a gate as well.

The other really cool new trick he learned today (and he is just pleased as punch with himself about it) is he can get himself back into the sitting position. So if he is lying on the ground in any format he can roll over, get on his hand and knees and then push back into a sit. Pretty cool. He was just grinning at me today about it and it took me a moment to realize what he did because I didn't see it the first time and though one of the boys had helped him up.

Anyway, it is only 7pm and he just zonked out. I will assume it is a power nap because I put him in his crib with just the diaper on. But he has been busy today, so we'll see. May have to go sneak some PJs on him. I need to get better about real nap times -- but we run around so much of the day, it is hard to fit them in between snoozes in the car and such.

Ta ta for now. :)

Survived TV Turn Off week!

So it isn't like my kids watch much TV anyhow these days. But we opted to go without all screens -- which includes Nintendo DS, the computer, TV, movies, and even the Leapsters. They did really well -- only asking about computer games every once in awhile and having no trouble finding other things to do. BUT -- for me it was hard to deal with all the wrestling, playing, screeching, etc. that goes along with playing games that don't inovlve screens! It was hard to get Teagan to nap with all the noise and hard to get them to remain outside when they wanted to be loud (lots of coming in and out and slamming doors and all that).
I also missed the idea of just plugging a movie in and cuddling up with the twins and having some zone out time. Oh well. So the lesson learned is that mommy is more dependent on the screens than the rest of the household.

I also missed my computer. I did make the arrangement (with Andrew the dictator of TV TURN OFF WEEK) to check e-mail once per day just so I could keep up in case there was some pressing news and more realistically, just so I wouldn't have 500 messages when I turned it back on. But I did my part and avoided playing computer games or replying to e-mail or blogging. I did sneak in some Tivo watching on Thursday when they were all at school/daycare and I was home with Teagan all day.

The weather is lovely today and we had a nice playdate at the park with a friend of mine and her son. I am ready for Spring weather without the weird hail storms and crazy rain we have been getting.

Anyway... enough for now. I still need to get professional photos some day of the kids and really all of us. Ugh. I am not really excited about the idea of trying to pull it all off.

General update & Spring Break pics

So I feel like I need to write because it has been a couple of weeks. We went to Cannon Beach for Spring Break like we have done the past two springs and this year it turned out to be a bit chilly. The week before was weird weather week with snow and hail and rain storms at all elevations all over WA and OR. So we fared better than the Oregon schools in terms of weather. But, it wasn't really great 'play in the sand' weather.
On the up side, Teagan is now the proud owner of a new really cute hat (and so is cousin Mary, though I have no pic of hers):

Here is Connor playing at the park -- turned out to be a really nice snapshot.
And here is what the kids spent a lot of the time doing in the hotel room at the beach (playing Nintendo DS):
At least I got all 4 of them in 1 picture!

We so need to go get formal family photos. Today I was going to look for some nice coordinating outfits for kids at Kohl's (just thought it may have some stuff even though I don't really shop there often and more importantly it is near Panera which I where I wanted to go for lunch). But Teagan was fussy and the twins' kept asking for stuff and it just wasn't working out. Instead I end up coming home with toys, new water type sandals for the twins' and a shirt & socks for Teagan. Hmmm.

In other news my brother and his wife and baby are going to rent out their house and will be moving into an RV they bought. I think this means we will see them even more often at my parents house and such and I will invite them over also because Mary will want to have room to crawl and move about. The RV is being parked at Angela's brothers house I think.

Andrew is doing WASL testing this week and next. So far he says "it is easy." I think he kind of likes standardized testing. Personally I can't help but think it is a waste of time for the kids and the teachers who spend so much effort "prepping" for it.

We have Kindergarten Round Up next week and I am really looking forward to it. We get to meet the teachers for next year and see the classrooms and Connor and Quinn get to come along also. It feels like a bigger deal than when Andrew started for some reason. I think just the idea of have 3 kids in school feels like a big change. I am planning to try out working every Sat-Sun and then being home all week and therefore dropping the kids out of daycare entirely. I think I'll start the schedule in the summer. I need to run it by my supervisor first.
Sounds like Teagan is waking up -- gotta go!

Adventures in Dining

So I am trying the whole "baby led weaning" concept. This is not the idea of letting the baby cue you when he is ready to stop breastfeeding (if this were the case Andrew and Quinn may still be breastfed to this day I fear) - but it is a way of introducing solids. I think the concept comes over from the UK so they phrase it differently than we would here.

So Teagan has tried bread in various forms (pizza crusts, bagels, sourdough bread bowl tops, etc.) and he has tried clementines and broccoli. I am trying to stick with only one really new food at a time, but it is hard to sometimes limit things. So the new food of the day was bananas. Now -- the back story on this is that as a kid I really did not like bananas and even today as an adult I really don't like them once they are over ripe. I really don't like the idea of mushing up a banana and spoon feeding it to my kids as baby food though I sucked it up and did so with the other guys.

So with the baby led weaning concept - I get to just hand him a banana. But I know already this won't go well and there will be a big mess. I had read on another blog (see here) that I could leave the peel on and then he could grab that and work on it. She also suggested trimming the peel a bit and giving only half the banana. All great suggestions -- and it went fairly well... up until he had already knocked off two big chunks of it and was madly trying to suck down anything left in the peel to the point where all that was left was the peel...

Well, here - you've got to see it for yourselves:


So here he is happily enjoying the banana (with a crazed death grip on it by the way)















Next I have yanked the peel away from him because he was trying to eat just that. He is so hysterical about it that he doesn't notice the banana pieces in front of him that I have rescued from the high chair.















Now he sees them and is happier -- but not for long because they go flying out of his hands and he gets mad again right way (I can't grab the camera again this time because I had to clean my hands again after the rescue).















Ahhh... but them mom saves the day and I tossed the pieces into this baby food holder thing that we had from when the twins were babies. Of course, the downside it is a horrendous device to clean after banana has been mashed through it. But he was very happy with it until he had mashed it to liquid and had nothing left in it and I was not ready for a second round so he got scooped up and taken upstairs for bath time.















So I am expecting strange diapers in the near future because I am pretty darn sure he actually ingested some of this. Most of his "eating" so far has been purely recreational. Our way of saying "see little man, you get food just like the big people" as a way of appeasing him during mealtimes. But apparently, he really likes this stuff and thinks we have been holding back. I assume he may be more demanding about it now. We'll see. Of course an added bonus was that the whole thing totally grossed out the older boys which I found funny as they generally are the ones trying to gross ME out.