Leia- 9 months

Leia is doing so much these days. She eats solids, blows raspberries and gives kisses on the lips. She scoots around the house and is working on perfecting her crawl. We think she can say "mama" but I'm not 100%percent sure if she knows that's my name. She has five teeth and cute chipmunk cheeks. She LOVES to play in water. She takes really long, wonderful naps and is a good sleeper at night. Her brothers like to attack her when they're playing with their toys because they call her the "giant baby" which translates to villain in their fictitious world but, I know that they love her to no end. She lights up our day with that sweet smile. We love her.

6

A certain someone in the family turned six last Friday and although we just moved to a new country I think we managed to pull off a pretty successful birthday.

First up was birthday presents at 6am. It felt like Christmas all over again.

Birthday boy with bed hair. Gotta love that happy smile.

Then when we opened the front door and saw this beautiful rainbow. I told Merrick that Heavenly Father sent him a rainbow for his birthday, he got such a kick out of that, he thanked him during our morning prayers, funny kid.

Then we ended the night with some cake and ice cream and lots of new friends.

Dearest Merrick,
I can't believe your 6 years old, where did the time go. I know I say that every year but its true I don't know where the year went. We love you soooo much. You are a blessing in our lives. Our family would be incomplete without you. We hope you had a wonderful birthday and can't wait to celebrate many more with you. Lots of love,
Mom, Dad, Memphis and baby Leia

Some things about you
You love Mario Brothers. You are a whiz on the computer. You love going to the beach and playing in the water. You are a wonderful artist. You love Memphis but always ask to be the "boss" of him which of course we always say no to. You want to marry Leia in the Temple of course. You love to say the prayer. You love to scare girls and chase them especially the cute ones. You're strong and smart and confident. You love to read. You still don't like cheese on anything else but your pizza. Your funny. Here's to another year bud. Love you.

Koi Pond

While visiting a shopping center last week we came across this Koi pond that the kids absolutely loved. The best part is that you can feed the fish. There's a quarter machine (almost like a candy machine) that's full of food to feed them. There's also a bridge above the pond so that you can see the fish from a higher angle.

University Club

Isn't this pool amazing? If you're trying to figure out whether that's the ocean out there behind the pool, it is, with sailboats to boot. The pictures do not even come close to giving this spot its justice. We get to come to this pool on Monday's and Thursdays as part of our Significant Other membership and we love every minute of our play time here. The boys are always loud and rambunctious here, which of course I'm always shushing, but my goodness can ya blame them they are practically in heaven. Tomorrow's pool day and by golly I just might join them with a scream or two and maybe a few canon balls, hah I can't wait.