june was brandon month

Happy Birthday, Father's Day, and 12th anniversary, Brandon! I love you.

will turned 5! (more than a month ago)

I don't think it's possible for a kid to be more excited for his birthday. Around Christmas time, he started inviting everyone he met--strangers in elevators, kids in the grocery store, etc.--to his birthday party. And, he's been talking about his piñata for longer than that.

He had a dragon birthday party--complete with a dragon piñata that the kids got to slay with a sword. We made blue dragon cupcakes for him. Henry and Elsa cut out the wings and helped me put them on with the marshmallow eyes. Will didn't seem to mind that they looked a little more like bats than dragons. And, Will keeps asking for a reprise of the water dragon game he played at his party.

I can't believe he's already 5 and ready to go to kindergarten. He's turned in to such a good kid. He's come a long way in learning to suppress his wild-man urges and manage his extreme emotions. He's an obedient, intelligent, exuberant, hilarious kid. He keeps us all laughing.

Last night at dinner, his prayer went something like this: "Thank you for my two sisters, my brother Henry, and my other brother Jesus."

Then, after the prayer he said, "Jesus is my brother, you know."

I'm not sure where it came from, because we hadn't been talking about that lately. But then, before bed he couldn't find his silly bands and was trying to hold back the tears while we were praying, so I asked for Will to be able to find his silly bands in my prayer. Afterward he said, "My other brother Jesus is going to help me find my silly bands. He's my only favorite brother. But I like Henry too."

Happy Birthday, little Will! You're a good boy.

trip to zion

easter

henry is 10

I know this is 3 months late, but I'm trying to catch up. I can't believe Henry is really 10 years old. Time goes so fast. I have a hard time not thinking of him as just a little boy, even though he is 5 feet tall and, as he informed me yesterday, going to be a teenager in 3 years.

He loves to dance--"Even if I don't like the music, I have to dance. I'm just a dancey kid." His teacher gave him the "extreme dancer" award for his fourth grade class. I'll have to try to film him incognito some time, because those skinny arms and legs kill me.

He has taken to composing on Garage Band lately and will enthusiastically play you his newest recordings "Synthio" and "Rockboy."

He hit a home run in his baseball game, and he is always up for a game of catch.

He is such a good friend and big brother and such a sweet kid.

the trouble with teeth

Teeth have been causing a lot of problems around our house lately.

Iris just cut her 8th tooth today. Maybe now that all those front teeth are in I can start catching up on my sleep before we start on the molars. This is the face she makes when her teeth are bugging her. Last night she was chewing on the table top while we were eating dinner.


In other tooth news, Henry got braces. He got them the day of the pinewood derby. So, here he is with the new braces and his car.


Elsa, though, has topped both Henry and Iris. Last month she got 4 fillings in 2 different dental appointments, and she got braces on her front teeth and an expander. She is a trooper about my having to turn the screw in the expander every night and not being able to eat or talk very well. The expander has come unbonded twice now, so we keep having to go back to get it glued in again. She says the glue tastes terrible and she gags repeatedly during the process. Poor girl. She's had 7 orthodontist/dentist appointments in the last month. The school probably thinks I'm making them up.

she can move

At about 8 months old, Iris began to slowly inch her way across the room. She couldn't crawl, and she stayed in sitting position, but somehow I would find her in different places from where I put her. These pictures are from March 25th. It was one of the first times she made her way to the TV to play with the game controllers and then she made her way to the diaper bag and pulled everything out--spreading her sweet potato puffs all over the floor.


She's a lot quicker now--electrical cords and stairs beware! The older kids were asking about their cakes on their first birthdays. I said I just chose what to make for them, because they were too young to tell me what they liked. They started thinking of what Iris might want for her first birthday cake. They decided it should be made to look like a dog dish and electrical cords. Hmmmmm. That might be tricky.