9 months

I am 9 months old!

(this post is a little late due to a fun trip...more on that at 10months!)

• I weigh 18lb 15oz  (35th percentile) and am 28.5 inches long (52nd percentile). I have come way up in the percentiles...I have always been under the 20th percentile in height and weight. Watch out world here comes JP! (For the record Ruthie is only 24lb now...I'm quickly catching up!)
• When Emmie was my age she weight 18lb 13oz and was 27.5in. Ellie was 17lb 5oz and 27.25in.  Ruthie didn't go to the dr till almost 10 months but she was 17lb 10oz and 27in.
• I wear 9mo clothing and some 12mo and a size 3 diaper.
• I LOVE to eat. I am always hungry. Some of my favorites are cheddar cheese, any meat, salmon, and any type of berry. For the record I am not a big fan of cheerios...I'll eat them if I'm desperate but they're definitely not my first choice. I eat 3 pretty large meals a day.
• I go to bed around 8 and generally wake up again between 4 and 6 for a bottle and then sleep until between 730 and 8. Right now I've been a bit difficult and have been waking up in the middle of the night as well and have been getting up closer to 7 in the morning but Mommy is holding out hope that this won't last forever!
• When I get up at night I take a 6oz bottle so I'm legitimately hungry!
• I take a 4-6oz bottle every 4 hours during the day and then an 8oz bottle at bedtime.
• I have my 2 bottom teeth and 3 on the top that are soooo close to coming in!
• I love my stroller. One of my favorite times of the day is in the evenings when Mommy and I take Franklin for a walk.

• This month I had my first trip to Summerville to visit GG and PaPa and my first trip to the beach! I wasn't 100% sure about the ocean (plus it was cold) but I loved the sand.

• This month I got to "drive" the shopping cart for the first time. It was so fun!

• I a a pretty chill baby and happy most of the time. I am so content with tagging along wherever we have to go.
• I love the pool! I will get in my float and just watch everyone and play with my toys.
• I pull up on EVERYTHING. I also like to walk while holding on to someone's fingers.

• This month I got to meet and play with Anselm. He and his family are missionaries in Poland and Emmie and older brother are good friends.

• I love my buddy Franklin. He is so much fun to watch I also love to feed him while I'm eating my meals.
• This month I went to the new splashpad at Sesqui park and I also went to the new kids area at the zoo.

• I love my sisters. I am trying to figure out how to climb up the stairs so I can play with them and if Ruthie is napping and I'm awake I always want to go find her.

• I'm trying to figure out how the doggy door works. I just can't wait until I can get out the door and go play with my sisters!

Emmie at 9 months

Ellie at 9 months


Ruthie at 9 months


Who do you think I look like?!?

Sisters Sleepover

Tonight Ruthie was pitching a temper tantrum (#34,4782 of the day) and wouldn't let me put her in the crib so I asked her if she was just going to sleep in the floor. She said yes. I said, fine, whatever but you lay there and don't get up. So she (mostly) did. Then Ellie wanted to sleep in the chair so I said fine as long as you and Ruthie aren't playing around. It wasn't long before Emmie wanted to join in. Sure kid...what's one more kiddo not sleeping in their bed? I figured at some point we would have to go fuss at them and eventually send them back to bed. Well I went and ran some errands and got home around 9 and it was so quiet in the house. Apparently they had all fallen asleep in their new spots!
I love the easiness of summertime that allows them to do fun things like this and make great memories with each other.

(I did have to go in and turn the chair some more so that if Ellie fell out she wouldn't land on Ruthie's head! And I threw a pillow on the ground underneath her.)

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to the man of our house! (Shhhh...don't tell Franklin I said that!)

Paul is such a wonderful dad. In 6 1/2 years he has gone from never changing a diaper to being able to go to the store or birthday party or church with four kids in tow. He has learned to have tea parties, fix hair, the importance of bows, had to listen to talk about boys, watched many a dance recital, learned about all the Disney princesses, learned how to put tights on a little girl and the proper shoes for any occasion. He is such a good dad to our little girls and I always teased him and told him he wouldn't know what to do with a little boy. But of course he does. He and JP watch sports and do "manly" things together. He is an amazing dad and I love the wonderful example he sets for our children of what a father should be like!

Happy Father's Day also to my dad! He's a wonderful guy and I am so blessed to have him as a dad. He always supported me and my various activities while I was growing up. He came to many sweltering hot swim meets, slept through many a violin concert, and cheered for me at church basketball games...even though we always lost. I've loved watching him be Grandaddy (aka Boo) to my kiddos and the fur baby. Thanks dad for being the best dad!

And of course Happy Father's Day to my father-in-law, Fred. He raised a two wonderful boys and he has been a wonderful example for Paul of a Christian father. He is an amazing Papa to our sweet kiddos and I know he would do anything for those babies.

We are so thankful for all the dads in our lives!

Reading, Reading, Reading

A few times a week during the summer I work on writing, math, and reading with the girls (and when my new Usborne books about famous artists gets here we'll also add in a craft/art history element...I'm SO excited,,,it shipped today!).

Today we worked on reading. Emmie was working on a program on her ipad and I sat down with Ellie to work on her ipad. A few years back I got a free Hooked on Phonics Classroom edition app during teacher appreciation week and it's so great for working on beginning reading. I knew Ellie knew the word cat so I thought I'd see if she could read the first Hooked on Phonics book which is all "-at" words. Well she flew right through it. And the "-an" words. Now I knew she had been playing with the app so I figured she had just been listening to them over and over. So we switched to Emmie's school reading program and I pulled up one of the early books that I thought she'd at least know a few words in...well 4 books later and she was still going strong! There were some words she didn't know but I was VERY impressed with how much she did know! She'll be 5 in July and already reading!


It's funny how different my girls are. Emmie was 5 1/2 when she started kindergarten and was only reading a few words and just didn't care at all about learning to read. I didn't push it, figuring she'd learn when she was ready. She really took off right before she turned 6 and within a few weeks went from reading a few words to reading chapter books! I think she never realized before what reading really meant but once she realized that she would be able to read her books to herself she couldn't learn fast enough! Ellie meanwhile has been wanting to read so badly...I think because she sees Emmie reading and so she understands what reading entails.


I am so proud of both of my little readers and I am so happy that they love books as much as I do!

Summerville Trip

We went to Summerville Memorial Day weekend. Paul played in a golf tournament and the kids and I had a great time doing summer things with Paul's parents. We did have a tropical storm come in while we were there but we still found lots of fun things to do! This was JP's first trip to Summerville and he had a great time!

We got to Summerville Thursday evening and the kids had some play time before finally settling down to sleep.
We got up early Friday morning and headed to Isle of Palms for some beach time. This was JP's first trip to the beach! He loved the sand but wasn't so sure about the water (it was pretty chilly!).

ready for the beach

JP checking out the beach

The girls decided to roll around in the sand. They were quite filthy! (or dirty piggies as Roo would say!)

Friday night Gin-g and Fred took the kids to chick-fil-a for dinner and I went and met Paul for dinner at the golf course. It's always nice to have a night out without having to keep up with small children!

Saturday morning Paul and I took the kids to the pool. It was kind of chilly but they had a great time!I definitely have little water babies.

It started raining Saturday afternoon and POURED all day long. Paul almost got to finish his round of golf before they called it but he was soaking wet when we got home! We packed everyone up Saturday night and headed to the golf course for dinner. The girls look forward to this dinner all year long and they were so excited to find some friends and dance. We loved that so many of our friends got to meet JP for the first time.

JP's first trip to Miler! He enjoyed it :)

Paul and Ruthie having a dance

Finley, Emmie, Ellie, Ellie, and Ruthie  These girls had the best time playing together!

It was still raining pretty heavy on Sunday we left JP with Paul and Fred to have some guy time and Gin-g and I took the girls to meet up with Finley and Ellie at Velocity. Velocity is a trampoline park but they also have a jump house area. The kids LOVED it and it was a great way for them to work off some of their energy. My girls were very excited to get more play time with their friends.





We headed back to Columbia on Monday after lunch and we all enjoyed our weekend in Summerville!

Love coming across these moments. Ellie loves that Emmie can read to her now and Emmie is always more than happy to oblige.

Sea Lions, otters, and goats, OH MY!

We got up early and headed to the zoo today. We got there right when they opened at 9 and were gone by 11. I'm SO glad we went early. Not only was it starting to get crowded but it was HOT HOT HOT. It was pretty awful. It wasn't too bad through most of the zoo because there is lots of shade but the last thing we did was watch the sea lion show and that was out in the direct sun...awful (but TOTALLY worth it!).
The girls have been really excited about seeing the new sea lions and seals and they did not disappoint. We checked them out first while there wasn't a crowd and then went back at the end for the show. The exhibit is really well done with multiple viewing points.

seal

pic with the sea lion

JP is totally judging the sea lions

After the sea lions we headed over to see the otters. We love watching the otters...they're so playful!

We then headed to the bears and lions. Neither one of them were doing much...guess it was too hot for them to do much but sleep!

Ellie really wanted to do the carousel. She and Emmie ended up riding it by themselves because Ruthie didn't want to ride. (She was in a bit of a strange mood this morning...think all the pool time this week has worn her out!)

We stopped and saw the Komodo Dragon and then went and let Emmie and Ellie ride the train (once again Ruthie didn't want to ride) and then the big girls rode the pony. Usually the pony line takes FOREVER but those ponies were moving quick today.

Next we did the barn. JP wasn't so sure about the cow but he LOVED the goats and the alpacas. He kept looking back at me and smiling.

There was a snake at the barn. I was only hyperventilating a little.

Mama! These goats are so cool!

Ruthie had been asking the whole time to see the giraffes so we saw the zebras and then the giraffe. Usually we feed them but there was a very long line to get lettuce (they seem to have some new system where they scan a paper everytime someone gets lettuce instead of the old system where they just counted on a clicker). One of the giraffes was being super aggressive about wanting lettuce. It kept sticking its neck way up on the overlook to sniff at everyone. I thought it was really funny. Ruthie not so much.

After the giraffe we headed to see the sea lion show. Oh.my.goodness. SO.SO.GOOD. The sea lions did all kinds of "enrichment exercises". They clapped their fins, turned in circles, went back and forth between the deck and the water, jumped out of the water to touch a pole in the air, made sea lion noises on command, and other neat things. We loved it! I'm hoping when it cools off I can take the little ones. It was so crowded that JP couldn't really see from his stroller and Ruthie didn't have a great view either. We stood at the top of the exhibit looking down and could see really well. I think if you sit in the stadium area you need to be at the top to see well because you need to be able to see the deck.

Emmie got chosen to be part of the show. They helped out with showing things that were good food and bad food or the seals and sea lions.

We headed out after the show. We were very hot and sweaty but we had a great day and marked another item off our summer bucket list!

PS. I have to brag on what great sisters Ruthie has. They are ALWAYS looking out for her. The other day a friend at the pool was sitting with us while we ate lunch and Emmie checked and made sure the other little girl's snack didn't have peanut butter. Today at the zoo, I was holding Ruthie while we were watching the show. Ellie was sitting in front of us and turned around and told me not to put Ruthie down because the little girl beside her had peanuts (she was eating trail mix...then I turned around and the kid behind us was eating a peanut butter sandwich...I may have gotten a little twitchy at that point!). I love how protective my big girls are of Ruthie!