Il Sette Bello

 

Since most people don't know what Il Sette Bello is, its The Beautiful Seven. It's an Italian card game that gets its name from the card it revolves around- the Seven of Coins which is also called Il Sette Bello. I thought it was a good title for this post since Seven seems to be an age that fits Leif perfectly. He has always been sweet and thoughtful, but in the last few months, he has become even more so, quickly doing what is asked of him and looking for ways that he can help out. 

This beautiful boy turned 7 today and is a delight to have around. Leif loves music and is a deep thinker. Leif rarely asks questions though- instead he carefully curates his own thoughts, comes up with a thesis, and presents it to us as fact then waits to see how we respond. He then changes his thesis based off of our responses. 

We started our day with chocolate waffles, as is our tradition, then all the kids spent the rest of the day playing with his presents. We had some family friends over for dinner and pumpkin pie and Austin actually came home for the evening- something that doesn't happen all too often lately with how busy he is. Here are some photos I got of Leif followed by his birthday interview. 

(please note that Trevor's Chrismas PJs haven't arrived by mail yet, so he's the only one not wearing them- he's naked most of the time anyway unless I battle with him to keep clothes on)

(we discovered several years ago that the word life has the same letters as Leif's name, so we cut them out of the cereal box and stuck them in his pie :)

 

Who is your favorite person? Natalie

What is your favorite color? Orange

What is your favorite thing to watch on TV? Minecraft (not really watching since its a video game, but by far his favorite thing to do that involves a screen)

What is your favorite outfit? Christmas Snoopy Pajamas (he says this now because he and Asher lived in these PJs last Christmas season until I put them away for the year, and they were so excited when I got them out again with the Christmas stuff. But in reality, the outfit he loves most is his yellow bear shirt-pictured above- or complete camo which he got from my dad)

What song do you like the best? If You Could Hie to Kolob (he taught himself to play this on the piano after he found out that its his grandfather's favorite hymn)

What is your favorite cereal? Cheerios

Who is your best friend? Asher

What do you want to do when your grow up? Be an astronaut (this kid loves all things space)

What is your favorite book? The Happy Hollisters (he just got these books for his birthday, but he has read a few excerpts from them which is why he asked for them for his birthday)

What are you really good at? Playing the piano (he loves to practice and often works at it much longer than I ask him to)

Where do you wish you could go on vacation? Colorado

What would you buy if you had a lot of money? A Taj Mahal Lego Set (He's had his eye on this since we learned about the Taj Mahal a couple months ago. Its a very advanced set, but he and Asher have done hard ones before, so I'm sure he could do it . . . if he had a lot of money)

What is your favorite dinner? Chicken Rolls

If you could have a wish, what would it be? To be able to pull whatever I want out of the air

What is your favorite flavor of ice cream? Mint Chocolate Chip-the green kind

Who do you want to be like? Our Dad

What do you like to do with your friends? Play outside

What do you hope you'll get to do before your next birthday? Have fun

What is your favorite thing to do? Look into a microscope (he just got this today, but apparently it trumps all for fun)

What are you proud of? Reading

What are you afraid of? Lava

What is Mom's favorite thing to do? Take care of us

How strong is Dad? Really strong

What does Dad do best? Work

What does Mom do best? Take care of us

What do you like best about Dad? He takes care of our family

What do you like best about Mom? She makes cookies

9 Months

 Our sweet little baby is getting bigger and bigger every day. Natalie hit a few milestones this month- all within the same two days. She figured out how to clap one evening just as I was getting everyone to bed (that delayed bedtime by about 20 minutes as everyone wanted to clap with her) and the next morning she figured out how to army crawl. The kids spent that whole day placing desirable items near her then pulling them just out of reach to get her to crawl after them. Natalie is still just about as delightful as can be- smiling and babbling. She has started to develop some stranger danger and shies away when anyone outside of our immediate family tries to take her from mom. Maybe I'm imagining it, but it seems like Natalie, more than any of our other kids at this age, follows daddy around with her eyes and tries to get his attention all the time. If he is standing near me while I'm holding her, she leans to him trying to get him to pick her up.
As you can tell, Natalie's hair is getting thicker and longer, but is a bit unruly- so cute. I got one picture of her when she first woke up, but the others didn't turn out well so I tried later in the day.

 

Happy Halloween

Halloween was as much anticipated as ever as we made Halloween costumes and the kids dreamed about all the candy. We carved pumpkins with our friends a week before Halloween, which ended up with the parents and older kids doing most of the work after the initial excitement wore off for the younger kids, but they were still enchanted by the fun of a carved pumpkin.

 We've also been loving the fall colors, which are now all blown off the trees after the terrible wind storm that happened on Halloween night.

It was a bit windy and quite rainy all during trick-or-treating, so we only did a few streets, but the kids got plenty of treats and also enjoyed watching "Its the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" afterward. Trevor dressed up as a fox- my favorite costume of all time! I made this costume for Asher when he was two and Leif wore it too, so now it was Trevor's turn. It took a bit of convincing at first since he wanted to be something else, but once he saw the tail, he was in love and was very protective of it. I teased him a bunch that I was going to cut it off because the first time he put the costume on, he told me not to pull the tail off (not really sure where that idea came from in the first place)

Heidi has wanted to be a unicorn since last Halloween, so we made all her dreams come true with this costume.

I had enough scraps left over from Heidi's costume to make a costume for Natalie- I only had to buy a zipper, so her costume was pretty cheap! I almost didn't make one for her at all because I've just been too busy and tired, but at the last minute, we decided to throw it together. The only participation she has in trick-or-treating was riding around on my hip as we followed the other kids, but at least the costume kept her warm while we were out.

Leif originally wanted to be a ghost for Halloween, and we made the costume by cutting holes in a white sheet, but he discovered that its hard to see out of and decided he really didn't want to be that anymore. I told him I didn't have the time or energy to make him another costume, but he was quite content with the Pikachu costume that Asher wore last year.

Asher wanted to be a blue dragon ever since he saw Trevor's green dragon costume last year. In an effort to save a little time, I found some blue pants and hoodie and just sewed the wings, spikes and tail on. It wasn't perfect, but it turned out pretty well and Asher was happy.

Here are all of our trick-or-treaters getting ready to go out:

And here they are with the treats they made off with before the rain chilled us too much: