"Primary Sinners"

A funny thing happened at church today. Our neighbor is a few months younger than Kate and she has flowers in her front yard that my girls love to pick. She brought a bag of those flowers to church today to give to the "primary sinners" (her words, not mine). And who do you think the first people she offered a flower to? My girls. I know we have some work to do with the kids, especially during sacrament meeting, but that was funny.
Then when Nathaniel was picking up the kids from their primary classes Eliza's teacher told him a funny story. In class Eliza's teacher was talking about how Heavenly Father is always watching us. He hears everything we say and sees everything we do. Eliza pipes in, "Is there a way to block him?" That's the spirit Eliza. Instead of just doing what is right all of the time, figure out a way to do wrong things once in a while without the punishment. What a proud mama I am! Maybe she is a "primary sinner". No really, I love this age when they start to say the funniest things. You can really see the wheels spinning in their head. Kids are always good for a laugh.

Tanner to the Doctor...Again

I had to take Tanner in to the doctor again on Thursday because he had a fever of 100.1 the night before. I was a bit nervous because he had just finished an antibiotic on Sat. and he didn't have any symptoms of being sick other than his fever. I hauled the 4 kids into the doctor on Thursday and luckily they were angels. Tanner has an ear infection and gets to be on another antibiotic. This one is a 2 a day 10 dayer. Two different antibiotics for 2 different illnesses before he is 3 months old. I was not happy he was sick, but I was happy that the reason for the fever was an easy known fix.
Tanner Facts:
*He was only 12 lbs. 15 oz. on Thursday which is 2 oz. down from a week and a half ago. He just isn't chunky like my other kids, despite what the blessing pictures depict.
*His first intentional smile was on March 13th at a Relief Society Committee Meeting. It had been a busy, chaotic day and that just made the world slow down for a few minutes.
*His first laugh (chuckle) was tonight when the missionaries were here for dinner. I was holding Tanner and he was staring at Nathaniel and just smiling and then he started to chuckle. He did it twice. Soooo cute!
*He doesn't like singing...mine in particular. It kind of offends me. What baby isn't soothed by his own mother's singing?

My Cute Little Signer

Nathan doesn't say much. He communicates pretty well in other ways though. His latest thing is grabbing your clothes or body part and pulling you to get whatever he wants or needs. Today he was pulling on Kate's head to have her help him get something...she didn't love it. We started signing with him a little while ago to try to help him be less frustrated (and less frustrating for us). He knows how to sign milk, juice, water, help, open, in, bear, bed, blanket, dirty, home, shoes, socks, stars, more, please, thank you, cookie, cracker, eat, sad, and Tanner. We tried to have him learn the kids' names which we made up. Tanner was the "T" sign and then the sign for baby (like rocking a baby). When Nathan signs it it resembles the chicken dance. He is so cute when he signs and it has helped. I don't know when he'll start to talk, but we are doing what we can to try to help him out. He really is creative with how he communicates. He is good at reading people and listening to what's going on around him. He'll hear a child crying across the chapel and sign sad to us. He'll hear me say I need to change Tanner and he'll get me the diapers. When I say Tanner is hungry he signs eat. When he's thirsty he'll go and get his sippy and lid, bring it to me, and sign milk or water. When his sisters are bugging him, take a toy, or hurt him he comes and replays it for me. He is really good at charades and he effectively tattles doing it. He'll point to Kate and then hit himself in the chest or head. He is really funny because sometimes he hits himself hard to show me how hard she hit him and how much it hurt him. I've tried to explain that he doesn't have to hurt himself to show me. I used to talk with my hands and I have found that he watches me because he thinks I am signing. I was holding Tanner and patting his backside to try to get him to go to sleep as I was talking to Nathan one time and he thought I was trying to pat my tummy as a sign so he started doing it. I didn't even catch on to what he was doing until Nathaniel told me he was trying to copy me. We tried to upload a video of Nathan signing and it was adorable, but it didn't work. How unfortunate.

Tanner's Blessing

Tanner was blessed on Sunday March 7, 2010. I have searched my house for the paper I wrote the words of the blessing on, but I cannot locate it. I'm hoping it turns up since I like to keep that in my journal. He was blessed by Nathaniel and his Dad and brothers, Quentin and Matthew, and our close friend JD, and of course the Bishop were all in the circle. We went outside right after sacrament to get pictures (since I had welfare meeting before church) and as we were taking the last picture Tanner peed through his outfit and so we didn't get any individual pictures that day. I had to wash the outfit and get pictures on Tuesday instead. The outfit he is wearing the the same one Nathaniel wore on his blessing day and Nathaniel Jr. wore on his blessing day. The funny thing is Nathaniel, my husband, was born in Tucson and was blessing in the same building Tanner was blessed in. We were moved into that building this summer so that turned out to be kinda special. Nathaniel has a picture on those very same steps with his family as a baby. I think that is neat, same outfit, same building, and a lot of the same people there.
Tanner is just so sweet. I could not ask for a more perfect baby. He is an angel and we are very blessed to have him in our family.

Cousins

4 weeks apart and yet still the same size. Isaac and Tanner the weekend of his blessing (Isaac 3 weeks and Tanner 7 weeks.) Hopefully they will be best buddies! It sure is fun for me and Nancy to have babies at the same times.

Truth Be Told

The other day Eliza was telling me a story about when she was in Yuma after I had Tanner. She was in the middle of telling me how she did something wrong and how she got in trouble with Aunt Nancy. I interrupted her to tell her she shouldn't have done what she did and yadda yadda yadda and she stopped me and said, "Mom, can you not interrupt me until I'm done with the story?" Nathaniel had a huge smile spread across his face and he started laughing and said, "there you have it" (or something similar). I know I am an interrupter (hey, everyone knows I am) and I need to work on it, I just didn't think my 4 year old would call me on it. I think that is one of the only things Nathaniel has ever mentioned to me that bugs him. I know there are more things about me that bug him but bless his heart he doesn't mention them. He is too good to me. I suppose I should work on that then, huh?