Year in Review: February 2016

February was all about getting to know dear little Samuel. We mostly stayed close to home and adjusted to life with four kids and held Samuel for hours and hours because, contrary to the pictures, he hated to be set down. But Dustin did finish the ceilings and take the three "big" kids on some outings-- science center, aquarium, Maritime Museum of San Diego.

Grandpa and Grandma came down for the weekend to meet him.

Maritime Museum of San Diego

Maritime Museum of San Diego

And Elijah turned 7!!

Elijah wanted a pirate themed birthday, so Dustin put together a big treasure hunt stretching from the park back to our house.

Elijah designed and decorated his cake

His big present was a bike plus the last $7 needed to buy the Lego
pirate ship he'd been saving up for

So much bigger at 1 month!

Year in Review: January

What a year -- new baby, new job, lots of time with family, a million field trips and beach trips, full of weekend trips + an up the west coast trip. God has been good to us!

My plan is to post favorite pictures from each month; hopefully, I don't stop with only January. :)

Technically not 2016 since they're from the 31st, but indicative of the year to come. LACMA and Brea Tar Pits with cousins:

Lampposts!

Dire Wolf Skulls

Celebrating Christmas with cousins at my parents

We hosted Kleinsasser family Christmas dinner.

Followed by Guenther family trip to Legoland!

Can you spot the Claire tucked in next to Grandpa? He rode the planes
with her a number of times.

Random Claire pic :)

We got to celebrate cousin's birthday at the park. Plus a dear former grace grouper's wedding (but somehow no pictures).

 I had my last day teaching my sweet preschool group of 1.5 years.

 Followed by Samuel John joining us the next day.

And just like that, we were a family of 6!

9 Month -- Crawl, Crawl, Crawl!

Samuel's 9th Month: All about crawling! And standing! And biting Mommy's shoulder! He actually lost weight (only a few ounces) this month due to all the moving -- down to 19 lbs.

Samuel loves, loves, loves being a part of the action. Crawling means he never gets left behind. For the first part of the month, I kept finding him crying and slowly crawling down the hallway in a desperate attempt to keep up when I abandoned him to do crazy things like switch a load of laundry with two hands.

It was a good month of two naps a day in his own bed; mama's bed ceased to be a napping option due to mobility.

Food: two teeth on top and two on the bottom. He likes sitting up at the table and feeding himself soft finger foods.

Claire has found a buddy to help her get out all the things. He likes to crawl around and pull everything off of the low shelves.

We went on a weekend trip to San Diego; poor 4th born only got one picture at Sea World, but lots of beach pictures!

Dustin took the big boys at the San Diego Science Center and I took the littles. Samuel loves the balls!

Samuel adores his siblings and wishes they would be less conscientious about shutting doors both inside and out. He lights up whether they play with him. When the three older ones spent the night at Grandpa and Grandma's, they ran up to greet me (I thought) the next morning, but was really Samuel they wanted.