The Littlest Monkey Turns 11 Months

Well my baby Monkey is turning 11 months tomorrow, so I figured it was long pass due to do an update on my little girl. I think the last one I did was for her turning six months and oh how things have changed since then.

She enjoys eating anything she can get her hands on. Here are some older pictures when I would have her on the counter while I would be cooking. She is always hunting for her food.

A banana from the fruit bowl.

October 2, 2010

I thought this was a picture of her eating some eggplant that I gave her, but looking at it more closely she is actually eating swiss chard that she hunted off of the counter on the same day.

A month later she found some collard greens on the counter and decided to try those.

And now for her favorite place to go hunting, the floor. My dad went to the Consumer Electronic Show and wrote to the family "We saw several self powered vacuums, that is ones that wander around the floor picking up dirt with on one controlling them." I instantly thought "I have one of those!" Here she is at work on a specially cleaned floor, and with many comments from the banana gallery.

For a while she decided not to eat anything that she couldn't pick up herself. I had to give up feeding her anything except yogurt or oatmeal. Even when the rest of us were eating soup, she would have none of it, but now she will eat soup, sometimes. Sadly she no longer will eat anything that she can pick up though and have become somewhat of a picky eater.

Here is a movie of her actually eating soup. It shows how she asks for more food by clicking her tongue. I was also trying to get her to answer if she liked the soup by shaking her head.

For Halloween we were the Incredibles. Here is out female Jack Jack.

Over Thanksgiving we went to an Aquarium. Chloe loved looking at all the fishes, even though it was very hard to get a picture of her and the fish, this is the best that we got.

This is my little monkey showing off her teeth. At eight months she had eight teeth. However, she has yet to get any more!!!

Here are a few pictures of my little monkeys together; relaxing, eating and playing.

Chloe is hanging out with her cousin when he came to visit for a night.

She really likes to stand up these days. She is really enjoying entertaining her siblings (and parents) by letting go of whatever she is holding on to while standing. She will stand up for a second and then fall on her bottom. She thinks it is great for everyone to laugh and clap.

I recently found matching PJs for my girls. Yes, those are monkeys on them. My boy got some monkey pajamas to but I haven't yet got a picture of all of them together yet.

Here is my little monkey getting around by almost crawling.

Here she is crawling around.

And here is her newest trick, she has finally started walking around holding on to furniture. This is from last Friday when we had sick kids and was watching a movie and eating popcorn.

We sure love our little monkey even if she is crazy and wants to be on the move as much as she can.

Well this is my update on my littlest monkey and in a few short weeks, I will be doing another one as she starts walking, maybe that will even happen before she turns 1.

Winter Fun

My wish for snow this winter came true, perhaps a little to much so, but it was fun in the beginning. It started on Boxing Day, Dec. 26. Nothing for Christmas, but they made up for it!!

This is the neighbor's car after they cleared off the top, of course.

Here are the kids ready to start shoveling the driveway.

The kids in front of the snow pile.

Brian and the kids had fun making steps in the snow pile, so that the kids could climb over the snow.

Or they could just slide down.

We then decided that we might actually need a sled this year. Our front yard made a pretty good hill for the kids.

The next day we had some friends over to enjoy our sledding hill. This year was the first time that my kids really enjoyed being out in the snow, that made all of the snow very nice to have. Even if they did always want hot chocolate when they were done, at least we could get out of the house and have something fun to do!!

Now time for a video!

Our friends also helped us make a snowman as tall as me!! (But it is all melted now.)

We got another good snow storm about a month later, Jan. 26th. Brian was in Chicago when it came and he was unable to come home that day, it snowed for the whole day, these pictures are from the next day. I got to try and shovel all of the heavy wet snow. This is the driveway/car after at least an hour of shoveling. It would have been out there all day if it wasn't for some kind neighbors with a snowblower.

This is my neighbors house with snow all the way up to the mailbox!!

Here is Lizzie showing how deep the snow is, notice how the bush is bending under the wait. This snow was so wet and heavy that it was getting harder to play in and that is when I get tired of snow.

And then about a week later, Feb 2, the ice came. It made for some great pictures.

But didn't work so good for the sledding aspect, which the kids still wanted to do, just about every day.

Notice how they are just walking on top of the snow. Even I could walk on top of the snow, so thick was the ice, and this was a few days later. I am so happy that my kids have found the joy in playing in the snow and I have be able to enjoy it as well. Perhaps next year they will get to try skiing. But now the fun of winter is ending as the snow is dirty and icy, and no longer nice to play in, and it is time for spring to start!!!

This last week we have thankfully had some warm days, even getting to nearly 70, and now this is what the front yard looks like. We do have grass, I didn't expect to see that for a few more weeks. The warm weather has been great though as we have been able to get out a little. We even went to the zoo on Friday.

It makes me hopeful that spring is on its way, but this week we are back to 30's and 40's. The joys of changing seasons!

Update:

The next day, Feb. 21, we got about 6 inches of fresh clean snow on the ground and I actually like seeing snow again. The kids got to sled down the front yard a few more times, which they enjoyed. By now, the 24th, the yard again looks like it did in the above picture.

I also forgot a part of our winter fun. Just before Christmas Brian took Lizzie ice skating. Here are some pictures of her skating with her walker.

Here is a movie of her skating around. I think that she is expecting a still picture to be taken so she keeps the smile on her face very well the whole time.

It was so much fun for them that the whole family went just after Christmas. It is great to see them skating around and trying new things!!!

Happy Winter!!!

My New Tortilla Maker

For Christmas I got a tortilla press and have been enjoying making tortilla ever since. Well today I found out that I might have someone else to take over that job. It was so nice to have Lizzie work on the extra tortillas so that I could make the rest of our yummy enchiladas for dinner. It was so cute I just has to take a video of her hard at work!!!

How Many Cows Licked your Head Last Night?

One day this week while brushing Jamie's hair Brian mentioned that he had a cow lick and asked him if a cow had licked his hair in the night.

So on Friday when Jamie woke up with hair looking like this,

I asked him how many cows licked his head last night?

His answer "Four."

I think he guess about right!!!

(The night before I went to a RS meeting where there was a lesson about photography and light so I was also playing around with the light coming through our front windows. It does add a little more drama to the look!!)

The City of Brotherly Love - September 24-26

In September, my mom came to visit. Part of the reason for her visit was to go to a Wynne family reunion in Philadelphia, PA. Before leaving home she helped Chloe find a new way to play with her toys.

After getting to the hotel I thought that maybe one of the kids could sleep in the suitcase that we brought . . .

but as it turned out none of them fit.

After working out our sleeping arrangements, we went up and meet with the people in the group at a reception and had dinner with them.

The next day we went into Philadelphia and got to be tourist. First stop the Liberty Bell!

Then to Independence Hall. This picture is of the court part of the hall I believe. The tour guide is holding up an picture of what hung on the back of the wall before Independence was claimed from England. It was made of wood and was burned that day.

This is a close up of the picture now hanging in the back. The boat in the middle is the Welcome on which Thomas Wynne (our ancestor) came over with William Penn.

Here is a picture of the Declaration of Independence which actually took many years for everyone of sign as it had to move around during the Revolutionary War so it wouldn't be found.

This is us in the room where they met to write the document.

We then went for a walk to the Betsy Ross House seeing a few other things on our way. This is on the the first banks, I can't remember if it is the first or the second.

This is in front of the Carpenter's Meeting House where a group of men first met to talk about claiming Independence from England.

And this is the Betsy Ross House

This is a cute picture of Chloe that we took while waiting for the rest of the group to get to the house!!!

After touring the house we were left with almost two house before our next visit which was to the Wynne Estate, built by the son of Thomas Wynne. Those on the bus decided to take a driving tour of the city which the kids decided to join with grandma. Brian and I decided to tour the mint and see how they make money.

Below is a picture of the house that was built by Thomas Wynne.

They next day the group didn't have much planned during the day so we decided to go looking for some other family sites. We went to Mormon Hallow and found the place which was owned by Edward Hunter. Here is the kids by the marker that talks about him.

We really wanted to find the Semanary building at which the Mormon missionaries taught the people in the area. And we had a very hard time, even though my mom knew is should be close to the marker. But she was expecting to find this . . .

But found this instead. The building is still there but is now hidden behind this fence, where before we could go right up to it. They did have signs on the side from the LDS church and Fairview Presbyterian Church, these were the two main groups that help meeting in the building.

Then we went to find the 1704 Brinton House which belonged to one of my ancestors.

That night they had a big banquet. One of the reasons that we really wanted to go to this reunion was to see again the mayor of Caerwys, Wales which we had met before when we crashed their reunion that was held in Wales while we were living in England. When we went to the other reunion I was pregnant with Lizzie. Many of them were amazed to see that I now have three kids. I was fun to see these people again.

This is our family at the banquet with the mayor in his full robes. (Jamie has his hat on.)

And this is the Mayor with the woman who works so hard to put on these reunions every year or two.

Chloe with some new found friends.

Sunday on our way to church we stopped by the Hans Herr House, which they have turned into a museum and was closed, but we still walked over to look at the house.

It was great to get back to Philly and to show Brian what a fun place it can be. I really enjoy seeing the places where this nation was born and feeling the spirit that the founding fathers must have felt as they took the steps to make a nation that would be freed from kings and rulers. It was also great to spend some time visiting places where my family had come from and learning more about them. I sometimes wish I could return to those times.

Today, I taught my Primary class about Joseph Smith Jr.'s childhood and I was reminded of how nice it would be to have to work hard as a family for food and daily survival. What a different world that would have been then the one today.

Before my mom left she taught Chloe one more trick and a movie is the only way to see it properly!!!