A Day in the Life

Of an 11 month old baby girl. Last week, you turned 11 months old. I realized I needed to get out the camera and snap some photos. I don't want to let my annoyance at our outdated, fuzzy imaged camera deter me from capturing these days with you. You are one busy girl and are growing so big right before our very eyes. We are so blessed to get to be your parents and brothers, Margot!

We start the day nice and slow with breakfast and play time in our pj's. You pull up and stand most of the day.

You love to put things in this drawer and pull them out for a taste. EVERYTHING goes in your mouth. We really have to watch out for you. Thankfully, your brothers help us with this challenge.

You also spend a lot of time over by the boys' school table. You want to be all up in their business all day. They try to be patient with you as you pull down their papers and crayons. I tell them it won't be long before you are sitting there with them.

Then we head upstairs to get dressed. You love to stand and look out the boys' window. You also love to explore all their toys in their room. In this picture you are laughing at Owen. He is so good with you-very nurturing and always making you smile. You can also see your dimple under your left eye in this picture. Owen has the same one.

Now that you are adamantly opposed to taking two naps a day, we try our best to prolong the morning by taking a walk. Your new schedule is: wake up at 7:45, nap from 12-3, bed by 7:30. I actually like this better as we are not bound by two naps a day and you are asleep nice and early for me in the evenings. You still nurse 3-4 times a day. This makes me happy as your brother's were self-weaners at this age. You eat breakfast, lunch, dinner, and two snacks. We haven't found many foods you don't like. Asparagus is your favorite vegetable, cantaloupe and mango your favorite fruits, and salmon and tilapia your favorite meats. Breakfast is oatmeal every day and your favorite snack is yogurt.

Since I was in camera mode, I told the boys we would take some pictures of them too. Owen was willing, but too shy to look at the camera on most attempts. Micah told me he wasn't handsome and wouldn't smile for me, hence the above photo!

The boys are always having so much fun, and you always try to be a part of whatever they are doing. I am hoping this will entice you to walk soon as crawling on the concrete is not good for the knees or clothes.

Convinced Micah to give me a good smile :)

"Listen to me! I have a lot to say these days too!" You can say "dog dog" and "ball" and that is what you like to talk about most of the day. You have many other words, you just have your horn stuck right now. You also love to read books and point to the pictures in them.

Micah and Owen try to help you stay on your feet and teach you to walk!

On the way home, Owen was telling Micah a secret. It ended in a hug, and I had to snap one more! Then it was home to make lunch. We met a special surprise...

You love your Dada. Big smiles and waves make him so happy.

We'll be back so soon with a happy birthday post.

Vacation!

And....one month later!

This year, we had the privilege of being invited by some wonderful friends to enjoy Dauphin Island for an entire week. This is our family's longest stretch of vacation ever! To say we enjoyed ourselves and made many lasting memories is an understatement. We were a full house with 9 adults, 9 children (Micah being the oldest), and two courageous, outstanding nannies. It was a lot to keep up with for sure: long walks to the ocean, many mouths to feed, little swimmers who were sometimes too brave, and crawlers who put everything into their mouths (that would be Miss Margot!). We couldn't have done it as enjoyably without those wonderful selfless girls helping with all our small children.

It was the hottest I ever remember being at the beach. The humidity was almost unbearable. In fact, almost every time I got my camera out to take a picture, this is what happened. Hence a post without many pictures. My friend, Raechel, did a wonderful job documenting our trip so I will send you over there to see her take and many beautiful pictures (and lovely new website too).

Thankfully, we had wonderfully breezy nights to enjoy the beach and ocean as a whole family. We didn't even attempt to take Margot to the beach during the day. She happily napped with Hazel and Rowan during the heat of the day in the nice, cool house. When the evening came and she saw her swimsuit, she would giggle. She couldn't wait to get to the ocean, gobble up handfuls of sand, and kick and splash in the waves. We have never seen a baby so happy to be in the salty, sandy atmosphere. She was in paradise. The boys loved the trip as well. They made up endless games in the waves, played countless board games with anyone who would oblige them, looked for shells on the beach with Beatrice, and made lasting silly memories with Oliver,

See Micah in the far left? He stayed in the ocean the whole time we were at the beach.
This last picture was actually the start of our trip. We decided to take a slight detour and stop at "the loveliest village on the plains." The boys loved running through campus and eating frozen yogurt, and we loved breaking the trip into two very doable drives. Micah declared that he loved Auburn, wanted to go to college there, and even wanted to move there! Matt and I dreamed about opening a satellite office and moving there ourselves. Oh, how we love and miss that place.

And because this has been so long coming, and because I just want to get this down and posted, here is a list of some of our favorite memories in no particular order.

-Watching my boys perform beautifully at our favorite restaurant in Auburn. It was a lot to ask for them to sit quietly and enjoy "adult food" after 5 hours in the car. Matt and I were silently praying they wouldn't embarrass us-we had forgotten Amsterdam wasn't the most kid friendly place. They both claimed it was their favorite restaurant while they ate their weight in smoked salmon dip. That's my boys!

-Seeing three small boys cuddled up on two twin beds to sleep. It didn't last long as my boys need their space. Owen ended up choosing the floor.

- Learning and playing many hours of cornhole.

-Hearing strange sounds one night, Matt and I quickly leaped up to save the day from the storm blowing in. As we were scrambling about collecting items, we realized that we weren't the only ones who heard. But... we were the only ones out there in our underwear!

-One night our family took a mini road trip to Gulf Shores to get Matt's and my favorite meal: a steamed seafood platter. Micah had one bite of king crab leg and declared "This is great! I think this is what we'll eat in Heaven!" "I think so too" I told him. Owen had a few bites too, but we wanted to be careful with his shrimp allergy. I packed a bottle of Benedryl and let him have a taste. Sweet boy declared his grilled chicken breast dipped in butter sauce his favorite meal ever. We followed dinner with a trip to play mini golf. Both boys made a hole in one!

-We somehow scored the master bedroom (our friends wanted to give us a nice welcome to the group vacation). The bathtub was a large garden tub. At the end of our nighttime beach trips, Matt got in the shower with all the kids. He bathed, I dried, lotioned, and clothed. Then, we would scramble to get the kiddos in bed at a decent hour, so we could enjoy some adult conversation and games.

-Watching/listening to my boys play with their sister in the car, so she wouldn't cry was one of the highlights. She isn't fond of sleeping much on car trips, and they would entertain her by tossing all their stuffed friends her way. She thinks they hung the moon.

-We played at least three full games of monopoly with Micah and Owen-including "joke monopoly" which is really the modern day version. You could buy airports for $200 million! Micah got a big kick out of that.

-On our last day at the ocean, the waters were tepid and there were rumors of jellyfish. After Owen, Margot, and I decided to call it a day, Micah held a slimy goop up in the air asking "what in the world is this?" Matt tried to stay calm as he told Micah to put it down right now and get out of the water. Micah denied for a solid hour that it was a jellyfish. We were so thankful he didn't get stung by one of the massive jellyfish that started washing ashore. He finally admitted that he held a jellyfish, but had to put in the disclaimer that it wasn't alive.

I know I'm forgetting many things, but this will suffice for now. Here's hoping for many future beach trips-definitely my favorite vacation spot!

A Visit From Friends

I've written about the Costello family on this blog before. They are great friends, the kind of friends who lived down the street from us, the kind of friends whom we ate dinner with multiple times a week, the kind of friends who have the same number of children all within months of our own children, the kind of friends who have to move far away sometimes, the kind of friends who want to move close as soon as Drew finishes his time of service, the kind of friends who come when you are going through one of the hardest times in your life, the kind of friends who drive all night to come when your son is in the hospital, the kind of friends who load up the whole family (AGAIN) and drive 14 hours because we are too chicken to do it with our own brood, the kind of friends who fix your fence, your door, your toilets, etc. because we never got a lesson in simple repairs, the kind of friends whom we miss and love dearly!

Of course, when your home is full of four adults and six children (with Micah being the oldest), there is hardly time to remember to get the camera out. I did manage a few pictures one day while the oldest four were eating grape juice popsicles on the sandbox. Unfortunately, these are not very satisfying when trying to remember our fun time with this family. We were a full house indeed. Over the ten day trip, there was lots of good food, good drink, fun outings (including the science museum, neighborhood pool, bowling followed by ski ball, Mexican food, fishing, shopping and probably more that I'm forgetting), high fevers, laughter, tears, pyramid making, amazing words out of little mouths, countless pages of little artwork, fun late night adult talks, a few arguments, reminiscing about the past, dreams about the futures, and encouragement from people who love you. The Lord has blessed us richly with good friends. It was such a treat to be able to spend so much time with some of those. Twenty more months, Costellos! The countdown begins. How many of us will there be then? :)

Nine Months

Oh my little M J, how are you nine months? Funny, my last post was for your brother's birthday (not much time to blog these days). I know I haven't done a post for you in a while, and I wanted to jot down some milestones for the ol' scrapbook, er... blogbook?

-You got a double ear infection a couple of weeks ago and were so fussy and sad. Lo and behold, your first two teeth broke the surface! You are feeling great now, and we are so glad that you seem to be an easier teether than your brothers, who had to fight for weeks for their stubborn teeth to break the gums.

-You can pull up! You did this yesterday for me and the boys. Your brother's were so proud of you, and this made you feel super special.

-You love your brothers. You will crawl immediately to the stairs and call for them to come down if they are not playing with you. You have amazingly sweet brothers. They dote on you, talk lovingly to you, and play with you whenever Mama asks them. Sometimes they even play with you without me asking. One night I decided to take you on a walk alone, and you were so sad the entire time. What was I thinking taking away your entertainment?

-You still army crawl even though we know you can crawl on your hands and knees. It is quite a sight. I really need to get a good video of this before you start walking.

-You wave to everyone and say "hi" and "hey" over and over until you get acknowledged. My favorite is when you see Dada in the mornings and greet him with "hey da!"

-You are mostly very serious. You have quite a thinking face-it rivals Micah's from his babyhood. You are always taking things in and figuring things out. You are curious and busy. Thankfully, you still nap twice a day to give me a break from chasing you all over the place!

-We took you last dose of reflux medicine last week and are waiting to see if we are going to need a refill. You eat only small amounts, but you like most things I have offered you. You are not much interested in pureed foods anymore so I spend a lot of time chopping things into tiny bites for you. Usually, when we try prepared baby foods (especially fruit), you spit up a lot from the extra acidity in the preservatives. You eat yogurt now and love it. I splurged and got you a bag of yogurt melts at the grocery when you were having a hard time and you are hooked. I keep those in my diaper bag for outings only. Once you see them, you are not going to eat anything else!

And that is all my distracted brain can think of right now. You are so loved, Margot-indeed, the Lord has added a treasure to our family!

Micah 6/8

Oh my Micah,

It would take so much emotional energy to completely rehash the past year with you. Suffice it to say that we are so thankful to be celebrating this special day with you, 100% healthy (well, except for a mild chronic tummy ache which is presumably heartburn, and sore legs from all the running around you are doing!) Six years ago, I could hardly wait to meet you. I ached to hold my firstborn baby. You were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. You had a pensive stare from the beginning; we had no idea how precocious you would be. You made me a mama, Micah. You hold a very special place in my heart. This year, I really thought I was going to lose you to the mystery illness we later learned was ADEM. I have never been so scared in my life. I was of little faith, but the Lord our God is faithful. He heard the prayers of thousands from all over the globe for His special son, Micah, and chose to answer them with your miraculous healing (the neurologist said he really expected you to still be in a wheelchair). You acknowledge that God healed you, and we saw your own faith strengthened by this trial. You have such strength, Micah. Not once, did you complain or get angry that you were sick. You bore your trial, stayed faithful to pray for strength, and kept determination to get well. You amaze me; you always have. I love you, Micah-a million bazillion googleplex!

As for milestones, this past year you:

-Finished your last year of preschool. We rode that train as long as possible, and now we have begun to homeschool. You love to learn, and I am excited about all the things we will do together this year.

-Got your first library card. You really wanted to check out all 25 books, but I talked you into just 10

-Learned the proper technique for writing all your letters. Your handwriting is improving every week.

-Became best friends with Owen

-Played in two golf tournaments and loved it

-Went to your first pro sporting event-a Titan's game with Dada, Grammy, and Gramps

-Became a big brother for the second time

-Took your first shower

-Finally sat in a booster seat instead of your carseat

-Continue to be so tender hearted and caring

-Got very sick; became healthy agian

-Still eat slow as molasses!

"Miss Margot"

My friend, Raechel, is an amazing photographer. Seriously, sometime I am going to get her to teach me everything she knows (that is when we both don't have small children and a million things to do in one 24 hour block of time!) But one day when we are reminiscing about the good old days, maybe, just maybe, she will teach me some tricks. What do you say, Rae? Until then, she so generously agrees to photograph my sweet baby for me from time to time. I tempt her out to my house with promises of good food and friends for her little ones and husband. We always have a blast with this sweet family, and this time I even have priceless pictures to treasure forever!