11

Here are a few pictures from the last few months. The kids started school, so we took pictures.

Juliet is 11 months old now. She is trying her best to walk, but only will take one or two steps before she sits down again. She has great balance and will stand up without holding on to anything. She also is a climber and can get on the couches and chairs and climbs from one couch to the other. It is a little bit nerve wracking when she tries to go over large spaces between them. She likes to jump on the couches and chairs too, so we watch her very carefully. She can go up and down stairs now too. She really is a joy to have around. Most of the time she is so happy and joyful. She love love loves her siblings and daddy and can't wait for them to get home from school and work. She imitates sounds she hears, like daddy snoring, water being poured into the tub, other ones I can't think of now. John and I don't remember any of the other kids doing this. She isn't as coherently verbal as the other kids when they were her age, but she does say dada, mama, something like hi, I think she has a name for Echo that sounds like go, and probably some others as well. She babbles all the time. She will also sing with me (I wonder if it is related to the imitating?). She has started to "read" books now instead of just eating them. We had some blood work done on her to figure out allergies, and she is supposedly ok with milk, but we found out she has problems with wheat. I read that babies can outgrow wheat allergy, but I'm not sure how long we will have to keep it away from her. So for now, no wheat. She does not like pickles. We tried to give her one to chew on tonight, and she kept pushing it away, or throwing it down, I don't think she ever even put it in her mouth. She loves to munch on celery though. She still only has her bottom two teeth, the top two are trying to cut, but they are being so stubborn. I can't believe a year has almost gone by, it has been hard and worthwhile.

Juliet climbed in the bucket herself and was so proud. She couldn't get out by herself though.

This one is from when we visited new baby Mitchell last month.

We went to the Tracy Aviary in October and had fun. Here are some of my birds.

Happy Anniversary!

Wow, we are celebrating our 18th anniversary! It has been great getting to spend these years with John and our kids. Love you! It's also Juliet's eight month anniversary too! She has been progressing so fast lately. It seems like in just the last few months she has gone from barely being able to sit up without falling over to now almost a full crawl. She can get back up to sitting when on her stomach, doesn't mind being on her tummy for long periods, can pull herself up to standing pretty much on her own. She is still really unstable balance- wise though. She says mamama like a pro and is adding more sounds like dada and baba. Dante can make her laugh the best, she likes it when he startles her by popping up out of nowhere and making silly noises, but she loves everyone and will sometimes cry when one of the girls leaves the room. She is a terrible sleeper, but the last 3 nights she has slept in her own bed for 4 1/2, 5 1/2, and 7 hours! I'm hoping she keeps it up. She still only naps in my arms and always wakes right up if I try to lay her down in the day. She has been known to sleep in the car and will sometimes transfer to the stroller and stay asleep. She also can scream in the car for 20 minutes before she crashes if it is too late and she wants mom. She has her two bottom teeth and is probably teething again, I'm trying to get her to stop biting me when she is done eating (OUCH). She loves the cat and tries to grab her, so we need to be really careful around her. She is super fast grabbing stuff, when I have held up beans or sweet potato fries for her to eat, she rips them out if my hands so fast and right into her mouth. She is really starting to love playing in water when bathing or swimming, it took her a long time to get there. She loves splashing now and has fun. She is most likely going to miss the kids when they start school next week (me too). We have had a pretty fun laid back summer this year. It has now gone by too fast.

Scarlett and Juliet are buddies!

Pictures in February

Juliet turned 2 months on the 13th. Here are some pics from this month. The first 2 are from the 13th.

January 2012

We had a good month in January. Juliet came home from the hospital on the 1st and everyone was really excited about that. The kids got to see and hold Juliet for the first time.



My mom came to help us for a few weeks, and I am so glad she was able to come. This photo is from the 5th. Liz also came for a few days, so we spent those days playing with friends and staying up too late. It was a lot of fun and I'm happy she could be here too.




We blessed Juliet at home on the 10th of January. John's parents, my mom, and the Bishop were there for it.





Juliet having tummy time on the 20th.




Sleeping on the 25th.



Of course we also had 3 birthdays this month, but we haven't been going out much, so they were all low key.

Juliet in December 2011

It has been too long since we posted anything to the blog, so I decided I needed to do it. I can't get too wordy typing one handed, so I'll just keep it brief. Juliet Dorothy Massaglia was born on December 13, 2011. She was 7lbs 5oz., and 19" long. We had a traumatic birth where I had a placental abruption and Juliet inhaled and swallowed blood filled amniotic fluid. She was in the NICU until January 1st, 2012, where she was on antibiotics, and healed slowly. Blood apparently takes a long time for the body to break down, and the lungs are not a good place for blood to be.

These 3 photos were taken on 12-13-11





12-14-11 This day was the first for us to hold her. We could only hold her 2 times a day for about 30 minutes each time. Some nurses were more strict enforcing the time limit than others.



12-15-11 I love how she was holding my hand here.



These were taken on 12-20-11 Miriam and David's family were in town, so here we are celebrating Grandma Massaglia's birthday at the Bombay House in Provo.




12-23-11


These were taken Christmas day. We were very disappointed Juliet was still at the hospital at this point, but she was pretty weak and needed the extra time to get stronger and be able to eat on her own, not with a feeding tube.





These last 3 were taken on the 27th, 29th with Grandma Massaglia, and on December 31 almost ready to come home. We didn't know they would let her go the next day, but we knew it was coming up soon. I was so happy to not have to be at the hospital any more!

2011 Dance Festival

Last week our kids had their dance festival at the school. My parents were able to come watch it also. The kids all did great. The weather wasn't too bad either. Usually it's sweltering hot, but it's been kind of cold and rainy for May.

We used a new video camera for these. It's a little Xacti camera that records directly to an sdcard so it's tons easier to get the videos on the computer. It was pretty cheap on Woot a few weeks ago. Hopefully we will be able to upload more videos now that the process isn't so involved.

FHE at Trafalga

A week or so ago we saw a great deal at GroupOn for a year pass to Seven Peaks, the Trafalga parks, Orem Owlz baseball games, and Utah Flash basketball games. After a little deliberation, I ended up buying them and we picked our passes up at Seven Peaks yesterday. After we picked them up, we grabbed a cheap pizza and then went to Trafalga to ride the slick track go-karts and do some miniature golfing. The kids had a ball riding the go-karts. None of them had ridden them before. Valerie and Scarlett got to ride their own and the other two had to pair up with us. I got some fun pictures of Becky and the girls, but I didn't take any pictures of us boys since I was driving. We ended up playing golf in the indoor course because it was a little cold outside and our kids hadn't dressed for it. The indoor course is pretty cool since they have added all the black lights and neon paint.

Lost His First Tooth

Lost His First Tooth
Originally uploaded by mrklaw

Dante had a loose tooth yesterday and was completely beside himself with excitement. This morning he decided he couldn't wait for it to come out on its own and asked me to pull it out. It popped out pretty easily and he's been showing everyone.

Carving Pumpkins for Family Home Evening

We carved pumpkins for Family Home Evening this week. The kids each designed their own and I helped most of them scrape out the insides and I helped them carve when they needed it. They are (from left to right) a half happy half sad face (Ella), an eagle (Valerie), a kind of happy/scary face (Scarlett), and Luigi from the Nintendo games (Dante).

My latest project

I had been looking for chairs for the table we bought last October (from Ikea) ever since then. Well, I finally found some chairs. In July, we were yard sale shopping and I found a set of 4 chairs with an alder table all together. I didn't need the table, but thought I could refinish the top and maybe sell it or something (the top was really needing to be refinished, it was scratched, drawn on with permanent marker, etc...). I guess that the table grew on me, because now it is in our kitchen! First we sanded the top and re-stained it. Then I took a break from the table and painted the 4 chairs. We have been using the chairs for about a month. I finally decided to finish the table, so in the last 2 weeks, I have been priming, painting, and sealing the table legs. I finally finished, and now we have a fantastic new kitchen table! I'm so happy with how it turned out. The table is stained with a mahogany stain, and the chairs and legs of the table are painted green (obviously) with a glaze over to antique them. I love it. We forgot to take before pictures but the table top was only polyurethaned and the legs were red. The chairs had a natural wood seat, the rest painted red. They actually didn't look bad, but I liked the green better. It was a fun first refinishing project for me.

Memorial Day Fishing

Memorial day was pretty fun. The morning began with some homemade cinnamon rolls, then I took the kids fishing in Provo canyon (Valerie caught a trout), followed by grilling burgers and then some Carcassonne after the kids went to bed. Becky had fun with her mom who visited with us for a few days.

Cherry Hill Competes at Amateur DanceSport Competition

Haircut at Home

Becky's mom gave Dante a haircut while we were at New Beginnings with Valerie.

Sledding

I got home early yesterday afternoon so we all decided to go sledding. I took some videos of the kids sledding with my phone and uploaded them to YouTube. Here they are!

Grandpa's 90th

I haven't posted for a while, and some things have happened that we haven't posted about like our trip to Oceanside in August. I'll post some stuff about those things later when I have access to our iPhoto library at home.

This weekend I got to go back to California to celebrate my grandfather's 90th birthday. My parents and my sisters were all able to be there. It was cool to see everyone together. We haven't been all together for years.

We arrived at LAX on Friday and after a quick meal at In and Out we decided to visit Redondo Beach and see the old house and the neighborhood. The house was under some heavy renovation and remodeling. The park was much different that what I remembered also.



After looking at the house, we went down by the Pier. There weren't many people on the beach since it wasn't very hot and it was a school day. The beach seemed much smaller and steeper than I remember. Our family has fond memories of riding bikes or roller skating on the strand along the beach for Family Night.





That evening, we had dinner with my grandparents and prepared some stuff for the party.

On Saturday, we had the party. It was fun to see cousins, friends and family and hear their stories. I got to hear a few WWII stories. We took a ton of pictures too.









That night we went to a Mexican restaurant and tried playing a game, but everyone was too tired. We ended up playing "Bohnanza" and "Hit The Deck" on Sunday night. We also got to go to church with my grandparents and visit Aunt Bertie and her daughter Nancy.

It was a fun trip. I'm glad I could go.