Sadie

 It's hard to believe that Sadie is eight months old already! She still is the easiest baby of the three, by far! She's not crawling yet but I bet she will be within the next month. She is still nursing and now eats three meals a day of solids. Her favorite foods are sweet potatoes, butternut squash, yogurt (in moderation-makes her spit up!), pears, and anything sweet. Just this week she's started feeding herself with little chunks of food--although she can't always pick it up because everything slips out of her fingers!

Her hair is coming in blonde, but nowhere near as light as Willa's. I think her eyes are hazel or possibly turning brown--we are constantly looking at her eyes to figure out what color they are. Sometimes they have flecks of brown or green, other times they look gray. So for now I'm going with hazel! She weighs almost 16 pounds, but feels much heavier than that when you've carried her around on your hip all day!

The older girls love love love her and just can't get enough. They squeal when she wears a new outfit, "entertain" her with toys, hugs, and songs, and miss her when they're away from her. The other day my mom watched Sadie while I took the girls to swimming lessons, and they just kept saying, "Mom-the car is so quiet. Sadie is not in her carseat! This is so weird that we're driving without her!"
 
Her schedule is:
7am: wake up, nurse, play
10:00: nap
11:00ish-wake up, nurse, eat solids, play
2 or 3:00-nap for two hours or so
4:00ish-wake up, nurse, eat solids, play again!
7:00-bedtime (she has separation anxiety now and fights bedtime pretty hard!)
midnight-wake up to nurse, fall right back asleep
3:00-nurse again, fall right back to sleep
7:00-wake up

Yes, she's probably nursing too many times in the night, but she's kind of on the skinny side (10th percentile for her weight) so I don't mind. Willa was the same weight and nursed the same at night, and what's a few more months of sleep deprivation anyway when I've made it this far?!

Sadie stays on the picnic blanket--at least for now!

hey mom, the big girls are doing puzzles--where is mine?!

ready for the pool!

One day we were playing music and dancing, then the girls went and grabbed their baby dolls because they noticed that I was dancing with Sadie on my hip. Then they said, "Look! We all three have babies! Take a picture!"

Willa loves to dress up Sadie!

If you look closely you can see Joel fishing with the girls down below!

Larkin and Willa love to eat the puffed cereal that Sadie drops??!

better eat 'em quick!!

Her hair is long enough now to where you have to brush it after bathtime or else it looks like this!

Girls building "spider web" and Sadie's making sure their silk stays nice and wet!

She learned how to scoot backwards on this day--trying to get the heck out of the web!

Willa's recital

 Willa had her first ballet recital a few days after Larkin's graduation. She was so excited about the recital that you would have thought it was her Broadway debut. She kept talking about how the audience was probably going to throw flowers everywhere onto the stage when she finished dancing and that she would grab a bunch of them, and her invitation list for the recital was over 50 people long--"We should invite them too-I bet they can't wait to see my dance!!"

I'm so glad that Willa did ballet because it gave her a place to feel special and shine. I didn't want to put both of the girls in preschool at the same time (money wise would have been expensive and unnecessary!). Willa always looked forward to her ballet day and would talk all week about her teachers and friends.

practicing with a friend

 On the big day she was not nervous at all and did great! The recital was held in a performing arts center that was very impressive. There was stage lighting, curtains, and even a professional videographer so that all the relatives can see Willa's two minutes of fame! I wasn't allowed to take pictures during the show but we did order a copy of the video recording.

The highlight for Willa though was the trophy she received after the show. She fell in love with it (named it "Tropha") and just could not believe that she got such a beautiful trophy. Larkin couldn't believe it either and spent at least an hour crying out of jealousy. 

On the way home from the show we stopped to eat lunch and Willa held it during the whole lunch and showed to every person that walked by.

Over lunch she said, "Mom, I'm never going to let you take ballet because then Dad and Larkin would be jealous of your trophy. I just love this thing."

She slept with Tropha every night for a week!

Larkin's graduation

First day of pre-k back in August. She's long since outgrown the dress and the shoes!

Larkin on her last day of pre-k!

Willa said, "Take a picture of me too!" Every single day she would collect flowers or small treasures to give to Larkin's teacher. Here she is with rocks, a bird egg, and flowers! She can't wait to go to pre-k next year and have the same teachers as Larkin.

 It's hard to believe that a year has gone by and that Larkin will be in kinder in a few months! She absolutely loved school, all her friends, and all the fun projects and activities she did there. Her face always lit up when she would talk about school, and you can't ask for much more than that!



She was very well behaved at school and prides herself on being a "great listener." She chooses her friends based on how well they listen to the teacher. Usually when I'd ask her about specific kids in her class she'd describe them in terms of their listening skills. "Oh him? He's a terrible listener!" or "I'm good friends with her because she's nice and we are both great listeners."


On one of the last days of school the class was getting hyper and wild and the teacher was trying to quiet everyone down. Larkin turned to her teacher, sighed, and said, "Oh Ms. LaJean why don't they get it?! I haven't had to move my color once all year (you move your color when you misbehave). I just don't know why they can't all be good listeners."

The graduation was quite involved--caps and gowns, Pomp and Circumstance, diplomas, professional videographer, memory books, and refreshments! It was such a memorable night for her and she was so proud of herself for getting up on stage in front of a ton of people!

She is excited about kinder and is definitely ready--she's reading, writing, confident in the classroom, a good friend to others, and most importantly (in her eyes), a great listener!

singing "The World is a Rainbow"

 

 

 

 

 

ready for kinder!

getting her diploma

She loves to organize and clean her room, and one night I came in and found her bed looking like this! Diploma was center stage.