Snow!

The kids woke us up bright and early on New Years Day and that's when we discovered we got a New Year's Day treat for Tucson: snow!  We bundled up as quickly as possible and went outside to play in the cold white stuff.  The snow wasn't great for making snowmen or even snow balls: it was very light and powdery.

It was great for snow angels.

 Being the desert rats that we are, we don't have sleds, so Colette got a laundry basket and a rope and we had fun pulling the kids back and forth across the yard.

 If you squeezed hard enough you could make a snowball and who doesn't love throwing snowballs.

 Here's a picture of an upright snow angel (named Annie).

 Here's another upright snow angel (named Rachel).

And now we're back to enjoying highs in the 70s. I was kind of hoping for a few more days of freezing weather to kill off all the bugs. Last year we only had 3 nights where it got down to freezing and the summer was really bad for bugs. This year we've had a few more days, 5-7 I think, but if it doesn't freeze more we'll have another buggy summer. The lizards will love it.

Family Pictures-Knight version

We did our family pictures back in November, but since Todd and Savannah were visiting for Christmas we wanted to get some pictures with everyone together. We almost forgot to arrange it and left it for the last day, which happened to be a freezing cold day, so we nixed our plans for going to Agua Caliente Park for a family photo shoot and just opted for some pictures at our house. My friend, Karolee, was nice enough to come snap some pictures for us.

Jared enjoyed photo bombing as we did test shots to check the lighting.

 Annie was being fancy...

The day happened to be overcast, so our natural lighting through the windows wasn't as bright as we had planned, but we got a few decent pictures inside before we headed outside for a few quick (cold) pictures.

 Grandma and Grandpa and all the grandkids:

 And just the grandkids:

 Check out Ryan in the following pictures. Trying to get "grandpa pants" going on, I guess.

 Not that his grandpas wear pants like that, but that's what we always call pants up to your armpits. Ryan is one funny kid sometimes.

We managed to get his pant fanatics calmed down and snap another good one:

 And a couple pictures of the happy couples...

 We threw some super nachos in for lunch and enjoyed the fun of having all the cousins together for one more time.

 It sure was fun having Todd and Savannah visit. Now that they're gone, we're contemplating a visit to their house this summer. Playing with cousins is just so fun!

And another picture of Ryan that doesn't fit anywhere, but he sure is looking good. :)

Megan is 6 months old!

Megan hit half a year old at the beginning of this month. To celebrate her half birthday she began army crawling. It took her about a week before she realized she was actually moving around, then she really took off. She has since started to get up on her hands and knees, rock back and forth, then dive forward, sometimes face planting. She knows there's a more efficient way to crawl, but can't quite get it just yet. Give her another week or so.

We pulled out her Johnny Jump Up and Annie and Rachel were more excited about it than she was. She tolerated it just fine, but hasn't quite caught on to the jumping aspect of it.

At 6 months old some of her favorite things are Ryan, pulling out fistfuls of hair, Ryan, gouging out eyes or gums with her fingernails, Ryan, eating paper or cardboard, Annie, biting a finger with her two new teeth that came in a week before she turned 6 months, Rachel, cords, Daddy, shoelaces, and Mommy. She is becoming a bit of a Mama's girl. She's happy to be crawling around, playing, or hanging out with Ryan, Annie, and Rachel, but if she sees me walk by, she starts crying. But Ryan can always cheer her up. He is the best big brother and loves making her happy. And as soon as Megan sees Ryan she'll break out into a huge smile. They're so cute together.

Ryan loves his cars and won't share with just anyone. Except for Megan.

Megan was rather fascinated with Ryan's helmet.

He was happy to accommodate her.

Ryan decided it was time to introduce Megan to all his big cars.

She was a fan. In this picture Megan looks so much like Ryan. Everyone says Megan is a mini, girl version of Ryan.

Ryan at 6 months:

Ryan taking a picture of Megan:

Megan is enjoying being able to eat like the rest of us. (Another picture Ryan or Annie took.)

Watching people chew is one of her favorite pastimes. She is totally fascinated by it. It even will calm her when she's cranky.


We took Megan to the doctor for her 6 month check up on Friday and her stats are in: 27.4 inches, which is the 94th percentile (no wonder she's growing out of some of her 9 month size clothes already) and 15 lb 6 oz (30th percentile). She got her immunizations like a champ--screamed at the nurse good and loud, then as soon as I picked her up she quieted down in less than 5 seconds and was totally happy heading out to the car. It somehow made me think of the very first time immunizing Rachel. It made me tear up to see my baby screaming in pain from the shots. Now it doesn't even phase me. Maybe because I know how resilient babies are. Or I'm just callous and unfeeling. ;)

Megan is a very smiley baby, but doesn't laugh all that often. It takes some real effort to make her laugh. Or she has to be almost too tired, then it's a little easier.

We got a pretty good video that captures her happy personality (and skillful hair-grabbing) pretty well.

We sure are happy to have Megan around. She makes getting things done around the house super hard because she prefers to be held or have someone (preferably Mom) sitting with her the whole time she's on the ground. But she makes everyone happy with her squeals and smiles and even hair pulling. And everyone in the family is learning how to serve and help out, both around the house, and with the baby more. When Megan starts crying now I hardly ever have to ask anyone to go help her, they just jump up and run over to try to cheer her up. It sure is fun to see her learning and growing and progressing. 

And speaking of growing up, Ryan thinks he's approaching the age where he can give up naps. Yesterday I couldn't prevail upon him to nap for anything. We finally settled on sitting on his bed reading books for quiet time, which he did. A few hours later the kids were watching a movie and Ryan couldn't hold out any longer.

He woke up SO cranky he wouldn't stop screaming for a half hour. His sleep needs are a delicate balance and getting too much or too little or falling asleep at the wrong time makes for a very cranky 2-year-old. I do not enjoy this stage so much.

The rest of the year

We took it easy the day after Christmas, staying at home in our pjs most of the day. Having a few days to sit around not doing anything has really made for a nice, relaxing vacation. We went and hung out with cousins at Grandma and Grandpa's house over the weekend, then Sunday Todd and Savannah's family came to our house for a 2 night slumber party.

We started the party off with our Sunday night Scoops. Ice cream brings families together. :)

Jared and Eloise slept in Rachel and Annie's room, and Ryan joined in the fun, too. For having 5 kids in one room, they fell asleep pretty well and did a pretty good job at sleeping (except Ryan who came to wake me up both nights around 2 am). Monday Todd and Savannah volunteered to take our kids to the zoo so we could put away Christmas decorations.

 I love this picture Savannah snapped of Ryan and B eating lunch together.

They're buddies. They've gotten along well for the whole visit. Their shared love for cars has helped them bond, I think. :)
We did manage to get all our Christmas stuff packed away in less than 4 hours. It took us more than 3 days to put it all up. I always appreciate how take down is way easier than putting it up.

The next day we headed out to the Desert Museum to take advantage of Grandma Knight's membership one more time before it expired at the end of the year. It was a lot of walking. We had strollers and baby carriers enough to go around, but pushing strollers on sandy desert dirt hills is not for the faint hearted. We got a good workout. And saw a few animals, too.

We walked enough to knock out these two.

Annie never naps these days, so she must have been really tired to succumb to sleep in the middle of the day. Megan had an awesome nap while we were walking around the Desert Museum, so spent the entire (45 minute) ride home needing to be entertained. Luckily Rachel sits right next to Megan in the car and takes good care of her.

The next day was New Years Eve. We chilled at home until Ryan and Megan were done with their naps then headed in to Grandma and Grandpa's house for some fun. Of course Megan typically naps for 30 minutes max when I would LOVE for her to nap longer. The one time we put her down counting on her half hour long nap she goes for much longer. We finally woke her up so we wouldn't miss out on New Years Eve festivities with everyone else.

After dinner we played some charades, then joined Cape Verde off the western coast of Africa in counting down to their new year (6pm here).

We braved the rain for some fun with sparklers.

Overall, a good ending to a great year. Here's hoping 2015 is as great as 2014 was. Happy New Year!!

Megan's New Dress

Aunt Lisa is a master seamstress.  She was kind enough to sew Megan a beautiful pink dress.

Thanks a bunch Lisa!

Christmas Afternoon

 We hosted Christmas dinner at our house (at lunchtime), so around 11 or 12 the cousins and everyone showed up and we had our cousin gift exchange, and opened presents from Grandma and Grandpa, too. It was mild chaos, but lots of fun.

 

Ryan and Rachel got homemade stuffed animals from their cousins that were pretty cool. Rachel told me she wants to learn how to sew her own stuffed animals now. And Ryan's dog is actually filled with rice, so it can be a heat pack or an ice pack. It's our owie dog that fixes all owies now. Annie got a ride on horse that was pretty cool, too. At some point that afternoon Ryan took possession and played with it for a while. And made Grandma kiss it.

 Along with the bean bag chairs, Santa left a projector for watching movies. Since the only open wall in the house that was in a room dark enough to watch movies in the middle of the day was in our bedroom, we set it up for the kids to watch Planes while the adults played a game downstairs.

The movie projecting sure makes the movie more fun. We watched it on the wall downstairs for movie night and it was great. I'm hoping for a screen for my birthday so we don't have to take pictures off the walls to watch movies whenever we want to watch.

Here I am checking my email for the best gift ever from my mom.

 She gave me 6 man hours of professional house cleaning! Woohoo! That means all the things I never get around to cleaning because of taking care of 4 kids, including a demanding little baby, might get cleaned before Megan is 2 years old! A couple of kids ago I decided that a house cleaning would be the best baby shower gift. If it weren't so darn expensive. Luckily my mom found a groupon-type deal and I benefit. :)

Rachel and Jared spent much of the afternoon like this in various locations throughout the house:

 Those two are book worms and I love how they like to just sit together and read and read. Rachel got a 12 pack of My Weird School books for Christmas. By the day after Christmas she was already done reading them all. I've got to find a series of longer books that are at her reading level. She is supposed to be reading books between upper 3rd grade level up to lower 5th grade level, but finding books at that level that appeal to her is a challenge.
Anyway, Christmas was great. The best part was having family around to spend the day with. We got to Skype with Jacob's family, too, for a while, though we missed seeing them in person. Family really is what it's all about.