Hannah: The Artist

Hannah loves to draw. She has a sketch book completely full of drawings. At church, there are no toys in the diaper bag, only pencils and paper. Garrett will build things like dioramas and fly traps (you know those things where you pick a number and a color and find out your fortune inside) but Hannah covers every inch of her paper with pictures. You can tell what she is thinking about and what her mood is. Below are some examples of her work.

She always explains what her picture is. Here is Hannah (far right) with Blaine, me and Blake and the cat. Happy Family-no brothers except the baby. :)

Here is a complicated picture. Here is the explanation in clockwise order. Top center with the scary look on their face is me (in a bad mood obviously). I am yelling at Garrett for not practicing the piano. Next is Hannah, happy because she is holding Blake. Next comes the cat (Hannah loves the cat) and then there is Blaine who is happy because he is making dinner.

This one is Princess Hannah with her king daddy, Blaine.

Love these pictures, even the middle one. Love that sweet little artist!

My Boys

I love my boys! I love all my kids but my boys are so fun. They are mostly laid back and not moody (like my girl). I was just remembering Garrett and Ryan at the same age as Blake right now. 7 months. Its one of my favorite ages. Their little personalities start to come out.

Below are pictures of my boys all about the same age. Do you think they look alike? I think 2 of them look more alike than the other but they all have some of the same characteristics.

This is Garrett. Look at those blue eyes!

Here is Ryan with his full head of dark hair and huge dark eyes!

Here is Blake. Darker blue eyes, light brown hair.

I never thought I'd have blue eyed, light haired kids. Never.

Genetics are a funny thing.

Love my little boys!!

Blake at 6 months

My baby is 6 months old! Boy, time is sure flying! He is so big and so sweet. He has the most pleasant and patient disposition-which has been a sanity saver some days.

His stats:

Weight: 17 lbs 9.5 ounces (50th percentile)

Height: 27 inches (75th percentile)

Head Circumference: 44.5 cm. (about 85th percentile)

Blake's interests and tricks:

*He rolls all over the floor but doesn't sit yet. Still pretty wobbly in that department but is working on it.

*He loves to eat solid foods. His favorites are squash, sweet potatoes, green beans, peas and rice cereal mixed with formula. He doesn't care a whole lot for fruits and HATES the baby food meats. I have made some baby food for him but we haven't gotten into the meat stuff much yet. He gets excited when you put him in the high chair and get his bib on. He knows good stuff is coming! He lunges for the spoon and has started to grab it too. Aye yi yi!

*He also loves water from a sippy cup. He took to that thing right away. I'm thinking he's gonna be my easiest to wean from the bottle and pacifier!

*He loves his daddy. He loves to snuggle with him and he will reach up and grab Blaine's goatee. One of our friends also has a goatee. He was holding Blake in church and I'm sure Blake thought is was Blaine. He reached up, felt that goatee and layed his head down on Eric's shoulder and was out cold. Awesome!

*He loves music and toys that make noise.

*His Indian name is Baby Stinkin' Toe. He has the stinkiest baby feet I've ever smelt! I can smell him through his socks/jammies some days. I have to wash them good, dry them well and powder them up with baby powder to keep the smell at bay! Hope he outgrows that! Haha!

Here is Blake getting his first bites of solid food. Its home made applesauce. He was a good sport and excited about stuff coming to his mouth but he didn't love it!

What a good sport! As I type this, I realize he will be 7 months old in a couple of days. I can feel the first little points of a new sharp tooth poking through. The older kids are excited about this and want to put their finger in his mouth for him to bite on. Haha! That game won't be so much fun pretty soon!

Mostly January Stuff

Since I have gotten so behind in posting, I'll just share some things that have been going on around our house, most of which happened in January 2012.

Hannah is still taking dance and is doing so well! She loves gymnastics and is learning lots of new tricks. She is getting Garrett to help her out with some of them and its fun to see them together.

Look how long her hair is getting!! She wants to grow it out like Rapunzel.

Here is a not-so-flattering picture of me taken by my favorite photographer, Ryan. He loves to take pictures of everything and his view of the world is interesting. Love that funny kid! Here is Blake too, half grown!

Hannah recently figured out that she can vacuum and it won't suck her up! She loves to vacuum. I love to let her!

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Both of my grandmas have birthdays in January. They are out of order here but this is Grandma Purcell (or Grandma Great as my kids know her). She will kill me if she sees this picture but this was the best one. She does not like to keep her eyes open during pictures! I took quite a few but people kept talking to her and she would move and shut her eyes again. Oh well. We went to her house on her birthday and had soup and cake, courtesy of my Aunt Merrilee. Yum!

Grandma Cook's birthday really comes first in January. This year my siblings (Brent, Beckie & Doug) and I went to her house to surprise her. We took her some yummy dinner from the Canton restaurant and let the kids go wild at her house. It is fun to see the kids playing with the same toys we played with as kids. Ryan especially loved this train pillow that has cars that connect together with buttons. Here is a picture of all the grand kids (except Remi). Everyone did pretty good holding still and smiling.

So there is the quick overview of our January 2012. It has been awesome. So far...