Tidbits of Life

• Elora has started a one-day-a-week preschool type class which she loves. Her first day she was super excited to go, and was even more excited to do her homework: decorating a paper doll to look like herself. As we worked on it she exclaimed, "I never did art like this before, it's so fun!" She insisted it be holding a baby doll- after I told her it wasn't okay to draw the baby in the figure's tummy! I just wish the class was more than one day a week, she would love it so much.

• Josh was very sad she wasn't with us all that morning though. I took him and Jonah on a walk in the cemetery (which is very close to our home.) He likes to go around spinning the pinwheels that people leave there, and I find it a very pretty walk. I looked at all the baby tombstones (of which there are always an abundance) and wondered how many of them died of the things we routinely treat babies for today: high jaundice, low bloodsugar, hepatitis, infections from the doctor not washing his hands..... and I was grateful for all the annoying preventative stuff they do at birth now.

• This weekend we gave Jonah his baby blessing. I had totally forgotten we had Sunday clothes for boys this small until I went looking for them- he'd just been wearing his regular onesies to church. Isn't he so handsome? We had to have our traditional baby-looking-in-the-mirror shot.

• My mom, dad, and brother came Saturday for the baby's blessing and left Sunday afternoon. Josh still thinks Uncle Thain is is best friend, and he was thrilled to throw a ball back and forth with him outside all Saturday evening. Notice Elora's shoes not on her feet. Typical. Everyone looks great here...except me, I think I should have stood differently so I looked more feminine or something. Josh's cute face is distracting enough I guess.

• We didn't have any big plans for Labor Day, and ended up taking another drive up the canyon. Joseph bought "Drumsticks" icecream cones, which we thoroughly enjoyed..especially Elora, from the look of her!
  

• Of course we spent some time throwing things in the water when we were done. We had to make our way across a small offshoot of the creek to get over to the spot we wanted. I was slightly annoyed that as we were negotiating the mud with our stroller and the kids, another family with five kids merrily skipped across the water upstream from us and took the nice open spot we were headed for. We made due with this marginal piece of shore that was closest to us. It didn't afford much room for maneuvering, but the kids were fine with it.

• We let Jonah have a close up look at the scenery, but he wasn't very impressed. Maybe we'll try again when he is in a better mood? Or maybe he just didn't like the sun in his eyes.

• That's better! Speaking of Jonah, he is 7 weeks old today! He has smiled for us a bit, starting around five weeks. He's definitely more subdued in personality than his siblings at this age, only having about 30 minutes of happy time a day, combined with a lot of grumpy time, gassy screamy time, and quiet sucking time. But thats okay, he's still cute! Plus he has been rolling over since about 3 or 4 weeks- much better than Elora and Josh who never really rolled at all!
  

(Don't you love how my bullet-point writing format stops making sense about half-way through this post?)