Lili at 8 Months Crawling and Cuter than Ever

 Lili has a beautiful smile, but when trying to take a picture, it takes a lot of work to get that smile. Instead I get lots of looks like this...

This look shows off Lili's kissable cheeks.

Any look though is precious.

 

Lili could spend all day watching her brothers. They are enthralled with her too although sometimes I think they see her as a doll...

 and other times she is a dance partner.

 Gavin and Lili are really fun to watch. He is enthralled with her and other times he forgets she is a baby. She will be crying for a bottle and he tells her to be quiet. Most of the time he is a great helper and loves being a big brother.

 Lili's first time on a swing. It wasn't her favorite.

Lili started crawling this month. This has brought all kinds of enjoyment! It is really hard to catch her on video because the boys like to get involved in the fun.

She brings so much joy to our family!

The Amazing 7th Month

 Liliane had an amazing 7th month. She transformed this month to an expressive active baby. You can imagine how much more fun the boys think she is to play with.

 We moved Lili into her own room. She has been sleeping in a pack n play in our room because she woke up so much during the night needing us to put her paci in her mouth. When we moved her, there were a couple of rough nights of us walking from our room to her's multiple times, but then all of sudden she started sleeping through the night. We aren't even sure what fixed it. A week later she got a little virus that disrupted her sleep, but now she is back to sleeping through the night most of the time.

Since we are moving, we didn't repaint the nursery to match Lili's bedding. This beautiful bumper pad and crib skirt (not shown) were made by my friend when she adopted her daughter. Lili must be pretty special to have it handed down to her! Lili's room will be one of the first one done when we get to the new house.

Lili is eating so much better. Before we were forcing her to eat her baby cereal and we weren't very consistent at it because she wasn't interested in it. Now she loves to eat and opens her mouth thinking she is going to get some of our food! I spent four hours one afternoon making baby food which will last us months!  Lili loves everything we have tried.

Lili is rolling around all over the place and likes being put on the floor to move around. She enjoys looking for toys and putting everything into her mouth.

Lili is sitting up! We haven't been working on sitting up too much except to use the Bumbo because if Lili is in a sitting position, she spits up even more (she already spits up quite a bit). I like her in the sitting position to give the back of her hair a break. She is still sporting a nice bald spot.

Being able to sit makes playing with Lili even more fun.

 

Lili is finally smiling and giggling a lot more. Before we really worked to get a smile out of her. Now she sees us and smiles.

 Another cute outfit with finger twist hair style

Love this face!

 I finally found a swimming suit that fits Lili, so she got to experience the pool for the first time. She seemed to like it and looks so cute in her swim suit.

The below pictures are Lili's 7 month pictures in her beautiful dress given to her by Aunt Kari. Isn't she beautiful?!

Seaworld Summer Vacation

This is another post that should have been written last summer. I'm playing catch up!

While my parents were in Europe visiting my brother, the rest of my siblings decided to head to SeaWorld together. Our drive down was pretty quick, so we headed to Sea World with just my little family before meeting up at the house we rented with my siblings.

Zane and I loved all the shows. Some of them were over the kids' head. We would have to keep pointing out where to look and what to focus on. They loved seeing all the animals.

They also love seeing crocodiles.

We were walking along, and one of the artists stopped us to draw Lili.

 We met up with my siblings at a house we rented. This is honestly my kids' favorite part of vacation. They love sleeping over with cousins and seeing them first thing in the morning. Bedtime is the part I hate. Dallin and Gavin struggle to calm down enough to go to sleep and usually keep other kids up. In the end though, it is all about making memories, late night talks and games, laughter, and yummy food.

We spent the next two days at SeaWorld and then at Aquatica. We ran around like crazy seeing all the shows and then fitting in rides in between. It was nice to be with extra adults so we could split up for adult rides.

More animals up close

Gavin met some favorite characters!

Kid rides and play area

 We thought Aquatica was so much fun. Dallin and his cousin Caleb especially loved it.  They could go on a lot of the water slides and hang out in the wave pool by themselves. The adults took turns going with Dallin and Caleb and staying behind with the little kids/babies.

 Zane was a pro with putting kids to sleep!

 

 

 What a great trip!

All About Gavin (3 Years Old)

Everyone knows that Gavin is adorable. My hairdresser can't believe I haven't started him in modeling. She thinks he would be the perfect Gap baby. His eyelashes and curls get him a lot of attention. Girls like to ask him if they can have his eyelashes. He just looks at them like they are crazy. He has this sweet, innocent look about him that gets him out of a lot of trouble with Zane and me. He can also switch on the silly boy act and makes us laugh so that we soon forget whatever naughty thing he just didn't.

Here are some things you may not know about Gavin.

He is super stubborn and independent. We worked on potty training for a loooong time! He finally started wearing underwear full time when I bought him a stool to stand on so he could go by himself. Because of the stool, he decided he wanted to and was good to go. Now he will only go potty when he wants to and fights me if I need him to go before we leave for somewhere.  Gavin likes to do everything by himself and gets very angry when he can't or I won't let him. Stubborn plus independent equals Temper Tantrums!!! Gavin has definitely hit the terrible threes.

Gavin loves the David books by David Shannon. I think he can relate.

Gavin is a little obsessed with poop. This is a little too much information but he likes to blow kisses to the toilet before he flushes it telling his poop that he loves it. I have always wondered how a person decides to become a Proctologist. These doctors were probably kids like Gavin.

Gavin is really tiny. He weighs 27 pounds (20th percentile) and is 35.75 inches tall (10th percentile). It is hard to find pants for him. We were at Pump it Up last week and the poor kid's pants kept falling off. This must have annoyed Gavin. Another mom came up to me and handed me Gavin's pants since he had decided to just take them off and run around in his underwear!

Gavin is a super picky eater. If he is eating yogurt, he will pull out any chunks. He has a hard time trying new foods but has lately shown a little more interest. His diet consists of pancakes, Green Smoothies, and peanut butter sandwiches. He does eat a few unhealthy things like hot dogs and Mac and Cheese every once in awhile and lately has started eating foods with sugar. He now loves chocolate. 6 months ago, he would rarely eat dessert with us. He doesn't like cold food like ice cream but this summer he started eating popsicles. Dallin loves the fact that Gavin is so picky. We offer food to Gavin and when he doesn't eat it (especially desserts), Dallin is right there to offer his services. Gavin does like to eat weird food like vinegar, lemons, salt, and play dough.

Gavin loves music and he loves to play with toys. He is very imaginative and likes playing by himself (yay!) while singing the whole time. He is a good singer too. I can usually recognize what song he is singing. He loves Primary songs especially "I Love to See the Temple." Gavin's favorite toy is definitely his Lightning McQueen cars but he loves his new castle too.

 Gavin enjoyed being part of our preschool last year. He thinks Dallin's friends are all his. He especially loves art time and play dough. He can also make a huge mess when participating in an activity!

Helping with the volcano at preschool

Gavin is getting to be much more daring. Last year he rarely went on the slip and slide (he really doesn't like cold water) and this year he is a little crazy.

Gavin loves babies and dogs. He is really kind to kids younger than him (this is Gavin with his cousin Ellery.)

He loves Lili and is a big helper.

Gavin is a really clumsy kid. He has had a few black eyes and usually has a scrape on his knee or a cut somewhere. He runs into walls quite a bit...

Gavin is quite the character. He likes to pretend to be the Hulk and last Sunday he decided he was Goliath. We have a musical version of David and Goliath that he likes to watch on Sundays. He was cracking us up with his "swords" in the underwear (toy nails)

that he would pull out yelling "I am Goliath."

I know I would be scared to fight him. (The running around in underwear is typical for Gavin. He has a hard time pulling up his pants after going potty, so he will choose to just take them off instead.)

God knew what He was doing when he brought Gavin to our family. We love this little boy!