Happy 6 month birthday

My Annie is 6 months old today!!!! Don't have time to share the day and pictures but stay tuned for tomorrow....if blogger is working that is!

Family night: Ginger bread decorating!

I would say gingerbread houses but we just let them decorate the trees while I decorated half of the house. Which by the way seems to be a theme for this holiday season. I only had time to half decorate the gingerbread house, my real house, my Christmas tree, our lights outside and our family Christmas cards! Owell, for once I am not worried about it and am busy just ENJOYING the time of year with my little family. If it gets done it gets done. So if you come over and wonder why that bin of decorations is still sitting in the hallway, that's why! Back to our Monday night activity, this is serious business , just look at that messy face:

And this one eating candy 30 seconds into it:

And trying to decide whether he wants to try the coconut:

And this one studying her next coconut dispersion move or where to put those green things:

See... serious business!

It was fun to watch them decorate for about a minute and a half! We'll try again next year but in the mean time I am enjoying eating my half of the decorated gingerbread house!!

BUSTED: A look into the sweetness that happens up in here

Today I finally had a chance to take pictures of Mark with Annie! I sat her bumbo in the other room but still where I could see her while I loaded the dishwasher. After a minute of playing with his blocks Mark noticed her sitting there with a toy (or maybe she had dropped it). For the longest time he just sat in front of her trying to give it back to her but he would take it away before she had a chance to get a good grip on it. Eventually he gave up and started playing with the links himself, but still stayed in front of her, copying her little screams and sounds:

Then Elizabeth came to join in with the stroller and Annie was trying SO HARD to reach it! I can tell she can't wait to be able to do more. It has appeared over the past week that she has go go gadget arms! I have to be a bit more careful about what's around her, especially while she sits in her bumbo!

This whole time Mark didn't realize I was standing there filming/taking pictures. He finally layed his head on her shoulder, SO SWEET!!!!! And then Elizabeth hit him in the head with a block. Let's not even talk about how many time outs she was in this morning!

Elizabeth has always been attached to her blanket but she has found a new friend in Bunny!!!!! The past week or so she has gotten really attached to it and loves sleeping with it. It must come down from naps with her too. She is often seen walking around like this in the morning and after naps:

She also likes to sleep with a stuffed Rhinocerus that Grandma T gave Little Mark (he refuses to sleep with it).

And lastly, every night after dinner we have a dance party and this night it turned into a 'bum drop mom's head' party! They do this often but usually when just one of us is home. They think it's HILARIOUS!!! Mark will try to poke your eyes out, as you can see from the picture Elizabeth is pulling my hair...it's a free for all really. I am not sure how much longer this game will be funny to us because this last time it actually started to hurt when Mark would bum drop my face! They are getting big!!

Annie's eating solid food!!!!

We are counting December 5th as her official day of starting solids!!!! She will be 6 months old tomorrow and so at first we tried rice cereal and she hated it, she wouldn't let me put a second spoonful in. Then we moved on to oatmeal. I accidently put in too much (maybe 3 Tbs) but just went with it anyway. SHE ATE THE WHOLE THING!!!!!!! She has since been eating a bowl a day and is lovin' it!

She's looking at it like where's the rest??!

After a week or so on oatmeal I mixed in a little banana which she wasn't sure about...but slowly ate it anyways. Mark claims that for a couple nights after that she was a little wary of her oatmeal. Last night I decided to give Baby Led Weaning a try and offer her a chunk of banana to chew on...she LOVED it, until she got too big of a piece and then choked just a little (nothing serious) and that was the end of that. I mashed it up with a fork and she ate some more. I think she's going to be a good eater..I hope...at least until she gets to be a toddler anyway! We are off to the Dr today for her 6 month visit and we'll see just how well this little cutie pie is doing!

Yesterday

Mark said his first 4 word sentance:

'Peach yogurt all gone'! I was giving them strawberry/banana yogurt and he kept asking if it was peach since that is what we had before. Finally he said, peach yogurt all gone! So cute!

Elizabeth (and Mark) think that every man or women is a Daddy or Mommy. I was looking through a magazine with Elizabeth last night and everyone, no matter what race, was either a mommy, daddy, boy or girl! Mark was looking at our friends,The Perkins, Christmas card and kept pointing to Chris saying Daddy. And when he thought we were going to our neighbor's house who have a girl named Aubrey he kept saying Aubrey Daddy?? (as in... is he going to be home because he plays the guitar and that's so cool!) I love that their little minds think of the world in family terms.

Here is a random picture of Elizabeth in pig tails for the 1ST TIME!!!!!! They were really cute...for the whole 5 minutes she let them stay in!

Be still my heart

A few sweet things have happened this week.

1. For the first time...Mark and Elizabeth were playing and bouncing on the edge of a chair they had knocked on to the floor. Elizabeth scooted towards Mark, patted the spot next to her and said 'Annie'. I about cried! It was so cute!!

2. Mark has been sick and a few days ago he was really grumpy, nothing I could do would make him happy. I left the room for a minute and he went quiet. I came back in and he was laying next to Annie with his arm over her back! The next day I caught him doing the same thing but holding her hand! She makes him happy, which makes me really happy!!

3. On Tuesday night when I was putting the kids to bed I had Annie and Elizabeth in the same crib for a minute. Elizabeth would 'tickle' Annie's belly and she would laugh so hard! In fact when I tried to tickle her she wouldn't laugh but as soon as Elizabeth did it...she would laugh!!

4. The kids new favorite game is being chased by Annie. They ALL laugh (and get their energy out too:)

I love seeing them all bond, it just melts me to pieces!! Of course she is pretty irresistible.

Dinner time

Dinner time has become pretty fun around here (if you can ignore the picky eating and food that gets dumped on the floor every 10 seconds!). Here is a few things that happened this past week at dinner:

Mark tried to break the banana in half like Daddy (he's grunting):

And he did it!!!!!! (just kiddin, but Big Mark did):

Once upon a time there was a queen who liked to sit on her bumbo throne:

And keep her siblings in line:

And just as she was about to escape her duties:

Daddy came around.....

And made her SMILE!

And LAUGH!

And we found out that if you put your face close enough to hers like this:

She'll lean in.....

And give you a big, slobbery, KISS!!!!

The end.