John-o-rama

John is about 5 1/2 weeks old now.  He is changing so much each day that I wanted to post some new pictures of him, at least so Scott could see.  So here are a bunch.  Sorry if you are overwhelmed with baby pictures.  :)  I think this little guy is really looking more and more like Scott, but maybe it's just me.

His signature surprised look

And again

He does it so well.

A sort of smile.  I try to get pictures of him smiling, but I can't quite take the photo in time.  He's too quick for me.

Relaxing.  He still sleeps a lot, but is starting to be more alert and responsive to us.  He will sometimes smile when I talk to him, which, of course, I love!

The brothers

All the kids like looking out for John.  He is very lucky to have three big siblings!

Grant likes "helping" John.  Sometimes it's not that helpful, but he tries.  Does John look scared here?  Grant does like to try and poke John in the eyes, which scares me...and apparently John too.

Matthew always wants to hold John.  We're still trying to teach him how to do it.  He is super excited about having another brother though.  Grant likes to "hold" John too (with a lot of help from someone big).  I haven't gotten a picture yet, but Grant's face when he holds John is so sweet.  I'll try to get a picture.

Here is John winding up for a cry.  His face gets really red when he's upset.

And here's John relaxing while he gets a diaper change.  John really dislikes being in a dirty diaper.  Some babies don't care, but this guy likes being clean.  So like his Daddy.  :)

See how happy he is for his diaper change?

We all love this little guy!

John turns 1 month old

Yes John, you are now one...one month old that is.

Our little Johnny turned one month old last week.  Here he is looking surprised (one of his favorite looks).  He's a sweet little guy.  He sleeps well, is sort of a fussy eater, he likes to be burped and has a pretty quiet cry, as far as newborn cries go.  He's growing bigger each day and smiles at us now, from time to time.  All the kids love him.  Even Grant, who seemed a little jealous at first, now looks out for John like a good big brother.  He brings blankets to him and tries to get us to burp John when he's fussing (mostly by gestures and jabbering but we get the message).  If John is crying in his seat he'll try to get us to pick him up sooner.  He likes to pat John gently on the head (ok, so he also tried to poke him in the eye, but still) and wipe his face if he spits up.  And he can now say "Johnny" or something that sort of sounds like it.  Grant even says "baby" in his sleep.  He's taking to his big brother responsibilities very well.  That Grant...he's a good kid.

 

More of surprised John

 His thinking face

John is also losing his brown hair...he has a bit of a receding hairline right now.  Hmmm

Anna gives John a sort of snuggle.  Like Grant, Anna is also taking her big sibling responsibilities very seriously.  She sings to John and reads him stories.  She tells me when she thinks John needs to be fed.  She's very helpful and John seems to really like her.  He usually calms down when she sings to him and he smiles at her.

 This is John's disgusted face

And here are some pictures of the rest of our crew...

Matthew's first soccer game.  He's having a lot of fun playing soccer so far.  His team is called the "Tiger Legos."  The kids on the team came up with that name themselves...surprise, surprise.  Matthew is in this picture but all you can see is the top of his hair.  My camera promptly died after I took this one picture so this is all I got.  :(  Camera troubles!!  Our microwave also died this week.  Fun times.  RIP microwave and camera.

Here is my mom helping the kids make volcanoes.  Matthew likes checking out non-fiction books and some of his favorite topics lately are earthquakes and volcanoes.  My mom was nice enough to help them make volcanoes of their own.  Even Grant got a volcano.  :)

This is our prolific young plum tree.  We have a plum and apple tree that didn't bear any fruit last year but made up for it this year.  Anna must eat four or five plums a day and still there are so many left.  How?  I don't know, but the plums are pretty good.  Yes, this plum tree is part of our "crew" these days.

Mr. Grant is growing up.   He is saying more and more words each day, starting to play pretend more, eating more, enjoying story time more and sleeping a lot more at night.  Hooray.  He is our sweet and happy little guy and such a great big brother too!  Also he gets to start going to the church nursery in just a few more weeks.  :)  I think he will like that.  I think we will ALL like that.

 

And speaking of church, here are the two "big kids" all dressed for church.  These two both seemed to have a growth spurt this summer and none of their clothes fit anymore...they are all too short and/or tight.  Anna wore the same size clothes for a loooong time, so I'm glad she's growing.  Sadly they both have the long and skinny problem.  When the pants fit around the waist they are too short in the legs.  You can see Matthew's pants are a little short here.  Get used to it kids.  You may have that problem for life.  You can thank your father.  ;)

Now I'm Growing Bigger

John is 4 weeks old now.  He's growing and changing every day.  He's still a good sleeper and a pretty easy going guy, relatively.  He loves being held and having people sing to him.  Here he is with Grandma Keeler.

 Looking cozy

 Getting sleepy

 And here are just a few pictures of John at 4 weeks.

 He reminds me of Scott here.  ;)

 Happy

Here he reminds me of Matthew.  Such a big boy!

Surprise!

 John is the master of the SURPRISED face.

He does the wide eyed look all the time.

 I try to take pictures of his cute and funny expressions, but it doesn't always end well.

He wasn't too happy here.

 Here he is surprised again.

And showing off his chubby cheeks.  Love it!

Camp In Movie Night

We had a camp out themed movie night this week.  Every Friday lately we usually have pizza and watch a movie.  This week we did homemade pizza (Anna's favorite) and a camping themed night.  We got out the sleeping bags to watch our movie (Brother Bear) and I would have made tin foil dinners instead of pizza but I was pretty sure my kids wouldn't eat them.  We also made indoor S'mores in the microwave.

 The S'mores were a big hit and oh so messy!

 There was a lot of clean up after

 Yes, Anna is licking her chair.  I also found a lot of large chocolate globs under her seat at the end.

Letting that chocolate get away from you is really a shame.  :)

 Grant even got a S'more and, of course, made the biggest mess

He loved it though.  It was a fun movie night even though it was only loosely camping themed.  We still had fun.  See another of our indoor camping adventures HERE.

Some pictures

 We tried to take a few pictures of the kids altogether.
It's not easy to get them all looking at us.

 Or all happy

 Here's Johnny feeling a little happier

Anna likes to sing to John when he feels sad.  She sings him primary songs from church (mostly I am a Child of God) and he usually calms down when she sings to him.  It's cute.  She has to sing to him really loudly 'cause she says Johnny likes it that way.

She also likes reading him stories.  Here she is reading him her N book from preschool.  I'm not sure how many times she heard it at school, but she has that thing memorized!  She read it to all of us again and again! 

Good job Anna!

So much going on...

So there has been a lot going on here lately.  With birthday parties, babies, deployments, first days of school, doctor appointments, dentist appointments and on and on things have been a little crazy.  Here are a few random pictures from our days lately.

Here are John and Grant.  I'm hoping they grow into being good brother buddies.  Right now they both cry at me a lot so they have that in common.  Grant is acting a little jealous of John sometimes.  He doesn't like John to sit in his swing, the bouncy chair, on mom's lap, on the boppy pillow or use any blankets that he thinks should belong to him.  Plus he gets very frustrated sometimes (Grant I mean) 'cause he can't tell us what's wrong.  So there is a lot of screaming some days.  John is pretty good at sleeping through scream tantrums which I think is amazing.

Angie, Scott's sister, is visiting and has been helping me a lot with Grant in particular.  Here is an instagram picture she took of him at the park.  He looks so happy.

And Angie has had a lot of success getting him to eat food, which is great 'cause he's generally such a picky eater.  Here he is eating peaches off the table.  He was having trouble picking them up 'cause they were so slippery.

Here's Matthew post-dental check up.  He was cavity free and got a special cavity free sticker.  Matthew and Anna love the dentist.  I guess that's a good thing.

Here's Grant peek-a-booing with a sweater Grandma Keeler made.  So much fun!

John is a great sleeper.  Better than Grant is these days.  Here he is about to fall asleep.

And he's out.  I love those cheeks!

More sleeping.

Matthew posing with a cardboard Matthew that Angie helped him make.

The kids had lots of fun coloring their cardboard people.

And Grant got a cool cardboard sign.  Mr. Grant that is.

Here's Anna playing Legos.  

She was sure to show Angie which Lego piece she had stuck in her nose a few months back.  Nice!

Grant was trying to grab the boppy pillow when he fell asleep in the swing.

Here's John giving Angie a hug!

And more sleeping (those cheeks!)

Grant looking so cute in the monkey hat (another cute pic courtesy of Angie).

And the two little boys (as I have taken to calling them although Grant gets offended if he hears himself being called "little") taking naps at the same time, while the big kids are at school!  Amazing!

 
I'm sure John will wake up soon, so I better enjoy this quiet time while I have it!