Other stuff

Some other stuff from the past week or two.

Raspberry fingers

So entranced in the movie she stood like this for 15 minutes

Playing on the new sled. Will we get any chance to use it this year?

New canvas prints in our 2nd floor hall

Elise ate the point off this crayon and refused to stop. I had to floss the blue wax out from between her teeth.

Seeing A Christmas Carol at the Alpine Community Theater. Sadie and her friend Jersey loved it, but were very confused by both the plot and the fact that the same person played a couple of characters.

Not pictured: tons of stuff. We stayed really busy while Daniel was gone and it made the time go by quickly. We saw Big Hero 6 and Alexander and the No Good, Terrible...Day in the theater, had dinner at 2 friends houses, a marathon play date with the Faucettes, play date with the Andersons and lots of games/books/crafts/shows at home.

Thanksgiving Day

Daniel was gone in Hawaii for the entire week of Thanksgiving. I realized about a week before the big day that we had no plans for dinner. It wasn't a huge deal to me, but I texted some extended family members to find out what they were doing. It turned out my cousin Lacy had no set plans. We settled on eating at our house, with Lacy and my Uncle Robert making most of the food. Sounded perfect to me.

Sadie was very enthusiastic about helping me get ready. We prepared the napkins days before. 

Elise got tuckered out on Thanksgiving morning and had to take a nap before everyone arrived. 

We ended up with 6 adults (me, Lacy, Brandon, Robert, Kathryn and Bobpa) and 7 kids (2 babies, Sadie, Elise, Elly, Miles, and Henry). It was a great size. Not too big but still felt like a good group. The food was delicious and the kids played happily (mostly).

I wrapped the kids table using our huge paper roll and the kids enjoyed coloring on it. Elly and Sadie wrote love notes to each other. 

That makes two Thanksgivings in a row where Thanksgiving was held at my house, but I basically did none of the cooking. I need to keep this streak alive.

And I got all my sistahs with me

For the first time in 2 years we got some family pictures taken. We are all always relieved when those are over. The girls were not badly behaved, but Elise was her usual non-attentive, silly self and Camille was stone faced. We did not capture one smile from Mills. That's alright, because I love a lot of them. Enjoy.

Seven

 Camille has passed the 7 month mark. I feel like life is jut hurtling toward her first birthday. She will be walking before we know it. 

 The two biggest changes this month are that she started taking a bottle (and she holds it herself) and she has two teeth. My kids have never gotten teeth this early so I thought her fussiness was all due to the shots at her 6 month appointment. When she was still having symptoms 10 days after the appointment it occurred to me that she might be teething. Sure enough- two teeth were already poking through. I was still nursing exclusively at that point, and you would think I would have attributed that pinching feeling to teeth, but no, I just thought Camille was sucking differently. 

 Plastic wipes containers are Millie's favorite toy. I did finally pull out our bin of baby toys, which has mostly been enjoyed by the older girls. Occasionally Mills gets to play with some of them.

 Camille devours graham crackers at impressive speed. And she eats the entire square down to a little nub in her hand. I give her a square a couple times a week. Definitely a function of a third child- with my other kids I tried to avoid anything but fruits/veggies at this age, but it is just so hilarious to watch her. We all usually gather around and analyze the process. She enjoys all baby food but carrots. Every time I feed her carrots she gags. She also loves to try to lap water out of my cup. When I put a water cup up to her mouth that tongue comes out and she probably adds more slobber to the cup than water she ingests, but she kicks and pants like crazy about it. 

 She has started using her hands a lot. She likes to point in the air and then slowly move her pointer finger up and down in front of her face. She also just started half-clapping. She brings her hands together to imitate my clapping, but there is no sound. She continues to enjoy slapping her hands on my face.

 Millie sits up pretty well. When she is done with sitting she usually slowly bends forward and to the side until her face hits the floor and then she pops her legs out. The first few times she did this I thought it was a fluke, but it appears to be on purpose now.

 Once she is on her tummy she rotates herself anywhere she wants to go. Nothing resembling crawling at all. And that's just fine by me. 

Overall Camille continues to be one of the best baby in the history of babies. She had some sad times this month before I realized she was getting teeth so I should maybe cut her some slack and give her some Tylenol.

Official 7 month photo:

Time to Say Goodbye

A picture I took as I was leaving work recently

I have worked for the past 6 1/2 years as the financial manager of the library at Utah Valley University (a big state school in Utah). Following Sadie's birth, the library director allowed me to split my work hours between home and the office. This was kept somewhat quiet since the university as a whole has nonsensical standards on people working from home. My boss figured since he was happy with my work performance and the library is kind of a separate entity, it was fine. Well he retired this past summer and the new director is not willing to ignore university policies, no matter how well I do my job. And I am not willing to spend 75% of my net salary on child care (as well as miss 90% of the hours my children are awake). 

So it is time for me to leave my job. The Christmas holiday break will bring the end for me. It always seemed a little too good to be true; that I was able to enjoy a very low-stress career as well as be at home a lot with my kids. I will miss it. I am excited and nervous to be done working. I plan on traveling as much as possible, which may not be at all since I won't be making the money to pay for the trips.

 I am kicking off my vacation from full-time work with a trip to Boston with my kids by myself to see my whole family. Can't wait. 

The Times They are A-Changing

ALERT: TWO HUGE CHANGES IN MY LIFE

1. Elise is potty-trained! 

She is not perfect, but pretty close. It took 4 introductions over the past year, but she decided she wanted to do it. Just randomly requested to wear underwear a month ago. And we went cold-turkey. All underwear, all the time. Nothing extra at night. She's had a few accidents, but overall Lou is doing great. I am so proud of her. She seems so grown up now.

 2. Camille is bottle-trained!

This is the bigger change for me. I no longer have to plan my entire life around nursing. Camille seems to be loving it as well. Something just clicked with her and she decided she did like bottles. She holds them herself and everything. I just have to remember to bring bottles/formula with me when we leave the house. By the time Millie hits 7 months she should be completely done nursing.

If only my kids could start making all their own meals. 

Attitude of Gratitude

Nielson family gratitude list:

-family

-Elise & Mom

-Jesus

-home

-Sadie & Camille

-cousins

-treats

-Joseph Smith

-Moroni

-airplanes

-healthy bodies

-Nana & Papa

-Mimi & Paco

-trees

-books

-coloring

-mini-vans

-Camille

-school

-Earth

-friends

-Holy Ghost

-temple

-jobs

-dancing

-BYU

-food

-bedroom

-heart

Daniel and I came up with a few of these, but Sadie and Elise did the majority of them. We started by making the turkey and Sadie decided she should write what we are all thankful for on the feathers. Then we added the tree when Sadie wanted to add more items. Sadie was really focused on our bodies and wanted to list basically every body part, while Elise primarily suggested things related to either nature or religion.

One huge thing we missed: our babysitter, Amber. We are lucky to have found her. She keeps our girls happy and healthy while we are at work. She is Camille's second favorite person (I am #1 of course :) ). She is an incredible artist. The girls spend hours each afternoon coloring/painting/crafting with her.