Happy First Birthday to Elena!

Elena "Talking"

Big Boy

Stephen's hair was literally getting in his eyes, so he got a haircut.

Emmaline

Yesterday we got a rabbit. Her name is Emmaline.

Swim Lessons

Luke went off the diving board, by himself, without a life jacket, three times today!

Stephen

Stephen likes to suck his thumb. For now, it's very cute!

He has started to pull himself up on things and people. He's not so good at getting back down safely.

Summer Vacation

The Holy Transfiguration Skete in Eagle Harbor, MI

The lovely gardens at the monastery

Another view of the monastery

Matthew in the garden

Nicklas and Michael in the garden

Luke and Brendan

Nicklas and Michael, Luke, Brendan, and Matthew

Stephen and Kira

Lake Superior from the monastery garden

Luke in the garden

A rose trellis in the garden

Jacob's Falls near the monastery

Brendan exploring the Falls

Luke contemplating them

Matthew cautiously climbing in

Luke, Brendan, and Nicklas at Quincy Mine in Hancock, MI with their cousins Joshua and Annabel

Luke, Michael, Nicklas, and Brendan all decked out for copper mining

The fire truck at the Fourth of July Parade

A neat old car at the parade

Nicklas and Grandma watching the parade

Stephen exploring during the parade

Nicklas, Michael, Brendan, Luke, and Matthew on the shore of Lake Huron after we crossed the bridge to get to the lower peninsula of Michigan

The Bridge!

Papa-Great (Great-Grandpa Standfest) with Michael, Brendan, Stephen, Luke, Matthew, and Nicklas

Yesterday, Stephen figured out sitting up! He has a very creative way of doing it. He gets himself up on his hands and feet and then plunks himself backwards onto his bottom. He was sitting up very nicely when I started taking this picture but he saw the camera and wanted to get it.

This morning Stephen had his very first solid food, egg yolk. He wasn't too sure what to think of it and most of it came right back out, but some of it went down and he certainly wasn't upset about trying it. And we did get a cute "messy baby" picture!

Brendan, AKA The Flash!

 Luke at Swim Lessons

 Brendan at Swim Lessons

Stephen trying to climb on his friend Christopher, like he climbs on Brendan.
Christopher did not enjoy it as much as Brendan does.

The new stole I finished making for Michael. He wore it for an Ordination this weekend.

Stephen LOVES his big brother Brendan!

Luke and Brendan were passed out of level 1 in swim lessons yesterday - only halfway through the session! Yay!

Nicklas and Matthew holding two of Tinkerbell's kittens. Nicklas is holding Katzie, Matthew is holding Captain Hook. Her other three kittens are Wendy, Tootles and Tiger Lily. Matthew and Nicklas have claimed these two as their own.
Brendan and Luke are in swim lessons this week.
Stephen is growing like a weed and has just learned to blow raspberries - very exciting! He pulls himself around on his belly very well and is trying hard to figure out crawling. He has no trouble getting up on his hands and knees, but he can't quite figure out what to do from there. Sometimes he hops his legs forwards together which makes him look like a little frog. Sometimes he lunges forwards and face-plants on the floor.

Matthew's Baby Brother

Matthew has decided to be a great big brother and share his toys with his baby brother. He very gently holds Duplos up against my belly and tells me that it's "Bay-bee's turn!"

Progress on Our New Diet

We've been on the GAPS diet since July to heal our family's food intolerances. It hasn't been easy, but we are very excited to announce that Brendan is now healed of his dairy intolerance! He has had a glass of cow's milk at supper every night for the past week without any of his old symptoms. Luke is making excellent progress as well. He can have cow's yogurt regularly and a little cheese now and then without trouble. We haven't yet tested him on milk, but I don't think it will be too long before we're able to do that.
Nicklas has had much more trouble, but he is slowly progressing. We have finally managed to pinpoint the rest of his food intolerances on this diet and we're extremely happy about that. We always knew that there something else that he had trouble with, but we just couldn't figure out what it was. It turned out he has problems with onions, tomatoes, celery AND parsley - all things we ate on pretty much a daily basis which made diagnosing them virtually impossible.

Matthew and the New Baby

I've been talking to Matthew about the new baby quite a bit lately - how he's living and growing in Mama's tummy, how he'll be born after Christmas and such. The other day, he really got to feel the baby kick a lot and understood what it was. He was beyond thrilled! The pure joy in his eyes at feeling his baby brother kicking his hand almost made me cry. The rest of the day he was telling everyone that the baby kicked his hand, holding up his hand to show them. Also, he keeps pulling up my shirt and poking at my belly button, asking if the baby can come out yet. Yesterday, I told him that no, the baby still needs to get bigger. He looked at me very seriously, patted my belly, and said, "Baby big, Mama."

Nicklas' Writing Skills

Today during school, as Brendan was finishing his spelling, I gave Nicklas a warning that he would be starting his reading lesson in just a couple minutes. When it was time, I looked over at what he was doing (he had been drawing) and saw this written in his notebook:
"MAMAIDON
TNEEDtO
HAVAreeDiNg"
Translation:
Mama, I don't need to have a reading (I presume "lesson" was about to be written here).
I told him he did too need to have a reading lesson and sent him to the couch.
Then, I handed the notebook to Michael to read and ran off to the kitchen to laugh!
For a 3 1/2 year, he has amazing reading and writing skills and naughty though he was, it was still a pretty good attempt at getting out of a lesson.

Photo Albums

I've posted links to Picasa albums of the scrapbooks I've made for Nicklas and Matthew's first years. I'll add Brendan and Luke when I finish them.

The News from the Farm

Well, that last batch of kits didn't make it. Sad, but not too surprising. They were quite small and we knew there was a good chance of losing most, if not all, of them.
The boys are all doing well in school. Luke and Nicklas are progressing in their reading lessons and Brendan has finished his first math book and begun his second.
Matthew loves to talk about baby bunnies and "din-dins" (chickens).
Baby 5 is growing and wiggling lots.
Lucy is mostly housebroken now and will probably be moving outside soon. First we need to get some kennel panels though.

Surprise!

This morning Michael went out to check on the rabbits and discovered that there were a number of brand-new kits in Daisy's hutch. Linus was removed from her hutch exactly 31 days ago, the morning after the previous litter was born. I guess it's true that rabbits can get pregnant again within hours of giving birth!
I moved the new new kits into a nest box and placed it outside of the hutch; mother rabbits don't do anything with their kits during the day anyway. This afternoon, we set up another hutch and moved the older batch of kits to it. Ideally, they should still be with their mother for another week, but they know how to eat pellets and drink water, so they should be okay. And if we leave them in Daisy's hutch, the new kits will have no chance at all.
Matthew was thrilled to get to pet each of the kits as we moved them from one hutch to the other. He absolutely adores them; his favorite words lately seem to be "baby bunnies!" Usually said very loudly and with great enthusiasm.
Lucy is doing well. She still has a problem with biting in play when she gets too wound up, but it is slowly getting better. She's sleeping through the night more often now and having fewer accidents in the house. She's also learning to sit. As soon as she sees the bag of treats, she sits beautifully!