Grandma and Grandpa Chiddix's Visit

    It was a treat to have my parents come and visit for a week this month.  They came mainly for Ephraim's baby-blessing, but got in lots of other activities as well.

  Grandma and Grandpa went straight from the airport to a Boy Scout Court of Honor.  I got a picture of my dad talking with Asher before the meeting started, trying to encourage him to stop being a slacker and get going on an Eagle Project.

  I'm sure Asher will remember this pep talk for the rest of his life.  :)

 My dad tried to give Ephraim a scout pep talk, but he just wanted to cuddle.  Ephraim is grandchild number 24 for my parents. 

 My mom taught Sylvia and Asher how to play an indian game where they toss sticks into a circle and try to win all the sticks.  Even though she is a retired teacher, she still loves sharing her knowledge.

Ephraim loved laughing and smiling at my mom.  It was adorable.

 I love watching people's faces as they get smiled at by babies.  Their faces reflect that pure joy.

We also had a good time at the zoo.  Sylvia loved trying to get pictures of the animals.  I think she took a pretty good one of the giraffe.
 

Luckily there were benches in the shade for us old folks.

Sylvia and Grandma made cute animals themselves.

Grandpa often entertained Sylvia with some of his books on his kindle.

    We all have good memories of their visit.  The older kids appreciated a mega school-clothes shopping spree, funded by the grandparents.  Sylvia enjoyed eating lots of ice-cream, cheese, and fudge together.  I enjoyed listening to my dad tell stories of the "olden days" when he rode a trike around his dirt yard pretending it was a tractor.  We are glad they made the trek east! 

Ephraim - 1 month

We have made it through the first month of babyhood, where days and nights all blend together.  At least we have a cute baby to show for it all.  Here he is, weighing in now at over 12 pounds... the heavyweight champ of burps... Ephraim McMulllin!

Between all the eating and sleeping he does, he has now moved onto 6 month clothing.   Here he is giving Asher napping lessons.

 Luckily, Grandma McMullin went on a shopping spree and sent some larger sizes of cute sleepers.  He is already able to wear them.

My favorite thing to do is kiss his sweet little head. 

 
He fits perfectly snuggled into my shoulder.

On the rare chance we get him to sleep in his his crib for a few hours, we party it up.  Sean, Sylvia and I have enjoyed a new game this month called Descent.

Ephraim is beginning to smile more and more often.  We've even gotten a couple starter laughs from him.

My handsome  boys...

 And finally, after a month, Maya has decided that Ephraim is not a squeaky chew toy that we brought home from the hospital for her.  She is content to give him some space, and only occasionally sniff him up close.

It has been a blur of a first month.. but fun to see how our little chicken legged boy is starting to chunk out and look more like a McMullin.  We look at him and wonder what sort of little person he will become.

Ephraim - week 1 (pictures for grandparents benefit)

Ephraim has definately helped slow our house down.  There have been many hours of naps taken, and much lounging this past week.  I took some pictures of our time together as a family to show the grandparents, who are on the other side of the country. 

  Sean was able to take a couple weeks off work, and has been a great help.  While Ephraim and I lounge in bed until late in the morning, he has started taking Sylvia to the tennis courts for early morning lessons.  She really seems to enjoy the sport, as well as getting her dad's attention first thing in the day.

In the evenings, Sean goes back to the courts, and challanges Asher to a set.  Here Sean is in full serving action. 

 Mattias is now a pro baby holder, and realizes that if a baby cries while you are holding it, you shouldn't take it personally.  They don't hate you.

Asher is a great help as well.   I am able to get a shower anytime I want with all these baby holders around.

 Sylvia is very fun to have around.  She will teach Ephraim to laugh at life. She comes and crawls in bed with us every day, and checks how Ephraim is doing.  I scratch her back a little, and read her a chapter from her library book, and we chat about what we want to do that day.  Today as she was holding Ephraim she got three smiles out of him.  She felt good about it... as that is the more than even her dad has seen.

 Right now... Ephraim is just learning to track objects with his eyes.  Syliva finds this very interesting, and likes holding toys up and slowly moving them for him to follow.

 I found a University of Montana t-shirt in a second hand store here.  Who whould've though there were other UM alumni in the area?   It says "Ready or not, here I come... UofM"  - and it is in the old classic colors of the decade we graduated in.

 I thought he looked distinguished here. Well as distinguished as a 1 week old lounging on a bed can look.  This is another one of Syliva's great photographs.

 Snuggling his soft cheeks are a favorite past time of mine.

And there you are, grandparents... Ephraim turning into his own little person, day by day.

Ephraim Oliver's Arrival

Following in the footsteps of Mattias and Sylvia... Ephraim Oliver McMullin opted as well for a birthdate 14 days exactly over his due date.  He was born at 5:50AM, July 24th.  - Yes, a Pioneer Day baby.  I think as long as he doesn't live in in Utah or Idaho,  it won't affect him much.  It isn't quite the same as being born on Christmas.

    Here are some shots of his first day of life.

Sylvia has been a great big sister since we came home.  She reads him books, and plays quiet songs on her violin to make him go to sleep.   He is going to love having her around.

Asher was a pro baby holder right off the bat.  He has been incrediblly helpful with helping around the house to make things go smoothly.

 When the kids came up to the hospital, Sylvia had fun playing around with the camera.  I think she may have gotten the best shot of Ephraim's face.

Mattias has also been a great help around the house.. making pancakes and helping with Sylvia.  He is a nervous baby holder...afraid he is doing it wrong somehow.  I'm sure he will be getting plenty of practice now that we are home.

Ephraim is a mellow little fella.  I am relieved to have an easy going baby.    He was 9lbs even, and 21 inches.  This makes him bigger than either of his brothers at birth by a few ounces.   It will be interesting to see who is the biggest McMullin in about 20 years.

 The boys are surprised by the age gap.  They make comments like, "When he is 10, I'll be home from a mission and almost done with college!"   Syliva's immediate reaction was less long-term.  She was just worried that he would chew on her My Little Ponies.  Sean assured her that she has at least 6 months before he was crawling around trying to eat things.   That seemed to put her at ease.

     I'm so grateful for this little blessing.  He is a piece of heaven that you can kiss over and over again.

    

Sylvia's 7th Birthday party

  Since we had cousins visiting for the first time in 6 years, we decided to have Sylvia's birthday party a few days early.  It was great fun.    First we went swimming at the high school pool.  (Sylvia has been wanting to have a mermaid themed party all year... thus the pool part was very important to her plans.)

After swimming, we came back to our house for pizza.  These three girls ate as much as the teenage boys did.

And here are the boys, thrilled to be at a mermaid birthday party.  They are secretly wishing for more pizza.

Eli realized that eating the plates tends to take the edge off hunger when the pizza is gone.  Smart boy.

Spencer enjoyed the balloons.  Daniel got his exercise chasing after Spencer, who was chasing after his balloon, which was heading out towards the street.  Good thing Daniel still has some speed from his younger days, Spencer keeps him moving!

We moved inside for some challenging party games, such as Pin the Tiara on the Mermaid.  Here is Ben, one of the boy's buddies showing his skills.

Unfortunately Daniel is not as talented at this party game as the kids.  He almost pinned a tiara on Ben - Asher's friend. :)    Luckily it ended up landing on Syliva's doll instead.  I still think the look on Ben's face was priceless.

Here we have the birthday revelers, attacking each other with the party favors.

Sylvia's Arial-the-Mermaid cake did not turn out quite as dashing as I had hoped.  I now know I should never attempt recreating Disney faces with frosting.  Luckily, seven year olds are very understanding.  It had candles, and tasted good... so it was a hit as far as cakes go.

Our cute little bunch of birthday cake munchers.

  After the party, everybody had a good time blasting through several packages of Snaps (fireworks) that Kaydee picked up at the store.   Kaydee is a secret pyromaniac.  Who would've known?

 After the party, Sylvia got to have Addie sleep over. (She had been staying at the motel with her family until now.) It was a first sleepover experience for them both.    We started out by decorating cute tiaras, to match the jewlery they had gotten at the party.

That moved into watching the movie The Little Mermaid, and painting nails.   Not only did Asher know all the songs, so he could sing along.. but he allowed his toenails to be painted purple.  This made him a big hit with the girls.

Addie and Sylvia each had their nails done in their favorite colors (purple and pink), with an exrtra layer of sparkle polish.   (Asher drew the line at the sparkles.)

  After a bedtime story, and plenty of giggling,  the girls fell asleep in sleeping bags on my bedroom floor.  They were so sweet together.  Sylvia thought it was her best birthday ever.   I am so glad we could have family come visit us!

Daniel's visit - fun adventures!

    We got an exciting phone call from my little brother, Daniel, last week.  He was looking for a place to do a mini-vacation with his family.   Since they are living in Chicago for the summer, due to work, we are a mere 2 hours away.  Or faster, if you drive like Daniel :)  He brought his wonderful family up for 4 days, and we had a great time getting to know his kids.

  One of the places we went was the Madison Children's museum.   Here is Spencer starting early on his rock climbing career, with Daniel coaching him.
 

Spencer was interested in almost everything.  Here he is doing a masterpiece on the painting window.

    The one thing Spencer wasn't into, was the craft area. On the other hand, Sylvia and Addie spent most of their time here.  They glued and tied various things together to make some pretty amazing creations.

It was great to have Daniel park Eil in the craft zone, and just hang out and visit.  I love my little brother.

  Eventually the crafting marathon was finished.  Sylvia wore her homemade crown and flower jewelry for the next couple days, until  all the petals finally fell off.

Addie and Sylvia both enjoyed the spinning hamster wheel.  They would've stayed on it all afternoon.

We found critters for everyone to hold on the top level of the museum.  I was surprised at how calmly everyone let mice crawl all over their arms and hands.

They were not as excited to touch the snake... but though it was fascinating.

Later in the evening, we went to a Madison Mallards baseball game.   Asher's orchestra was preforming the national anthem at the start.   (Asher is the handsome blond, front center below.)

The orchestra sounded really great!  I was surprised at how well their sound carried out of doors.

Mattias got a chance to be babysitter to little Eli for a few minutes in the stands.  I forgot how good he is with babies.                                                       

   We had great seats, and were really enjoying the game.  Here we are smiling and unaware of how crazy the weather would become in 15 min. 

  Dark clouds were on the horizon.  They rushed towards the stadium, bringing buckets of freezing cold, side-ways rain, and high winds.  Yes, there was a tornado watch on.    We were totally unprepared, and huddled over the kids, unable to get into shelter for several minutes.  We were so drenched.  Daniel ran to get the van, and we cranked the heat up all the way home.  The baseball game was cancelled, but we still had an exciting adventure to remember.

   Back in Stoughton, the Addie and Sylvia were having a party with Noel, unaware that we were out fighting for survival in the fierce elements.  They had an art party, ate Blue Moon ice cream and played Wii.   Their evening was far less exciting, but I did envy their dry clothes when we got home.