"i love birthdays"
"what, 6 months, already?"
i'm sad too, honey! but it'll be ok!
doesn't he just look like trouble?
anyway, that's enough of that.
i haven't said too much about anna lately but, man do i love that girl! she is so sweet and adorable and laughs the best big laughs. she totally lights up our lives (and lots of other people's too, i'm pretty sure!) she has just started eating cereal. i can't believe it! i don't want her to be big enough for that, and, i must admit, the whole baby food thing is not my favorite stage of mothering. i love nursing them and having them be tiny. i love this age in general, but my least favorite thing of all is eating time from when you start giving them food until they can actually pick up solid stuff (not ground up, mushed up yuck) and put it in their mouth by themselves. now, i've done this 4 times and i know it is short-lived and that there really are less than 6 months of having to feed them yucky "baby food"-type stuff, but still i don't like it. the bibs, the multi-colored drool and spit up all over, the spitting it out all over you, the big messes it makes, blah, blah, blah. she's still not sure about this whole cereal thing. she's just not sure she likes it. most of what goes in comes right back out, but with time and lots of effort, most of it gets down eventually. i'll have to actually photograph the whole ordeal and post one. when not sitting in her highchair to spit stuff out at me, anna is a mover. she's crawling with more skill every day and can pretty much get wherever she wants to go. she not to skilled, though, at going from a crawling position (hands and knees) to her back (for whatever reason she may want to be on her back). so, yesterday i'm in the kitchen and anna is crawling around the living room where some of the other kids are and i hear this loud thump. i ask what happened and rebekah is upset when she tells me that anna flipped over and thumped her head. anna is not even crying yet at this point (although she starts to a little bit after everyone starts checking on her to make sure she is ok -- she's learning to playing it up at such a young age!!). i guess she had been way up on her hands with her arms extended to their full (really long, i know) capacity when she flipped over onto her back. ouch . . . that would hurt. anyway, she's fine so don't worry, but we find her to be a very fun, very entertaining girl.
rebekah is rebekah. she is so mothering and nurturing and caring and sensitive. not that i am all those thing in as wonderful a way as she is, but, honestly, in so many ways she is completely and totally ME! yikes. it's like a double of me, but with curlier, nicer hair! (who looks like a girl version of her father!) she is great and i love her.
jacob is great too! 4th grade is tougher than 3rd and he is a little frustrated by that. he is mad that he has so much more homework than the girls (hello, do you remember 2nd grade and 1st grade, buddy? you didn't have much homework either. their time is coming). he loves to play with legos, read, listen to adventures in odyssey, play outside and ride his bike! he is also a sensitive kid and kirb says that jacob is exactly like he was as a boy; which might make his childhood a little tough but if he turns out like his dad in the end, will make him a wonderful, wonderful man as some point along the way!
lydia is lydia. what more can you say. she is totally her own person, with thoughts, ideas and fashion that i never would have come up with! she is a good friend and has fun at school. much to my surprise, her teacher told me that she has made friends with a set of twins in her class who are selective mute (they have never, ever spoken one word at school). this surprised me quite a bit and seemed a little out of character for my lj. i asked lydia how she "plays" with them if they don't talk and she said "we just point at stuff." well, good for you, honey. i'm sure you will be a good friend to them. she is a fiesty little thing though (even if she doesn't always look the part), so don't mess with her!
well, that's more than enough for now! bye bye!
are they cousins or what? notice how they even hold their arms exactly the same. funny, huh?
ok, maybe they won't be bff's. nice upercut, haddon! but watch out buddy, she has 4 older brothers and sisters so she's pretty tough. you might not want to mess with her!
haddon & joey: sweet boys!
alright buddy, i get the hint . . . haddon grew a little tired of his auntie taking his pictures and wanted to move on to something new.
we had a great time with him and hope he comes back again soon!
God is so good, God is so good, God is so good. He's so good to me!
well, today is a banner day at our house . . . joey pooped on the toilet (ok, it was the potty chair, but as long as i didn't have to wipe it off his cute little butt i'm not going to be picky!) we've been trying for months now to get to this day with absolutely no cooperation from mr. joe! we've tried most every kind of bribery we could think of and all we got was whining and begging every time we went to the store to "please buy me some more diapers, mom!" anyway, i guess he finally decided it was an alright thing to do because he did it all by himself while the rest of the family was eating lunch (appetizing, i know. but we didn't care!). rebekah went to wash her hands when she was finished with her food and came back screaming "joey pooped, joey pooped!", so we all gather around to check out the poop (and the stink!! yikes! it was huge and it stunk up the whole house!) and cheered him on with hugs and high fives and all sorts of fanfare!
this can of dr. pepper (the whole thing) was his reward. he was THRILLED with that since he is a major fan of caffeine (you know, average 3-year-old stuff . . . coffee, dr. pepper, coke, lattes, coolers, tea: anything brownish in color . . . he has some eerie 6th sense for anything caffinated: somehow he knows to completely ignore stuff like, say, root beer which has no caffeine. i don't claim to understand this at all!) warning: for those of you easily grossed out by dirt or germs and stuff, you might not like this story: i found him once crouched over our recycling tub (outside, mind you!) putting every single pop can up to his lips in hopes that there was just a couple drops left in there that he could savor. he's like some sort of desperate addict!
anyway, yeah for joe and the poop!
joe "helped" me make brownies this afternoon. tough work, huh bud?
a little clean up at the sink.
today it was joey's turn to bring the surprise bucket to preschool -- what fun!!! he put a toy school bus (huh, surprising choice!) and an elmo in there . . . that is, after narrowing it down from the 7 things he started with (you can bring 1 or 2 items for in the bucket). he loved having a chance to bring home the bucket and has talked about little else in the 48 hours since he took it home from preschool dreaming of what to fill it with. i can't believe it's over already, he'll get another turn but not for a few months.
here are all my kiddos waiting for the bus to come this cold, dreary morning. also today is picture day at falcon, so i hope they all got inside before the rain came and made them look like drowned rats. if not, oh well, most school pictures aren't of amazingly great quality anyway so i won't hold my breath! i had to promise joe some candy to even be in this picture, thus the lack of smiles from him, but that's just the way it goes.
the kiddos all set for day #1 of the 2008 state fair. they are ready to begin "fair-ing" after a quick stop at the biffy after approximately 45 seconds inside the fairgrounds. since we just walked through the gates they are still pretty clean and perky (at least rebekah is!)
so, the little guy in this picture who doesn't quite look like a stoll isn't (everybody sing . . . one of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn't belong). his name is sam and we love him as much as any stoll. he is the adorable son of my best friend allison (although she goes by "allie" these days and i'm having a hard time conforming on that one after over 20 years of habit. i usually just call her al) and her wonderful husband justin. sam wants to have "7 brothers and sisters just like shana's family" -- i'm with ya on that one, buddy, but there aren't quite that many kids here, although often it seems like there are!
here's the whole wonderful family: justin, sam and allie, aren't they cute!! -- everyone say "ava" (ava is sam's sister who justin and al are in the process of adopting from korea. she's not even really born yet, but her name will be ava. now if we could just speed up the process and get her here that would be splendid!)
here is one of me with anna and a couple in the background who have a lot of their money invested in various body art . . . ahhh, the people watching one can do at the fair. anna was a good sport and spent lots of time in the sling at the fair since she's not really super fond of the stroller! sorry no pics of kirbs since he was the official camera operator of our visit to the fair! 
i realized today that i have completely neglected to post a picture of (or even mention) the most important member of the stoll crew . . . kirbs! ok, i know we're all important, but really . . . he makes the money, cooks the food, keeps me sane and just generally is the best guy around. so, here he is! my best friend, my husband, the love of my life, the world's greatest dad, super-duper worker person, man of God . . . and the list goes on!
introducing . . . haddon christian carlson! we are thrilled to have a new little man in our family. my brother, luke, and his wife, jenn, (actually mostly jenn!!!) just had this little guy and we're in love already. haddon was born exactly 5 months after anna and i know they are gonna be best buds! (in case you aren't keeping up on anna's exact age, he was born on 8/28). welcome, precious haddon. we love you lots and are thrilled to finally have a cousin who doesn't live a days drive away from us!
