December

Or as I like to refer to it “marathon month of craziness”.  Within a four week time period I hosted a cookie exchange, we attended 3 Christmas parties, had one Harry Potter birthday party here, celebrated Carter’s birthday, Carter was baptized, we celebrated Christmas and hosted our annual New Year’s Eve fondue dinner.  This last week has been amazing with nothing planned.  It is awesome getting back to normal life.  It was a fun month, but I’m definitely ready for a break. 

Christmas was great as usual.  We tried not to go overboard like we usually do.  We did ok.  Samantha got her “American Girl” doll.  We learned a valuable lesson here.  If you are looking to do anything with the doll’s hair, the real thing is the way to go.  We have to keep her hair in a ponytail all the time or it gets tangled beyond belief.  Adam was just glad to be a part of the party.  This mask was high on Sammy’s wish list.  Future bank robber?Ben had to put a candy cane in front of his eye every time the camera came out.  And again…Watch out for the shark!

I think that everyone got what they wanted and it was so nice to be able to spend time together as a family.  And isn’t that what it’s all about?  Actually, it’s all about Jesus.  But family is good too.  And we did try to think about Jesus a lot. 

7 Months!

Wow, that went fast.  I was holding a friend’s newborn today and it’s just crazy to think that was him 7 months ago. It’s amazing how much happens in this first year.  Here are some of the highlights of the last month:

• He started crawling a day or two after I wrote his 6 month post.  He’s gotten really fast.
• His bottom two teeth finally broke through today!  They’ve been coming for a while now, hopefully now that they are out they won’t bother him as much.
• As of this morning he can pull himself up to standing in his crib.  He’s not sure how to get back down though.  He’s got a mark on his forehead from trying.
• He sleeps through the night most of the time.  He goes down between 7 and 8 and wakes up between 7 and 8.  We all love this.  A lot. 
• He can feed himself a bottle.  This is fabulous in the mornings when I’m trying to get Carter and Samantha off to school.  He sits in his little chair and drinks his milk.
• He is such a happy baby!   It really doesn’t take much to get him laughing.  He’s super ticklish and thinks it’s hilarious to bounce as we go up and down the stairs. 
• He has learned how to splash in the tub and would spend hours in there if I would let him.  Hopefully he thinks the water at the waterpark (the Dells) later this month is just as fun. 
• He loves food!  He’s a carb junkie like his mom, but he’s slowly branching out. 

And for your viewing pleasure:

Circus afro!

I sincerely apologize for the boogers in the above picture.  I tried photoshopping them out, but apparently that is above my expertise level. 

And this photo shoot was cut short in order to keep my camera dry. 

He’s an awesome baby and we love his guts!

Ben the Ham

Ben loves making people laugh.  He loves making funny faces.  He wanted to get in on the action the other day when I was taking some pictures of Adam.  I told him I would take a picture on “3” and he would pick the pose.  He’s a crazy one.  This one might be my favorite.

Love that kid!

6 Months

Technically, Adam isn’t 6 months old until the 9th.  But I’m home sick from church today and he’s napping so I thought I would take advantage of the quiet and post early.  It’s been a big month for Adam!  He started solids.  I was trying to wait until 6 months to start, but he was ready.  He would grab things out of my hands as I was putting them in my mouth and apparently milk just wasn’t cutting it anymore because he was waking up hungry too often at night.  He’s not a big fan of the fruits, but enjoys oatmeal and veggies.  Weird.  Having said that, it’s hard to get really excited about oatmeal.  He is such a happy baby.  He will smile for anyone and even when he’s tired he’s still pretty happy.  He still loves to stare at people until they look at him and then he’ll smile.  I love that dimple.  He is very active.  He’s all over the place.  It’s hard to burp him after he eats because he’s twisting and turning so much.  He gets around really well now by scooting, but he’s been getting up on his hands and knees a lot lately and I think he’ll probably be crawling soon.  Yikes! 

He’s still not a really consistent sleeper, but a lot of that is my fault.  It’s hard to have a set schedule with 3 other kids to take care of too.  He’s doing better though, especially after starting solids.  He’s such a great baby, maybe I’ll think about having another one. 

 

Ha! Kidding.  But it is nice to go out on a good note!

Three!

Let me preface this post by saying that this is an off-year.  As in I am taking this year off.  Not completely, but I am cutting myself some serious slack as I try to get back into the swing of things with 4 kids.  I’m not beating myself up for not putting up Halloween decorations, or taking pictures at Halloween, or not sending bread and cookies in for the bake sale at school.  I just keep telling myself next year I’ll do better.  Next year, I will post about birthdays when they happen.  At least in the same month.  Next year…

 

Anyways, Ben turned three in September.  When I asked what he wanted to do for his birthday, he said bowling and swimming.  Easy enough!  Us Chaplins love a good game of bowling.  Then we stopped by Wendy’s for some kids meals.  Can you find Waldo?No pictures of swimming (you’re welcome), but we did get some of him opening gifts.  Of all the awesome gifts he received his favorite was the whiffle softballs.  This kid loves his sports!  I absolutely love how expressive he is.  Cracks me up every day.  His next favorite thing was this ball.  He is so dang cute bouncing around the house on it.  Ben doesn’t love cake, so we made one out of ice cream sandwiches .  Super tasty.  Funny story about that candle there… When Ben turned 2, he took a bit out of his candle thinking it was candy.  So Carter thought it would be funny to see him do it again.  After a whole lot of encouragement from Carter and Samantha he ate almost the whole candle.  After which he threw it up.  Mike and I were pretty freaked out until we realized what he had eaten.  Older brothers are the best. This kid loves getting his picture taken.  I have to say I think he’s pretty good at it.  One thing he doesn’t love is clothes.  Mostly pants.  They are off as soon as he can get them off.  You know something is important to him when he will put on pants for it.  He loves making faces for the camera.  He loves making faces for anything, really.  He loves making people laugh.  So much that if he makes a face and you don’t laugh, he will tell you to laugh.  He will also tell you to say thank you after he does something nice for you.  “I held the door open for you, say thank you!”  I absolutely love these chubby little hands.  Why do they have go grow up?

He is such a fun, active little boy.  I have loved having him home with me as my little buddy while the other 2 have been in school.  He definitely adds his own brand of crazy to the family and we wouldn’t be the same without him!

5 Months!

This little one is growing fast!  He’s almost sitting up by himself, scooting around, and I think he’s teething.  At first, I’m always surprised at the new things he does.  Then I realize that he’s at that age.  I don’t know if it’s just because I’m busy or just tired, but his growing up is catching me by surprise.  He is a super happy baby.  He’s learning to play by himself a lot better although he definitely prefers to be with people.  We are finally getting on a nap schedule.  He is still up at least once a night, but I’m hoping once he start solids he will stop that.  He loves people and will stare at someone until they look at him.  He’s easily entertained by his brothers and sister and loves watching them play. 

He’s super cute and we are glad to have him around!

11 years down…

Mike and I celebrated our 11th anniversary today.  Holy Moly.  I can’t believe it’s been that long. It's flown by.  We are lucky enough to have 2 of my sisters here with us to babysit, so Mike took the day off and we had a super romantic day.  We started off by cleaning up the house a little, took care of a few little projects and then went to lunch.  Then we ran a few errands, came home and fed Adam and went to dinner.  We topped off the evening with a steamy trip to Target to check out the Halloween clearance. Next year we won’t have a baby and maybe we’ll plan something a little nicer.  It was nice to just spend some alone time with Mike, even if we were just running errands.  He’s been so busy lately with work that we don’t see a lot of each other and we rarely get time without any kids. 

We were talking about the past 11 years over lunch and we have faced some pretty big challenges and made it through some pretty rough times.  But we’ve stood together and they have made us stronger.  We have had some pretty great times as well, and I hope that the next 11 years holds a lot more good times than bad.  But no matter what comes our way, there is no one I would rather be standing by than Mike.  He is the best husband I could ask for. He puts up with and even supports my random eccentricities and obsessions.  He is an awesome dad and takes his job as a protector and provider very seriously.  I’m one lucky girl!