Gracie Girl

Poor Grace has not had much face time on this blog, so I'm going to try to remedy that (thanks for blogging and motivating me, Heidi!). Our sweet little Grace is 4.5 months old now! She is such a smiley happy girl and charms everyone she meets. If you smile at her, she will love you and make you feel like a million bucks. We took her in the pool for the first time yesterday and within a couple minutes she had a large gathering of admirers. It was pretty cute.

Grace had her 4-month checkup a couple weeks ago, and despite her poor weight gain her first month, she is growing like a champ! She weighed in at 14 lb. 7 oz. (~60th percentile) and almost 26 inches long (~95th percentile!). She still seems so tiny to me, but I guess that's just compared to big older siblings running around!

 Grace is very busy and is rolling all over the place! She first learned to roll from back to front and now rolls both directions all over the family room floor. Occasionally she'll forget how though and get very upset to be "stuck" on her tummy. Luckily there's always a brother or sister around who is more than willing to help her roll over.

 Current favorite activity: chewing on her toes.

 And chewing on anything else she manages to grab hold of.

 
With all this rolling however, it is the end of swaddling and the end of what little sleep we were getting. She's never been a great night sleeper, but up until two weeks ago she was an excellent napper, so I felt like that was at least a somewhat decent trade-off, especially with three other kids needing a lot of attention throughout the day. Well, now naps and night sleep are both a big struggle and we're all feeling a little frustrated and defeated. I feel like we're completely starting over on figuring out how to do the whole sleep thing, but hopefully we'll get it resolved soon. Naps seem to be going a little better the last few days, but nights are still awful. It takes at least an hour to get her to finally go to sleep and then she wakes up too many times in the night. Weeks like this make me think four is plenty. :)

But boy is she a cute happy baby! We sure love our little Grace and we wouldn't trade her for anything! 

July

Enjoy a smattering of pictures and activities from July, in no particular order...

 Watermelon eating - a summer must.

 We FINALLY got our storage room organized! It's so pretty! Haha. I am still in shock how organized it is when I go down to get something. And yes, I realize how completely spoiled we are to have an entire room dedicated to storing our junk. (And food...not all junk).

 We've gone to the pool LOTS of times! Hooray! Grace just recently started going in, before that she'd either hang out with me or herself somewhere in the shade. She's not always this happy, but we're glad when she is!

 Lots of new pantry items for us this month. I'll have to do a separate post about this, but we found out recently that Eli has Celiac's disease, so gluten-free it is. I now own buckwheat flour, oat flour, brown and white rice flours, tapioca starch, potato starch, xanthan gum, and all sorts of other things I never knew I needed (is your head spinning yet? yeah, mine too).

 Our garden a few weeks ago...the spaghetti squash is taking over the land.

 Poolside!

 These kids are amazing swimmers! Both Eli and Connor are little fishes and even Anna jumps in now (with her Puddle Jumper) and puts her face in! Big improvement for that girl. She may be swimming by the end of the summer if we keep working on it...

 We (or mostly Eli) have also done a lot of reading this summer...this kid will read anything and everything!

 We've gone to play in the river a couple times. The kids have collected frogs and tadpoles and lots of little shells.

 Garden produce! I planted 7 varieties of tomatoes, so it's fun to see all the different colors and sizes!

 I convinced Eli to read a story to them...he doesn't like to but I love it!

 And LOTS of yummy summer grilling. The only thing I prepped in the house for this meal was some sliced watermelon. Winner!!

 Yum yum! We got some patio furniture and I love eating outside! I'll definitely love it more in the spring and fall, since it's often too muggy to be enjoyable right now, but it's still fun when we do decide to do it.

 YUM.

 This year, the Fourth of July was cold and raining. Not so great. So we spent the day playing games and watching a movie...not exactly festive. To make up for that, we had a fun BBQ/slip & slide party the following Saturday with a bunch of friends. It was a hit! We need to do things like this more often.

How many kids can you cram on one slip and slide?

Jeremy's now-famous grilled chicken was a hit with both the kids and the adults!

 Family Float. Haha. My legs look really white in this picture...this must have been earlier in the summer. ;)

My friend Brekke took this picture of Jeremy pushing his friend Matt on the swings next to me pushing Anna. Haha, nice guys. This was at a park near our house for our Ward Ice Cream Social.

And now on to August! AHH!

Cincinnati Nature Center

We've tried to use our Nature Center pass a lot this year. I feel rejuvenated when I'm out in nature, especially on a hike, and the kids enjoy it too. The Nature Center isn't quite up there with Oregon of course, but it's close to our house and feels like we're stepping away from the world for awhile. A few Saturdays ago, the weather wasn't too humid and miserable, so we decided to have a family hike. I had done this particular trail with the kids about a month before and wanted to show Jeremy, so we had a good time doing it again. Once Grace fell asleep, she was happy to be in the Ergo and my kids are super hikers now, so it was a win. And I got to play photographer this time. When I go by myself with the kids, I never bring the camera since I'm already carrying Grace and often a backpack, but Jeremy took Grace this time so I got to snap some pictures! Enjoy!

We went on the Wildflower Trail, and did, in fact, see a lot of wildflowers.

 Gracie woke up right at the end and was fascinated by the light coming through the trees.

 It was a great morning!

Trip to Utah, Part Two - Family Reunion in Heber!

This year's Astle Family Reunion was at my Uncle Alan's "cabin" (super nice big house) in Heber, Utah! It was a perfect reunion place. It had 7 bedrooms, lots of bathrooms, a theater room in a massive basement, a gorgeous view of the mountains and room for everyone to enjoy each other. We got up to Heber on Tuesday afternoon and left the next Monday morning. I think the reunion "officially" was Wednesday - Saturday.

So...Tuesday we played some games and ate dinner and got settled in. 

Then on Wednesday we drove to American Fork Canyon and hiked up to the Timpanogas Caves. It was a serious hike! Despite being drenched in sweat and a bit weary by the end, it was a really neat hike. I was really proud of my kids for doing so well. Grace obviously was carried the whole way, but all the rest of my kids hiked the entire way up and down that quite steep mountain. They were pretty wiped out by the end. The boys thought the cave was awesome and Grace did better than I expected (she sadly isn't too fond of being in the baby carrier).

Eli was Seth's buddy on the hike. The only time I saw him was when we went in the cave. Thanks for taking care of him Seth! And for taking some pictures!

 Grandpa and Connor stuck together the whole way up the mountain.

 There were some amazing views!

 Anna with her headlamp inside the cave. Hehe.

 All done!

 That night we replenished our burned calories by eating at a buffet on the way back to Heber.

 Thursday, we had a more low-key day at the cabin. We played games, did some water baseball, and the kids played a lot together in the basement.

And we took a million pictures of these cute babies together!

 These pictures are a mix of Tuesday and Thursday...

 It was so great to spend some time with my sweet Grandma too!

Friday was boating day! Alan volunteered his time and boat for us on Friday. He took some of the older kids and some adults out early that morning and then came back and let the rest of us and some of the younger kids go out. I wasn't sure what my kids would think, but they all really wanted to do it and they loved it! Anna was a little nervous sometimes, but she did great, and Grace slept the whole time in her adorable life jacket. The boys went on the tube with some of their cousins and had a blast! It was so cute to see them all having such a great time together.

Uncle Alan and Grace in her straight-jacket, I mean, life-jacket.

These kids are so cute! Grandma with Anna (3), Connor (5), Garrett (5), Sydney (5), Vanessa (7), and Eli (7). I'm so glad my kids have so many fun cousins their ages!

Below: Alan, Michael (I love my cousin Michael! He was awesome with the kids and demonstrating his sweet surfing skills), Eileen and my brother-in-law Michael, Jeremy, and me with the sleeping babe.

Jeremy tried "surfing" and was a champ! He got up the first time.

Poor Eileen was not very pleased to be on the boat, but she quickly fell asleep in Grandma's arms.

Cute kids on the tube!

After the boating we ate lunch and played in the sand for a bit before heading back to the cabin. I can't remember exactly what else we did that day, probably just more playing and hanging around. At some point during the reunion we also watched a bunch of old family videos. That was fun to see everyone as kids and to look at the resemblances to our own kids now.

 Morning devotional:

 Jesus wants me for a sun-BEAM!

 Saturday was a great day! My parents invited my dad's whole family up to Heber, so his mom, all of his five siblings, and most of their kids and grandkids were there! I think there were about 70 of us. It definitely wasn't a long enough time to catch up with all of them, but it was really fun to see them again. We got really close to them when we lived in Utah, and miss seeing them more often! I didn't get very many pictures that day, but hopefully my dad will share his someday...(ahem, ahem).

Jeremy's Aunt Deana catered lunch and dinner that day! It was delish as usual!

Then it was over! Heidi and Steve both left early Sunday morning, then Amy and Wendy left Sunday afternoon and we left early Monday morning. Thanks for planning a fun reunion Mom and Dad!