Busy Body

Amaryllis is one busy lady. She never stops getting into trouble, uh, exploring her newfound ability to move around the house. (She's gotten into vaseline, which she spread all over the living room, knocked over cups, turns off the movies the kids are watching, steals snacks, tries to go up the stairs -thankfully she hasnt figure that out yet- turns over trash cans, etc.) I thought I'd treat you all to a little time lapse of a few minutes in the very busy life of an 11 month old busy body baby.

33

Back at the beginning of this year, I remember posting about this being the year of Jubilee. So far, this really has been a good year for our family. Sure, we've had ups and downs and always will...but I have felt so much more settled and grateful for so many things. Today, particularly, I'm grateful for my 33rd year of life. (I feel so weird semi-blogging about myself. But I am a huge birthday geek. I just love birthdays...and think I'll still be proudly celebrating when I'm old enough to not remember how old I even am.) I'm grateful for the things that I've learned over these 33 years, grateful for this year of jubilee with the people I love, and for the simultaneous growth and growing pains of settling into contentment in this life I've been blessed with.

I'm sure, as with any clean slate, it will soon have marks on it that I don't like, things I'd like to erase and do over. But a fresh new year to live is an amazing gift that not everyone gets. I am hoping to fill it up with just that...life. I am so thankful to spend it with these amazing people, and plan to drag them along with me as I try live life full of gratitude. It's off to a good start so far, since they let me start out this new year with sleeping in and eating donuts. They totally get me. I'm a lucky girl. Here's to 33, y'all! 

Party Tricks

It's hard to watch your youngest baby grow up. But at the same time it's so much fun to watch her reach new milestones. It's also fun to watch the entertainment her siblings get out of her new tricks. They celebrate every time like she's won the olympics. Amaryllis is pulling up now, and every time they find her standing it's like a little party.

I do love watching her stand on those chubby little legs. I cannot wait until she is walking. Yeah, that makes me a crazy person...but you guys have NO idea how determined this kid is to be moving around on her own. And lets face it, you can't let a baby crawl in a lot of places. (And she is crawling now as opposed to the sniper crawl she was doing.) She is stubborn and determined to get where she's going...so holding her is like a full body workout combined with wrestling a bear cub. This lady needs to be free. Although I realize that will mean I don't get to sit down ever again.

Another new trick she loves is to stand up during nap time. I'm sure most parents can relate to this phase. You put the baby down for a nap. The baby is standing up and not sleeping. You lay the baby back down and leave. The baby is standing back up 15 seconds after you shut the door. Lay the baby back down. Baby is standing up before you leave the room this time. You try laying the baby down and convincing her of how sleepy she is. Baby tries to stand up before you even turn around. Just give up and let her eventually fall asleep standing up. It's a fun game. It at least helps me hit my FitBit goals anyway with all that walking back and forth to lay the baby back down.

On top of all this standing and cruising and crawling...she is finally working on her top three teeth. I say three because she already has one of her top teeth, just not one of the middle two. One of the ones to the side. What a goofball. She definitely likes to do things her own way, from standing up before she officially crawls to her own unique order of teething. We don't call her fancy pants for nothing.

4 Hooligans and a 3 Day Weekend

This past three day weekend was pretty awesome. I'm not used to three day weekends, because Billy has always had a job that didn't really allow for it. Three day weekends are great...we've been missing out all this time! ;) We made sure to fill it up with fun with the hooligans though.

Saturday we took them up to Luray Caverns. I haven't been since I was a kid, so I was excited to take them. They were mostly excited because they were sure it was where the Goonies were from. (And that they might see a few bears. I told them there were no bears, but Mom never knows what she's talking about of course.)

They seemed to have a good time. They did the typical "we have a cramp cuz we've been walking forever" routine, but we do that all day every day so it was to be expected. No bears were sighted, but Jericho made sure to warn the masses that he was sure "layuh a bayuh in layuh". (Translation: there a bear in there)

We also went to a new sprayground/playground combo near our house. Some of the hooligans are big fans of the water, as you can tell. Some of them are big fans of throwing water on ME. Jericho, of course, is the latter. We only had one slip/wipe-out. Probably because surely the "no running" sign doesn't apply to Merrick Wilder.

We spent Memorial Day out at my moms, with the hooligans playing in the kiddie pool and ingesting copious amounts of soda and Doritos. Their version of Heaven, for sure. I don't even want to know how many sodas they drank...I just stopped counting and looking in general and hoped for the best. I can't say it had any effect on them, though. Since they passed out as soon as we left and slept like rocks. I think I'll take all the three day weekends I can get.

The Theater

The hooligans LOVE a good movie night. Literally, they don't care what we watch if we can turn the lights down, eat popcorn, and watch a movie as a "family night". They think family night IS watching a movie. So I upped the ante a little the other night when Billy was working late *I say that a lot...but well, he works late a lot, so maybe I'll just stop saying it and you can assume that Billy is working late. ;)* and made a blanket fort theater to watch their movie in. They literally about lost their minds. I LOVE that it doesn't take much to make these guys happy. Merrick frequently tells me "this is the best day of my life", and it can be over something simple as a playground visit. I love their zest for life.

As you can see, the fort wasn't the fanciest. But it did the trick. We also have one baby who made sure to tear it down every few minutes because she wants to stand up SO bad. At least it kept them all entertained at the same time, right? Trying to keep her from eating the popcorn the older three were spilling was also sufficient to keep ME entertained. If I have to spend long evenings at home alone now and then, at least I get to do it with these awesome people.