POOL PARTY!

20 very excited 8 year old girls + a birthday swim party = one very happy little daughter and one exhausted old Momma.

Miss Ava had her birthday party today. Swimming, cake, ice cream, and gift opening. In the midst of all that goodness there was plenty of giggling, and squeals of delight to be had by all the little girls. And let's not forget the ever coveted treat bags - the ones that I spent hours making and putting together, and if I do say so myself turned out to be as cute as ever. No, I am not above bragging over my treat bag making skills. And of course, I forgot to take a picture of them.

ANYway.... It was a good day; a very good day.

I know, weird picture, but I was trying to zoom in on those treat bags I made that are in the background. Did I mention how cute they turned out to be?

STILL NOT INTERESTED. AT ALL.

A while back, I posted about how Nathan was completely uninterested in trying the whole solid food thing. I would link to that post, but frankly I am just too lazy to go about that....

Anyway, I didn't really sweat the fact that he was not interested in this thing we call actual food, being that he was only 4 months, and he really didn't need anything other than formula until he was 6 months old. So I packed away all the peas, sweet potatoes, apple sauce, rice cereal and the like and left this whole trying out solids thing alone.

That is until today, when I realized holy-crap-my-baby-is-about-to-turn-6-months-old-and-I-need-to-try-and-start-solids-now. Crap.

Memories of last my attempts to do so a few months ago came flooding back. The screaming, the arm flailing, the hitting of the spoon with said arm and flinging peas all over the kitchen walls - all of it. But I decided to push this whole experience to the back of my mind, and stay positive about this go around.

I put a big old smile on my face as I strapped him into his highchair, and oohed and aaahed over the ever so delicious rice cereal I was stirring up in the bowl in front of him. He seemed happy as I put the bib on him, but that ended quite abruptly once I placed a spoonful of that rice cereal in his little mouth. And do I ever mean abruptly. His sweet smiley face went from happy and content to not so happy, and not so content. It was if he was saying "what the hell are you trying to feed me lady?"

After I calmed him down from the traumatic experience of tasting rice cereal, I decided I would give sweet potatoes a shot. 'Cause who wouldn't like sweet potatoes?

My Nathan, that's who.

I have honestly never seen him this angry before. Frankly, he was beyond angry. He was pissed.

After a few minutes of trying to make him happy and convince him that sweet potatoes were very yummy, I gave up. I am sure you can imagine how well that went over - attempting to convince a 6 month old baby that the food you are spooning in his mouth really is good? Yah, right.

So I cleaned him up and gave him his ever coveted bottle of formula. And what do you know? He wasn't angry anymore, actually he was quite the opposite, he was as happy as ever.

What he doesn't realize is that at some point he is going to have to give in to this whole eating solid foods thing. And I am hoping this realization comes to him sooner, rather than later.

Little stinker.

THE NOT SO FUN STUFF

We've been having lots, and lots of these kinds of days around here lately...

Lots of 'em.

These lovely photos displaying my girls penchant for temper tantrums as of late, all came from one day. Yes, one single day - Ava's birthday to be exact. She melted down when she couldn't have one of her sister's presents,she melted down when she couldn't help open her sisters presents, she melted down when I put a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and chips in front of her for lunch [apparently she did NOT want chips on her plate], she melted down when she couldn't play with Ava and her friend up in their room..... You get the idea, she melted down left and right.

All day long.

And it was exhausting.

Unfortunately, this was not just one "bad day" for my Miss Liv. She has been having bad day, after bad day, after bad day around here. Not certain why, maybe it's a phase she is going through, maybe she is testing me to see what she can get away with, the "maybe's" abound.... But one thing I know for sure is we need to nip this in the bud, like NOW. I love my Liv Grace, but she has to stop, or this Momma may just lose it. For real.

6 MONTHS

My sweet little Nathan James is creeping up on the ripe old age of 6 months, and I can't believe it. He is growing up way too fast, and frankly, I don't like it one little bit. I love him so much I can't stand it.

Take a look at this little boy?

How could you not love him? Those sweet brown eyes, paired with those chubby little cheeks, and the dimples, oh don't get me started on those.... He is just so darn sweet....

So that was a little self - indulgent. Alright, maybe it was really self-indulgent, but us Mom's are allowed to do that from time to time, right?

8

My Ava Marie,

Where oh where has the time gone? My girl, my first born, today you turned 8.

8.

I simply can't believe it. You are growing up way too fast for your Momma, could you please slow down a bit?

Alright, I know that's not possible, so I guess I will just have to cope with this whole growing up thing you are doing by celebrating the heck out of this very special day every. single. year.

This year I think we did just that - with all of your brothers and sisters, and your very best friend; Emily. We had three yummy meals, all of which were chosen by you. Waffles topped with syrup, whipped cream and strawberries for breakfast,

ham and cheese, chips and carrots for lunch,

and hamburgers with seasoned waffle fries for dinner.

We sang Happy Birthday not once, not twice but three times - one song at each meal. 'Cause really, why not?

We danced to Justin Bieber, we sang a little "Never Say Never", we danced some more, and some more. I stopped to make dinner, while you, Emily and your brothers and sister kept right on dancing the night away. I tell ya, there was one heck of a bad case of Bieber fever going around in this house. After all the dancing, you and Emily decided it was just too hot inside [go figure], and went running out in the garage giggling like crazy, in tank tops and leggings barefoot -just to cool off.

You opened presents, and were excited to find Littlest Pet Shops, Zhu Zhu Pets, a new swim suit, some lipstick, body glitter and other treasures.

You played Littlest Pet Shops with Emily, and sat up in your room for hours giggling and whispering. Oh, to be a fly on that wall....

We all made special hats to wear for the end of night celebration, where we sang Happy Birthday one last time, ate cake and ice cream, and drank lots of juice.

We ended the night by getting everyone snuggled up in their pajamas and into their beds to watch a movie, before drifting off to dreamland.

I think it is safe to say we said our goodbye's to your 7th year in style, and I can't wait to see what year 8 will bring.

Happy, Happy Birthday my Ava Marie. Momma loves...

MORE LITTLE GEMS FROM SCHOOL

Going through the kids' homework, artwork and other projects that they do at school is one of the highlights of my day.

I find it funny that of all occupations to choose from, he would choose to be a priest considering we never, ever go to church. And come to think about it, I wonder if he really even knows what a priest actually is. I can't believe I admitted to all that. Grandma's, if you are reading this, please forgive me.

Look closely at #7. Notice the teachers note "Oh no!" I asked Ava why she would write that - her response? "Oops. I messed up Momma. I meant to say green light, not red." Just a minor little detail, right?

When it comes to stuff such as this, they never seem to disappoint. Do they?

A FAVORITE

You think she likes spaghetti?

EXPLAINING MY LACK OF BLOGGING ~ AND SHOWING YOU MY GIRLS GOT STYLE

I have to start out by saying that I am nothing short of disappointed in myself as of late. I have been a very bad blogger.

In a perfect world, I would be posting every day, documenting all the fun, silly, and cute things the kids do and all the crazy things that happen in this house full of 5 kids. 'Cause believe me, I have enough material to write every single day. The problem is, I just don't have the time.

I have beaten myself up over this for the past 2 months and have finally come to the realization that it is what it is. I will write when I can, sometimes longer posts, but probably most of the time shorter ones, and for now that just has to be good enough for me.

So with that said, here is a short one.

A photo of my Liv Grace this morning, after she had gone upstairs to get herself dressed for the day. You think she likes the outfit she chose?

I am pretty confident she does, even though she forgot a very important part of that outfit. The shirt. That's my girl!

NOT DIGGIN' THIS WHOLE FOOD THING

When I took Nathan in for his 4 month check a few weeks ago, the last thing on my mind was getting the go ahead to start solids. With all my other monkeys the go date was always 6 months, not 4.

Why the change? They are always changing things.

Messy rice cereal mixed with formula, mashed up peas, sweet potatoes, applesauce, bananas.... The stuff that you put into your darling little babies mouth only to have them blow raspberries moments after and splatter it all over you and any walls in the near vicinity. You know the stuff. Oh the fun of starting solids.

I was told that I could wait until 6 months to start solids if I didn't want to bother with it right now, but for some odd reason I felt an immense sense of guilt for not offering them to my Nathan. Against my better judgment, I ignored my guilt for 2 very long weeks. Every time he cried after having a bottle I imagined him saying "Mom, Dr. Morrissey said I could have food, and you are not giving it to me because you are just plain old lazy and don't want to deal with the mess. You are such a bad Mommy!" I would stare at the food I had bought for him the day after the Dr. gave me the go ahead. The food that had been sitting there ever since then because of my lack of interest in actually feeding it to him. I started convincing myself that maybe Nathan was right, I was a bad mom. [Yes, I let my imagination get away from me from time to time.] So I decided it was time to give in and give my baby what he wanted. So last night I went into that cupboard, dusted off a jar of peas, put Nathan in his highchair and gave him his very first taste of food.

And let me tell you, it turns out that it wasn't what he wanted at all.

Don't get me wrong, he was open minded to the whole idea. I even gave him the spoon. He took some time to check it out, licked it a few times....

But it was definitely a no go. He didn't like it.

At all.

Maybe it was the peas, or maybe it was that he just was not ready to start solids quite yet. I like to think it was the later of those two options, so I am just going to go with it. That makes it a whole lot easier for me to put that baby food back into the cupboard for a month or two without feeling an ounce of guilt.

This makes me happy, and I think it makes Nathan quite happy too.