Reaping the Rewards

Well, after Aaron's Reading Drive this summer, he did earn enough money to go buy the lures he wanted, plus a few extra things. We spent about an hour and a half (with a very patient Aunt Kelcie) at Cabella's while he picked out what he wanted. Thanks to everyone who supported Aaron and made it possible!

Aaron with his goods

A close-up of some of the lures. Aaron loves this picture.

This is an old picture, but on topic so I thought I'd include it. It is Aaron with the tackle box he made out of a shoe box and an egg carton. He used it in NC, but it got pretty beat up so I convinced him that it was time to recycle it.

This picture is not exactly on topic, but it was taken the same day as the lure pictures, so I thought I'd include it here. Aaron sure loves his little sis.

Provo, UT

One day while we were in Utah, we spent a day in my old neighborhood of Provo. It was kind of fun to show the boys where Ben and I met (although they had little interest, of course) and to drive on the all-too familiar streets. I was able to eat some CafeRio though, which made the trip.

Aaron really likes to climb mountains whenever we get the chance, so I thought I would take him up to the mountain with the tacky "Y" on it and let him walk around a bit. I didn't think we would actually get much "climbing" in since I was alone with the three kids but I figured it'd be fun to walk around anyway. Well, Aaron had other ideas. He wanted to get to the top. So I figured we'd give it a shot. We got about half way up before Elliot broke down. He was doing really well but then he started asking, "Can I have a granola bar?" over and over again and stopping to get the rocks out of his crocs. Anyway, so Aaron was a good sport and let us turn around even though he easily could have made it to the top. The trip down was fairly difficult, trying to balance everyone and not slip myself. But we had fun nonetheless.

Aaron leading the way

Inspecting a potential life form on the trail

Libbie did a pretty good job on the hike. Even fell asleep on the way down.

Another day in the Provo area, we went berry picking at a "Pick Your Own" place, which was actually just somebody's really large garden. It was exciting to be in the garden and see how much potential there is for growing your own food. The boys had a great time, especially eating the berries.

Elliot helping himself

Weighing our bucket of berries.

Aaron was a little disappointed that we didn't get buckets and buckets of berries, like the family did that was there at the same time as us. (You can see their buckets in the background.) I didn't think we'd have time to do a big berry project before going home so we didn't get a ton. Plus I was running out of steam. Aaron picked over half of what is in that bucket though, and could have kept on going. We didn't get enough to make jam, but we did eat delicious berries for the week we had left!

Six Months Old

Libbie had her six month check up this past week. Her doctor always does a good job of giving us her stats on a little piece of paper. I'm not one to keep little pieces of paper around so I usually just throw them away but this one keeps turning up so I decided I might as well copy the stats over, just in case someone is interested, now or in some future time.

Height: 27.75 (97th Percentile)
Weight: 17 lbs. 8 oz. (75th Percentile)
Head Circumference: 45 cm (96th Percentile)

I was a little concerned at the fact that her weight percentile has been going steadily down but the doc said that it's typical of breastfed babies. So no problem I guess.

Anyway, here is our darling...

This is her no-lip face. It's her default expression. She even tries her best to maintain the illusion that she has no lips when she laughs sometimes. It's very cute.

Just a cute smile

And, of course, with the six month birthday comes solid* food!

Aaron was extremely excited to give Libbie food. He has been asking for months about when we can start her on various foods. When the morning finally came to start the transition to solids, I mixed up some rice cereal and showed it to Aaron. A minute or so later, I was talking with my parents when out of the corner of my eye I saw Aaron feeding Libbie. I kind of jumped up a little, running over to her rescue, but she was completely unphased. She gobbled the whole bowl down as if it was old news. I guess she was ready.

*"solid" as in, slightly thicker than milk... a highly misleading term

Early Summer

I won't blog pictures from every event we did this summer, but I am going to try to post pictures from each location, attempting to summarize our goings-on. These are some pictures from things we did in NYC in July.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we went camping in CT with my sister Kori and her family...

Our glorious tents

(We were majorly out of our league at this place... there were more RVs than tents there. I never knew that people actually owned so much camping equipment. Apparently some people stay at this place for weeks, even months, at a time. We were good with one night. Two might have been nice.)

Of course we had to roast dogs/sausages
(This was before Aaron's conversation with Grandma Karen about what hot dogs are made of... although somehow sausages seem much better than hot dogs.)

Within walking distance of our campsite was a beach. We weren't prepared for it, but the kids had fun flirting with the cold water.

And, of course, sandcastles
(You like that sprinkling method? A master at work.)

Besides camping, in NYC in July we also...

attended a public basketball and soccer class for kids, which Elliot especially loved (and had major skills)


and...

made cookies with cousin Tony

And, of course, Aaron ate as much meat as his parents could stomach, in the most barbaric way possible.
(This is actually what was left of the cheapest cut of roast I could order from our local CSA... turns out I paid for a lot of bone.)


We also did a lot of staring at and playing with Libbie

Kid Updates

Here are some recent kid quotes and snapshots. I recognize the imbalanced distribution here, but I've been working on the list for a few days and I think it just needs to be published at this point. And, of course, Elliot is two right now, so almost everything he says comes out cute. Anyway, here you go:

AARON:
Commenting on Grandpa LeeR's love of hot dogs, Aaron said, "Grandpa's a gutavore," after Grandma Karen explained to Aaron what hot dogs are made of. Then the next day when grandma ordered a hot dog, Aaron looked up at her and said, "Are you sure about that grandma?"

In a discussion with Grandma Karen about the fact that Ben is off working on his dissertation, grandma told Aaron that Grandpa LeeR is also working on a dissertation. After telling grandma that tato's dissertation is on the Cold War, Aaron asked her what grandpa's dissertation is about and she said it has to do with donuts and their shape (he's working on some topological questions). Aaron giggled and said, "I think the Cold War is more interesting than donuts, don't you?"

LIBBIE:
Has one tooth broken through, with the second close behind

Giggles very cutely but quite sparingly-- you need to work for it, but it pays off

Survives her brothers' tackles like a champ

Scoots backwards and a little bit forwards. Is starting to get up on her hands and knees and rock.

Has long, strawberry blond hair

Very cheerful after waking from a nap-- rolls around and smiles at you from her crib

Smiles back at her mama consistently. Cries when mama turns her back to walk away. Cries when she seems mama walk into the room. Stops crying when she sees mama walking towards her.

I took her to see Star Trek in the movie theater with us the other day. She was very well-behaved. The time that she wasn't sleeping, she was sitting on my lap and staring up at me, waiting for me to look down at her. When I looked down at her and smiled, she would giggle and get so excited.

Raises her arms up for "SOO big!" (In response to, "How big is Libbie?")

Sits for long periods of time without falling over.

ELLIOT:
"This is fun and awesome." -- He says some form of this statement almost everyday. Such an enthusiast.

When I put my new skirt on for church today Elliot said, "You look beautiful!" Then later, "Are you a princess?" Totally made my day.

Whenever he wants Aaron to do something, particularly when he wants him to give him something back, he says, "6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, OK, you go to time out."

"Take off your shoes off." -- He uses this construction for any statement that could have the word (most commonly a preposition) in two positions. He puts it in both places.

"I look so awesome and cool." Elliot has a little obsession with mirrors. Well, particularly when his own image is reflected back of course. At Tahoe he would put his swimming goggles on and just look at himself in the mirror, sometimes doing various poses. There was a mirror on the wall of the kitchen area and as he walked or run by, he would inevitably turn his head and watch himself as he passed, usually with a smile. All evening after he got his face painted as Spider Man, he came inside every few minutes to check in the mirror and see how he looked. When a mirror wasn't nearby, he'd ask, "Where's my Spider Man?" I'd reassure him it was on his face and he would be calmed. For days after we washed off the paint, he would still ask, "Where's my Spider Man?"

"Libbie is soo cute!" Elliot says this almost every time he sees Libbie in a transition moment-- when she just woke up from a nap, or when he just came into the room, or whenever he is seeing her after a period of not seeing her. It's very cute but usually followed by a tackle/hug that is not so fun for miss Libbie.

"LastDay" = yesterday, which really means some time before this moment.

"Is it picy or good?" He asks this about anything that could potentially be spicy. Up until recently, anything with carbonation was "picy" but lately he's been saying very enthusiastically about root beer, "It's not picy; it's good!"

"Remember when..." Elliot often will quote or refer to things that happened in the past. One of my favorite times was when he choked on a spaghetti noodle. All of us were standing around, mid-breath, waiting for him to show that his coughing/gagging was not going to turn into the silence of real choking, when he stopped coughing, looked up at us and said, "Remember when I was choking?"