picking....

not noses (this time).

or toes.  (favorite pastime of my eldest)

but strawberries.

yummy, juicy, red all the way through, strawberries.

3 adults, 9 kids. chaos.  fun. YUM.

we had to drive a 1/2 hour to get there, but SOOOO worth it.

DD #2 was in HEAVEN.  (cause strawberries are her self-proclaimed favorite food of all time)

this one really didn't care about the strawberry haven she was in...

this one thoroughly enjoyed sampling them, smooshing them between her toes, and picking green ones...

this one was the most helpful picker and helped me fill 1 1/2 flats full :)

reminded me of fond memories and also formed great new memories.  i would say that's a pretty good day!

(plus i now have 6 jars of delicious freezer jam, a bag of frozen whole strawberries, and 2 big containers of sliced/sugared ones for ice cream... YAY! i'm sooo happy.  i like to just sit and look at my pretty jars of strawberry yumminess.)

dressed for dinner

i was privileged to have dinner with these lovely ladies the other night.........

recent smiles

a few things that have recently put a smile on my face...

i came outside one afternoon to find this little guy taking a dip... i suspect miss j is the mastermind behind this one. 

silly photo shoot...

miss j likes to really "experience" her food... this was a peanut butter sandwich

the court jester ;)

6 of one, half a dozen of another...

months that is...

miss baby is 6 months old.  half way to that first year mark.  it's going way. too. fast. i know that sounds cliche' but there are times when i look at her and get a panicked feeling like i need to stop time and truly enjoy her in that moment.  etch it in my mind.  there is a part of me that mourns our "baby years" are in their last go-round.  

she had her well child check up yesterday and she is weighing in at 17lb 12oz (85%) and 27 3/4" long (95%)
i would have to say that she has a little bit of all three of her sisters.  resembling her oldest sister the most, similar hair to miss j and she has dd #2's eyes.  yet she is all her own.  it is amazing to me how creative God is.  each of our girls is uniquely themselves but yet we see similarities that makes it obvious they are sisters.

big things this month:

~ rolling allllll over.... she is mobile.  time to be diligent about baby-proofing again (ya know some day i will be able to actually decorate my house, like my coffee table and end tables... sigh.  but the reality is that i am in no hurry.  it just creates more things to dust anyway)
~ can sit up by herself. well, kinda.  she can for a bit but i don't trust it to just sit her on the floor and walk away as she will topple over and bonk her head. 
~ has her first tooth! she was kinda irritable and clingy for a few days and had a super runny nose... low and behold that first little pearl appeared :)
~ she has officially moved into her own room for naps and everything (no more swing).  Despite all my visions of having to run upstairs 20 thousand times a day and night to comfort her and give her pacifier back to her she has proven me wrong.  she loves her crib, she LOVES the quilted wall hanging my mom made that hangs above her crib, she likes her own space i think.  i think in the few weeks she has been in her own room we have had to go up once during the night.  she has also turned into a tummy sleeper. 
~ dd #2 can get her to giggle like no one else.  i mean big belly laughs. she just loves her and thinks everything she does is so funny. :)

i do not {heart} freaky infections

my first born is a really healthy girl.

aside from a puking incident during music class this winter, she has been really healthy all year. 

but this last week, for the third time in her life, i thought i was going to lose her. first time was when i was 15 weeks pregnant with her and i had a small tear in her placenta. (small tear = lots of freaky bleeding)  second time was when she was 4.  she was hospitalized because she had a "fever of unknown origin" that just wouldn't go away.  this last time she developed a freaky, icky, nasty infection on her leg....

hmmm, a leg infection = death?  sounds like i over-reacted a smidge? 

well, let me defend myself....  when i took her in to the doctor because the bump on her leg that we thought was a harmless calcium deposit suddenly developed a fire red, 4 inch diameter circle around it and the doctor mentions MRSA and i go home and look that up on the internet and see all these scary things about MRSA and then rather than getting better on the antibiotic it gets worse, yes, i thought we might lose her.

over-reaction?  probably. but NO one was assuring me she would be okay.  until finally i told my mom-in-law of my freaked out state and she promised me my first born would live through this.  (and told me to stay off the internet when trying to diagnose medical issues)

this is before it got "bad"

she is unphased :)