Self Portrait

Swaddled and Bottled

and happily sleeping for the night.

Philip usually sleeps about 8pm - 3:30am and then again until the big kids wake him up around 6:30. It's wonderful!

He's three months old today!

He's started cooing more lately, it's so cute!

Dino Mania

We've loved Dinosaur Train on PBS all year. Dinosaur Train went on a world tour recently and reinvigorated everyone's interest in it. A whole week of new episodes that we had to be home at 11:30 to see! Anyway, last week the older boys had K4J vacation bible school so we kept the projects light and learned a little about a couple dinosaurs each day. We put them on a poster and marked what type of dinosaur they were and where in the world they lived. We also made fossil cookies. We used our plastic dinosaurs to make imprints in sugar cookie dough. The idea was better than the result. The cookies puffed up when they cooked so it was hard to see the imprints. But we had fun.And to top it all off we went to the local natural history museum to see the four dinosaur skeletons they have. The do have lots of mammoth skeletons and the boys thought they were just as cool. We spent two hours checking out the exhibits and everyone did really well. (Thanks in part to the great double stroller we borrowed from Megan. I couldn't have taken all four of them by myself without it. Thanks again Megan!)We know that Stegosauruses are herbivores but the boys are pretending he's going to eat them. My little paleontologists, digging up fossils and the mammoth mammoth skeleton.
Growing up with just sisters we never really went through a dinosaur stage at our house. I must have learned some about dinosaurs at school but it was minimal and ideas seem to have changed since I was little, so I've been enjoying the dinosaur kick we've been on as much (and maybe more) than the kids. God's creativity is so amazing! The different adaptations fascinate me. My favorite is the pentaceratops, which, disappointingly did not actually have five horns, it had three horns and two cheek bones that jutted out like horns. It's frill was up to 10ft long which was half its body length. Amazing!

Tummy Time!

Mommy's Little Helpers

Sleepy Baby

Philip took a nap yesterday morning from 8 - 10:30 or so. Then he didn't nap again until 5pm. At 10pm I took him upstairs (he was in the Pack & Play) and fed him and he never opened his eyes, just his mouth. But when I laid him in his bed his eyes popped open and he was smiling and kicking happily. I had visions of being up for hours waiting for him to get tired, but by 10:30 he was acting hungry again so I fed him and he slept through to 5:30am. I fed him again and he slept until 7. The only down side was after 14 hours of sleep and just two feedings all he wanted to do this morning was nurse!

Cousin Fun

My cousin Nels came and stayed with us for a day. I think 24 hours was enough kid stuff for him but we all enjoyed it. I didn't have to watch the kiddos as closely with him here which was nice and the boys loved playing with him. Glad you came Nels!