Six Month Hannah (and friends)

Hannah has been doing lots of growing. It is funny to have a baby the age she is because I feel like I had her, then we holed up for the winter and now here we are and she is rolling all over the place and thinking about crawling and sitting.  Here she is for her monthly pictures, November-April!

Mad either because I couldn't find her pink elephant that night or because Dad was out of town. It was hard to tell.

Just over 15 lbs and a remarkably lovely little lady!  Her hair looks red in the lighting against the brown couch. I sometimes think it looks red in sunlight but mostly it still looks brown-ish. We will see!  

I thought it would be fun to see a side-by-side comparison of her with the other three kids. Here they are in order. Guess who had the most blurry pictures during the photo shoot at the six month mark??  :)  Love them all so much!

Ode To Blogging

The other day I was looking up something on our blog to figure out what Rebecca's first word was for a school assignment she had. I am not really good at keeping records like that but I knew we'd find something to use. When she was a baby I was really good about keeping the blog up to date. I feel like everyone says it on their family blogs at some point that they want to dust it off again and write more and post more pictures. I have had some tricky times in years past and there were a few things that helped me ride out the emotional roller coaster I was on. I realized when I was searching through and then reading through all those old posts that, though I hadn't realized it at the time, blogging was one of those things.

I feel like now when I want to share something cute my kids did or talk about our day I default to facebook. It must be that instant gratification and affirmation that humans seek in our day and age. I do like feeling connected to past friends but it really is such a time waster - anyone can tell you that.

So now I am finding myself here in Columbus, still getting used to a new place - though we we have been here since last July so not so new anymore, my youngest is 6 months old this Friday (where does time GO?!), my house is sorely in need of a decorator and unfortunately I feel like I am not confident enough for it to be me, and that whole emotional roller coaster seems to be creeping up on me again. I need to get out my thoughts and I need to just do it for me - so, yep, I'll say it: I want to dust off this blog, write more, post more pictures, all of it. I have had childhood memories come back to me recently in an extremely vivid way and I feel a nudge to record them and I feel like this is a good place. I am trying to be more in tune with my children and I feel like this is a good place to keep track of that progress as they are growing.

So you might be seeing more of me here and probably less of me on The Facebooks.

Going with the title, I wanted to post a couple links to blog posts that I have learned from the last little while. Enjoy!

Arrows: A Secret Weapon in Decorating

Punch Your Fears & Problems in the Face

A Little Epiphany

A few pictures (some bad) taken on my phone...

Salt 'n Pepa

No, not the group from the 90's (or whenever it was that they were popular...)!

Just referring to the hair color of my littlest girls who had an impromptu photo shoot the other night with Dad while Mom and the big kids were out:

Hannah joined our family October 11th and while I need to do a post on the story of her birth, I thought this picture was worth sharing now while I work on getting the other more journaly write-up done. :)

And also this picture:

And one more:

Rebeccaisms

Rebecca and I have been enjoying lots of one-on-one time during Sarah's naps in the morning while Jacob is at school all day. I knew she was fun and imaginative but it really has been a great blessing to spend time with her.  We like to bake things, practice writing, read lots of books, play and color. This week she's said a few things that I thought were pretty cute that are all similar (but they were kind of said unexpectedly, without any prodding from me) and a couple weeks ago she made a point that was also pretty funny. She'll be 4.5 next week and is pretty wonderful.

1. Mom! There are two kinds of bats! (looking at a picture of a baseball bat and reading me the letters) The kind they use for baseball and the kind that flies around!

2. There are two kinds of trip!  The one where you fall down on your knees and the other one where you are gone for a really long time!

3. Yesterday Jacob had to practice printing P and p so naturally Rebecca was doing so as well. Today she was talking about that and said there are two kinds of P. (I braced myself for this one, by the way.)  "The kind of P that is a letter and the kind of pea that you eat!"  :)

4. Today in the car she was making up a song about sea turtles and then she stopped abruptly to tell me something. "Mommy, there are two kinds of sea!  The kind of seeing you do with your eyes, and the other kind that is like sea turtles."

5. Rebecca was lamenting about not being able to use something of Jacob's because he didn't want to share or something and then she stopped being upset and her face lit up as she said, "Jacob! Jacob! I can use it while you are at school, and you can use it on holidays and Saturdays when you are home!"

It is rough having your big brother gone all day, and she tells me often that she wishes Jacob could be home more, but that she is excited to go to school with him next year.

Before the haircut (her third one)

And...after the hair cut!  She was so excited when the stylist offered to braid her hair.

Practicing writing her name!  You can also see Jacob's "[Hey I hope that you are having fun]" on there also 

"Please take a picture of me with this rock!"

Sunday night Rebecca drew her first person with a body. She was so excited: "Mommy!  I drew the arms not coming out of the head! Come see, come see!"  

Goodbye to Ann Arbor and Hello to Our New Home

On June 30th we went to church in the morning and then did the last tiny bit of cleaning of our old house and then we left Ann Arbor to head to Columbus. There is a lot of stress that comes with moving and I think I fall into the category of person who gets the tired kind of stress and the emotional kind of stress to deal with most. The weeks leading up to the move I just kept wishing we could do everything I or the kids or Jeff wanted to do one more time (or even for the first time...never did try Blimpy Burger, sigh) and then when it was time to leave I just kept thinking about all of our wonderful friends, many of whom had left before us, and all of the great things I had personally learned during Jeff's graduate school years. I know that the Lord truly blessed us in our time in Ann Arbor and though it sounds like we've been gone for years or something to say it, I will always treasure the time we spent there.

Trying out the backyard after the closing!  

One week before Jeff and I celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary, we closed on our first home. As Jeff said a few months ago, "we're one step closer to the American Dream...of the bank owning a home in our names!"  There were a few ups and downs with things like the appraisal and such but we were glad to be able to close on July 1st. Our belongings were delivered the next morning after we had pancakes for breakfast.

Using the swingset table since ours was still on its way!

We turned the dining room into Paper Mountain for a few days. We all had a pretty good time playing in there but eventually it was time to visit the recycling bin. Jacob and Rebecca still refer to it as "the room that Paper Mountain was in." I guess we better put some furniture in there or something...

I had forgotten Jeff took this picture of me. I share it for your viewing pleasure/to give you a laugh. I think I damaged my knees when I came down. :)  

 One Sunday after church we tried taking timed pictures with everyone. Here is the first one, which actually turned out alright for the most part:

Jacob smiling, Rebecca trying on sunglasses...

I thought this was cute of Jacob looking up at me.

I laugh every time I see this picture. If those faces don't make you want to come visit, I don't know what to tell you :)   

12 months = 1 year!

I have several updates I should post here but first I thought I'd write a little about Sarah. She's a remarkably happy baby, sleeps a lot, eats just about anything (including hot banana peppers) and we just love her!  She had her first birthday on August 17th a few weeks ago and we had a little celebration in her honor.

In the morning we went to the Columbus Zoo for the first time since we moved here and had a nice time. Sarah's cake was a chocolate/white mix inside (zebra cake) so I enlisted the older two kids to help me decorate Sarah's Zoo with a carousel and a pathway to some animals in a cage. Rebecca was pretty concerned that Sarah would be allowed to have so much sugar since she'd not really had any before her birthday.

One of Sarah's favorite places to stand up is in front of the oven. She'll bang on her reflection and say, "Hi!" to the baby in there (: and then open and close the drawer of cookie sheets below the oven. 

Eating some cake!  

Getting a little bit messy now but still not too much destruction going on!  

All that frosting (and maybe a little bit of cake) makes a baby pretty thirsty.

MAH06629 from J Lamro on Vimeo.

Happy first birthday, Sarah!

10 months and 11 months!

Sarah turned 10 months on June 17th. The camera was on some funky setting and that paired with her super-dark room (great for naps, not so good for pictures!) meant I didn't get many good shots. But she is very cute nonetheless :)  

 She hit 11 months this past week and got her pictures taken in the same chair, different house!  The space given to her in the new house means that she is an excellent crawler and kneeler now and she's pretty happy about it.  She added headstands to her repertoire this week.

"where's that lever you pull to lift my feet up?" 

She is a pretty spectacular baby and the kids are excited to have a "really big birthday cake" come August 17th!  Jacob tried to convince me to make one for the 11 month mark but I told him we'd have to save it for her real birthday!