Thomas is 5 Months Old!

Thomas is already 5 months old. I can't believe it! Time has flown. He is such a happy little guy. He is so alert and watches people closely- especially his sisters. He loves being talked to and loves to talk back. He is still a smiley boy. Still no teeth, I was wrong! But those two bottom ones will be here before too long- I can see them a little bit, but can't feel them yet. Thomas took his first bottle tonight :) All the milk I worked so hard to pump was going bad, so I figured I'd try and give it to him. He drank it! He still doesn't like to sleep much. He catnaps during the day and I guess does the same thing at night too. He doesn't wake me up at night, but he nurses on and off. He wakes up for the morning at a wonderful time- sometime between 7 or 8. A lot of times he's the last one in the house in bed :) I hope that keeps up! He can sit up for a little while by himself, but not for long. He is grabbing at his feet more regularly now. He still doesn't roll over from his back to his stomach, but he gets pretty far sideways and is trying. He's rolled over a few times from stomach to back, but doesn't do that regularly. He really enjoys his jumperoo and can finally touch the floor in it (we had been putting a pillow below him so he could reach). I don't know how big he is yet. I'm gonna take him in a few days to get another shot, so maybe I'll get him weighed then.

So here are this month's pictures from Kiddie Kandids. The last one got entered into a photo contest. My little photogenic guy has one every month that they enter.

And here are some pictures taken almost 5 months ago (probably around 4 1/2 months ago):

Boy has my little guy grown....

Bad Dreams

Last night Callie woke up yelling for me. When I got to her room, she said "Darth Vader doesn't know where we live, does he?" I told her no. She said, "I had a bad dream. Darth Vader can't find me here. He can't find me, right mom?" Poor kid!

Totally Shad's fault.

Before bed, Emmy talks about Obie Juan Kanobe (sp?) and Annikin and 32D2 and all these other names that are foreign to me.

He's so happy that they're going to like his sci fi stuff.

Here's how prayers went tonight:
Me: Dear God, thank you for today, thank you for each other, thank you for loving us
Callie: Mom!
Emmy: Keep us healthy and happy and let us respect people and hear people who want us to do something.
Callie: Thank you for each other.
Emmy: Please don't let God go to sleep during the day because when we're doing stuff and we need Him to tell us whether it's right or wrong, to be that voice inside, God can't be sleeping because we won't be able to know.
Callie: Please don't let God go away.
Emmy: Let God go to sleep when we're sleeping.
Me: Ok.
Callie: Please not let me have bad dreams. Of Darth Vader.
Emmy: Yeah, please let us have good dreams.
Callie: Don't let Darth Vader find us. Don't let him into our house. Don't let that one nice guy into our house either.
Emmy: Nice people are okay, Callie. God, let the nice guy into our house.
Callie: Don't let Darth Vader find us though. He's mean, Emmy.
Me: Ok, please let my girls have a good day tomorrow at school. Keep them healthy and safe.
Callie: In God's May.
Me: What?
Callie: God's May.
Emmy: In Jesus May I Pray, Amen.
Callie: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA men.

Random Pictures and Thomas' First Trip to Disneyland!

Cal and Tommy chatting. He loves his sisters. He is so quiet (most of the time) watching them run around. He'll start kicking his legs really fast when he's watching them. I know he can't wait until he's able to run around with them.
Karla and Tommy. Had to take this picture so Tommy could remember his babysitter :( Karla is leaving in a few months to go to LA for school. We'll miss her.
Tommy in a hat. He totally looks like a little Shad, esp with a hat on!
Tommy in another hat. Isn't he cute?

So we took Thomas to Disneyland for the first time. He had a good time. He loved it, even the dark quiet rides had him so interested. He wouldn't eat in the calm Pirates of the Carribean, nor in the Haunted Mansion.

Daniel met us there and the girls were SO ECSTATIC to see him. They took turns riding the rides with him. It was great to have an insider's tour of the place. Emmy was an 1/8 of an inch too short for Indiana Jones- bummer! Callie's too short for just about everything.

I have no idea why this is blue and underlined....

Emmy and Callie after lunch, running out toward another ride.
Tommy talking at lunch.

Circus Pictures

The girls have one more weekend of Circus. Here are some shots from opening night. They had quite a lot of visitors that night: Grandma, Papa, Grandma Bo, Grace, Karla, Dennis, Belinda, Erin, Cindy and Erin's friend Regina. Caryn and Sunil came this weekend and Gretchen, John, Maycee, Natalee, Mark and Judy are coming next weekend. The girls love performing and have worked hard. I've worked hard too carting them around from one event to another. My kids were overscheduled there for a few months. Callie has one last game and then tball is officially over. This is the last year they're doing both circus and baseball. Next year they'll have to pick. Shad's pulling for the girls to pick baseball since it'd be easier (closer to our house) and cheaper. It depends on when you ask the girls as far as they're concerned.

Here's Emmy happy about her beautiful flowers :)

Cute little Callie is Raggedy Ann for circus.
Grandma and Callie
Emmy and her buddy Karla.
Grandma and Emmy
Grace, Karla and Emmy Lou (Callie was too busy watching a movie to bother with pictures).

OMG DID I TELL YOU?

Emmy is a vegetarian (for now)! I am so proud!!!!

The neighbors got some cows, right? Like 19. So anyway, the first day they got them we totally had a field trip of course to the neighbor's house to watch cows. Well prior to the field trip we were standing on the street watching the cows. Emmy says, "Mom, this is why I didn't eat chicken today. I don't eat meat anymore." I'm like, "really Emmy? That's great. Why?" Emmy says, "Because of these cows." I drop it b/c I'm obviously thrilled and don't want to get all excited about it- you're not supposed to do that, right? So I don't .
At grandma bo's 98th birthday party Emmy eats no ribs! She packs some stuff to take home and puts a rib in a bag. I said, "Hey, i thought you were a vegetarian." She says, "Yeah, but ribs are really good, mom." I'm pouting inside, but not too devastated since I was totally expecting this.

So the next day she takes out her bag of leftovers and she's eating the fruit and whatnot. She threw the bag w/ the rib in it away! YAY! Sweet!

We go to Denney's on Thursday. Now while she typically orders a Stars and Moon combo platter (or whatever it's called) with chicken nuggets and fried cheese, she asks if she can only have just the cheese. SWEET!

I'm so stoked. Callie is practically a vegetarian. Emmy's like a 75% vegetarian since I don't cook meat or mess with it really, except she breaks into the lunch meat every once in a while and really digs in. Callie likes her lunch meat too, but that's about it. She's more my sensitive girl, I guess. Emmy has always grasped that she's eating wilbur or a whatever, but it was no matter to her. Callie though, she's never been big on meat. I was giving up hope on my girls, though, to be quite honest, and hoping that Thomas would be my little veggie. Even though I hold out no hope that this will be long term, I do see it as a step in the realization that eating meat is disgusting and bad for you.

Now we have to work on Shad. He's given up high fructose corn syrup, partially hydrogenated oils, and enriched flour (well, for the most part). What's meat? I don't know though since he has no problem eating milk fed, caged baby cows. Sicko.

Forgot to say though that Emmy did threaten me with relinquishing her vegetarian status. She was mad at me today for something or other and she yelled "I'm going to eat meat then, mom." I told her to go ahead and that she needed to make the decision to not eat meat for herself rather than for me. So she was upset that I wasn't upset. So she went on about something else. But honestly, I didn't even bring this one on. I might feel a bit more guilty if this had come after a whole "you're eating wilbur right now" barrage of comments, but it didn't. We were just watching peaceful ugly cows eat weeds. So it was a total independent decision of hers.

Bedtime Prayers

So last night our bedtime prayers went like this:

Me: Dear God, thank you for this day, thank you for our family-
Emmy: Callie bend your head!And, and thank you for each other
Callie: And thank you for Love (but "love" was sung out all dramatically and accompanied w/ a little dance)
Me: Please help us to be good to each other, love each other and respect each other
Callie: And thank you for Thomas
Emmy: Help us be nice to each other and help the ants not come to our room and crawl all over us when we're sleeping
Callie: Thomas says thank you for milk
Me: Help us respect and love ourselves, help Callie not to spit
Emmy: Help Callie not talk when I'm trying to go to sleep.
Callie : I didn't Emmy
Emmy: Keep us from getting sick, help Thomas not to get sick
Callie: And thank you for love (sung)
Me: In Jesus' name Amen
Callie: In God's body
Emmy: Amen
Callie: Thank you for love

Sweet Little Emmy

Next year at some point Emmy will be moving up to a new class at her school. She's been telling me she doesn't want to go to Emily's class for whatever reason (I think it's b/c there's a girl who used to be in Emmy's class who moved up to that class and Emmy thinks this girl is mean/doesn't like her, but anyway....). She's been pretty emphatic about not wanting to go to this class. The other night when I was reading to the girls, Emmy started talking about her day at school and she told me "I want to go to Emily's class." I asked her why she had changed her mind. She said "Well.... I shouldn't be talking to you about this." This, of course, peaked my curiosity. I bugged her some more about it and she said, "Well, today at school I wanted Joan to check my stamp game (a math thing) and so I went up to her and said, 'Joan, will you check my stamp game work?' and a boy from Emily's class was sitting next to her and he turned around when I said that." So I asked her what this boy had to do with her wanting to go to Emily's class an she said, "Well, I need to apologize to him." I asked why and she said very ashamedly "I need to apologize to him." I asked what she did and she said, "Well he had a kinda funny face." So I asked her if she laughed at him, or said something to him, or made fun of him or talked about him and she said she didn't. So I told her that she really didn't need to apologize to him since sometimes thoughts pop into our head that we can't control, even if they're not nice, but that it was good that she didn't make fun of him or say something mean. She lied down, still concerned and said "Well I guess I just need to apologize to myself."

My God, I hope my little girl stays so nice. She feels guilty for having a thought pop into her head that a boy looked funny. She is so aware of her feelings and the feelings of others. She is quick to stand up for her sister and knows when she's wrong and actually cares about it.


On a lighter note, my little guy took a pacifier for the second time in his life. Thank God- I hope it continues. The boy refuses to accept anything plastic- he likes it real. But seriously, it is very rare that he sleeps for more than 45 minutes at a time during the day. Maybe he'll be able to take a bottle too. I was thinking I was going to have to hold off until he would take a cup. He also sat down for several seconds on his own to watch TMX. Any other time i prop him up, he might sit for a few seconds before he goes over, but he'll sit up nice and straight (for a few seconds anyway) for Elmo.

The girls started Circus on Friday. They're doing very well and having a great time. They love performing and the crowd loves them. I'll post pictures later- they are both very darling.