Friday Favorites!

I don't know why I'm always so surprised when Friday comes around again.


1. Christmas was last weekend. We had a blast. I already posted about it, luckily, so I don't have to get long winded about it now.


2. On Monday, Rophone took Pen to the airport for her very first solo trip. My sister, Aunt Martha, flew Pen to her neck of the woods for a parents-free adventure. I'm just so happy for Pen that she gets to have this experience. Thanks Martha and Plumbean!


3. Edith turned 10 months old this week. She'll be asking for the keys before we know it.


4. I forgot to mention this when it happened a few weeks ago, but Pen has passed me up in height. I'm just shy of 5'7", so that makes Pen a pretty tall recently turned 13 year old. I'm super excited about it. I always wanted to be taller, so I think it's great that I'll have at least one statuesque daughter. Plus, she really needs to catch up to her feet! Ginger could be tall, too, though. Her feet just hit the size 9 mark (bigger than mine were before pregnancy). I love tall daughters!


5. Bud got some fun games for Christmas from Santa-- remember his list? We have been having fun playing them this week. I love that my kids are old enough and smart enough to play a variety of games. It's fun!


6. Rophone's youngest brother got married this week, so we got to see a bunch of Rophone's family and celebrate. It was great.


7. I love the extra time I get to see my handsome hubby over the holidays. We really dig each other. He thinks I'm hot and I like that. 


8. We already returned/exchanged all of the items people received for Christmas that didn't fit. I feel so good about it. Seriously. We usually wait for waaay too long just because we hate the crowds. It just feels nice to know we don't have to worry about those things anymore. Aaaaah.


9. I bought some new socks today. It's so exciting, really! I have only 5 pairs left that haven't been appropriated by my daughters-- it makes it hard to work out and still have socks to wear. I can't wait to start exercising with socks!


10. We ate the nummiest garden burgers this week, grilled to perfection by Rophone. Now I'm craving another one. 


Wow. Another week in the can!

Ten Months with Edith

Edith turned 10 months old yesterday. It seems like I just wrote the post about her turning 9 months old-- I guess we'll be celebrating a year before we know it. Edith continues to be a stellar baby in every way. Let's see if my tired brain can remember what went on this month...

I don't know where it came from (most certainly not her parents), but Edith continues to be very flexible. I finally got a picture of her in the splits-- I'm not sure why it took me so long, since she can do splits all 3 ways and is in them so frequently. I've even found her sleeping in her crib that way when she crashes while playing. And, yes, I know the photo is blurry, but it's all I've got. 

I also managed to capture a good angle of Edith's excited face. This is the expression she does when one of her favorite songs comes on and she starts to dance, when we are getting ready to go somewhere, when her daddy comes home, when someone dresses her up and takes her to see herself in the mirror, when you're holding something she wants.... You get the idea. It's called her excited face because it's what Edith does when she's excited about something. The open mouth is also accompanied by hyperventilation. One of these days she's going to pass out.

Edith also loves to hug. She initiates hugs more often than any of our other kids did. Some of our other kids loved to be held and and snuggled for a moment, but it wasn't the same as the way Edith does it. Edith dives in and throws her arms around your neck and squeezes tightly. While she's there, she'll give your back a pat and play with the hair at the back of your neck. It's just about the sweetest thing and makes my heart swell every time she hugs me. We love it. 

Here's a photo of her trying to give Big a hug, although the window seat gets in the way. Big is her favorite person to hug, I think. She loves him.

We discovered that Edith loves to play dress-up with her sisters, and Edith discovered how to crawl. A few weeks ago she finally got over her nervousness and started to really move. Now there's no stopping her. Not that I'd want to-- I think there's just about nothing cuter than the way a baby's bum waggles as they crawl. It makes me smile.

Edith has also spent a few weeks licking her chin a lot. A bad habit she seems to be ridding herself of, thank goodness, but I mention it because her tongue is a sight to behold. It's super long! I'm amazed that it fits into her little, teeny mouth. I'm bummed that I didn't get a picture of her tongue when it was fully extended, but these photos should give you a bit of an idea.

I think that Edith is the most patient baby we've ever had. I mean, look at that long-suffering face:

Edith's already learning the eye roll from her sisters, though. But I'll be the first to admit there are times I deserve it. I do the meanest things to her sometimes, all in the sake of photos, yet she still loves me and gives me hugs. What a good baby.

See what I mean?

I know it was nap time and you were tired Edith, but I wanted to try to get a shot in the failing light. Thanks for letting me try three different mustaches, and I'm sorry the last one completely plugged up your little nose and that it took me so long to realize it. And the worst part is that none of the photos really turned out. Maybe we can try it again sometime?

(Insert eye roll here)

Last week I purchased a teething necklace to wear so that I can be accessorized and Edith can chew on it while she she sits on my lap. We gave her the necklace in the car on the way home and she happily gnawed away while we drove. Then, when we got home, someone put it over Edith's head and told her how pretty she looks in it. Needless to say, it's no longer my necklace and Edith no longer chews on it. You don't chew on pretty jewelry, don't you know. 

At least it's getting worn, though. Edith wears it every day and squawks at anyone who dares to take it off of her. The other day it fell off her shoulder and when Bud reached out to fix it she gave him an earful, thinking he was trying to remove it. It was super funny. Here's a picture of her from Christmas, wearing my her beautiful necklace:

This month was a big one-- learning to crawl, first Christmas, trying and liking parsnips... I can't wait to see what the next month brings!

Edith's First Christmas!

I can't believe Christmas has already come and gone. Big thought it was never going to come, but I guess he was wrong. Talk about a looong month for the poor kid. We had a great time celebrating. It was so fun to see the kids' excitement and joy at every aspect of our celebration. Well, most of the kids anyway. Edith thought it was all kind of a bore (and tiring!) until we got to the paper and bows on Christmas Day. Now that stuff was cool! 


On Christmas Eve we went over to my folks' house to have a fantastic meal with my parents and my sister, Auntie Art's, family. It was fun to have Edith and her twin boybie cousins together for their first big Christmas celebration. I was a little lame with the picture taking this year, so when I took photos of the nativity action I missed taking a photo of Ginger dressed as Mary and didn't get any photos of the actual action. We were trying to rush things along a little bit due to tired babies who needed to be in bed (as you'll see from the photos of Edith).


Oh, and just ignore Rophone's walleyed look in the pictures. Sometimes Crohn's attacks one of his eyes and gives him a lazy eye. It can be a bit disconcerting when I'm talking to him to suddenly see his eye drift toward the ceiling. Luckily it's not too bad in the photos.


The first shot is of our two little angels, Pen and Edith. Edith was so excited to get dressed up for the part and sat still while I tied on her cape and put on her halo. She didn't even try to take them off once.

Bud as 'Joseph' and Rophone as a shepherd:

Rophone and Big as shepherds, holding a tired angel.

Believe me when I say that Ginger made a beautiful 'Mary'. I didn't take the time to don a costume due to the rapidly dwindling time we had to accomplish our activity. I was dressed as a modern wisewoman. Never has our acting out of the nativity been so short and sweet. I thought it was perfect.


We went back to our house to sleep and wake up for the Christmas festivities the next day. After our traditional breakfast of cheesy scrambled eggs and bran muffins (and cleaning the kitchen, of course), the kids lined up to go see what Santa had brought.

We had the older kids wait for a minute to dig in to their stuff so we could all watch Edith and take pictures. It wasn't exactly the climactic moment we were hoping for....

Rophone finally grabbed a pack of binkies out of her stocking and handed it to her. She liked those and spent a lot of time investigating the packaging, trying to figure out how to get them open. She really didn't spend any time investigating how to get her present open, even when Rophone reached out and got it started for her.

Exciting stuff. Okay, on to everyone else.

Now Edith's finally into it now that we got her present out of the box. That's more like it.

So much loot. Edith was in heaven. She was surrounded with much better stuff than a baby doll-- candy, boxes, wrapping, bows. The best stuff out there.

We went on with opening gifts from each other while Edith explored.

Ginger's face is an example of what an iTunes gift card will do to someone around here. I think she liked your gift, Bud.

Rophone and I decided to start a new tradition this year. A long, long, looong time ago, on one of our first Christmases together as a couple, Rophone, knowing I like Twix, decided he wanted to include some as a part of my Christmas packages. Not realizing what it would mean, he asked my mother to purchase him some at the local box store. 

As I opened my first package I was happy to see a Twix was included with the gift. "I love Twix!" I exclaimed. I understood Rophone's response of, "I hope so." as I opened the rest of my gifts. As I continued to open my presents, more and more Twix bars appeared. I was starting to accumulate quite a pile. Packages of socks were separated just so he could include a pair with 4 Twix. A box of hand lotion with 2 more. A pair of pants with 6 Twix. Thirty-six full-sized Twix candy bars later and I was done. Oh my.

Our kids have heard the story quite a few times and think it's funny, so this year we decided to include a little mini Twix in each of their presents from us. I think it was just about their favorite part of the present-opening. We had a lot of fun.

Our favorite part about Christmas is the time we get to spend together as a family. We sure did enjoy being together this year. It was fun to watch Edith on her first Christmas as she observed and absorbed all that went on. Can't wait until next year to establish more traditions and make more memories!