Heart day

I spend all day Valentine's Day with my newest little valentine, Doing lots of projects. She is so much fun! At noon we picked up McKay and had lunch at chick fil a. As we sat eating our chicken our blizzard blew in. It was coooold! But we braved the elements and after lunch went to target for A few things we needed for valentines dinner. We had bacon and heart-shaped pancakes and heart shaped fried eggs. The kids thought I was super cool.
Sam did a good job of pretending that he hadn't gotten me anything. Which truly would have been fine. I didn't get him anything other than a card. I really don't need gifts on Valentine's Day, But then he surprised me with some gorgeous new bling! He's a pretty good guy :)!

Nate the Great



Nate at the State TSA Competition

 Nate kind of flies under the radar around here so maybe he doesn't always get his share of recognition, so here's a post just for him. He turned 14 last month, which is just insane by the way. I mean we are registering for High School!! What!? We are having conversations about colleges and missions and careers and stuff. He wants to be a science fiction author or a video game creator. Maybe he'll be both. He's currently working on a book idea. He is also studying to be a video game creator by playing lots and lots of video games.
For his 14th birthday we went to Red Robbin and had cake and presents of course. He got a model airplane, a rocked and a paintball gun which we will use when we go paint balling (is that how you would say that?) soon. Last week he was ordained to the office of a Teacher in the Priesthood.
He is part of the TSA club at school, which stands for Technology Student Association not Transportation Security Administration. They had their State Competition a couple of weeks ago.They stayed two nights at the Marriott. They didn't win anything but he had fun.
I was looking through old videos and found one from 2 years ago when we got our bird. I heard Nate talking on the video and was shocked by how much his voice has changed. He sounds like a man and I have to say it freaks me out a little sometimes. He's a great kid. He helps out around the house a lot and is always willing to take care of Leah when I need help. He isn't always so willing to get his homework done but he's working on that. He has so much potential. He loves science and understands things that I have never heard of and could never hope to understand.
He has taught me things about myself and about life that I couldn't have learned without him. I'm so grateful that he is in our family. It can't be easy being the oldest of 6 kids. He has a lot of responsibility and he handles it beautifully, most of the time :)

6 months!

A peek at the impromptu photo shoot with Leah today.

My happy baby!

I fully intended to document every moment of Leah's life on this blog, but clearly that hasn't been happening, and somehow she became 6 months old. It must have happened while I was blinking or something.
-Here are her 6 months stats- Head: 17 1/2" (95%), Height 26 3/4" (80%), and Weight 17 lb 4.5 oz (75%). Yap, she's a big girl!
-She is a talker. Lots of barking noises and squeals and of course da da da.
-She likes peas and carrots and sweet potatoes. She does not like peaches or pears or bananas or apples. Too tart I think. After getting over the initial shock she sucked on a dill pickle slice for 10 minutes and loved it.
-She rolled from her tummy to her back once a couple of weeks ago and sits up a little bit with help. She's a little behind on her gross motor skills but it's probably just because she has an army of people to hold her most of the time.
-She's a pretty good sleeper and sleeps through the night about half of the time. Yesterday morning she took about a 3 hour nap in my bed while I cleaned the house and did laundry. It was fantastic, but what is even more fantastic is that she usually naps so much better if I'm snuggling her, which is the only excuse I need to lay down and nap with her most days. It's a little slice of heaven.
-She's full of personality. She lights up when she sees her brothers and sisters and they are just a smitten with her as she is with them. Sometimes she acts shy and embarrassed when people talk to her. She smirks and hides her face in my neck. She likes scratching thing because of the sounds it makes. She likes playing with hair. She tries to lick everything and if you hold her up on your shoulder she will lick you until your soaked.
-Her favorite toys are rattles and balls and she's learned the dropping game. You know... she drops her toy, someone picks it up, she drops it again, someone picks it up again, and so on.
-She has been a supper healthy baby except for the bout with RSV about a month ago. There was a lot of coughing and sneezing and stuffiness and a couple of miserable days for her where she could only sleep while being held and listening to Adel. But other than that a very healthy baby.
-Her hair has grown back in and is very fuzzy and darkish blond. She has dark blue eyes and the squishiest cheeks and thighs.
Well, there you go. That's my Leah girl at 6 months old. At least once a day I look at her and my only thought is to thank God for sending her to me. She is such a gift to our family.