Hollywood!!!

Ms. A loves sunglasses.  She almost always puts them on upside down, and every time, without fail she proudly turns to me and theatrically exclaims, "Hollywood!"  I think I must have said that when she put them on before, and now anytime she dawns sunglasses, or in this case Nerf dart protective goggles, she says it with a giant smile that belongs on a red carpet.

K Baptism

K was baptized on November 17.  She was nine months old when we baptized her.

In Catholic churches the baptism usually takes place during a regular mass.  Which means the family stands in front of the entire church, hoping that their baby cooperates and that all the siblings remain quiet and stand still.  We had every confidence in the boys, but couldn't be sure about little K or Ms. A.  True to form Ms. A., who at one point attempted to climb into the baptismal font, did not disappoint.  Johan had to move quickly to prevent her from getting wet.  She had already thrown one leg up and over the edge of the font before Johan moved to quickly shut her down.  Then we had to get little K into the gown during the ceremony.  For the other three kids we were allowed to put the gown on them before we went up.  For K however, Johan had to fumble around awkwardly trying to fit K's fingers through her sleeves in front of the whole church.  Those little fingers just would not go through the sleeves, she had them all splayed open and the sleeve openings are tight and not elastic.  Finally Johan was successful after what felt like eternity standing in front of the whole church. 

Jill is her God-mother.  Thank you Jill!

I should point out that all four of our kids wore that gown for their baptism.  C was just a month old when he was baptized in Alaska.  The gown was huge on him...  K was six months old when he was baptized.  We got him baptized at the same church where C was baptized when we were back in Alaska on vacation.  The gown was very tight on him, but we cut the sleeves a bit and it worked.  A was three months old she was baptized in the gown.  It was very tight across the chest, and thankfully the sleeves had already been cut.  At nine months the gown was just a tad tight on little K.  She is a petite little thing.

Bishop Liam Carrey baptised little K.  It was his first baptism as a bishop, so we feel special.  That is the bishop on the left.  Father Rick is between Johan and C.

Special thanks to the Cooke family at church who took the above pictures with their camera.  We were in such a rush getting ready and getting to church on time that none of us brought our cameras or phones in.  

November

The leaves are almost totally gone, the clocks have been turned back, and the turkey has been carved.  I miss summer so much already, I don't know what happened to that extra hour, and can't believe that it is time to think about Christmas!  Time is racing, and although I feel like I am constantly busy, I also feel like I will never be caught up....

So we did a whole lot this month, but I failed to blog about it.  Just a few recent pictures so that I don't lose the month entirely.

Little K is nine months now!  She is crawling around so well.  It is amazing how much more proficient a crawler she has become just since this time last week.  She is even pushing up on hands and feet, bottom in the air.  She is still tiny.  She is in the 25th percentile for height and weight, 75th for head circumference.

K...what can I say...this guy is so sweet and helpful and really pretty funny!  I love you K!

Kind of a sad day C was not that interested in playing ball tag with us at the park...  He wanted to play catch with Johan.  But (really big sigh) I think we are on the edge of adolescence.  He did join in at the end, and we all had a great time, but there are more and more signs that my baby is growing up...

Ah lovely Ms. A.  How I adore you, so sassy...  Lately Ms. A has perfected the damsel in distress routine.  She will begin carrying something and almost immediately announce, "No, too heavy for me."  And then she will practically curtsy before skipping off leaving her brothers or myself to do the heavy lifting.  She loves to need help as well, she will begin a task and then quickly beckon K or C, "I need help!"  But her favorite of all is feigned fear.  She loves to scream and she loves to be chased and tickled.  Sometimes even if the boys are just walking in her general direction she will drop what she is doing and squeal before crying out, "Ahhh he going get me..."  Then run off as though the boys were chasing her, thus ultimately prompting the desired game of chase.

Happy Halloween

C had the show stopper this year, a garden gnome or The Traveling Gnome, or just a gnome.  Whatever, it was a great costume and he got tons of compliments...so bonus!  Ms. A is a strawberry and  kudos to Old Navy, that little beauty cost $10 and it was well-made, warm, and (ahem) super cute!  K was a super tough ninja.  His second choice.  He had ordered a Robin Hood costume but Amazon cancelled the order a couple days after it was placed so he settled for this one and it suits him.  He was an excellent ninja.  In the back you see King Tut.  He will be shaving that stash tomorrow and I will be celebrating one of my favorite annual holidays.  November 1, a.k.a., the end of Stash-tober.  I was the Queen Bee.  Love that costume.  I wore it for work and it was great.

Not pictured in costume is Little K.  She went to bed early with a fever.  She woke up as the trick-or-treaters returned.  She had fun playing with A for a little while and then she got a bit fussy.  Fussy was followed by cuddly which I love.  I probably shouldn't enjoy it but there is something wonderful about the sick snuggles.  Not that I want her to be sick, but it is like the silver lining of having a sick baby.

And because I never get pumpkin carving pictures...

Ms. A spent most of her time moving the pumpkin guts and the pumpkin seeds from one container to another.  The hoarder in her tried to stash some slimy pumpkin seeds in a pencil box and hide it in her toy basket.  I had to draw the line...

Off to bed...

Ms. A has a penchant for mess making.  She can completely alter the landscape of a room in mere seconds.  I (usually with help from the boys) generally attempt to repair the damage after she has been tucked in.  This evening however, with the boys still away at a soccer game with Johan, I decided to enlist Ms. A in "clean-up."  She initially dug in when I asked her to help put the train tracks away, but ultimately she did a fair job of helping.

When we got to the living room, she became distracted with wanting to eat and color.  So I managed a good clean-up.  Ms. A turned around and looking at our now tidy living room, calmly announced, "I need make a mess."  And she was serious!  She then set about re-scattering the odd assortment of items that she manages to find each day.  Lego men, crayons, golf balls, blocks, papers, she isn't picky...

I had to insist that the mess making was done, we were off to bed.  So I advised her, as I do almost every night, to get her bedtime things.  Every night she takes something different to bed.  Books, stuffed animals...you never know what she will bring

Tonight she gathered a classic assortment.  When she arrived bedside for story time she had the following:

It was all contained nicely in a Rubbermaid shoebox; K's favorite stuffed puppy that he slept with every night for many years, a random Beanie Baby iguana, an old Blackberry, a Lego tiger, and K's mason jar full of quarters.

She cracks us up.  She scatters so much stuff around the house, but she is always packing random collections of things into random containers; paper bags, boxes, Tupperware, baskets, etc.  I believe that last night she slept with K's puppy again along with a dead bug of unknown origin sealed in a  Tupperware container.

Top Shelf

I really wish I had written down all the funny things the kids have said to me over the years.  There have been some really good ones, sadly, they all buried in the recesses of my mind now...

Here is the latest from Ms. A:

I was giving her one Skittle as a reward for going potty on the toilet.  She of course negotiated, "I think I need couple."  She wanted more than one.  So I gave her two.  And she was happy enough to jump up and down, cheering, "One, two! One, two!"  When I moved to put the Skittles back onto the top shelf of the pantry Ms. A noted, "Ohhhhhh you put that up there?!?"  "Ohhhhhh, so KiKi can't get them." [she calls little K KiKi pronounced K-eye K-eye]

I couldn't hide my laughter.  Little K can't even stand up.

Yep, little Ms. movies in the middle of the night I am putting the Skittles up high so your infant sister can't get them.

Movies after Midnight???

Ms. A is in an awful phase, she is not sleeping through the night.  Around midnight, nightly she awakes and storms into our bedroom.  Without intending to stomp, her little foot steps can shake the house.  Ms. A brings with her whatever books we read at bedtime, as many stuffed animals as she can carry, her sippy cup of water, and her almost empty sippy cup of yogi (she gets kefir every night before bed).  Along the way from her bedroom she typically drops all of said items in the hallway.  With a loud "gasp" and a flourish she scoops everything up and continues on her way, until she again drops everything and scoops it up.  At this time either Johan or myself, now wide awake, run to her aid.  When we get her and her possessions resettled into our bed she thrashes around for a bit before falling into a less than restful sleep.  Ms. A talks in her sleep.  Actually she waves her arms and legs around calling out "No!"

Last night the routine was unvaried, until sometime after 1:00 AM.  A had already presented herself in our bedroom.  Her books, animals, and sippy cups were in place.  Johan and I were both squished over to the very edge of our king size bed while Ms. A moved about on the other two-thirds of the mattress.  At some point Johan was awakened by...stillness.  Ms. A was no longer in our bed.  He sat up and was able to peer out into the darkness of the living room.  Johan spotted a blonde little girl perched on the sofa in the middle of the night.  As Johan approached he realized Ms. A was staring at one of the boys' Kindle Fires.  A looked up at him, "I watching movie!" she announced before turning back to the tablet.

Ms. A had gotten out of bed all by herself in the middle of the night.  She went out into the living room, located a Kindle Fire, turned it on, found the Netflix application, selected it, and choose a movie.  Aside from the obvious entertainment factor of the story, we are fairly concerned.  I don't know if this behavior would fall into the "sneaky" category, but it certainly falls into the "gutsy" and "defiance" categories.  C and big K would never, never, not ever have done something like this...  Oh, Ms. A, what do you have in store for us???