Big boy

Charles is wearing these jammies now. He is 8 months old. Thad is over a year old in this picture. This is absurd.

Charles gets blessed

Today was Charlie's baby blessing. It's official. He's Charles. No going back now. (not that we planned on it) Here's the folks who made it out to the blessing. Both the Strong Grandparents and a Rasmussen Grandpa. Grandma Rasmussen came out when he was born and so didn't make the long journey again for the blessing. It should be noted that Sally is doing a half-hearted zombie hand in this picture.

Belated Rock-hammer for Scale Pictures

Here they are finally; the rock-hammer for scale pictures!

All of those babies.

This little boy joined our family a couple weeks ago and what a sweet thing he is too. He is my mellowest baby thus far which is a good thing, since he's going to be putting up with a lot of loving abuse from his still-learning-how-to-treat-babies siblings. They actually do really well, but they are still young themselves and are bound to forget some things at times. At least the boy will never be wanting for some love.



The kids call him "Baby Char-less" which I cannot get enough of. They are starting to learn how to say Charles properly and I am a little sad about that.




I also cannot get enough of this picture. What beautiful little people.





Thaddeus tends to show his love with some amount of...um...assertiveness. Waving 3 inches from Charlie's face is a good alternative. And I choose to believe that someday he will remember how to be soft for more than a minute. I am glad he loves his brother.





Showing off her friend (who she stole from Thaddeus. Oh well. She gave him her bear and they are both content)

Little Girl

Here she is.

Random Update.

Today I went to Walmart with only one child in tow. Usually I go with both or none, but Martell was working on homework, so he was semi-available to watch the kiddos. I took T. to keep him from attacking Martell's laptop. When I got there I counted no less than 6 available two kid carts. What? Why does this never happen when I have both?

Tonight during family scriptures T. was looking at the pictures in the front of The Book of Mormon. He pointed to Jesus and did his sign for "big hugs" and blew kisses. That is one sweet boy.

Thad woke up from his nap mad as a hornet today. Martell took him out for a walk to calm down and they found blackberries. Ripe ones. Apparently blackberry season is quite a lot earlier here than it is where I was raised. When Sal woke up we all went out for a little adventure with Sally's bucket and we found a good handful of ripe berries. They must be the earliest ones. From what I read blackberry season still shouldn't be for a month or so, but this has been a strange weather year. I'm glad to get a taste before we leave for the summer. And there's a bunch more out there that just need a bit more time on the vine....bush...bramble. I'm hoping they'll be ready before I pack up my kitchen stuff. Mmmm. Jam, or syrup, or cobbler....

For anyone who isn't up to date, we are pregnant, we finally figured out some stuff with our health care situation, with more figuring to come in the next couple weeks, but we are moving forward and I'm receiving care, which is the important thing.* I finally saw a doctor's office (not the doc, but that's supposed to happen soon. Paper work and pee tests are the first step) yesterday and it turns out that they sort of freak out if you haven't had prenatal care for 17-19 weeks (depends on whose math you trust). The part I thought was the funniest was that they had to actually give me a pregnancy test. I'm showing, I've been barfing, and I have felt the kiddo wiggling, but they need to see it in the pee. Anyhow, after they got a confirmation (other than looking at me) that I'm with child, and once they'd obtained my medical history they set me up for the first ultra sound I could be at, which was this morning. The ultrasound cleared up whose math was right (an average of both:18 weeks.) and what kind of baby we have in there. It looked awfully alien, but we're pretty sure that if aliens are anything like us then it's a girl alien. I'll put pictures up later when I'm not too lazy to scan them in.



*Sort of. If you really want to know, I think the amount of care forced upon pregnant ladies is a little absurd, but I have to concede that I've had nothing but healthy pregnancies so maybe I'd feel differently if I actually felt that I needed the boatloads of office visits, blood pressure checks, reminders of weight gained, and pee tests. Love those pee tests. 

Sewing.

I picked up this great colorful fabric ages ago at the thrift store of all places and I've thought about making a dress for myself out of it, but the fact is that I'm not likely to wear a dress that bright all the often, it would be a bigger project than I'm willing to tackle anytime soon and Sal could use some more skirts. She is always asking to wear skirts and she could use some more Sunday wear as well. So I decided to whip up a circle skirt. I always wanted one when I was a kid. I had a friend who had one and I always envied how well her skirt twirled. I essentially followed the same steps as shown on MADE, but I don't have a serger so I sewed my elastic onto the fabric with the right side of the fabric toward the elastic and then folded the fabric down and top-stitched over that to keep my raw edge contained. In case anyone was wondering. I also folded my hem pretty wide in case the waist fits for a while then I can take it out, but the truth is that hemming a circle is kind of a pain and I'd go with the narrow hem in the future. Anyway here are some pictures of Sal jumping and twirling. Not stunning of the skirt, I'll admit, but she's so darn cute that I'm sure it will make up for it.

Twirling

Jumping

Tuckered out.