He reads!

Although he doesn't know the names of all of the letters, he does know the sounds - and that's what's important for learning how to read. It's a long video, but it's really cute.

It's about time...

...we post some heart-warming pictures.

 Mount Royal, Montreal, QC

  Mount Royal, Montreal, QC

Montreal Temple

Montreal Botanical Gardens

Even more from our trip to Montreal...

A Baby Sister

The probability of it happening wasn't very high and neither Talyn nor I particularly wanted a baby on leap day - but it still happened. Barely. It was 11:00pm in the hospital when Talyn mentioned that she hadn't even had the urge to push. She had pushed for 30 minutes for both Alena & Reasor, so there was a good chance that Elsie was going to be born after midnight. Not 5 minutes later and after a full minute of pushing, our third child came into the world. Don't worry, I'm not going to give any more details about the birth. That's Talyn's story.

Now we're officially outnumbered. I don't have a very good idea what it's like yet, since Talyn's parents are here for a week to help out, but I'm optimistic. Alena & Reasor love having a baby sister. They're excited when she opens her eyes, show concern when she's crying, and give her lots of hugs and kisses.

Visiting Mommy & Elsie at the hospital

This first video is a little soft, but if you listen carefully, you'll hear Alena talking to Elsie and Reasor repeating every word.

Reasor started calling himself "Baby Reasor" a couple months ago, and we were afraid that he would be jealous of a new baby in the house. Of course, it's only been a few days, but it seems like he loves having a baby sister. Here, he's showing us that he can be a good big brother by reading her a story and giving her a "good night, sleep tight" hug.

When Reasor was born, Alena took the change in stride, like she does with most things. But for the past few months, Alena has been very excited and always said that she wanted a baby sister. "A baby girl was my choice," she told me after I broke the news that it was a girl.

Alena showing Elsie all of the new baby toys

Though having a baby at anytime is no small undertaking, I've found that this time has affected me the least. I found myself less anxious about the pregnancy and less changed by the birth. Maybe it's because so much of my time and energy is spent with Alena & Reasor, or maybe it's because we're getting more and more used to having a family.

Manual Dexterity

Sometime I'm not thrilled when my kids are good at something. For instance, this week Reasor learned to turn door knobs. He also learned how to carefully unscrew the light bulb from his bedroom lamp. Thankfully he also uses those skilled hands to give the best hugs ever.

Bugs & Books

In preparation for Reasor's 18-month doctor's appointment, Talyn & I decided to count how many words Reasor knows. We stopped counting after we hit 50. He's a smart little boy, and he seems to be progressing exponentially! One of his favorite words is "bug". Everything that is little is a bug to him. Specks of dirt floating in the water, a mark on the wall, a small piece of peach skin he pulled out of his mouth, etc. This time he did find a bug, but it was on the outside of the window:

Alena has been learning the alphabet and how they form words for the past couple years, and she read her first book just a couple months ago, just before her 4th birthday. As you can see, she loves the fact that she can read all by herself. She certainly loves to read books. (be forewarned, this is a long video, but it's worth it)

Antecedent

You might look at this photo and assume the children are growling like a lion or such like. Not so. This is what my kids do when they are instructed to say "cheese." Perhaps it's an especially stinky cheese they are imagining?

P.S. They are shirtless because they were waiting for the Dr. to come in for their physicals.

Mango Pit

Even though Reasor can't eat dairy, eggs, or peanuts, he certainly eats his share of fruit. Some days, he'll eat several bowlfuls of strawberries, grapes, & blueberries, then have a couple bananas. If he had his way, he'd probably eat 2 or 3 oranges. So it's no wonder he loves mangoes, especially the pit. When I was younger, my dad & I usually took turns eating the pit, and now I can pass on that practice to my son. I can usually count on getting a good 10-15 min of quiet if I give him a mango pit to eat.

Also, Reasor's picking up more and more words, plus he often nods when you ask him a question:

A year old!

Yes, it's already been an entire year since Reasor was born, and what a year it has been. Born in Utah, we moved to Georgia when he was just 5 week old and by the time he was 5 months, he had flown in a plane 5 times! Mobility-wise, he started army crawling at 6 months, normal crawling at 7 months, standing up unassisted and walking around furniture at 9 months, then taking steps while pushing a chair at 10 months. Then, just a few days before his 1st birthday, he took his very first steps:

He still prefers crawling, but he's getting the hang of it. Happy Birthday, Reasor!

Christmas Pictures

Here are the pictures that belong with the December 26 post. I'm posting them here because then people using Reader can see them too. Merry Christmas!

Reasor enjoying a Christmas orange

Alena enjoying her new kitchen

Christmas Snow Angels

Reasor, in his Halloween costume which is the warmest outfit that fits, looks in the window.

Wind Resistance

I love to watch my kids when they want to go faster. They both duck their head and look at the ground as if to improve their aerodynamics. Alena does it running and Reasor does it crawling. It's especially exciting to watch them almost crash into walls and things only to look up and change course at the last second.

Motion Pictures

A certain grandma pointed out that we have only posted one lonely video since Reasor's birth. At first it might be seem that, since Reasor is our second child, we might have gotten a little less ambitious to take pictures and video. Luckily, that is not the case. We have simply just been keeping them for ourselves.

So here is a collection of a few that show some of Reasor's milestones up until this point:

5 months: Kicking like a penguin and staying in one spot.

6 months: Being ambitious as he makes his way towards Mommy...and the books...

7 months: Imitating Reuben in a epic crawl towards the camera.

7 months: Showing his tongue prowess.

7 months: A belly full of laughs.

Weather Weenies

On Saturday night, we went to Stone Mountain for the laser show. We were sitting out on the grass watching when it started to sprinkle. Several people got up to leave and I thought, "What weenies that they can't handle a little sprinkle." Within minutes their judgement was supported. It began to pour We're not talking just any rain. It was big-dropped, get-soaked-to-the-bone-within-5-minutes kind of rain. The kind in which you'd skip down the street for fun. Anyway, we had remembered an umbrella...in the car. I thought about going to the car, but it would have taken us 10 minutes to get there, and by then the rain would probably be over. So I held a frisbee over the baby's head and Kevin held the nursing cover over Alena. OK, I tried to hold a frisbee over the baby's head, but he kept grabbing it and putting it in his mouth. He was not bothered in the least by the rain. He didn't even seem to notice it. The people behind us (who had 3 umbrellas) were bothered that he was in the rain. Not enough to lend us an umbrella though. Just enough to mutter about us just loud enough for us to hear. Ah, people and their obsession with wanting to enforce their weather weenie-hood on babies all the time. It made me smile a little bit. But not as much as the rain itself. I love being outside in a downpour. So invigorating.

P.S. Dear Reasor's grandmothers, It was like 85 degrees still. No one was going to get hypothermia from this.

P.P.S. As you can see from the photo, by the time we got back to the car, the rain had pretty much stopped.

Love II

I love listening to Reasor. He whispers to himself. "Ha da da da da da. Ha da da da da da."

Escape Artist

For the first time in many years, we went to the circus when it came to town. It was actually a lot more entertaining than we thought it would be, and though Alena didn't seem to be paying much attention, she talked about it nonstop on the way home. Reasor must have learned something there too. I mean, how did he manage to get from this:

to this, in under 2.5 minutes?

Good thing he was willing to divulge his trickery so we don't just sit around scratching our heads.