Moss Cousins

My parents now have 11 grandchildren (as of a week and a half ago-- Welcome to the world baby June!) and Taylor's have 4. Seven of those total 11 cousins are within a year of my kids in age and the older kids are great at playing with the younger kids. We love cousins.

On the Moss side, Taylor's sister Hailey has twin boys, Colten and Carter. Now about 18 months old, they are finally at an age where they and Will can play together. Will likes being the big kid, loves to entertain them, and is *learning* to share with them. The boys laugh at the silly things he does, chase after him, and steal his toys. Some day these boys are all going to get into lots of trouble together.

They took a while to warm up to me though... These pictures are from May and I don't think they smiled at me the entire time. This past weekend, however, we got to spend some time with them in St. George and they laughed and played like I was their best friend. 

"ColtCarter" as Will calls them.

Carter.

It took a miracle (and lots of animal crackers) to get the three boys to sit together and look at the same time and since Emma still isn't sitting up on her own I just took her pictures separately. 

My favorite.

And just a special note about their grandma since we just spent a few days with her. :) Taylor's mom loves having her time with the grandkids. She has a tub full of toys in the living room, reads books with them, cleans up lots of spit up and changes diapers without complaint, and is always happy and hoping to babysit when we come. No matter how tired or busy she is (even when she's groggy and in pain from dental work like she was this weekend!), she always makes time for her grandkids. I am very grateful for her and hope someday my kids will recognize how lucky they are to have such wonderful grandparents (on both sides!) who really really love them.

Will: 10 Things

1. Will laughs on command. And not just "Ha Ha", it's more like:

"HAAHAAA!!!" Every time.

2. Will gets obsessed with certain toys. For days (or weeks) he gets attached to one toy or object and he MUST have it with him at all times. Currently he's very attached to a souvenir stamped penny we got at the Santa Barbara Zoo. He calls it his "Train Penny" (because we got it by the zoo train). We accidentally left it in St. George at Grandma's house yesterday and lucky for us he thinks it's pretty cool that she's going to mail it to him in an envelope. Otherwise we might have a full-on riot on our hands.

3. For the past two months he has worn cowboy boots everywhere. He wears them with shorts, pants, diaper, even his swimsuit occasionally. When he first got them we had to set a rule that he couldn't wear them in bed. The only time he doesn't wear them is for church, when he knows that he's supposed to wear church shoes. He's also got a cowboy hat and rides a stuffed monkey through the house. (He wanted to ride a horse like his friend Harrison and the monkey is about the same size. Giddyup?)

4. Will loves to ride his bike. He has a balance bike and he's really getting the hang of it. It's pretty amazing to watch his balance improve as he gets more daring and lifts his feet up while he rides. The bike is supposed to allow him to skip training wheels and go straight to a regular bike and I believe it. I wouldn't be surprised if he were able to ride a normal bike within a year. Plus it's cute.

5. His current favorite books to read before bedtime are: "The Ugly Duckling", "The Little Red Hen", and "Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree". He also likes "Are You My Mother" and "You Can Name 100 Trucks".

6. In St. George last week Taylor took him off-roading in the Jeep we rented for the trip. All that day (and the next, and today) Will kept telling me all about it. "I go Jeep!" "I go bumpy road!" "Bump bump bump!" and some other jibberish that I think was describing his awesome adventure with Daddy.

7. Speaking of Daddy, Will often calls him Taylor (or "Taya") and we can't seem to break him of the habit. I have to be very careful to call him "Daddy" all the time but I slip up a lot. Most of the time it happens when I yell something down the stairs to ask Taylor a question and sure enough, Will is right beside me yelling, "Taya! Jibberish-that-sounds-like-my-question."

8. Will suddenly asks to hold Emma all the time. I think it's because his best friend Harrison has a baby sister now too and Harrison likes to hold her. When we first took our family over to see the new baby, Harrison yelled, "My baby!" pointing at his sister and Will yelled, "My baby!" pointing at Emma then they both started laughing and yelling. (Boys are crazy.)

9. Will is so helpful. He throws diapers away, gets wipes for me, pulls out the milk from the fridge (if the carton isn't too full), puts his dishes in the sink, and cleans up his toys. Sometimes he's too helpful (or his help actually means more work for me) and sometimes he completely ignores me, but for the most part he likes to help.

10. He is loud and makes lots of sound effects. He's always crashing something (cars, trucks, planes, balls), laughing at himself or at Emma, and just yelling in the stairwell where it echoes most in our house. If he's awake you can hear him and if he's quiet it means he's sucking on his fingers, watching a movie, or asleep.

But he's a cutie pie and we just love him to pieces. 

7 1/2 months

My friend just had a baby girl (5 lbs 12 oz) last week and after visiting her at the hospital Emma just hasn't seemed the same to me. She's so big! I can't believe how much she has grown and I really can't believe she's almost 8 months old. I love watching her grow and learn and explore everything around her. I love this *immobile* but fun stage of life she's in.

1. Emma puts everything in her mouth. Her favorite chew toys are a red teether toy my mom gave me, Will's blocks (which he doesn't mind sharing), Will's cars (which he does mind sharing), and big adult fingers. If she's got something to chew on she's usually pretty happy.

2. After a series of trips, teething (but no teeth yet), more trips, and visitors in the last couple of months she finally has gone back to a schedule where she sleeps all night. Emma goes to bed at 7pm, wakes up at 5 or 6am for a feeding, and then sleeps until Will wakes up around 7:30am. It's a much better schedule than her waking up 2 or 3 times a night.

3. When Emma gets tired she squeals (very loudly) until I pick her up. Then she sucks her thumb and snuggles against my shoulder. Sometimes she'll fall asleep on me (only if we're out at a friend's house or at church during naptime) but usually that's my cue to take her upstairs and put her to bed. I love having a snuggly girl. Will was much too busy to snuggle with me as a baby but Emma is much more mellow.

4. Emma's favorite pureed foods are sweet potatoes and corn, applesauce, and pears.

5. She doesn't crawl yet but she can (eventually) get around. She squirms, stretches, and rolls back and forth until she can reach the toy she wants. A couple days ago she went up on her knees but was pushing her head against the ground and couldn't go forward so she went back to her rolling.

6. Emma is very vocal. When she's excited she kicks her legs and says, "Oo! Ooo! Oo!" or "Mhm! Mhm! Mhmm!" over and over. When she's gets impatient, or hungry, or just starts to get tired she squeals (really loudly and high pitched). And though she saves her actual crying for when she gets hurt (like when Will bit her yesterday...she did put her hand in his mouth though) or when she's really tired, when she cries she REALLY cries. It's amazing how such a petite little thing can produce so much sound.

7. Last week as we were stuck in traffic headed to Dodger Stadium I noticed something new that Emma does when she's upset. She was so tired and so upset in the car that she started pulling out little fistfuls of hair! I tried to stop her but she kept doing it until she finally found her thumb and started sucking on it. Since then, I keep finding her hair all over her tear streaked face or in her little fists every time she gets upset. But I don't know where she's pulling all that hair from because she still has a lot!

8. According to Emma, Will is the funniest person in the world. Taylor and I can usually get a little half laugh and a smile from her but Will gets all the belly laughs. Sometimes we don't even know what she thinks is so funny but she just laughs and laughs and Will keeps doing whatever it is.

9. Emma is a bit of a mommy's girl. She will go to almost anyone when she's happy but when she's sad or tired she wants Mom. She always knows where I am and I can usually soothe her when nobody else can. And since soothing her usually results in a snuggly thumbsucker on my shoulder so I don't really mind all that much. :)

10. Emma loves to be upside down. When you hold her sometimes she likes to put her head back as far as she can so when she starts doing that a lot we just hold her by her feet instead. She is totally unfazed by it and usually continues to look around and chomp on her toy.

(These pictures are actually from the end of April but I'm posting them anyways.)