20 months

Little Heidi Rose is getting bigger and bigger, which is nice because things are so busy around our house and the more she can do herself the better. But at the same time, I love this age and would keep her like this forever if I could. When people see how many young kids I have, they often try say "Don't worry, they move out eventually" like that's supposed to cheer me- but that is extremely depressing to me. I love having so many little ones even though its so hard and Heidi is a big part of both the joy and the challenge. Heidi has been sick for the last week or so, as you can see from the pictures. Worst of all is that she got a cold sore and the first time that happens for a little kid, their whole mouth gets the virus in it. Her gums were really red, she wouldn't let us brush her teeth although she usually loves it, and she wasn't eating much. By the time I figured out what it was, it was gone pretty quick, but her cold still remains.
Heidi is still extremely social and friendly (although she is very wary of strangers). She squeals with delight and bounces around when her daddy comes home or when she sees family members coming up the driveway to to visit. And she always greets everyone with a big hug around their legs.
Heidi's language continues to develop rapidly. She seems to pick up new words after only hearing them a few times and is putting more sentences together. She talks to me all the time and sometimes I don't understand so I try to guess. When I guess wrong Heidi usually sounds like she's giggling when she says no, like its so funny that I thought she said that.
Heidi is still into everything, makes messes wherever she goes, and enjoys coloring on walls and tables (although she knows she isn't supposed to and sometimes smears it around trying to wash it off herself). I've found that colored pencil comes off much easier than crayon does :)
Thank you, Heidi, for making our days so exciting!

Trevor's Newborn Photos

Here are my favorite photos from Trevor's newborn photoshoot. I'm really surprised that we got so many descent photos given that I had to wrestle Leif into his nice clothes and Heidi didn't want to be in pictures any more after the first 30 seconds. Asher was very cooperative and Leif was okay once we got him going. Trevor just wanted sleep and be warm, but he was a pretty good sport. As she has for all of our Colorado-born kids, my sister-in-law arranged for her sister-in-law to take these photos. I just love having professional photos of all my kids!

 As you can tell by the clothes change, this one was taken after we told the kids they didn't have to be in any more photos, and we were just doing pictures of Trevor. All the older kids came back in and wanted to look at him, so we got this cute picture :)

ONE MONTH

This sweet little guy is one month old already! It's strange how every new baby quickly goes from a new little person you have to get to know to a part of the family you can't imagine not being there. Trevor is gaining weight quickly, despite his problems with spitting up a lot. He loves to snuggle, which is a lucky thing because his siblings are constantly asking to hold him. When they can't do that, they are often hovering over him while I have him or while he is in his swing. For the first few weeks of Trevor's life, I thought his eyes were grey because he only ever opened them in the dim light. Now that he is awake more often and opens his eyes in brighter lights, I've realized that his eyes are actually a dark blue, except just around the pupil he has a ring of lighter blue. They are really pretty eyes- I've never noticed that color variation on anyone else before. Unfortunately, Trevor's passport will say that he has grey eyes because I filled out the paperwork for it when he was only a few days old and we went and applied for it as soon as we got his birth certificate and social security number. He is the youngest person I know to have a passport! He will likely be the youngest person I know to travel outside the his home country too since he and I are supposed to accompany Austin to Canada pretty soon to look for a house before we move the whole family up there in March or April. Here are a few pictures I got of him. I saw a friend of mine do photos of her daughter in a basket each month for a year and it was really cute to see her grow. I tried mimicking this, but it didn't work out very well. The basket isn't big enough and Trevor hated being in it. Here is the one photo that turned out ok, but I didn't even get his whole body ;)

Trevor's First Bath

These two pictures pretty much sum up Trevor's first bath. When I first put him in, he was calm even though he was a little unsure about it. He stayed that way for a couple minutes while I washed him, then started crying. Maybe it just got too cold for him with half of his body exposed to the cold air. Asher and Leif were active spectators there to comment on everything Trevor did and eager to see how he would like a bath. Trevor especially did not like when I took him out of the bath and he had to get dried off before getting dressed again. He didn't calm down again until he was fully dressed and swaddled up in a blanket and in my arms.