Sarah is now more than 10 months old! She is so much fun. She almost always has a smile, especially when she is being held by her mom. She is crawling everywhere, emptying cupboards and shelves. She surfs the furniture and tries to stand on her own. (Not quite taking steps, like her cousin, Addie.) Her latest trick is clap for herself which she does a lot because she is delighted with everything around her. She loves to play peekaboo. She flirts with everyone, pretending to be shy, but giving big smiles and batting her eyelashes. She has started liking books, laughing with delight at all the pictures.
She had a well-child check-up last week. She is right on track developmentally -- except for her size. She weighed all of 15 lbs. 12.5 oz. The doctor said I need to do my best to feed her high calorie food as much as possible. So bring on the cheese and butter! Don't we all wish we were so lucky. He said she can have anything she won't choke on, except nuts and shellfish. Even though she has only 3 teeth, she does a good job at gumming things. He also wants me to give her Pediasure, but I don't think I'm making that purchase again. It was $10 for a 6-pack of high-calorie sugar water with a multi-vitamin thrown in. It seems like I could make a smoothie with just as much nutrition for a fraction of the cost (and it would be made of real food!) Plus, she doesn't exactly scarf it down. Cheese and bread are her current favorites - a girl after my own heart. She is also very fond of cherry tomatoes, just like Jackson. We'll see if we can't beef her up by her next appointment.
She still fights going to sleep. She hates to miss out on any of the action. We had been rocking her to sleep, but she started taking FOREVER to fall asleep. So now we use a modified Ferber method. We get her really sleepy and lay her down. If she cries, we go in and calm her down and lay her down again. It usually doesn't take very many times for her to fall asleep on her own and it's less time-consuming. She is still waking up most nights. I have cut off the milk, but she still asks, usually settling back down quickly. Some nights are great, and others are awful. Maybe we'll get some consistency soon.
Sarah is a delight. She makes all of us smile. We love having her in our family.
We went to Dan & Danielle's house to celebrate Dad's 60th birthday. Everyone had a great time holding cute little Cohen.
Caden loved the baby too.
The kids made a birthday sign for Grandpa.
Jackson hung on Grandpa much of the night. Good buddies!
Yummy homemade cake by Wendy. Fabulous pasta dinner made by Robert.
We took a family photo at Christmas time. Mark is doing all the editing himself (which is taking a while!) so this was a rough draft that Dad can look at until the final one is done.
Sunday afternoon about 4 pm, Cohen was born! Danielle was a trooper -- Her labor started about 8 pm on Saturday night. She did a water birth at the hospital and said it was a wonderful, though exhausting, experience. Cohen was 8 lbs. 13 oz. - a very big kid for being a week early!
We went to visit them in the hospital on Monday night. The kids were very excited to meet him. Even Sarah was delighted with him.
Bennett took a turn holding him, after he was done jumping all over the furniture and running around the room.
We were all surprised how light (in coloring) Cohen is. We thought he would be a little Bennett, but he looks much more like Myah. His eyebrows and eyelashes are totally blond. His hair is light brown and he has big eyes like Haven. His hands and feet are huge. He is going to be a manly man someday. Haven and Myah are going to be wonderful big sisters and little mothers. We are thrilled for their family!
Sarah and I went to visit Jonah and his family for the weekend. He was finally home from the hospital and we thought we'd go help out a bit. The boys all wanted to come, but we didn't think that would be very helpful! So thanks to Mark, Grandma, Emily, Alyson, and Tami, they were well taken care of while we were gone.
Sarah was fascinated with Jonah. She always wanted to touch him and love him. She would squeal with delight when he was around. We did our best to keep him out of reach! 
We hung around the house most of the weekend. We went to lunch a couple times. I went to the grocery store. We cooked a bunch of food for the freezer. Mostly we snuggled with Jonah. He is so cute and so sweet. He looks a lot like Lucas to me. Natalie is recovering well -- just exhausted as expected. Lucas is slowly adjusting to all the change. It is a difficult thing when you have been the only child for almost 9 years. But you tell how much he loves Jonah and that they are going to have a great friendship as he grows up.
We went to visit Jonah yesterday in Seattle. He has jaundice so he is under the UV lights most of the day to break down the extra bilirubin. We think he looks like a superhero in his mask.
He is a beautiful baby. He gave a few cute little smiles while Natalie was feeding him. She only gets to hold him for a half hour every three hours. Not enough! Makes my arms ache just thinking about it. Luckily he is getting stronger every day and hopefully will be able to go home soon. We loved getting to meet him. I can't wait to go back again.