Blessed Mummy to 6 Precious little ones...: Look at Benjamin!! And park photos :)

Benjamin is sooooo teetering on the brink of crawling! Today he went through all the motions, just on the spot, hehe! For ages too. He lifts all his individual knees/hands up independently on all fours, whilst staying strong and balanced on the other three. He has also started to lift a hand up and reach for toys and drag them to himself, whilst on all fours. He doesn't wobble when he leans out or back in again, so he's really gaining strength ready to crawl. I wonder if he will actually start crawling in the next week or so? Seems like he will, to me. He has "kneed" forwards today but then not remembered the hands that should follow, haha! And he seems to just crawl on the spot with all his limbs without actually moving forwards, which I MUST get on video as it's so sweet and funny! ;)

Talking of video - Benjamin IS army crawling properly now, and he can scoot around the floor pretty well today to get to a toy he is interested in. It's so nice to see him able to move himself FORWARDS consistently, instead of having to roll around and hope he reached his target eventually, hehe! Poor boy! Anyway, I set up the camera and Arthur built a little stack of cogs from a cog-powered toy (he loves these), and we waited! Here's the video of him scooting along! My clever boy! :)

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

It just seems surreal to me that we'll have a crawling baby all over the place again in a matter of weeks! I feel in many ways like I have just blinked and here we are again! So wonderful! I confess I am getting really broody lately! ;) I appear to have conceived last cycle, but my luteal phase is still too short (due to breastfeeding, in my case) to support a pregnancy yet, unfortunately. We do not prevent pregnancy, so I'm excitedly hopeful for the coming months! :) God's timing is perfect and I'm so excited to see whether He will bless us again! I can hardly breathe sometimes for thinking that He actually might! Could we really be that blessed?! I hope so!

We all went to the park on Sunday afternoon. It was freeeezing and quite windy too out in the open areas, but Benjamin was toasty in his snowsuit (the same one that Nathan wore (long-winded post, but the photos ARE there, honestly! ;) Scroll waaaay down!) sitting in the snow in our garden last February! How crazy that it has only been a year and another boy is wearing it!), and the others all ran around constantly so they were fine! I wanted to take some photos of the boys for my depth of field photography assignment thingy, but they didn't stay still long enough! When they did, it was fleeting, or they did a forced smile or waved an arm blurrily or something! So I just took photos, and some came out quite nice so at least I have a nice record of our cold afternoon! We do turn heads out and about as a family now, I've noticed. Everywhere we go, without exception. We sometimes did with three, though I think it was more to do with how close in age they were, but with four it seems we're a definite circus! ;) I'm getting used to it (a work in progress! I'm not crazy about being noticed!). I do like attention on my little ones though, because I think they're lovely and I'm so proud of them! :)

Anyway, lots of photos. I'll just post them all in a row. When I looked at the photos after we came home, I was really struck by how much older Matthew suddenly looks to me. He seems taller and leaner lately (he really can't get much leaner! He was a lean baby to start with!), and his face is a little more boyish rather than toddler-ish. It caught me offguard, because I am always watching Arthur for the next new sign of him looking older, since he's the oldest and every new change is a first for us as parents. But I hadn't stopped to think that Matthew is right behind him, turning into a proper little boy with no babyness left to his face any more! Well, maybe just a little! :) But it has really disappeared lately. He is four inches shorter than Arthur, having grown over an inch in the last 3 months. Arthur grew just under an inch in the same time period. Nathan is 6 inches shorter than Matthew (he's so little! He's my shortest just-turned-2-year-old by far!). They're sweet little stairsteps! :)

Anyway, photos! Matthew was worried about Arthur up in the fallen tree (the one where he's standing looking up. He kept getting such a scared expression and making involuntary whimpering sounds! Arthur is his best friend and he always gets anxious that something bad will happen to him when he takes risks! ;) Actually Arthur does the same exact thing when watching Matthew do similar things. Little Nathey did loads of walking and running, and got quite tired eventually. We walked around a herd of deer which were right across the path we were going to take, and the boys were being so noisy that we took a WIDE berth! I took a photo of them though. They were all stags. Benjamin was perfectly good and didn't make much of a peep! He fell asleep just before we headed home. Nathan kept coming over and stroking his forehead with a finger (he's so LOVELY with Benji!), as it was pretty much the only part he could access through the snowsuit!