Play dough

Brad's homework involved using playdough to make his name.  So we made some playdough.  Noah and Charlie were funny with theirs, I wasn't in the room when they decided to mix their two colors together, but they sure thought it was cool :)  they were very proud of it.  It's funny to me that Charlie doesn't know how to use playdough really.  I forget how much I had to teach Charity to do when she was little and how little I teach my little ones to do now.  All the teaching is done by the older siblings.  That's what they're good for :)  I think Noah was trying to teach Charlie what to do with it, but he wasn't interested, so maybe it's not just knowing it's wanting :)  They had fun regardless.

Brad's had an interesting week, waiting to go back to school.  It's been hard on him I think.  He's struggling with that whole being a big kid in the little kids' world.... I think it will be better for him once he really starts school.  He's very anxious to go and learn how to read :)

Lukey loves play dough.  Look how happy he is :)  And his is orange of course.  His favorite color is actually "colorful" but since that is rarely an option, Orange is usually the one he chooses.  It's pretty bright, I think that's what he likes about it.  I think it's perfect for him :)

I took a million pictures of Erika since she was in the mood to smile for me :)  I love her eyes.  Can't get enough of her eyelashes and her cute new teeth.  She loved the leftover brownie crumbs I sprinkled on her tray :)

We've been watching and waiting for that tooth on the top.  It showed up Sunday-ish.  You can see in this next picture how close those other ones are to coming in as well.  She's actually done really well with the teething.  I'm surprised she hasn't been harder to deal with, she's already such a handful though, we're lucky I guess :).... she is well worth the trouble though.  I mean really, look at that face!

Noah was so tired and you'll have to ignore the boogers.... I'm not sure why I didn't notice them and wipe them off before permanently engraining them into our history.  They're gross.

It's been interesting having 6 kids, I find myself comparing them so much lately.  I've always said I wouldn't compare or group my kids into stereotypes at all.  And I still don't think it's something I should focus on, but lately it's really come in handy I think.  I've noticed a LOT of similarities between Erika and Luke (Charity fits in this group as well, but she was the first so remembering what we did then is difficutl).  They have VERY similar personalities.  It's really been beneficial to me to think back to what it was that helped him.  Luke cried a lot, needed to be held a lot, and was very frustrated with life until he was about 2. It let up a lot though, I remember, when he finally learned how to crawl and then again when he learned to walk.  He really needed to be able to get around on his own.  I remember thinking that anyway when he finally could crawl and go where he wanted.  So I have been trying my best, and spending as much time as she would let me, to teach Erika to crawl.  She FINALLY picked it up this last week, and is actually SO much more fun to have around.  She loves getting around on her own now.  And she'll still come right back to me if she gets somewhere, looks back and sees me smiling.  But she definitely has more to entertain her.  It's been nice.  And I'm really grateful for the chance to have learned from Luke.  I've also started telling her "no" when she does things that she's not supposed to.  I remember that being a difficult concept for Luke and took him a while to actually listen to.  So I'm hoping that by starting at a really early age (in my opinion) with Erika that I might be able to catch her before she gets too determined to not comply.  So far so good.  I'm sure some people would laugh at me saying, "no" to a 9 month old, but I'm willing to take that chance.  Anyway, I just think that I need to take advantage of the fact that I have all these little experimental subjects walking around and that they could really benefit from each other and the mistakes I've made with them all :)