Olivia's 5 year pictures

This summer Olivia turned 5. 

 A few weeks ago I realized I hadn't taken her 5 year pictures yet and felt rushed to do so.

  I posted a few of my favorites and as you can tell, I'm a sucker for B&W's!

She has such a personality and I feel like I was able to capture it--love that!

The next day I was so glad that I had taken the photos.  

This is what Liv looks like now...

still adorable, just down a tooth!

Livy the Dancer in Video

This is a follow-on to a previous post. Livy is such a sweet girl and she is such a ham on stage. Here are videos of her dress rehearsal and dance recital in May/June earlier this year. She is so fun to watch and she loves to dress up as a ballerina. The rehearsal (first video) is actually a better run-through of the performance and Livy seemed to do the dance better in this showing. (I do apologize for the the high-pitched noise audible throughout the video. That is Livy's dance teacher yelling out instructions.) The recital (second video) is worth watching all the way to the end for a little theatrical surprise from Livy. She kills me. Where does she come up with this stuff?

We enrolled Livy in an Irish Dancing class taught by a bi-lingual instruction in downtown Wiesbaden this year to keep her in the dancing frame of mind. It is also a good way to immerse her in a German environment. Her favorite phrase thus far is Knie hoch!

Cooing and Other Family Habits

Our family time on Easter Sunday this year was centered around watching Jude being Jude. This video is good footage of Jude showing off his growing confidence in cooing. Shamefully, I must admit that the semi-naked kids that come into view from time to time are ours as well. It's just safe to assume that Livy will be in her undies more often than not. I used to fight it, but it's no use.

Play Room Fun

Sometimes it's fun to sit back ... and put on stretchy pants ... just for fun. 

Wait. Sorry. Wrong post. What I meant to say is that it's often fun to sit back and just watch my kids interact with each other in their distinct playtime elements. This video captures one of those moments. Each of my kids is so different, but yet so similar. I love being a dad.

Sistine Chapel Incognito

During a business trip in early June to Rome (I know ... hardship assignment), I took a day of leave to revisit some of the sites. This was my 3rd time in Rome and it never gets old. It is probably my favorite city in the world. I ended up being a tour guide for an awesome co-worker, who happens to be the most devout Catholic I have ever met. I have nothing but respect for the guy. The whole scenario was ironic: a Mormon tour guide leading a Roman Catholic around Rome. 

During our visit to the Vatican, I managed to sneak the following covert iPod video of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel. Pure awesomeness.

Asher's Garden Tomb

I try to spend individual time with each kid on Sundays. During a Micah session engaged in a game of Settlers of Canaan, Asher decided to join the fun by playing with the spare pieces. After about 10 minutes of silence (a world record for Asher by about 9.5 minutes), he looked up over his bent glasses and said, "Look daddy, Jesus' tomb and cross." To my complete surprise, he had managed to reconstruct a rough outline of what he envisioned to be Golgotha and the tomb. After a little more input from me, he successfully finished his model of the Garden Tomb (a.k.a. Gordon's Calvary) complex in Jerusalem. What a proud-dad moment! 

Mary always tells me that Asher is a carbon copy of me. With those disfigured glasses, which appear to be functionally useless, I'm starting to see the resemblance.

The raised portion is Golgotha with the 3 crosses. The center cross does not have a white peg (i.e. Jesus) because this scene is post-death, but pre-resurrection. The row of blocks behind Golgotha depict the spectators at the crucifixion. The red string of blocks represent the path that leads from Golgotha to the tomb. The light orange crusty thing in the bottom left-hand corner is some sort of food remnant from a meal a few days back. Nice touch; completely unintentional artistry. 

Sweet-action closeup of the tomb. The rolling boulder piece in front of the tomb is the perfect, creative touch by Asher. This moment was too priceless not to blog.

Jude Struts his Stuff

Jude will be 1 year old in less than a month. To keep up with his siblings, he has been walking here and there for the past few weeks. I took the time to catch him on video with my iPod Touch 4G. The older kids are going to be jealous when they grow up because we have more videos of Jude as a baby than the rest of them put together. It is just so easy to catch everything Jude does with the iPod video functionality. Oh well. I can't do anything about that now. The good thing is that each of our babies have been cookie cutter offshoots of each other, so in essence videos of Jude are really videos of all the other kids as well. (That's what I'll keep telling myself to make me feel less guilty.)

Part of my birthday gift to Mary this year was to help arrange for her and 3 other sisters from the Wiesbaden Ward to take a 3-day trip to Poland on a Polish pottery shopping spree. Mary had a great time and brought back some sweet pottery. (I'm sure she'll post pics of the pottery). This was the first time all 4 kids were put in my care for an extended period of time without Mary. (I'm sure she was more nervous than I was.) The kids and I had a great time. Even little Jude started to warm up to me, only because he had no other options! 

This video was taken during this period of extended "daddy time." It is a sweet take of Jude in his early stages of walking. The best part is that he is decked out in his full Germany soccer uniform. (Micah has been jealous for months that Jude received his first full uniform as a baby.) Jude loves to play with the soccer ball, as is obvious from the clip. 

I love this little guy.