Presents, Bear Cake and a Smile.

Mitchell Turns 1!

Mitchell celebrated his first birthday on October 7th. He was still recovering from a week of gastro-intestinal infection, so he was a little subdued. But the boys and Addie and Drake enjoyed playing with Mitchell's presents. The last picture shows some of our family who celebrated with us. Mom is showing Marenda some pictures, Kalen is entertaining Kasen (or is it the other way around) while Liz looks on.

Two days after his birthday we took Mitchell in for his well-baby check and discovered that his illness had really taken a toll, and he weighed 1/2 pound less than he had at 9 months. He hasn't been chubby for several months, but over that last week, he'd gotten really skinny. Luckily, since this last weekend, his appetite has picked up significantly, and I think he's finally consented to using a sippy cup (after months of trying all kinds of different types of cups). Also, Mitchell is walking, although he's still much faster doing his ape-crawl, scoot, whatever you want to call it.

Mitchell and His Cake

This is my first attempt at including video, and I'm not sure it will work. Unfortunately the clip is a little long. Note Sheridan's reaction. It would seem he's easily entertained.

Sheridan Turns 10!

Sheridan made his birthday very easy on us this year. Instead of having a big party, Sheridan chose two friends to go with him and Marcus to The Museum of Ancient Life to see a 3-D IMAX dinosaur movie and pick out a treat on Satuday. On Sunday we had family over for dinner, Sheridan had a Pokemon treasure hunt (I got a crash course in Pokemon in order to prepare it --I don't think I'm a fan), and opened his presents (FINALLY! according to Sheridan). The last picture shows Sheridan trying to blow out his candles (on his chocolate eclair cake) using Marenda's clarinet. Sheridan has gotten really interested in instruments lately and was really thrilled to find out that Marenda still had her clarinet from high school and that she would loan it to him. We bought him some new reeds as part of his birthday, and now he's (sort of ) teaching himself to play. The big orange snake is my answer to his request for a pet corn snake. He didn't specify that it had to be a living snake--I'm not sure I'm ready for that yet.
Sheridan at 10 is a really fun kid. He's so very smart, but I appreciate how good he is to his brothers, how willing he is to help out, and to do what we ask of him. I admire how he believes he can do anything and isn't afraid of much at all. For me, I can't believe it's been ten years since I was mother to the worlds easiest baby ever. The easiest baby has grown into such a good kid--and a handsome one too.

How I Get Dinner Made (9-07)

I think these pictures pretty much speak for themselves. If he wasn't so darn cute. . .

The Playset! (9-07)

We bought this huge steel playset used way back in May. Then began the very long process of deciding where to put the thing, leveling some of our hill, cementing in the posts, etc. etc. As with most things we attempt, the project to much longer and cost much more than we'd anticipated, but we now have a great place to send the boys when the energy level gets too great to be indoors. The kids love it and it has gotten great reviews from their friends. These pictures don't really show the size of the set (it has a platform over the sandbox, a slide, monkeybars to the swings--which are 10 ft. high. . .) so maybe someday I'll get a better picture of the whole thing.

Fun with Food (10-07)

One lunchtime, Caleb called to me, "Mom, I'm making a sandwich." I called back, "What kind of sandwich?" The answer "Oh, just a regular one." I got to the kitchen to discover he'd cut a piece of bread in half, put on butter straight from the fridge (that he's also cut into), and was adding Miracle Whip to finish it off. He was quite pleased with his abilities--but not so much with the outcome. He only had a couple bites of his sandwich and then left the rest for me to take care of.

The bottom picture shows some particularly lovely Mitchell Food Painting.