Two girls on swings

I was going to call this Alice's Very Own Post, but then I found these pictures that obviously belonged together. But since all three kids are napping at once (a blue moon sort of thing since Nathan's all but given up napping), I'll take the time to tell you about Alice at seven weeks.

She's sleeping pretty well at night, anywhere from five to seven hours, so I usually only have to get up with her once. This, comparatively, is heaven. She's the best sleeper I've ever had. The most reliable way to get her into a good, lasting sleep is to let her cry in bed for a few minutes. So it can get a little harrowing when we're not home and she just wants to be left alone to go to sleep. That's the only time she'll take a binky.

She loves to watch her brother and sister. And they love for her to watch them. They'll ask all the time, "I want to see Alice's eyes." And they love to give her kisses. I had to explain she can't eat real food yet, after I found a bit of oat in her mouth (Clara had been sharing her granola).

She is a mover. She is always practicing lifting up her head so she can get a good look at things. And when she has tummy time she'll quite often roll over. She's done it six times in the last couple weeks. So, while I think she's a bit young to say she can roll over on purpose, she's getting really good at doing it on accident. She'll get her head over to one side and it kind of drags the rest of her along with it. I saw it once, but she usually prefers to wait until she doesn't have an audience.

And she's pretty delicious. That's what babies do--be delicious.

Addendum to the birthday post: Funny things said on the day

Nathan, on the way home: Dad, if you say that one more time, I'll throw you in the garbage!

Clara, singing in the van, making up the lyrics as she goes (a mishmash of primary songs and things she sees out the window)
Dad: That's a nice song. Where did you learn it?
Clara: Um, in the van.
mom: Oh, in the van?
Clara: um, Nathan learned it at preschool.
Nathan, indignant and disgusted: No, I didn't!

Nathan, on the way to the bathroom at the ranch, with dad: I know there's a bathroom here.
dad: How come? Do cowboys go potty?
Nathan: No.
dad: Why not?
Nathan: Cowboys don't have penises. They have guns!

I'm pretty sure there are some cowboys out there would disagree.

It was a birthday

 And so we celebrated it. Oh yes we did. I'm pretty sure Levi would have been happy to celebrate his birthday by watching TV all day. But I wasn't. So we rusted some childrens into the van and headed to an island paradise.

 This is the sheep barn at the Garr Fielding Ranch on Antelope Island. None of us had ever been before, and it was pretty exciting. We ended up spending nearly the entire afternoon at the ranch. It was surprisingly fascinating.

 While driving home, we noticed thousands of birds floating in the water, as far out as you could see. I'm pretty sure they were ducks. On the other side of the causeway, nothing. No birds. A few lonely seagulls closer to shore. Talk about segregation.

 After, we decided to head for an early  dinner. Because keeping kids awake all afternoon and then taking them to a restaurant and expecting them to act like adults is our idea of a good time. How about you? This year birthday cake was technically pie--Boston cream pie, with homemade creamy custard filling and chocolate ganache. mmm. I like to experiment with different kinds of cake.

Think she wanted some cake? She gave me a pretty good gift that night when, after having slept in the sling all afternoon, she slept an entire 12 hours. I'm pretty sure6 week olds aren't supposed to do that, but I was grateful anyways.

Enjoying spring

 This is what happens when I trust the kids to play in the backyard unattended. Yes, they can't open the gate and so I know they're not wandering the neighborhood, but. Note the mud in Clara's hair.

 And painted on the fence. And smeared all over Nathan's shirt. Bless them, they had such a good time making mud in our fire bowl. But the showers afterward bordered on child abuse (so Clara thought).

And, hey yo. This here is a sleeping baby. Can you sleep with your arm up in the air like that? Thought not.

First bath

 These pictures are fully a month old, since her cord fell off a couple days after her two week visit, and I'd like to think her first bath wasn't too long after. It wasn't so much a hit, I'm sorry to say. But she didn't scream the whole time.

 So see? We do take pictures of our third child.

 The problem is, the other kids insist on getting their picture taken too. So we'll never catch up.

Curly wet hair. But then it dries. So if it will be curly or straight, only time will tell.