Albric is Seven Months Old

Our happy little guy is seven months old.  He is crawling, sitting up, has started growling, and recognizes his own name.  He got two more teeth this month.  They aren't the center ones, so with that and the growling, he is reminding me of a baby dragon.  Plus Albric seems like it could be a dragon name.  He can crawl pretty much anywhere he wants, and I think we need a baby gate.  He has gotten himself all the way to Calvin's room from the family room.  He can get himself down from sitting, but can't get himself back up.  So he ends up in a 'boudoir' pose.  Calvin still gets the biggest laughs out of him, even though it is clear that I am his favorite person. He already adds so much to our family.  I am so glad he is mine.

Crafty Christmas 2016

I started working on Christmas presents in October this year.  I found the cutest dinosaur patterns for my boys.  I made the first one during General Conference.  I then found the Rainbow Cuddles pattern, and I made two of them for two of our nieces on Mark's side.  I sewed 26 hot pads for a bunch of people.  The last two things I made were two different rattles for Albric to play with.  I have loved watching each thing transform into the final product in my hands.  I loved to picture the kids playing with the toys I was making.  It helped me to not feel so worthless knowing that if it weren't for me, those particular things would not exist.  It helped me in my depression feel some worth.  I hope you enjoy the pictures I took.  It would be nice to be able to home make presents every year, but I know things will change in the future, so I am enjoying the time I have now to put into these gifts.  I hope the people I gave them to can feel my love for them.

Rainbow Cuddles for my nieces.

They had rainbow manes.

Heart-shaped hot pads.

Brachiosaurus

Stegosaurus

Pentaceratops

Kentrosaurus

Amargasaurus

Triceratops

The collection.

The rattles.

Albric is Six Months Old

Merry Christmas Eve!  Two days ago, my baby turned 6 months old.  How can so much time have gone by?   Didn't we just bring him home last week?  Anyway, he has learned some new tricks in the last month.  He learned to roll over from his back to his tummy.  He can now get just about anywhere he wants to with a bit of effort.  He has started to sit up pretty well.  He has also been getting up on his hands and knees a couple of times in the last week or so.  We started feeding him rice cereal a week ago and he loves it.  He is getting baby food in his stocking, and I think he will love eating it.  He also is working on two teeth right now.  They are popping up just in time for Christmas.  He loves his family and laughs the hardest at Calvin.   I can tell he is just raring to rough house with his big brother.  I love him so much and I am so glad he chose me to be his mom.

Partners in Crime

I'm assuming as time goes by, I'll have many opportunities to call these boys 'partners in crime.'  While I was washing dishes, Calvin found a half a pound of spaghetti and dumped it out on my bed.  I came in to find him snapping them in half one by one.  Albric was putting them in his mouth and having a great time.

Putting Up the Christmas Tree

This year we got our tree up on the 3rd.  Not too shabby really.  Calvin likes to hide behind it and take things off it.  I got some cute pictures that night.  The last was taken that morning at our ward Christmas party.  I've been crafting like a crazy person, so expect a post about that soon.  

Calvin's Third Birthday

Last year, I was in my first trimester of my second pregnancy.  I felt terrible.  I didn't do much for Calvin's birthday, and I did even less for Christmas.  I think this guilt has been eating at me all year, and I overcompensated for his birthday this year.  His birthday was the day before Thanksgiving, so we decided to celebrate with everyone the Saturday afterwards.  On his birthday, we got him a giant cookie, blew out candles with him, gave him one gift, and took him bowling at the Fun Park (He beat me at bowling).

Here he is after he rolled his ball.

He loved watching the balls return.

On Saturday, I threw the biggest party I have ever thrown (not including RS activities-for them I had a whole committee to help me). We had pizza, jello, chips, salads, pop, juice, and veggie trays for lunch.  I'm grateful to those who brought food.  It really filled the meal out.  I invited most of Calvin's cousins to the party.  We had 16 cousins there.  It was pretty fun.  We had them color paper lunch bags to keep prizes in.  We played 'pin the car on the road' as our first game.  Then we ate lunch.  Then we had a punch wall.  I am kicking myself right now because I didn't get a picture of it.  I put Hot Wheels cars in plastic cups, stuck them in holes in a styrofoam board with tissue paper over them.  Then the kids punched through the tissue paper to find a car.  I did the order randomly by giving them raffle tickets.  Mark built a huge race track out of some brown paper someone gave to us. It took him an hour to build it, but the kids loved it.  We had races after the kids got their cars out of the punch wall.  Then we all played 'red light, green light.'  The cutest thing was when we played the second round, someone spilled a pop.  I called red light and the kids all stood perfectly still while the spill was being cleaned up.  After we finished that game, the kids tried to play another round on their own.  It was super cute.  Then we did a pinata.  We let the older kids use Mark's wooden sword (it has a special name, but I can't remember it right now) as the stick.  Calvin was nice and helped the other kids get candy from the pinata.  Then we opened presents.  Calvin didn't want to open them all.  He wanted to play with each present as soon as we opened them.  Our family knows him really well and got him cars and trucks, and he has loved his new toys.  I gave him his Ducky Momo.  I had him open it last, and by that time he wasn't interested in it anymore.  I should have had him open it first.   We also gave him a Cars activity book, a monster truck watch, a big yellow car, a new outfit, and some giant candy bars.  We had ice cream sundaes for dessert. Of course, I didn't take many pictures because I was busy directing the fun.  Our family is the best and everyone helped clean up and held Albric throughout the party.  Calvin is lucky to have such great relatives who love him so much.