Felix, at 10 months (!) today (the 21st), is not a tiny snuggly baby who’ll sleep anywhere any more. He’s curious and into everything and on the go. He has a hard time holding still when things are happening, and he doesn’t snuggle much when he’s up and about.
Except when he’s sick. Poor guy ran a fever for 4-5 days last week and didn’t feel good at ALL. Hannah discovered early in his illness that she could rock him to sleep and enjoy a good snuggle of thirty minutes to an hour. She took full advantage of the opportunity. Which was really helpful, because if she wasn’t holding him, I was. He’s better now, and the snuggly naptimes are gone!
Tess has settled on her ideal breakfast for now: a two-egg omelet, half a banana, and an apple with sunbutter. Sometimes she’ll add a quarter of an avocado, too. This is the kid who used to eat tiny smidgens of things…NO MORE! She’s discovered the joy of eating! She even likes (and asks for seconds of) lettuce. She draws the line at onions and asparagus…for now. We’ll see if she changes her tune. But since she’s eating pretty much everything else we put in front of her, it’s tough to complain.
At Easter, I made sunbutter (sunflower seed butter) cups, like the peanut butter ones, but less deadly to Hannah. And sweetened with honey. I realized that none of the kids had ever had a peanut butter cup. They were delighted with them. Even the ones who don’t particularly like sunbutter loved the cups. We then made the recipe for sunbutter and chocolate dairy-free ice cream and it met with similar acclaim.
Naomi and Hannah are working on a piano duet for their next recital. It’s going really well. Their teacher said she’d never had a duet come back so well after only a week. They’re working together extremely well. I had some serious doubts about it, but they’re doing such a nice job together, it’s awesome. Felix, as you can see, would be happy to make it a trio. But since he won’t count and won’t play the same notes every time, they’re not letting him join in. Seems somewhat uptight, if you ask Felix.
Our garage got a new roof, and you better believe the kids thought this machine was awesome! They would have missed it entirely if they weren’t homeschooled. As it was, they watched from the windows in Hannah and Tess’s room and loved it.
Felix, feeling better, decided to raid the napkin drawer. He can pull himself up and open it and empty (or partially empty) it at will. At least it’s better than when he eats whatever bits he can find off the floor…
Naomi and Hannah have also been making many creations with hot glue and natural materials. This is a fairy tea table made by Naomi, with acorn cups and a tea pot. Naomi got a book that has been inspiring all kinds of making of things, and the things are really, really cute. So if you know a girl who likes to create things and can be trusted with a hot glue gun, that book’s a great gift!
Not pictured: anything growing in my vegetable garden. BECAUSE my ducks are eating the things I plant. Despite my efforts to exclude them. Next step is enclosing each bed with chicken wire. Then I’ll plant more. Sigh.
But it’s hard to complain about anything, even garden-destroying ducks, because the spring this year has been glorious so far!
We went to the Easter Vigil as a family this year. It was lovely. Tess and Sim slept through most of it. Felix slept through almost to the end, woke up very confused, then flirted with whomever he could for the rest of the Mass. Hannah and Naomi stayed awake and witnessed two adults receive Baptism. BUT we didn’t get a family photo. We did get photos of all the kids, though.
Sim and Felix got matching outfits this Easter! Sim was really excited. Felix didn’t care too much either way. I think they look adorable, but I could be slightly biased.
The girls didn’t get matching dresses, but they all got pink this year. Amazon provided almost all the new outfits, including mine (which didn’t get photographed) and Michael’s tie (which also didn’t get photographed). (When did Hannah get so TALL?)
We didn’t get a good picture of Tess’s dress, but we did get a sweet picture of Tess herself. :)
Michael also has pictures of Tess and Sim sleeping on the pew in front of us. It was reserved, but only half of it was used, so when they conked out, Michael put them up there to sleep.
Felix crawls! For real! He’s been doing so for a little while, but I haven’t updated here because he’s now much more dangerous to himself and his environment, so I have to follow him around, keeping him out of trouble. And he can be really stealthy. He was in the living room playing with the kids while I was cooking dinner the other day. Suddenly I heard a noise that I couldn’t identify. This is Baby #5, so I don’t take for granted when I hear a noise I can’t identify, if I can possibly help it. I went to investigate, and there he was, in the bathroom, having the BEST time unrolling the toilet paper. At least he hadn’t gotten into the toilet yet!
The best thing about learning to crawl
according to Felix
(besides leaving behind one’s very own Trail of Destruction)
(yep, that’s a sock in my Trail of Destruction! and an abacus – it’s good to have older siblings!)
is that one can finally GET
the things that nobody else
ever hands to one.
Yeah. More on that later.
