Mostly about Felicity

The titles for my posts are getting really lame....

There really is no rhyme or reason for the following pictures, I just liked them.  

Felicity has a thing for belly buttons.  She loves them and giggles any time she gets to touch someone's belly button.  She has started to draw lately.  I find her "artwork" all over the house.  We are trying to teach her to draw on paper only but it's going to take some time before she gets it.  I've commanded Piper to hide all markers from the baby but she still finds pens and crayons.  Just this weekend I had to clean up crayon from the hand rail going up the stairs.  She also really loves sidewalk chalk.  

She is trying to say all kinds of things lately.  She tries to say bubbles, baby, ball, and yes.  She kind of says a weird "nuh" for yes.  She says "Momma," "Dadda," "Doggie" and "bye-bye."  Just this past week she started to say "done" and tries to make animal sounds.  She understands a lot.  She will let us know now when she has a poopy diaper and will go fetch the diaper and wipes when we tell her to.  She also likes to throw things away for us.  She loves, loves, bath time but doesn't particularly love to get her hair washed, which is probably pretty normal for kids her age.  She just recently decided that swimming is pretty fun and she tries to swim on her own and jumps to her brothers.  It always makes me nervous because she doesn't jump well and I always think she is going to slam her head into the concrete.  

She loves to be outside but gets impatient with the stroller.  She loves the trampoline and is starting to open doors.  She doesn't really care about watching any shows but she loves to listen to music and loves to dance.  

I wouldn't say she is a terribly picky eater but she definitely has her likes and dislikes.  She is not much of a bread person (rolls, breads, muffins, etc.) but likes most fruits and some vegetables.  She loves guacamole and cheese.

Her sleeping continues to be frustrating and I think at this point I've just decided to go with it.  She pretty much fights any sleep unless it's in her bed and even then fights that most of the time.  Her napping is confusing to me.  Some days she will only take one nap and I can get her to wait until 11 or 12 to take her nap but other days she can't seem to make it past 10 and then she needs two naps to make it through the day.  Her naps are inconsistent in length.  Some days they are great (1 1/2 hours) but that is not her normal.  Usually, she sleeps about 45 minutes to an hour and often only 30 minutes.  She generally takes the first nap without putting up much of a fight but her second nap takes a lot of work to get her to take.  Anyway, she is old enough to just do the one nap but getting her to that schedule has been painful.  Right now we are at two naps a few days a week and one nap a few days a week and usually her second nap is super lame so our evening is filled with crying and crankiness.  I am sure that part of the problem is that her siblings are home all day and even though they try to be quiet, the layout of this house is not good for noise.  You can hear everything.  The piano is right below her room, the boys room share a wall with her, the trampoline and pool are right below her window...Anyway, I put a fan in her room for white noise but I am not convinced it really does much.  Thankfully, she has been sleeping through the night for awhile now.  

This post is getting long already so I'll just say a few more things.  

We had a nice Easter.  I liked having Conference on Easter Sunday.  We did some of the typical non-religious things like dying eggs and Easter egg hunts (which was fun to see the baby participate in this year) but it was nice to have conference happening as well.  

Finally, Mike finished his first novel!  I'm super proud of him.  He put so many hours into his book and he doesn't have a lot of extra time on his hands.  He worked on it for about 8 months but that is only kind of true because he wrote parts of the book years ago in Ohio and then put it aside until he finally decided to get serious about it.  I enjoyed his book (as did Will and Isaac) but I am biased.  He hasn't made any revisions as far as grammar and such and will wait to make more revisions until he gets feedback from people who have agreed to read his book and give reactions.  He mailed off 10 copies to people and more electronic copies.  He is working on his second book but this one is much shorter.  I like to see him working on his interests and talents.