Meredith's Violin Lessons

Meredith has been taking violin lessons with our friend Nicole since October, with a big break for our holiday vacation. (Nicole is an accomplished musician who teaches lessons in addition to her work at OneWay Ministries.) 

She has learned the parts of a violin, the string names, and 1.5 songs! She is still working on correctly holding the instrument - it's a bit tricky.

Proud of her hard work! 

5 months old!

Happy 5 months, Daphne!

{You had a lot of paparazzi present at this photo shoot!}

I wouldn't say a lot has changed (since I wrote her 4 month update so late!) but we did take some more cute pictures!

Also, her present for turning 5 months old was...a case of pink eye, courtesy of Paige :( It wasn't terrible and never seemed to bother her, and was easily fixed with a prescription.

We love you, Daphne! Thank you for all the sweet smiles and cuddles!

4 months old {waaay late!}

Well, now that Daphne will be 5 months old in 4 days, it's the perfect time for...her 4 month old post? Oh well, better late than never!

Daphne turned 4 months old on Christmas day in NC. And a few days after that, we came home and sleep trained her (Ferber method)! This was months in the making. There was no point in sleep training her while we were traveling - she was never sleeping in the same place, since we were visiting friends and family - but boy, were we tired!

(These photos were taken about a week after she turned 4 months)

Now, she is what I would call semi-sleep trained. I wasn't as strict with her, therefore, she is not as good a sleeper as the others were as infants. Mainly, I'm letting her keep her paci, when I took it away from the others as babies. This means when the paci falls out (and she realizes it) she cries and needs help going back to sleep.

Is this better than what I did with the other girls - which was to take away the paci and then they started sucking their thumb (Paige) or fingers (Mer)? Well, it definitely means less sleep for me now as I get up to put her paci back in, but I'm hoping it will be easier in the long run, when I can just take away her paci instead of whatever we'll have to do with the other girls to stop the finger/thumb sucking.

Other Daphne news:

Weight: 16 lbs 2 oz (82nd percentile!! This has never happened with my babies while nursing)

Height:24.5 in (39th percentile - again different; all my babes have been long)

Head circ: 40.8 cm (28th percentile)

Now refuses to take a bottle :(

LOVES to cuddle, be held, be worn in a carrier

Daphne can roll both front to back and back to front - but doesn't do either very often

She smiles, laughs, and babbles

Her brother and sisters still want to carry, cuddle, and talk to her all the time

Daphne, you are one sweet girl!

New Year's Eve 2015

NYE was two days after we returned from our trip, and our good friends hosted a family-friendly party at their house. It was such a fun event and so great to see everyone since it had been so long!

Snaggletooth

A big milestone in our house: Russell lost his first tooth on Friday!

He lost it while watching a movie (for our usual family pizza and movie night we have most Fridays). But he was so interested in the movie that he waited until it was over to tell us.

We don't do the tooth fairy (or the Easter Bunny, or Santa, or what-have-you), but we made sure he knew he'd have a special surprise in the morning. He was excited to have a "paper dollar!"

Russell was very self-conscious of the whole thing, so the only pictures he would take were right next to me and Jason :)

Growing so fast!

Last December Visits

On the final day of our trip - which was 5 weeks long (an awesome extended vacation!) - we spent a beautiful Carolina day with lots of our wonderful family.

Pops and Mimi came from Georgia to NC and brought Grandmother with them for a day trip to see us!

We had a great hors d'oeuvres lunch (in background) thanks to Kacki!

Daphne got a carseat toy that she loves!

The girl cousins colored their Frozen coloring books together:

...and the day was done too quickly. We love you all! 

Happy birthday, dear Jesus!

And of course, the real meaning of Christmas: Love came down.

To make it tangible for the kids, we baked a birthday cake and sang happy birthday to Jesus!

OF COURSE we had to decorate it with sprinkles!

And/or eat the sprinkles...

Each child chose a candle to put in (Paige promptly stuck hers in upside-down):

Happy birthday, dear Jesus! Presents are great, but His presence is far superior.

Christmas Day!

The kids had only been asking every day in December how many more days there were! They were so excited - there's a reason people say, "like a kid on Christmas morning!"

Not pictured, but Russell's favorite stocking stuffer was a booklight. He likes to read in bed to wind down at night. Can't believe he's big enough to do that.

Paige LOVES bubbles (despite the face!) - this was a big bubble wand.

Baby's First Christmas! (Note: wild outfit assembled by Daddy!)

It was a very Lego Christmas for Russell - I believe he got at least 5 Lego sets.

We gave Kacki a photo calendar:

One of my favorite gifts - a necklace with 4 arrows on it from Jason. "Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one's youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them!" (Psalm 127: 4-5).

Meredith declared this dress from Paw Paw and Kacki to be "fancy and classy" and immediately put it on!

They already had 8x10 newborn photos of the other kids - they needed Daphne's!

The main thing Meredith asked for this year was "an Elsa dress with a cape" and Elsa shoes. Elsa crowns were sold out :( so she received a musical Elsa scepter instead to complete the ensemble. It was a hit!

We weren't sure if this Mr. Potato Head set would be fun for Paige or not, but she really likes it, and the other kids do as well!

Lego building begins:

What a fun Christmas morning! So many great presents under the tree :)