Six Months!

Chloe is 6 months old! These monthly updates sure do sneak up on me, and I can't believe her first year is already halfway over :( 

Dallin took these first few pictures. She was on my tummy, sucking on her toes (she has a lot in common with her cousin Brian), but as soon as he took out the camera, she stopped sucking and just stared at him. She looks so much like baby Brennan in this picture.

This is my favorite one.

I bought some tiny hair clips, and they actually stay in her hair. She still doesn't like to roll over, but she's starting to sit up on her own.

 The boys love, love, love to play with Chloe. They surround her with toys and call it a Chloe party.

Chloe also likes to suck on her tongue and lips. Dallin was surprised she wasn't afraid of the scary shark. She's so brave!

We especially like to dress her up for church. Spencer took these pictures a couple weeks ago. She's wearing another coordinating hair clip - this time a purple butterfly. She's also wearing her gold Cleopatra sandals. Yum! One day as we were getting ready for church, Dallin said, "She's so cute, I almost can't look."

She's so flexible! Sometimes she gets both feet in her mouth at once.

Spencer loves this age because she likes to play with toys. It's fun to watch her having such a grand time chewing and rattling. He took these pictures too.

Now that the boys are back in school, it's just these two at home. I especially like it when I can coordinate their naps and have a couple hours of quiet in the afternoon. But it also means that I lose my live-in babysitter (Spencer) and have to take them shopping with me. 

Ouch!

School started on Monday (more about that later), and Tuesday morning I got a call from Tyler's school that he had fallen off the monkey bars. When I arrived he was crying in the nurse's office, and his wrist was obviously deformed. I knew right away it was broken. I assumed we'd take him to the E.R., but I had a prompting on the way that I should call a friend. We had recently talked about kids and broken bones; she recommended a new doctor in our town who was great with kids. I called the office, and they said we could go there right away. 

We were so impressed with the whole experience. He had x-rays taken in the office, and the distal ends of both his radius and ulna were fractured and displaced. The doctor splinted it, gave us pain medicine and scheduled a surgery for later in the day, since he had to have an empty stomach.  We were able to go home for a few hours to rest - this was much better than spending the day in the E.R.! It was so hard to see Tyler in such excruciating pain. The medicine helped, but each time he'd fall asleep, the pain would wake him back up. 

Luke let him borrow his sling, which really helped. We went to the hospital at 3:00. Dave got off work early and met us there.  The pain medicine was wearing off by this point, and he was hurting! He sure looked cute in his tiger hospital clothes, though. Everyone there was so nice, and they all loved Tyler. 

This is right before they took him to the O.R., around 5:15p.m. The pain was most sever at this point, but he still managed to give me a smile! They put him to sleep for the surgery, and they ended up needing to put a pin in to keep the bones in place.

Here's his Oompa-Loompa hand, probably from the disinfectant they used. They put a temporary cast on, and he'll get that taken off on Tuesday so they can put a more permanent one on. He's been off school all week, which he's really bummed about. He was so excited to start school, and he only got to go one day! Each day he feels better, and he's only taking Ibuprofen for pain now. I read the third Harry Potter book to him, which helped make the time go by fast and get his mind off the pain.

Swimming Lessons

Now that the boys are back in school, I have time to get caught up on blogs. So back in July the boys took swimming lessons from Megan (the one we went to the lake with, the older sister of Spencer's friend Sean). I was so impressed with how good she was with our little kids at the lake, and she had just finished up a great season on the swim team. Plus she has a pool, so we were able to go to their house for the lessons. We went every day for two weeks, and Chloe and I just sat in the shade and visited with her mom Cyndee the whole time. It was lovely.

Levi liked to put his feet in the water, but he refused to do the lessons. Instead of wasting our time trying to convince him otherwise (which is usually futile anyway), we just had her move on to the other boys. I figure he'll be ready by next summer.

Brennan didn't want to do much the first week either. In fact he got in the water less Thursday and Friday than he did the first 3 days. Remember how I said he wouldn't get off the steps of the pool all last summer? Well I was pretty dang frustrated with him for not even trying to learn this year. Then the following Monday was Dallin's birthday, and I told him we could go out for donuts after their lessons. But then I decided to use it as leverage. I told them we would ONLY go out for donuts if Brennan tried to swim and do whatever Megan asked him to do. It worked, and he improved a ton each day from then on. Here he is swimming across the pool with the life jacket on. 

He even tried diving.

Dallin was able to get by in the water before lessons, but he really learned a lot with Megan. He was able to master everything she taught him. Megan handed out awards at the end, and he got the award for strongest swimmer.

Spencer was at scout camp the first week, but he came along the second week. He assured me that he didn't need lessons. He was a really good swimmer, after all. But I knew he could use some help on fine-tuning his strokes. She worked with him a little, and he admitted it was helpful. Tyler got the award for best attitude. Not only did he do everything Megan taught him, but he did it cheerfully. Yep, that's Tyler!

By the end of the second week, Brennan was able to swim. I was so proud of his progress, I wanted to cry. He got the award for most improved.

Here he is, swimming from the side of the pool to Megan.

The next time we went to the public pool, he was swimming all over the place. No more staying on the steps!

Success! The boys had so much fun, they didn't want their lessons to come to an end. Maybe we can do it again next summer.

Summer swimming

Dave set up a pool in our backyard this year. It's 13' X 3', and it has provided hours of fun.

Have you ever met a kid with more crazy expressions than Brennan? I didn't think so.

One reason I was hesitant to have a pool was this little dare devil. He had no fear last year - he would jump right into the public pool whether I was nearby to catch him or not. So we had our neighbor make us a pool cover for safety. He actually installs pool covers for a living, but he just does in-ground pools. He cut out a piece of a used cover and attached it around the top with rope. It has worked great; plus Levi is actually much more afraid of the water this year, so that's good too.

Brennan was very cautious last year, and although he could reach the bottom just fine this year, he just felt safer wearing a life jacket at the beginning of the summer. 

The older boys have had a blast in the pool all summer. They usually go out for an hour or two in the afternoon.

The boys love digging holes in the backyard, and there was a ginormous one right where we put the pool. Dave tried to level the dirt first, but it was still pretty slanted.

We went to our favorite pool in SLO a few times, but it was just so nice to send the boys out to swim in the backyard while Levi and Chloe were taking afternoon naps. I could see them from the kitchen window (or at least all the splashing), and hear lots of happy laughter.

Rice Cereal!

We gave Chloe her first solid food (other than chewing on watermelon) a couple weeks ago. Of course she spit it right back out, but by the end she was getting more in than out.

There wasn't quite enough light in the house for pictures, so we moved her outside to finish.

As her doctor said at her last appointment, feeding a baby food at this age is more entertaining for the family than anything else. Everyone wanted a turn feeding her.

She actually ate the whole bowl!

Love this!

The next time I fed her I put her in the high chair. She looked like such a big girl!

Have I mentioned how much she loves to stick out her tongue? She does it when she's happy, which is every time we look at her/talk to her. She loves attention!

Yum! That's good stuff.