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."