Time Flies!

Erik will be 4 months on Friday! Since Jason and I (and Erik, of course) will be in France and Switzerland during that time, I thought I'd pay tribute to his four months now.

Believe it or not, he did gain another pound, making him 16 pounds, according to our scale. Victoria was 17 pounds at 12 months, so we have had the spectrum of skinny babies and chubby babies!

Other than getting stronger and going a little longer without nursing, not too much has changed. I have noticed something about him that's different than his siblings. He does not care for any of his toys. Not the ones hanging from the bouncer, not any other fun things I give him while he's on the floor. He only wants to look at people! If he's left alone, he will fuss until someone comes over to "talk" to him. Luckily, the kids enjoy this. If they're not around, he will twist his body and stare at me across the room in the kitchen, where I'm trying to accomplish something so I can go "talk" to him. So, we have another social bug amongst us. It's very cute, though, and he's going to love all the undivided attention he'll get on our trip!

Au revior! (I think that's how you spell it!)

12, 34

On the 12 th was my 34 th b-day. Here are some of the highlights of my day:

This cutie! Here he is with me over the weekend.

Also:

-a good workout in the morning

-finding the soundtrack to Tangled at the library that we danced to many times during the day

-having my friends surprise me with bagels and an Oreo cake at my house when we were supposed to have our meeting for our Primary callings (we still had our meeting, but with an extra perk!)

-another friend dropping off lotion a chocolates

-Karissa and Austin playing well for a long time on their own

-hanging out with my boys outside (the weather was dry and nice in the afternoon) while the girls went to dance

-cinnamon rolls from my friend who drove the girls to dance

-Chinese food and and chocolate cake that Victoria made

-flowers from Jason

-nice cards and a few gifts from family and friends

-phone calls from friends and family

-weighing less than I had for the previous few nights, despite eating a few more treats!

Here's a pic that Karissa took with my flowers.

After she took a bunch of pictures, though, there was a finger print on the lens, hence the smudgy pictures with my cake!

I don't know if you can see Erik well, but he's smiling here at the excitement.

We forgot to have the kids take a pic of us before going to bed, so we cleaned off the lens and took it ourselves. What a great day!

Skatin' Station

As mentioned before, we went to the Skatin' Station over mid-winter break with our friend Bethany for the preschool skate. They got to see Elmo.

Here's Karissa on the wall at the beginning, but she got more confident as the time went on.

Luckily, I brought our training skates for Austin, just in case. He wanted to use them and did very well for a 2 1/2 year-old!

Victoria took right off and did great! I'm excited to skate with her around our cul-de-sac!
Aren't they cute holding hands?
Austin later decided to push his car around like some of the other boys his age were doing. He enjoyed running at high speed with the loud music.

When we left, we got free tickets to come back. Since they only do the preschool skate on Thursdays and Karissa's preschool the next Thursday was moved to Wednesday, we took advantage and went with her friend. Here she is, the next week, looking good!

Here's her friend Evelyn.
Erik slept most of the time, but here he is on another day, getting some lovin' from his sisters!

Musical Number

Last Sunday in church Victoria and Karissa got to sing in sacrament meeting with three other girls, Flora (6), Avery (5), and Kaitlyn (3). They sang a song from Primary called My Heavenly Father Loves Me and Avery and Kaitlyn's mom played the flute while Victoria's piano teacher accompanied them on the piano. They did a great job and were so precious! We got a lot of compliments, especially from the Primary music teacher. Since we don't video tape during sacrament meeting at church, we don't have a video of it, but luckily the same person who asked them to sing in church asked them to sing at the assisted living home that night, so we recorded it there. Since Flora couldn't be there that night and we need some extra volume, as there was no microphone, we had some of the older girls who were there sing with our little ones. My girls were a little more distracted, especially Karissa, and you can't hear too well in the video, but here is the link if you want to see them. Enjoy!
http://youtu.be/C5KXvnfbJs4

Mid-Winter Break

Have you ever heard of mid-winter break? I hadn't, 'til I came here. We have winter break and spring break and also a mid-winter break in between. I used to wonder why, but now I just think it's because everyone gets sick this time of year here and they may as well cancel school. Last year Victoria was sick for over a week with a fever and Karissa for a few days. The two years before we had some major stomach bugs. Luckily this year only Karissa, Austin, and I are sick with just a cold. Unfortunately, mine is in the form of an ear infection at the moment and I can't hear a thing with my "good" ear besides the constant ringing! No matter, we're glad we can still go places instead of be cooped up all day.

Tomorrow is Erik's 3 month b-day. We'll celebrate by going to the preschool skate at the skating rink. The kids will get a snack, Austin will get to ride his little car, and Erik will get to ride in the stroller. (The girls get to skate of course!)

Here's some stats on the big 3-month-old.

-he loves to kick in the bathtub
-he loves to smile, especially when his siblings act goofy in front of him
-he enjoyed looking at the sparkling lights at the church where Mommy and Daddy went for the adult dance
-he laughs when his clothes are being taken off
-and yes, he has gained some weight since last month! I weighed him at home, so not quite as accurate, but he's now 15 1/2 lbs.!

Here's some pics of my butterball. This one reminds me of Karissa a little. It must be those cute chubby cheeks!

This is his favorite position. Though I always give him tummy time, he prefers his back.

Coin Jar

Toward the end of my pregnancy with Erik the kids were fighting a ton with each other. Since I was tired, I probably didn't react the best in all the situations. When the new year came, I decided to pull out some incentives to help us all restore some peace into our home.

We had a bunch of left-over coins from Victoria's pirate party. I told the kids if we could fill up a mason jar with coins to the first line, we could all go out to eat. The next line we would do a fun activity together, like bowling. When it gets filled to the top they get to choose to go wherever they want, as long as it's within reason.

Each time any one of them fights with another (excessive teasing is included) they get an eye on the white board. The next fight gets another eye, and the third fight gets a frown. If there is no frown at the end of the day, even if there are eyes, then they earn a coin. Last weekend they earned it up to the first line, so we went to Golden Corral for dinner. They really enjoyed getting to choose the foods they wanted and Victoria did great trying different foods. Karissa and Austin stuck with the pizza, rolls, and fruit. Of course dessert was a big hit! Austin finally got the hang of it and ran off to get in line again as we were leaving. I grabbed him a corn muffin to appease him.

The coin jar is working and they hardly ever get even an eye. That's not to say that nothing little starts brewing, but they are quickly dissolved when I ask if they want an "eye". Hopefully we can still keep the peace around here when the coin jar is finished!

Here's my cutie Erik.

He was trying to suck on the zipper of his hoodie.

Little Duckling

About a month ago, Jason pointed out something odd about Erik's toes. It was very hard to take a clear picture of it, as he kept moving his feet and curling up his toes. Oh well! If you look at the second and third toes, they are connected about half way up. They are like that on both sides and on both feet, though not quite as bad on the left foot.

I asked the doctor about it last week at his 2 month appointment and she said it's not uncommon. She'll just keep an eye on it, but he's most likely going to always have a couple of webbed toes. At first I was disturbed, but since it won't affect his running and walking, I've come to terms with it. He might just be a really good swimmer! He also won't have my distinctive E.T.-looking toes; spindly and wide-spread.

Speaking of his 2 month check-up; I shouldn't say "little duckling", I should say "big duckling"! This boy is 14 pounds and 25.4 in. long! That puts him in the 90th and 95th percentiles! He's a pound and an inch bigger than Austin was at this time. It brings me to two conclusions: he will either be a giant like the Lund side of my family, or gradually go down in percentiles, like the rest of them did, until he's in the 25th or lower. It will be interesting to find out!