He only had two a week ago. Mommy is tired.

So nice, she’s owned it twice. (once when she was a baby and this outfit was Josies)

Two weeks ago almost now Ewan turned 6 months old! Already a half year of babyhood is gone. The time is going by faster and faster now as the days just keep flying by. His major new accomplishment this month is definitely crawling! He also now has two teeth with more coming any day now. Those have been major sleep disruptors as he tries to wake up and crawl away. He chases me around the house now when he wants me which is cute but sad when I can’t immediately get to him (cleaning up someone elses bodily fluids for instance). He’s also pulling himself up on a lot of things, can stand for a few seconds before falling over and has just started to cruise barely. He definitely has learned where he is not allowed to go and makes a bee-line right for them if they aren’t blocked or gated.

He loves to be out and about doing things throughout the day. He wants to be carried, not in the car or in the stroller, just like the other two! Ewan loves to go out and see other people and watch other kids. He watches Josie and Celia intently and loves it when they play with him. Peekaboo is a favorite right now, he also loves clapping and for us to sing to him, especially hand movement songs. He’s friendly with strangers while he’s in my arms, but doesn’t particularly want to be handed over to anyone. He’ll reach out but then immediately reach back for me if he gets handed over.

Some of the most fun is getting him to do some great giggles. He’ll laugh very easily with some tickles and silly voices. He likes to give the cats pets and George will put up with some rough baby snuggles.

We try to read, but he just wants to eat the books with his sore teeth. He hears a lot of stories while I nurse him and read to the girls. He likes the library, touching all the toys and watching the other kids. He also finds gymnastics fairly entertaining watching all the amazing gymnasts flip all over the floor.

• Size/weight: some 9 month, some 12 month, 14 lbs 7 oz
• Favorite food: breastmilk
• Favorite toy: xylophone dog, metal ikea ladel
• Favorite book: peek-a-moo
• Favorite activity: crawling and getting into new stuff
• Sleeping: 8pm bedtime, ~7am wakeup, bad days he’s awake up to 6 times a night, good nights is 3
• New skill: crawling!
• Teeth: two, bottom middle
• Vocalizations: whining from teeth, lots of da da, gutteral noises and great giggles

Just in under the wire, right before bed. Guess they found the story intense. It was “Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 3”.

Earlier before I got the camera set up, George was also on the scene, and Ezzy is just out of sight off camera left.

Ewan likes the magnatiles. Look what a builder he is already!

Our goal for this trip was to spend a lot of time seeing people. Not doing anything in particular, just visiting, getting the kids to get reacquainted with everyone and hang out. So we did a lot of hanging out, and thankfully people came to us to hang out as getting three kids in the car at any particular time when everyone’s so off schedule is tough. Some day we won’t have any more nappers and it should be easier. That’s my theory anyway. So what did we do? First off, the girls did a lot of puzzles. Josie would easily do six a morning. We got everyone into it!

Another major attraction were the pets. It’s always a small zoo at their house with a dog and at least one cat, often two.

One of the highlights for the girls on every visit is taking Simba for a walk. Josie is finally old enough to hold the leash and actually not let go. She still needs to learn a more gentle touch, but once we got the hang of which voice commands to use and got some practice, she and Simba were enjoying those walks together. Celia actually bowed out of taking the dog at all surprisingly, and walked her baby around the block with us each time in her stroller.

We had a lot of time and attention from Javi as he got to meet his nephew and hang out with the girls.

Jordi’s friend Arturo even came over to visit. Josie asked where was his wife? ah, marriage pressure from a 5 year old.

And in the following picture please kindly replace Arturo with Gilbert in your mind, as Gilbert was napping, so Arturo jumped in to round out the group shot. And give several of us bunny ears in other shots.

On Christmas day itself, we woke up at our usual early time and we all went downstairs. The girls jumped on their stockings and enjoyed the small presents like socks, stickers, candy, sticker-your-own-toothbrushes, and gift cards to panera. Ewan got a book and a new winter hat. We had some breakfast and after what I’m sure seemed like an eternity to the kids we had everyone together and got to enjoy opening presents.

This year Josie got really into making gifts from ‘Santa’, she found it hilarious to write question marks instead of our names in the from to be coy. She had fun playing the game with us all, and Celia is still not quite clear on the whole thing. She recently told me she wished she had gotten some presents from Santa (that someone else had gotten her), but couldn’t quite explain why. Santa brought them dress up dresses this year.

After a fun morning we headed over to Jordi’s aunt and uncles house, Ana and Carlos. They had the whole family over and cooked us a great big meal.

Ita-mami and all the great grand-children. Yep three of them are ours, Jordi is the second oldest of the grandchildren.

After our nice meal we went outside and hung out at the playground just across the street from our house and I hounded people for pictures and tried to take some nice family shots. It was a very relaxing way to spend Christmas day and get to see everyone and reconnect.

I started this quilt the moment I finished Celia’s quilt (as hers wasn’t done until she was 2 and I was well pregnant with Ewan). My mom helped iron while I cut the pieces and pieced them together. I had the quilt all done but the name, quilting and binding since we didn’t know yet if he was a boy or a girl, nor his name. Given a few months I managed to put his name on the quilt and send it to Laurena‘s for quilting and finishing in October. Took her over a month with the holiday timing/rush. She does a really nice job and makes it easy to finish up, I decided to take it easy on myself and even let her do the binding. Ewan seems to really like it! He wanted to touch it all over, and Ezzy likes to nap on it as well.

Lessons from this quilt? edge the name in thread that matches the fabric. It stands out enough as such and the imperfections show less!

Another in my series of my kids being sick, sleeping on the couch in nice light.

Somehow I see this happening more than once.