Lazy sunny Sunday

Happy 6 months Israel!!!

Dear Israel,
Wow. 6 months already. Craziness. You are a funny little guy. We still describe you as intense, fussy, particular, high maintenance, temperamental, frustrating, hilarious, happy, smiley. You adore your sister and will burst out laughing when she is telling stories. You always smile big smiles for her. You watch her every move and now try to take her toys. Just a few days ago you started doing a slow army crawl. You can scoot yourself across the room. You are also rolling everywhere.
You are finally sleeping longer stretches at night now. You will often sleep a 4-6 hour stretch at night. Some nights. Other nights you are still up every 3 hours or so. You still mostly only take 20-30 min cat naps during the day. You are difficult to get to sleep and only fall asleep nursing or being bounced/ rocked. Usually it takes at least 20 min to get you asleep for a 20 min nap. At nighttime its not unusual for me to have to nurse you for over an hour or to nurse you to sleep for 45 min, put you down and have you wake up 45 min later and I have to nurse you again for another 45 min. If you get over tired you fuss and cry like crazy before you finally settle down and sleep. We are still learning on what works to help you relax and unwind.
I have tried to leave you with your grandmother 3 or 4 times for 30-45 min at a time and you always end up getting so mad and worked up and always crying for mama. I can't leave with you anyone but daddy. You also won't drink from a sippy cup or bottle anymore.
You are still spitting up alot but not as much as when you were an infant and you finally stopped crying over gas pains.
No teeth yet but you chew on everything and you bottom 2 teeth look like they might make an appearance in the next month or so.
You are still tiny... already hanging out in the 10% in the weight charts. Your sister is also in the 10th% but she wasn't there this early. You are meeting all your milestones though so we try not to worry about it. You can almost sit without support but you would much rather crawl or roll around than sit still.
You are super curious and love to look at everything. You have a hard time nursing if there is any sort of anything going on... even just a conversation. At church I have to go in a quiet darker place to get you to eat you just fuss because you are hungry but you won't eat because there is too much to look at. We love watching you grow and watching your personality emerge.

Congrats Hippert!!!

Mike ( Keira's Godfather) and Carly tied the knot yesterday and we are so excited for them!!!! The bride was a bit late.. and I confess that I barely took any pics of the actual event because I had the kids and Mike was busy with his best man duties. This is the best one we got of Hippert and we actually didn't get one of them together. Besides MK took a million pics I figured we would just steal some of hers.

All dressed up

Post wedding clean up with a very tired Keira on his back!
Post wedding clean up

Getting pretty

Keira putting on her make up before Hippert's Wedding

Easter 2010

The egg hunt!!! Look at them all running towards an egg

Mike and I made 3 pans of homemade cinnamon rolls. They were amazing and ohhh so bad for you!

We also made 2 pans of sausage, egg, cheese, hash brown casserole. Yum Yum. I think this Easter will be remembered for the best weather ever. It was almost 80 degrees and sunny. We had brunch out on the deck. Last year I remember it being so cold that the kids didn't even want to go out and find eggs. And they had to wear hat and mittens.

A few Easter shots post Mass

Keira was over joyed to see the fountain was on after church since it hasn't been on since last summer.



( Yes Israel is eating the bulletin)
And yes we failed to get a family shot while everyone was dressed up fancy and looking nice. We had to hurry home to get brunch ready after church and then Israel took a nap and Mike changed clothes so so much for a nice dressed up pic shot.

These are hilarious

Dedicated to my brother Aram because he loves NH as much as I do... haha

GREEN

All this rain has made our grass super green overnight. Love it! Hope the snow is gone once and for all... well till next year anyways. We pretty much lived outside today, with the exception of nap time. I will try not to think about the fact that I saw a mosquito though.

Israel's growth...

This is our online baby book of sorts...
Birth- 7 lbs 9 oz
12 days - 8 lbs 3 oz
6 weeks- 10 lbs 5 oz
2 months- 11 lbs
4 months 13 lbs 9 oz
5 months 13 lbs 14 oz
5 months + 3 weeks- 14 lbs 11 oz

House

Not sure how yesterday's showing went. We haven't heard anything back from the Realtor but we have another showing today. Looks like that April 30th deadline for the first time home buyers tax return might be getting people moving.

He looks so cute!!

haircut 2

Israel's first haircut 1

I'm slightly traumatized but I think Ill be okay. Keira's first haircut wasn't until 2 and 1/2 years old! We first went to JC Penny but after hearing it was going to be $18 for a haircut I went to Regis. I asked the girl at the desk if they cut kids hair and she said "Sure." I then asked how much it would cost for a 6 month old. The girl said " A how old???" I repeated 6 month old and she said "10 dollars I guess" I got the impression that she had never cut some one's hair who was so young. She did a great job though.

We have some interest!

Someone finally decided to come take a look at our house! Almost a month on the market, and 1 price reduction later. Viewing tonight at 530!! Which gives us the perfect excuse to head to mall and get Israel's haircut. Stay tuned......

pics

hmmm frozen deli meat and a plastic bag. What could be better.


Keira's reaction to be cut off from snacking after 2 bowls of yogurt, a bowl of cereal and milk, 2 bowls of dry cereal, and a handful of pumpkin seeds. Must be a growth spurt or something.

Odds and ends

Well our open house Saturday was a bust. No one showed up. I told Mike that if we didn't clean much people would come but if it was immaculate no one would show. Guess I was right. Note to self..... don't clean so much next time. We did drop the price quite a bit so we will see. Problem is lots of people are selling similar houses for alot less, well below assessed value. Its all in God's hands. Maybe we are meant to stay in this house a bit longer.
Michael is already restless for house projects to work on and needs a clean slate of things to do. We both feel we shouldn't sink any more money into this place for now Mike is stuck helping friends with there projects or ( gasp) hanging out with me and the kids all weekend... :o) Not that he doesn't like hanging out with us he just likes to have something creative to do as well.
I am still mulling over preschool for Keira. I got to thinking about her June first birthday and if I send her to preschool at age 3 and 4... then she would go to school at age 5 or end up with 3 years of preschool which is excessive I think. I can't predict now if she will be ready for real school then so I might wait on preschool till age 4 in case I hold her back from Kindergarten till she is 6. But at the same time I feel she is ready for a bit of a "school" environment and might really enjoy the songs, stories and craft projects. It would give her something "special" to do all next winter. I think at this point I will wait and see if we end up moving and what the budget ends up being for next winter. At least I don't have to worry that she won't be potty trained in time.
I have decided Mullet boy defiantly needs a haircut- however how soon that haircut will happen is still undecided. :o )
I do need to head to the mall to get an outfit for a friend's wedding next week so if I can find someone to cut it while we are there we might do that.