4 whole months!

I love this face! This girl can make about a dozen expressions per second.... Luke loves that about her :) and demonstrates them all for us.... This is the dress I made her... I'm really happy with how it looked on her! Too bad I made it so short... although I think it will be a great shirt once it passes the dress stage :)

Cute little baby Erika is 4 months old today!!! Holy moly this girl grows fast! She's getting so much more alert and aware of everything around her... she likes to be facing out and sitting up. She can't do this on her own, so she requires almost constant holding now :). Which is fine since there are so many of us capable and more than willing. She loves being in the know! Sleep is something that just keeps her from being involved so she tries not to do that too much. She reaches for things now, takes a binky finally, and still doesn't like to have anything on her head.... She still loves her Mommy, and actually recognizes me really quickly... it's cute. She's very patient with her brothers and their need to involve her in everything. She seems very calm and relaxed when Charity or Kelly are holding her or talking to her which I think is very sweet. She doesn't like Walmart. She doesn't like Sunday School. She loves being looked a tand talked to. She isn't really all that into cuddling, but the other day she fell asleep on me in a really cuddly position, and I savored every moment of it.... she's just SO sweet!!

No more wait, Charity's EIGHT!

Charity on the day she was born! I so can't believe it was 8 years ago!!!






One year old! I LOVED that dress on her!






2nd birthday party.... Bryn's helping :) so cute!







We did her cake a few days before her birthday, so we had to use this piece of bread for her blow out the candles ON her birthday :)

She looks so adorable in this one :) 4 years old

leading us in the "Happy Birthday" song.... always in charge :)

her beautiful 6 year old smile!

7th birthday, dancing to "Happy Birthday" SO hyper :)

and now....

Oh how I love this little girl!!! My little Charity is such a blessing in my life. She's growing up to be such an amazing little lady. I'm always so proud to be her mom. I'm lucky Heavenly Father sent her to me.

Charity is one of our little bookworms. She reads for hours! She gets SO into her books too! I'm always so amazed at how well she understands what she is reading and can just feel it all. It's just awesome to have her retell a story that she's reading.... so many details are recalled. In her class she has been writing her own books. Her teacher lets her fold paper into a book and illustrate her stories and such and then read them to the class. She told me this morning that "she started it ALL~ and now EVERYONE is making books and reading them to the class." I love that her teacher would let her head something like that up, and be so motivating with her reading. Her teacher told her that "when she's old and in a wheel chair, she hopes to read a book written by Charity Maynes." (even though she just barely found out how to pronounce Charity's last name!!!! Charity never corrected her because she thought that would be rude :) LOL!!! HA! Funny girl) She's just so smart! We've always been surprised at what this girls knows. Recently she has been way into Math too. She's got Uncle Steve, Uncle Brent and Grandpa quizzing her NONSTOP on her times tables and even teaching her some division!! She is really picking it up! And she LOVES it! You can just feel her excitement when she figures out the right answer! Love it! She's got so much energy too! You would think she would start to run out of steam with how much she goes and goes, but nope! She's still going and going! I love it!! She definitely livens the place up a bit. Charity is an incredible big sister. This family would fail to thrive without Charity. She's always helping out and always there to fill in the blanks that Nate and I leave. She's really like another parent :). She enjoys teaching everything she learns to everyone too--- which they all love! Charity is one of the most forgiving people I know. She's always there to give a hug too.... she knows when people are down and is able to cheer them up. Charity is REALLY excited to get baptized this year! She's counting down the days and that makes me happy. I really just can't believe that this sweet, fun, happy little girl is mine! I'm so blessed.

Happy Birthday Charity!!!!

I forgot to have her fill out her list of favorites.... have to do that later!

Random Pictures

I bet you all thought I was being lazy and not taking pictures of my kids all this time.... well you were wrong!! I've been lazy and not putting them on my blog :) HA! jk. Mostly Erika, but lots of pictures :) here ya go:

I love this smile :) If only that stupid date wasn't there!! SARAH!!!!!!!

Erika is always getting comments about her BIG eyes.

We were just joking about how many pictures we have of Nate sleeping with the kids on him.... they'll grow up wondering if their Dad was in a coma or something :) HA! He's just really suseptible to the drowsiness that sleeping kids induce.

I just wanted to save this picture that Kelly drew of what she thinks Heaven looks like.... I'd have to agree :) Beautiful!

I've really gone overboard buying pink toys and stuff for this little girl.... it's just so fun :) How can ya resist.

Bathtime!! This adorable towel was given to Erika by a lady in the ward. She got so many gifts from just random people in the ward. I hope that doesn't sound wrong, but there were a lot of people who we really don't know, who were so thoughtful to bring over gifts. They all just seem SO interested in our kids and especially the new baby. It's kinda fun to be in a ward that only gets a new baby every couple of years. Sister Hammond embroidered this towel though, really sweet. I love that she thought of Erika. And for a sixth kid, she sure got spoiled!

"a baby holding a baby holding a baby" steve's words :)

Friday's Fabulouses

1. Charity was tested for next year's Spectrum Program. Mrs. Owen, Charity's teacher, told us we ought to have her tested to see if she could be in it next year. It's kind of an accelerated program. For kids who are learning things quickly and could be learning a little more and with less assistance. Mrs. Owen was sure she would be accepted, and was really insistent. I've debated whether or not I wanted to put her in something like that. We've always known she was smarter than average for her age. But at the same time, I don't want her to feel too much pressure either. SO anyway, we had decided that we would test her, see if she made it and THEN do the weighing of whether we wanted to do it or not. She would have to go to a different school, which she was never thrilled about, so that would be taken into consideration. Now you're probably wonder, why are we having her tested for a program that's only in Utah when we're moving out of state soon?? Good question! I'm not sure if I do it for myself, for her to see that she really could do it, or for the just in case we don't end up moving (not likely or ideal, but it's starting to feel like anything could happen), but either way, she was tested on Saturday. They had me fill out a bubble sheet with questions about her and her study skills, prioritizing, and ability to focus. It was interesting. Then she was tested using a bunch of different little patterns and stuff.... she said it was all very easy except the very end when she had to go through and double check that she didn't go outside of the lines on any of her circles..... that was the hard part?? Funny girl. I just love that about Charity. So sounded to me like she did fine. We'll find out in April how she did. And probably be gone by then :) but hey, maybe we could use the information for something wherever we go, who knows. We decided to go out for ice cream afterward for her and Kelly's blue slips. Baskin Robins is our celebration ice cream place :) The kids love it and it's so fun to spoil them with ice cream :)





2. Our ward theme for the month of February was "Courage" and I have felt like every talk has been directed to me.... it's fabulous to me that the Lord would bless me with such encouraging words before we take on this next big thing in our life.... makes me smile :)





3. 50% off on all fleece at JoAnn Fabrics.... FABULOUS!! (would have been even more fabulous if I had waited a day and seen the 20% off coupon in my email!!! That would have really been a steal!)





4. On Tuesday night I had wanted to take my mom to try a Fh'zookie at Firehouse pizza, but it turned into all of us and steve there for dinner!!! I LOVE their Cordon Bleu Pizza!!! And the triple chocolate fh'zookie..... MMMMMMMMMMM love it!! I think my mom liked it too :) Glad she could join us!





5. We started our Family Home Evening binder this week. We started with just making a list of things we could do on Sunday that would help us keep the Sabbath Day holy. I'm looking forward to feeling better about our Sundays.... and getting to the rest of the binder too!!





6. My fabulous 2008 Blog Book showed up on our doorstep this week!!!! 240 pages!! I can't believe it's finally done. I've been working on it a lot lately... it's now my pride and joy. Now I just need to hurry and finish 2009 before we have to move, the program is on my Dad's computer!!



7. I got to color with Noah yesterday. I loved it. And so did he :)

My new favorite question:

"Mommy, how do you spell 'I wuv Choowity' [I love Charity]" - Luke (4)

I just about died when he asked this.... he was drawing her a picture and actually ended up hand-writing, with only prompting of which letter was next, "I love Cha"..... he got distracted :) but SO SWEET!! I love being a mom.