Fun

Eleanor is almost 5 months old now. She is growing up so fast. She is rolling over, giggling, trying to sit. . . just so much fun. She is such a happy baby. She just smiles and smiles.

Here is Eleanor's first attempt at real food.

Grandma Cox came to help Janet with "the boys" while John was on a detail, and we were able to spend some time with her too. Grandma, Janet and the boys came to visit and we spent a couple of hours at the park and then we made some sugar cookies. Penelope had a great time. I wish I would have done a longer video of her making cookies. She was so serious and she stayed and helped me long after the boys lost interest. She is wearing the apron that Grandma made her for Christmas and she kept it on the rest of the day too.

Put frosting on the cookies? What a waste!

Andrew, Nicholas and Alex

We have a lot of trips planned for this year. We are going to Utah the first week of May for Morgan, Katie (Morgan's wife) and Stephanie's graduation from Utah State. We just decided it would be a great time to see the fam. Then we are going to Seattle in mid-May with Dan and JaNeil and fam for a PT continuing education course and lots of fun. Aaron has the boys weekend in August with his brothers and Dad and I am hoping to go to Vernal with him for a few days to see the family there. And then we are going to Hawaii in October. I am so excited for Hawaii. My parents got us a condo on Kauai with their timeshare; a gift for our 10 year wedding anniversary. They also offered to watch our kids while we are gone, or my Mom will go with us to watch the kids if we decide to take them with us. Now I just need to get some tan in a bottle, since that is the only way I will ever get tan. Too bad they don't sell skinny in a bottle. :)

Song bird

Here are a couple of songs that Penelope has learned from her awesome nursery leader. Penelope loves to sing and dance and it is rare that she actually performs for us while the camera is on. Usually when we pull the camera out, she runs over to us and says "I see it, I see Penelope." So, I hope you enjoy our little song bird as much as we do.

One funny little tidbit. The other day we were in the grocery store and all of the sudden Penelope busts out singing "marry the mole" at full volume. It is a song from Thumbelina and she hadn't seen the movie for about a month, so I don't know what brought it to her mind, but it was hilarious, especially since one of the employees started laughing too. Kids are great.

Books

I have recently read a number of books that I have really enjoyed. Some have been referrals from friends and some I have in my little library of favorites. So I thought I would post a few recommendations for books for anyone who is interested. If you have any recommendations for me please let me know. I am always in search of a good book to read.

1. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

2. The Mitford series by Jan Karon is a 7 or 8 book series that begins with At Home in Mitford

3. A Long Fatal Love Chase by Louisa May Alcott (Bitter-sweet, but I think well worth the read.)

4. Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens

5. Persuasion by Jane Austen (I have read this a number of times but I had forgotten how much I liked this story.)

6. A Bend in the Road by Nicholas Sparks

Smiles

Eleanor is now 3 months old and she loves to smile and giggle. She is so much fun. I just can't get enough of her!

Slow

I'm a little slow getting things done as you can tell since I'm barely getting Christmas posted. I was just going to skip this post, but I wanted Eva to see this video.

Penelope had such a great time and we had a great time just watching her.

When I brought Eleanor down in this outfit, Penelope said "ho, ho, ho." Later when I took Eleanor out of the outfit, Penelope wanted to put it on and I had a hard time convincing her that it just wouldn't fit.

My Mom made both Penelope and Eleanor aprons for Christmas with their names on the front. Penelope wore hers all day, nap and everything. So cute and so much fun!