Scarlett's 7 Photography

I had high hopes to work on the blog while I was away on vacation, but that didn't happen.  So these next few posts will be all the posts I meant to put up while I was gone.  Once I am through with that I'll get to posting about our trip back to the states. 

Scarlett turned seven back in May and so we took some pictures in our family room.  Nothing too fancy, just a chance for us to mark the this stage of life.

Scarlett loves dresses, or skirts, so we both felt it appropriate for her to wear one for the pictures.  In fact no matter how hard I try I cannot get her to wear jeans.  She will wear leggings but we have a rule that with leggings on she must wear something else that at least covers her bottom, so she usually ends up with a shirt, skirt and leggings.  Other than that she is not picky at all about what she wears.  It doesn't matter if it is hot or cold outside, it doesn't matter if the colors or patterns look good together.  She is all about the comfort of skirts and leggings.

Scarlett has such a big personality she is very emotional.  She gets so upset over things that seem so small to me.  I can just see that to her it is everything.  It is like her heart breaks three times a day, everyday.  She usually won't talk to anyone but me about it either.  So sometimes I feel bad for not giving her the sympathy she is looking for every time someone looks at her wrong (seriously she doesn't like her siblings to look or definitly not touch her).  With all of that comes how happy she is.  Scarlett can be very animated and gets excited and happy over what others would also call very small and insignificant things.  I am curious to see how all these feelings shape her adult personality.

Scarlett is sooooooo amazing with Calista.  She has told me for years that she wants to be a mom and ever since Calista was born I can really see Scarlett's motherly side come out.  It is incredible how much this 7-year-old will care about and take care of her baby sister.  She truly wants to be with Calista, not only when she is bored but just because she loves her and likes to be with her.

I think Scarlett is liking it here in Japan.  Honestly she acts pretty much the same here as she did back in the states.  I guess a main difference for her is that we homeschool, but that is unrelated to the fact that we live in Japan.  Homeschooling is going ok for Scarlett.  She will sometimes tell me that she doesn't want to homeschool, but when I ask her about going to public school she really doesn't want to do that either.  I can tell that she is learning and I think it has been good for her.  But she does struggle with wanting to do her work and different school things when I ask her to.

A couple things Scarlett likes:  dolls, treats, screen time, getting her nails painted, and playing uno.

We love Scarlett and are so happy she is in our family.

Smash Cake

We had a little birthday party for Calista after Bob got home from work yesterday.  All the kids were envious that Calista got her very own cake.

I love how the cake turned out!  I waited a couple days to get the right tip to frost it.  I've done these roses before but with the wrong tip and doing it right was soooo much easier. 

Calista was pretty happy that we sat her down in front of the cake.  She did a lot of poking her finger in it and then licking her finger.

At one point it fell over.   We tried to put it back up but at that point she was done with it.  She never really got handfuls of the cake part.  She didn't take big bites or make a mess.  She was done though, she just scooted away uninterested.  I even left the cake out on the plate for a couple hours until bedtime and she never went back for it.  Right before bed I fed her some more bites with a spoon and she ate them, but she wasn't extra excited about it or anything.

We also lined up some items to see which she would go for.  We have done this with all the kids and like to predict what their future occupation will be.  Calista was kind of funny with this.

She grabbed the scissors first, and then the pen right after that.  So maybe the scissors could be a hair dresser or online they said fashion designer for scissors.  The pen could be a writer.  Calista, quickly moved through the items picking up each thing before dropping it and grabbing the next.  Maybe that will be an indicator of her career path.

Lastly we gave her some presents.  Tucker and Leon both picked out one of their toys to give her.  It was sweet because they did this all on their own.  We also gave her a couple things from the 100 yen store.  I honestly give her things all the time but I didn't have any specific birthday presents planned for her.

She is waving bye to you!

One Year Photography

My baby turned one!  How did this year happen so quickly?  

Calista likes standing, she can now pull herself up and does it all the time.  She also loves to give kisses.  Big wet open mouth kisses.  It is adorable.  She drinks water from a sippy cup with a straw and thinks it is the best.  Any food we eat, she usually wants and crackers she really loves.  She also likes her family, and it's a good thing too, because she demands a lot of attention and has a lot of people to give it to her.  I also wrote that she likes my wallet.  It has got to be her favorite "toy."  Anytime she catches a glimpse of it she reaches and cries until she gets it!  She loves to pull all my money and cards out of it and throw everything around.  It is an issue every time I go to pay for something or try to get my base ID out.  I wrote that she dislikes pooping because she struggles with it and only goes about once a week.

I just love her so much at this age!  She is all smiles and waves, with a little bit of snuggling and clapping thrown in there.  The most mundane things are very interesting to her and it is so cute to watch her just stare intently at things.

She is pretty good at scooting now, and is wearing out the bum on all her pants.  I don't mind though, I hope she never learns to walk.

We've been stretching her wake up time so now she sleeps from about 8 at night to 6:30 in the morning.  It is awesome! 

Happy Birthday Calista!  We love you!

Calista 11 Months Old

Now that Calista is 11 months old I feel like I am trying to stop time as the days tick off before she turns one.  

I think her biggest milestone this month is that she got a tooth!   Her very first one!  I was so excited for her and I didn't notice any differences in her temprament when she was teething.  Just one day no teeth and the next I could see a slime clear/white sliver on the top of her bottom gum.

 Calista is also now a pro at scooting and she loves waving!  One of her favorite things to do is to eat the at her high chair!  I really think she likes to eat food like everyone else.

We had an incident with the robot vacuum bumping into her and lets just say she does not like the vacuum.  She will intently watch it, but if it gets close to her she will try to hit it and gets upset.

Check out that tooth!

Mint containers are always a favorite of hers.

This is the adorable face I see staring up at me multiple times a day.  "Mommy, pick me up.  I love you and I want you to hold me."

I love Calista!

Leon's 5-Year-Old Photos

Leon did not want to stop playing for five minutes to let me take the pictures of him last week before church but I made him anyways.  I feel like Leon changed so much in the last year.  He was so easy up until he turned four.  Like the most mellow easy going toddler that was pretty happy entertaining himself.  It seemed like at the flip of the switch after he turned four he turned crazy.  He now runs around jumping and climbing on everything.  He turned into a little ball of energy and I love it!

Leon is loud and fun and dirty, just everything a little boy should be.  He is always climbing on people and running around like crazy.  He leaves things out and tries to get aways with the least amount of work as possible.  I really like having him around. 

I didn't know Bob as a child but I can picture him being just like how Leon is now.

Along with Leon being so full of energy he is so genuine and sweet.  He gets nervous to do new things and he is so cute when he is scared.  If even a remotely scary scene will happen in a movie he will run over to me and try to hide his face from the screen.  Leon also will randomly come up to me and give me a hug.  He even sometimes shares his bed with Tucker when Tucker's bed can't be slept in because it is in fort mode. 

I've seen Leon try to keep up with his older siblings and get frustrated when he can't.  Often there will be things that they can do but he isn't old enough and he really is a trooper about it.  I think now that he is five he will be able to join in most of those types of things.  For example he got to hang out with me every week while the other kids did their swim and gym classes.  He is really fun for me to be around because he seems to have the right balance of talking to me and playing alone.  Leon really seems to idolize Tucker especially.  Not only does he try to copy him all the time Tucker is the one that he runs and jumps on and wrestles with all day.  I think he learned that the girls do not like it while Tucker will play back with him.

I'm excited to see how he continues to grow and learn this year.  I love him and am happy he is in our family.

Calista 10 Month Photography

The last two months she did amazing for her pictures but that was not the case today!  Now that this girl can move she won't stop.  For this picture I set up the sign, put her down and dashed to my camera which I had ready and then snapped the pic about 10 seconds before she slammed the sign down knocking off a third of the letters.

Calista likes scooting, getting things, army crawling, yogurt, and eating crumbs off the floor.  She will scoot all around now and is so happy about it.  Once in a while she will fall down after which she will proceed to army crawl around.  I don't think she minds either but she seems to prefer scooting and the girls are quick to swoop her up when she falls so I'm not sure if she will get much better at crawling.  She thinks it is funny to scoot away from us.  She spent one of Tucker's entire basketball practices trying to scoot onto the court.  Everytime she got passed the line I or Scarlett would pull her back and she would take off again, looking over her shoulder smiling at us to make sure we were watching her.

She also likes to eat any crumbs she can find on the floor and with four older siblings she finds plenty.  One time I found the kids "accidentally" dropping big pieces of their brownies on the floor and then laughing about how much she liked them. 

I've found she doesn't like to eat green beans, I'm not sure why but she pushes the mushed green beans out of her mouth even though she likes pretty much everything else.  She also doesn't like showers.  She has this bad habit of pooping a ton in her crib.  So much that it is pretty much everywhere and she needs a shower right away.  She hates it and it isn't fun for me either.  This probably happens at least once a week.

These next pictures aren't that great but I wanted to share them because they show a little bit about how things went.  She scooted around and wouldn't hold still for the camera.   

I even took things away so she would have nothing to play with but that didn't stop her.

I love this girl and  I'm not going to lie, she is getting more and more fun the older she gets.