Happy, Crawling Girl

With all of our kids, I have felt like they were all pretty good and happy babies.  My parents have always told me that I was their "happy baby", but I always wondered if it was because I was the youngest and their memories of me were the best.  After I gave birth to Scarlett, it seemed like she was a pretty content little thing from the get-go.  I felt like the Lord had really blessed her and me because she was so easy during the transition from the U.S. to Japan over the Summer and Fall.  Now that she is going on 7 1/2 months, I just can't get over what a happy baby she is.  It takes almost no effort at all to get a smile from her.  For the first 6 months, when I would go lay her down for bed, she would tuck her little arms underneath her body and she would almost never cry.  She is a lot more active now, so sometimes it takes her a little while to relax to go to sleep, but even still, she is a really good sleeper.  A lot of people that meet her and hold her always seem to say afterwards, "she is just a really happy baby, isn't she?"  I can tell she is going to be really social and she seems to really enjoy interacting with anyone and everyone around her.  All my kids have pretty much been that way.

Scarlett loves her brothers and sister, and when the boys get home from school and she sees them, she likes to rapidly start kicking her legs out of her sheer excitement.  She just started crawling and she seems pretty determined to get it down so that she can start exploring more.  Her personality reminds me a lot of Clark's at this age.  We all love her to pieces, even when she spits up all down the front of her AND me.  Twice.

President's Day Out

Tanner had President's Day off from work, but the boys still had school, so we took the girls out for a stroll in the Azabu-Juban neighborhood.  It has some cute streets and a playground.  We ate lunch at "Eat More Greens", which is a Vegan cafe.  It was pretty good, and then we went and played at the playground, and then we had to hit the French Bakery on the way back to the Metro station.  The weather is getting a little warmer so it is starting to feel like eventually winter will end!  It is fun to have some time out with just the little girls!

Andrew Loses 2nd Tooth...sort of

Andrew lost his second tooth tonight!  I was interested to see how this one was going to come out since it is his fused tooth.  The weird part is that I thought when he lost that tooth, the huge whole thing was going to come out all at once, but apparently they have separate roots, so it actually broke off where it looks like it was fused, so just a tiny little part came out.  Luckily, the Dentist predicted correctly that his permanent teeth would not be fused, so that's good!  The other side of the fused tooth is now also almost ready to come out...so it looks like he will have another visit from the tooth fairy soon!

Andrew's 7th Birthday Celebration

Tanner was out of town for Andrew's birthday, so we waited until he came home to celebrate.  Andrew once again requested a rainbow cake, but I secretly decided to up the ante and surprise him by filling the center of his cake with M&Ms...because there wasn't enough sugar or artificial flavoring already going on in this thing.  He loved it, and we had fun together as a family playing his favorite games on Wii.  Happy Birthday, Andrew!!