Almost 6 month'er who is sitting.... and VERY chatty boys

I don't have a lot of time to do this post so I am going to try keep it short as I have a TON of pictures to share. But one thing I must share concerning the whole family..... we are all settled into our new rooms. Our closet is finished so all of our clothes are moved in and we have been "living" in there for about a month. After the carpets were cleaned we moved MacKay and Oscar into our old bedroom (which is pretty sparse as we are waiting to figure out where everything is going to go) and Evie into the boys' old room. We moved up my old Ethan Allen dresser to put in the boys' new master closet to hold all their clothes and double as a changing stand... and moved the matching twin bed (to the dresser) into Evie's room as a spare bed for us/guests to sleep etc. So we seem to be pretty settled and things are going well. We even stuck up some Thomas the Train adhesives in the boys' room (something I swore I would never do as I have pretty simple tastes) but they LOVE them and love pointing out each character as they know them all.

Some details on Evie to start.... she is almost 6 months and a couple weeks ago she started sitting up on her own. Who knows, maybe she could have done it a month ago.... but just a few weeks ago I decided to prop her up sitting on the floor and she just sat there. She's doing pretty good at it now and I think in total has only flopped over a handful of times...... tho if left too long she will start to get tired and fold like a taco. The boys were so proud of her when she sat up and were pointing and sitting next to her .... it was pretty cute to see them excited for her. She's rolling around quite a bit too.... and seems to prefer being on her tummy (vs back) when playing now. And in general is still a pretty laid back and happy baby. She really only cries (and man, she does have some power in those pipes when she wants to) when we get her bottle to her late. She's been napping like a champ in her crib ... and right from day one. I was doing the "no no" of letting her nap in her swing most days before she got her own room/crib, and was nervous about making that transition but she seems to be very good at falling asleep on her own. We're thinking of starting solids (cereal) next weekend, so that will be exciting. She's already had some experience sitting in her (the boys' old) high chair while the boys have lunch at their new "big boy table." Pretty soon we have another photo shoot with Trina Sutton (LuminousPrints.com) and I am excited to get some new shots of her sitting up in her little tutu again :)

MacKay and Oscar are our little chatter boxes. Not only are they copying things we say, but amazingly they are putting together sentences of their own AND saying words that I don't EVER remember working on them with. They will just all of a sudden point at something and say what it is... and it isn't something we've consciously "worked" on with them, but more something they have just observed in passing conversation with us. They are so amazing to me. They LOVE to read and are constantly climbing up on us saying "Read.. Book".... sometimes followed by a "Peez" (Please) :) They are understanding rules and enforcing them by telling each other not to hit, bite, no no etc.... in fact the other day I was holding Evie who was slapping my arm and MacKay walked up to us and looked at Evie and said "No hit, Evie." They love to tell each other what to do too... .just today as I was getting them together to head out to our re-fi closing Oscar was saying "Come on 'Tay, Let's Go." They surprise me daily. And MacKay..... LOVES to color. He probably whips out his coloring stuff 3x a day. Tho I must clarify... loves to color DINOSAUR pictures. It started with his Toy Story coloring book... he found the picture of Rex and colored it to the point where it was starting to tear. And now he won't color anything but a picture of a dinosaur, usually T-Rex... but he loves to color and is getting very good at putting the caps back on the markers and picking up after himself. They boy are learning their colors quickly this way too. They will pick up a marker and bring it over and tell us what color it is... or ask if they are unsure.

They are now sitting at what we call the "big boy table" (my old kitchen table) that we moved up to the dining room just for them. They graduated from their high chairs and now sit on boosters at the table. The only challenge really has been teaching them that all food stays on their plate... before they had that tray on the high chair that they could do anything with, so that is new for them and we're working on that. We also are working on them drinking out of real cups too. Oscar took to it immediately. MacKay tried it here and there but got embarrassed and frustrated easily when he would spill and then would refuse to drink of out it for a while.... when he would finally try a day or two later again the same thing would happen and his pride would get the best of him. But lately he has been doing really well at it with no recent spills... so I think we are good to go on that one.

Well there is so much more to share but I really want to wrap this up and get the pictures out here for you as there are SO many this time. I really need to get better at paring these down .....

Daddy with his kiddos. Reading to Oscar and MacKay (in their prized Thomas the Train PJs) and hanging out with Evie in the recliner.

I'm a horrible mother I know..... I took the picture before consoling her (tho it only took a few seconds)... but this is such a rare thing to see that I had to capture it. Evie just doesn't cry that often, at least not hard core like this picture.

Oscar and MacKay drinking out of cups (love the look on MacKay's face like "I won't drink if you snap that")... and going to town on Mac n Cheese (one of their favorites lately)

Our little artists .... the boys coloring their pictures. Of course Oscar with a picture of a train, and MacKay with his usual dinosaur picture. (I've had to print out multiple pictures of THIS particular dinosaur coloring page cuz it seems to be the only one he ever wants to color).

MacKay coloring.... had to include these of MacKay as he was walking around the house coloring like this (like someone taking notes or an order) in his Toy Story book (Rex) until we could get him some other dinosaur coloring pages. Lastly, we very often find MacKay coloring like this. He will go get a big book to put under his coloring page too (like we showed him once) and will lie down next to his picture and color away.

Some early pictures of lil Evie sitting up (more later too)

Just a cute picture of Oscar.... we were cooking dinner and all of a sudden realized he wasn't in the living room playing like we thought and ran around looking for him. Quickly saw him as we turned the corner.... he was sitting by the front door on this chair with his little stethoscope just smiling at us.

Evie having fun in her exersaucer ... she loves this thing, especially when the boys rally around her and help her play with the toys. She laughs so hard at them.

The boys' new love..... Yoplait Trix yogurt. Couldn't get them to eat much a while back.. but now can't seem to get them enough of it.

More coloring. We set up the coloring stuff at their big boy table. MacKay colored away but Oscar was more interested in his ability to stand the markers up on their ends

Lunch time at the Hoglund house looks much like this.... MacKay and Oscar goofing off entertaining Evie. On this particular day the house was just full of squealing and laughter.. what a good day.

MacKay and Oscar enjoying their first ENTIRELY self fed meal of waffles and syrup. Usually we will hold the plate for them to fork their pieces off of (to minimize messes and sticky stuff everywhere). But it was time to trust them and let them go at it... which they did very well at. Oscar HAS to fork up at least 2 pieces at a time, and MacKay loves to smear his pieces in as much syrup as humanly possible.

Boys will be boys .... and here they are being just that. They came across their winter boots in the closet and since then just HAVE to wear their boots all morning.

Some more pictures of Evie.... sitting up, hamming it up, grabbing her feet etc.

MacKay and Oscar have this obsession with vacuums, brooms and mops. Here they are playing with the broom and mop from their cleaning cart .... I hope this fetish doesn't end before the time where they could actually lend a hand in cleaning the house. At this point, if there were a little older they would be quite useful around the house. :)

MacKay and Oscar were pretty excited to see their old top spin toy and bongo drums ... but pretty confused when they were intended for Evie. Tho they were very gentle and showed her how to use them. They were also full of hugs as you will see..... tho not the best pictures, I find them utterly hilarious when I look at the expressions on Evie's face as she is being "loved up" by her brothers. :)

Come back soon....