Phineas 7 Months

I love this little boy. I love his faces. I love his determination. I love that he is on the move now. He has the army crawl perfected and bounces around on his hands and knees in eagerness and anticipation of the coordination that will come soon enough for crawling. The big kids and I crawl around the play room throughout the day to try and show him how it's done. We mostly look a little looney but have plenty of fun. 

Phin will follow after me when I put him down somewhere. Which is quite fun. And he smiles nonstop. Which is a bigger blessing than one might realize when it is taken into consideration how often this little guy has had some awful congestion. It's made for some long nights more frequent than we would like. My momma heart feels bad every time we have to use his nose drops and suck the snot out of his nose. He hates it. Can't say I blame him; it really doesn't seem like a pleasant thing to have done.

But, on all other accounts, he is doing fantastically. He loves to jump, loves to play, loves to interact, and loves to be close. Oh, and he hates his car seat. Thankfully, he loves singing and if we sing songs while we are driving then his love for singing tends to over ride his dislike for the car seat. Success. 

He loves cuddles and I sure do love giving them. The slow progression of solid foods is still underway - not a fan of peas but sure loves sweet potato. Happy 7 Months, Phineas!

February Daily Life

Phineas is on the move and has the quickest army crawl ever. He is also skooching (?) his knees forward when he is on all four. He spends most of his time in his diaper because I really can't bear to cover the baby cuteness. He also has an easier time moving without the clothes. And he started sampling solids. He has been a hit and miss experience. Sweet potato has been a hit. Banana came back up. And oats just didn't have a great outcome. He loves sitting at the table with us though! I will write more on him once I get his 7 month pictures up. 

Milayla has had a growth spurt in more ways than just physically. She shot up a bit in height, and she has made very dramatic improvements in her speaking vocabulary, memorization, and imagination. She is also making great strides in beginning to read, writing her letters and dancing. I love the songs that she makes up and sings for us all. And I adore hearing the way she has reasoned through different situations. She gets it. It's brilliant. Her dancing is fabulous and she will ask me if her and I can have a little dance party just so she can dance (and spend time with me). And she recruits us all in to this incredible land of make believe with her imagination. We have tea parties and picnics in the middle of the forest and on a boat. We have explored mountain tops and we have tried to catch her bear eating up his breakfast. She exudes happiness and creativity. I love getting to sit down with her and create art; she gets so focused and you can see she really enjoys it.

Atticus has reached the fun part of reading. He reads everything. Absolutely everything. If there are words he will read them. He will find chapter books at the library and start reading. He can read a beginner chapter book in just a couple days. I find him reading throughout the apartment. And if he is ever delaying in responding it is usually because he is off somewhere reading. The challenge has been finding chapter books that are at his reading level that aren't above his maturity level. Homeschool is going really well with him which is nice as a travail unchartered territory with him on that front. Then there is the pretend play that he is exploring for the first time. I think books helped to open this world for him. He loves to use it to create parties for people. He has also started creating his own little books.

Both he and Milayla loved putting their creativity together to make their own wrapping paper to wrap their birthday gifts for their friend, Amelia (from church). We all went to her birthday and the kids succeeded in welcoming the other children into the joy of 'don't let the balloon drop'

 And Jason and I are diligently searching for a home, trying to keep our goals of book reading and making date night a priority (mini golf and a movie night this month). The kids have been in love with the adventure of looking for a house. Jason and I have felt a bit more of a growing experience with the search. There are so many factors to take into consideration and we just want to make sure that we get the right house in the right location. Oh, and I just want to say that I love when Sunday afternoon nap happens and I get to come into the bedroom to see Phineas asleep on Jason and Jason completely asleep himself. Neither of them even budged when I came into the room which is saying something because our floors are incredibly loud. I sure love my cuddles with my children and have a hard time giving them up, but seeing something like this feels just about as good.

Phinny's First Swim

In February, Phineas had his first swim. He had been to the pool plenty of times for the bigger kids' swim lessons and was pretty mesmerized by the environment; all those reflections off the water are pretty soothing. We met up with a couple families from church who also have young children (one with a baby girl only a week older than Phineas). The big kids loved having water that was shallow enough that they could touch the bottom (the pool they take their classes at is not). And after Milayla braved the water slide on her own, we ended up splitting off from the others and playing a little family game of crocodile by the water umbrella. I think it was a pretty overstimulating experience for Phinny's first time but he has sure started splashing a lot more in the tub for bath time since his swimming experience. And, of course, the big kids are already asking when we can go to the 'family pool' again so that Phinny can swim with us, too. I'm kind of in love with their sibling bond. 

Swim Classes 2015

Had a little awards ceremony to wrap up this last swim season. Milayla successfully completed her transition class where she had to start going into the pool without a parent for class. And Atticus is well on his way to swimming the required distance in the pool unaided. So proud of all the hard work these kids put into their classes. I made some certificates of excellence for each of the kids and Jason helped me decide what they did the best on. Then we had some cheese, crackers and fruit. The kids loved it and felt loved which is what I was going for so I was happy. So proud of their determination and hard work. 

February Snow

I'm almost afraid to say this for fear that we will have eternal winter, but I think I may actually like winter. When I hear people make comments against winter and snow there is a part of me that feels they might be missing out. We've really enjoyed ourselves. I think having children who love the snow has helped big time. I really don't care for the cold, but I am even doing better at handling the colder temperatures. I think that is in large part to the fact that I have a real winter coat for the first time in a very looooong time. I love feeling warm in winter. The kids get pulled on the sled to swim class (on the weeks that we have time to walk), we make playgrounds in our front yard out of snow, we go on expeditions over the terrain of our 6 foot snow banks and the kids ooze about their love of sweeping and shovelling snow. I'm quite serious about that last one, too. Milayla even insists on trying to pull her brothers in the sled as well. That girl has some serious determination that will serve her well in life I have no doubt. I have enjoyed winter well enough that I am actually concerned about trying to make the most of it before it disappears. And that is a rather big step because I used to anxiously wait for it to be gone! It may be time to start budgeting for some winter sporting gear for next year. In the mean time, we have planned a few surprises for the kids of a traditional Quebec winter outing variety. This province is starting to grow on me. The hills, the autumn, the warm summers, the shorter winters (in contrast to Alberta..), maple. In true-to-me form a song from Annie is now playing in my head. "I think I'm gonna like it here...". Ha! We will see. For now, I definitely am loving winter time with this family of mine.