8 months

He's FINALLY sitting up! Still not too stable though, but we're working on it :)

November

So this is me trying to feed my kid, yet again. We gave him 3 or 4 Cheerios and he only choked once. Not too bad, but again I think I'll wait a little longer for those, and maybe try the Puffs (they seems to dissolve quicker).

Ema got into the girls' play makeup and did quite a job! Gabriela actually looks decent...guess she should have helped Ema :)

Ronan has outgrown all his pants and we're onto the next size so I had to go shopping, now that it's FINALLY getting cold! We scored these fun pj's from Old Navy for only $4 (along w/a few other awesome clearance finds...swim trunks for $1.05!). It's kind of funny that I still run on "auto pilot" when I got shopping and go straight for the baby girl section. I get there and it takes me a second to realize I need baby BOY clothes! It's not as fun to shop for boys clothes, but it is better than what it used to be :)

October

Since Ronan was almost 7 months, I decided to go ahead and try some real food. We started out with avocados, and Gabriela helped me out. He wasn't too thrilled, but I think that was due to how he was being fed, not what :)

A week or so later I thought we'd give it another try and we did oatmeal. He only took like 2-3 bites and was done, then stuck his tongue out at us. Eh, less mess for me. If you don't know already, I'm not big on baby food, and neither are my kids. Kind of nice that way.

October was unseasonably warm, so we were still able to go swimming a few times this month. Because it's SO hot in Arizona, and babies aren't supposed to wear sunscreen before 6 months, we kept Ronan indoors for the most part all summer, but when it dipped down into the low 90's, we slapped on some sunscreen and went in as often as we could! He LOVED the water!

Gabriela turned 5 this month, and we celebrated with family over at my mom's house. With lots of extended family it's so much easier to just do cupcakes and thankfully Gabs loves it!

She was very excited to wear her birthday/princess crown all day. I even curled her hair for the day and she was thrilled to be looking so pretty, in fact, she decided that she had to wear a pretty dress to go along with it. Of course she thought of the dress she wore to Tricia's wedding :)

She loved her presents, but mostly having all her family around; she really gets excited for family gatherings!

My birthday is the day after Gabriela's so we had a couple pictures done together, courtesy of Isa. Love that she picked a cooler for me to sit on! :)

To end October, we had a 4 ward trunk-or-treat. It was a little chaotic for the adults, but the kids never knew it and had a blast. Bren & Isa invited their good friends (who are brother & sister) that have been in their same classes at school since we moved back. They even followed us over to the new charter school, BASIS Oro Valley! Sadly they'll be moving to England over the break and my kids are pretty bummed.

Lissa's holding Ronan [Yoda], Bren was an Assassin, Isa was a pirate, Gabriela a witch, & Emalyn a doctor.

6 months

Today Ronan turned 6 months old. I love that he loves to sleep in! He is a cuddly baby and we love him tons!

Here are a few pictures from today. You wouldn't know that he really is a smiley baby from these photos, but he is! He cracks up every time his siblings pay any amount of attention to him. He loves 'em.

Here you can see his chubbiness is catching up with him. He was getting stuck in his crib on a daily basis! Time to put the crib bumper on :)

This kid has loved to stand since 2 months old, and quickly moved onto jumping in your lap! We were in Utah in July for a family reunion and put him in a jumperoo and he was thrilled! We finally got one and he's been in it for over an hour...I've never seen him so excited for so long! He's in heaven, and so are we, watching him laugh at himself. Too cute!

The girls are liking the jumperoo just as much! This morning they couldn't wait to jump with Ronan...I'm hoping it'll tire them out and they'll be ready for nap time :)

August

We rearranged the kids' bedrooms again and tried Ema on a twin sized bed. After 2 falls, landing & getting stuck between the bed and the dresser, we decided to go back to her toddler bed. Poor kid!

Tricia got married on the 14th and the night before, all of my sisters spent the night together in one hotel room (6 grown girls on 2 double beds! oh, and ronan co-sleeps, so really 4 on one bed!!). It was an awesome night, no one got any sleep (sorry Tricia!), but we had a blast nonetheless. Here's the highlight of the night, playing with the "bump it".

I finally went through my deep freezer and found all this milk from when I was nursing Ema. It was too old to use, and it was so hard to let it all go!

Here's Ronan at 5 months. I figured out why he's not as roly-poly as my other kids, even though he weighs more, it's because he's taller than every one of them! It'll be interesting to see if he stays that way!

Emalyn thought Ronan would look pretty with her sunglasses on him. I think he looks like Elton John :)

We got some rain (not too much this season) and the kids were excited to go out and play w/Ronan in the rain. Here are some cute pics...




And, lastly, here's Ronan all dressed up in his new church clothes. The kid's only 5 months and is now in size 12 month clothes. Crazy!

July

Coming soon...

June

June was made up of just taking it easy, enjoying our summer vacation! I did end up making a few projects though...


One of my favorite fabric designers, Patty Young, came out with a new line of fabric that had dolls printed on them, to make your own! My girls love them!! I also made new, simple library totes for the summer. And, lastly, a doll bedding set for my niece, Adison (although I think her mom likes it more! :)

Cajsa & Adison came down for a week & a half and Emalyn enjoyed having someone younger than her to play with, so SHE could direct the play. I don't think Adison minded too much :) I love getting the girls together to play; I have wonderful memories growing up w/my cousins and hope my kids will be able to continue that.

♥♥ LISSA BRITT ♥♥

My youngest sister, Lissa, just turned 16!! She is an amazing person, and I love her to death. Really. We celebrated her birthday twice, first with family on her birthday (and got an amazing cookies 'n cream ice cream cake that looked like it was engulfed in flames!), and then we threw her a surprise party later that week...and it worked!

She got to blow out candles again and then got thrown in the pool to celebrate :) What an awesome group of friends!

Without getting overly mushy, I just have to say that Lissa is a beautiful person, inside and out, and I LOVE her!! I am so impressed with the person she's become and she never ceases to amaze me. Lissa has helped me out a TON over the last 2 years since we've been back in Tucson, and I am so grateful for her...♥MUAH♥!!

3 months!

Ronan found his thumb. Gabriela did this at this age too, but only at night and started sleeping through the night longer; she went from a 5 hr stretch to 8! Then after 3 weeks or so she quit sucking her thumb...we'll see if this becomes habit forming or not. Ema did the same thing at the same age, which helped her sleep go from 5-8 hrs too, only it was her middle 2 fingers and she's still sucking them :)

Just washed...we're drying out all the folds/rolls/chub :)

Mini photo shoot because he turned 3 months old today! He saw the phone lying on the bed and suddenly my camera was not interesting anymore. It was so cute to watch him try and get it! He's getting close...he's always been a wiggle-worm and always tries to snuggle closer to me at night. I love it.

Right after bath, right before bed.

Danny saying goodnight to Ronan.

Ronan was cracking up!!

What cuties. I love them.

2 months!!

I know everybody says it, "I can't believe it's gone so fast!", but it really has! He's growing like crazy (despite his constant spitting up if he's not burped well - I've never had a kid spit up - this is so weird for me).

On the flip side, I told Danny the other day, that I can't believe we've only had him in our family for 2 months, and we both agreed that it feels like we've always had him. We definitely feel complete with this last addition.

Poor guy got his 2 month immunizations and had a hard rest of the day. He didn't tolerate them very well and was pretty fussy. Don't blame him!

His 2 month stats are: 14lb even (97th percentile for weight) & 24.25" (90th percentile for height).

Stylin'

We were running errands and I had the hood on his head, rather than bunched up behind it, while in his carseat. When we got home, he somehow managed to cover his entire face with it. I let it go since he was sleeping and it kept him asleep for quite a bit longer!

Ronan got this outfit for Easter and he filled it out so fast! We'll see how many times he gets to wear it before he outgrows it :) Oh, and he got these shoes from Gymboree as a baby gift and I love them! Even though babies can't walk, I LOVE shoes. I may/may not have a shoe addiction ;)

Emalyn and Gabriela love their brother to death. Literally. I asked Ema to be careful, give him a quick kiss and move away, and this is the look I got. Nice.

And here are the girls in their Easter dresses. Ema wants so much to do everything that Gabs does, and is constantly copying everything she says. We are using that to our advantage to teach Gabriela that she plays a part in teaching Ema too. She fully understands and sometimes teaches her things she KNOWS she shouldn't do and stands by to watch Ema get in trouble. We figured out her game pretty quick, but she was pretty proud of herself for trying.

1 month already!

He loves to sleep still and is so cute doing it! :)

A photo shoot for his one month (he's kind of wiggly), oops!

I don't have too many in color, because his poor coloring is still tinted yellow due to breast-milk jaundice. We're hoping it'll go away soon...he's hanging on to it longer than the others.

Cute little baby parts.


We love to stay close!