If you looked at Chi’s basket pictures, you will notice he is not lacking in one major area.  Hair.  It was with great trepidation, that I decided to cut Malachi’s hair the week of his birthday.  My main reason for being so hesitant was the curls.  The boy has some beautiful sweet curls in the back of his head.  They are gorgeous I tell ya.

But, he needed a trim.  The poor boy was starting to look like a girl.

Off to work I went.

 Okay, he really has curls.  It takes a few days after washing and they come out but guess what happened when I trimmed it in the back?  It got curlier.  One day I’m going to trim it all around and see if the whole head of hair goes in to curl mode.

Yes, this was quite an adventure.  I think I did this the day the house flooded and Mark was trying to talk to the water clean up guys and the kids were running around everywhere.  I’m never one to run from a challenge.

I will get pictures of those curls.  I promise.  Just be patient it may be a little while.

March last year, we welcomed a beautiful brown eyed brown haired little man in to our family!  And we are so blessed to have him.  Mark says, “He came in to this world wanting to see where he’s going and he’s continued that way his whole first year.”

Since he’s our little monster (in a cute way of course), we had a monster theme celebration.

 Tada!  Big monster and baby monster.  These were finished around midnight the day before his birthday.  The only reason I was able to stay up that late was because a neighbor came over to help me prep and keep me awake to finish them!  I think they turned out rather cute.

 This is Ace with his best buddy Jack.  I’m not sure who took this picture but I absolutely love it!  Jack’s had a couple of rough years and to see them just hanging out being good friends…Well, it warms my heart.  Especially since Jack’s mom is my best friend.  Bonus!

 By the time my parents came up to celebrate Malachi’s birthday, he had gotten the hang of the present thing.  I think he totally loved it too!

A preview of his  basket picture.  He had to sit up in it and rock!  I’ll share a look back over Malachi tomorrow.

Here are his stats from his 12 month check up.

21 lbs 3 oz (25%)
29 inches tall (27%)

Nine months ago we got our seventh little gift!  Malachi is growing stronger and has more personality every single day.  I can’t believe how much he has grown in changed in the past few months.  I know everyone says that but it’s true.

Here’s what he’s up to:

Waves hi (mainly flails his arm around) and says, “Hi!” on occasion.
Up off his belly more when crawling.
Pulling up on everything, including pants legs and furntiure and brothers and sisters.
Cruising around furniture.
Laughing and smiling and generally loving his brothers and sisters and mom and dad.
Totally picky about who he will go to (besides immediate family) and very rarely will stay with them long…but bonus is if you are wearing a lot of clunky jewelry.
Eating table foods mushed up or blended.  Refuses baby foods.
Eating finger foods.
Drinking from a sippy cup.
Wanting “Beary the Bear”” always and chewing on his ears and tail.

Doctor stats:
19 lbs 3 oz (56%)-That makes him the biggest at this age.  Mainly he wins the title because Josiah went on a nursing strike at seven months as he cut four teeth at once and had a virus so he lost a few ounces.  I think he also wins the title because when he started baby food I put avocado in everything. Bananas and avocado, Squash and avocado, sweet potatoes and avocado.  Nothing like fattening a baby up with some good ol’ super foods.
28 1/2 inches long (58%)
18 3/4 inches head (96%)…Big heads…ah yes.

I can not believe this little man is now six months old!  He continues to be the fun one.  He laughs at everything.  The dog walks by.  He laughs.  He yanks my hair and I tell him no.  He laughs.  Any number of siblings walk through a room.  He laughs.  If you look at him.  He laughs.  But when he is teething or has a present in his diaper.  Well.  He can get cranky.  He started wanting to go to sleep on his own.  I mean fussing and fighting if we try to rock him some times.  This started the week we closed on our house.  And yes, I miss the rocking cuddles.  I always do.  Sometimes, every now and then, he’ll cuddle up and let me rock him to sleep but that is getting few and far between since he can do this:

And, he’s now mobile.  He started a belly crawl/slither at the end of his fifth month and continues to improve (meaning go faster).  He’s also getting up on all fours but he can’t figure out how to actually make him self go forward in that position so he’ll plop back on the floor and take off again.

I’ll post videos tomorrow of his amazing feats.  For now.  The stats:

17 lbs 12 oz (50%)
28 inches long (92%)

Josiah’s stats at this age still make him the winner for chunkiest.  Malachi is continuing with our trend of babies slimming down around six months.

Because I temporarily lost brain functioning during our move, I decided it was time to introduce Malachi to food. I had packed up our hand blender (okay all blenders for that matter), so I had to squish up the not quite ripe avocado with a fork. Primitive times, I tell ya. 

Any way, it was a fun time had by all and after watching him gnaw on the
piece we gave him for over two hours, we decided to wait a week or two
(well, almost a month…I had to find that blender first).

So, after being in the house for a week, I decided the rest of the avocados needed to be eaten or thrown out.  With previous babes, I’ve gone the cereal route first but since our babies tend to thin out around six months or so, I thought the high fat content of the avocado would do his body good.

After thoroughly blending and watering down the avocados, he loved them!  Especially when I started adding things to them like applesauce, bananas, squash, zucchini.

He also likes to help!

Four months ago, this not so little guy made his way into this world!  I could not imagine our life without this silly, smiley, laughing big boy!  Ya’ll, he really is a breath of sunshine in our home.  He’s got such an amazing personality and loves (I mean really loves) his brothers and sisters.  They equally adore him and prove it by continuing to pick up, play with, and poke the little man to pieces.

To celebrate his fourth month (and his granddaddy’s birthday), he got a tooth.  Mark and I have been able to feel the tooth for about a week now as it pushed against his gum but it finally broke through the gum yesterday.  

In other Malachi news, he’s kicking and rolls some.  Sleeps a bit and wakes up once during the night to nurse.  I knew the ten hour stretches were temporary and he proved it.  Not a big deal…of course if you had thighs and cheeks like his, you’d want a snack in the middle of the night too.

Here are his four month stats:
16 lbs. (73%)
26 3/4 inches long (95%)

Look at those thunder thighs!  He’s not the biggest of our babies at this age (that prize goes to our Josiah who is growing faster than any of the other kids still).

Ah, but those legs and that sweet baby belly!

Okay, Mark admits that his cheeks carry some of the weight too.  He’s all cheeks and thighs, that boy!

While Bryant is still a couple of months away from ditching the diaper drawers, I wanted to make sure I captured my traditional “babies in clothe diapers” picture before I forgot.

Aren’t they adorable?  Even if they’re a bit blurry.

I’ve got the pictures ready for June so tomorrow, I’ll rewind a month and post about our June birthday and all the lovely adventures we had then!