Kid Updates

Briggs: My intention was to always do a "monthly update" on Brigham individually because babies change so fast. But here he is at 8 1/2 months and I don't think I've done it once. But Briggs is seriously such a delightful baby. He is the best eater in the world, I'm convinced. Lately, he does this hilarious thing in between each bite where he opens his mouth big and huffs and puffs and squints his eyes shut, waiting in great anxiety and anticipation for you to PUT THE NEXT SPOONFUL IN! hahaha He's the funnest kid to feed and I get to do it 3x a day. It's awesome. He loves his pacifier and it's the nicest thing in the world that he'll take it. None of my other kids did. He has 4 teeth (2 top and 2 bottom), and 2 more making their way through. When he gets excited he bounces his body up and down and slaps my chest. He is a little slower physically because of his size, but he's getting there. He's SO close to crawling. He army crawls and scoots and rolls and really gets all over where he wants. But actual crawling hasn't happened. He does a lot of planking and where he's on his hands and toes and has his bum sticking up in the air. We all laugh every time he does it. He can go from the floor to sitting by himself too which is nice. I find it absolutely impossible to keep my floors clean for more than 2.4 seconds so I don't know what we'll do when he is actually crawling and putting everything in his mouth. Thankfully it's a team effort and the kids are good about noticing if he pops something in that's small or gross. He's very content and is so happy to just be on the floor by himself playing with whatever he can reach. He's so patient and is easy to take places. I feel like he's a totally different baby than the first 5 months of his life. Well maybe not totally different, because I would get glimpses of this sweet, happy boy and I knew that was his nature. I could tell that's what he wanted to be and would be if he wasn't hurting or have an upset tummy all the time. But we're there now and just so grateful for the joy and sweetness he's brought with him into our home. He loves all his siblings so much and they're crazy about him too.

Kelsey: Oh Kelsey. My friend at church yesterday saw a little struggle I was having with her as she insisted it was time to go to nursery and sacrament meeting wasn't over yet and got very upset. She told me that they call 3 year olds "three-nager's" now haha. I thought it very appropriate. She went to her first birthday party two days ago, and it was "Sofia the first" themed. She was so excited about that and carried around the beautiful invitation for 2 weeks until the day of the party. She still won't or can't say her "S" sound, which makes some really funny words. Madison is always the interpreter for when I can't figure out what she's saying. I will be having Kels repeat something over and over and trying to guess what she's saying and Madison will just pipe up... "She said _______!!" and be totally right. It's hilarious. Really their whole relationship is hilarious. Madison really likes to be the nurturer and take care of people, that's her personality. and Kelsey really likes to be the baby or the victim and be taken care of. So it works out great for both of them. But sometimes it's problematic. I will get after Kelsey or be trying to make her do something (like clean up or whatever) and she'll just pout and run to Madison for comfort, really thinking that she won't have to do anything with her, since Madi's her second mom and all. When we were gone in France I know that was a hard thing for grandma Weston too. Kelsey wouldn't let her help with anything! Madi helped her get dressed, find shoes, eat, everything. She really is such a ham though and pulls the funniest faces. She likes to make us all laugh and she can get away with almost anything with her daddy. She'll say "I just wanna nuggle you!" Which means "snuggle", and it's so darn cute you have to give in when she says it.

Madison: My big Madi girl is 4 going on 14. She acts very mature for her age and often gets along best with kids that are older than her. She is smart as a whip and continually surprises me at what she already knows. "School" things come very naturally to her, and she's picked up on a lot of things that Brynlee didn't learn all that long ago. She loves to be included in our learning each day. They certainly have different talents and strengths. She is still terrified of the chickens, loves to be my helper in the kitchen more than anyone else. She also has a little speech impediment where she doesn't say her "R's" correctly, and it's adorable. She has the sweetest little voice and a sensitive spirit. Although I must say of all my kids, Madison is hands down the one with the strongest will. Thankfully she's not often very defiant, but when she wants to go against you, she is by far the most stubborn. Always has been. I could give lots of examples but one time, I mentioned in another post that I went on a run with Brynlee as she rode her bike next to me. Well madison wanted to come so badly, but I know she's not at a level of bike riding where we could do that. So I made her stay home with everyone else. She was so disappointed and rode with us down the street and then turned around and went back home. I thought she would just go back inside. Imagine my surprise when 30-40 minutes later we get back and she's STILL outside waiting for us. She hadn't gone in once, even though it was cold and windy outside. I felt awful. So I went on a little run with her just staying in our neighborhood to make her happy. But that's her; she will not forget and she will not let go. Thank goodness for her sweet temperament or we'd be in a world of hurt. (I'm recalling her 1 year old self--yikes!)

Brynlee: Bryn loves to show love for people. She's always making people cards/pictures/creations and giving it to them. She believes she's a great artist, and I certainly agree. All her pictures are so sweet and heartfelt. She loves music and the piano and will just sit down and play it often, trying to pick out songs she hears. She begs me to put her in piano lessons, and I will as soon as our piano teacher allows it. She's pretty strict with their ages and when she'll start kids. The other morning I had put Madi and Kels in the bathtub and was downstairs feeding Briggs breakfast and getting him changed and dressed. When I got back upstairs to finish washing the girls, Brynlee had already done it! She had washed their hair, helped them get out and dry off and get dressed! That's my sweet Bryn. She doesn't have to wait to be told to do something. She's good at helping out when she sees a need. We're still working on getting her to tie her shoes so they don't come apart after 5 seconds, and do her own hair nice and tight too. I'm so grateful that Bryn is right after Tyler, since he doesn't have a brother close by. She can really keep up (and sometimes surpass) him physically. They wrestle and throw each other around on the trampoline and so many times I start to intervene and tell him to be gentle with her. But she's having the best time out there just like he is, so I let it go. She knows that if she's going to play rough with him she can't come crying to me. And she never does. She's pretty tough and quite athletically inclined.

Tyler: Something I'm discovering about Tyler is his love for singing. He sings really loud and proud during the hymns in church each week. We get a lot of people in rows in front of and behind us talking about how they love to hear him. He really does sing well and it's so loud I think people almost think he's joking sometimes haha. I know I have a hard time keeping a straight face sometimes because he just gets so into it. Yesterday the ward choir sang "I Am A Child of God" as a special musical number, but they invited anyone in the congregation to come up and sing with them, and so of course Tyler wanted to go up and he did! I'll have to see if I can get Kenny to stay with him after church for ward choir every week just to expose him to that and develop his love and learning of music. He's still very creative and loves to make things and has all these big ideas. He's been working on composing a piano song. He drew his own grand staff and writes all the notes on it, etc. It's so fun to watch him. He's so sweet and will write me little notes or cards if he can see that I'm upset. He always wants to play "a family game". He absolutely loves Cub Scouts each week and just has a blast with the other boys and doing fun activities. He's the only one that can carry Briggs (Bryn can for only a few seconds haha) and he loves to go get him out of his crib when he wakes up from his naps.

Here's a few more pictures from April I'm going to throw in.