Gracie's Half Birthday

The Newbry family has a long standing tradition of celebrating a child's 6 month birthday. I for one am all for the tradition. I mean really, who doesn't love an excuse to have a party. OK, the real reason for having a 6 0month party is because so much happens during those first 6 months of life and we feel it's something to celebrate. I mean think about it. When babies are born they are these tiny little things who just lie there. They eat, cry, and sleep a lot. Don't get me wrong, I love new babies, but they don't do much. By the time they're 6 months old they can smile and laugh, they're sitting up (or almost sitting up), some may be crawling, some may have teeth, they babble and interact with others. A lot happens in that short 6 month period. So we had a party. Just a small party, but a party none the less.

Normally when we have a 6 month party it's just the family, but this year we decided to include our favorite family, the Gulicks. They are taking care of our house while we're on the cruise and they want to borrow our snorkel gear for their cruise which is one week after we get back, so we had them come over on Monday night to have a half birthday party/try the snorkel gear on/instructions for the house/FHE night. It was great.

Gracie got a fun little ball that she absolutely loves. It makes sounds and lights up(of course, what toy in this world of today doesn't make noise and/or light up) and it moves around on it's own. It keeps her very entertained. The older kids like it as well. It was hard to get them to let Gracie play with it. She also got some simple put together toys that also make sound and light up.

Gracie's cake was very different than the other birthday cakes we've had recently. We often do cupcakes for 1/2 birthday's because they're the perfect size for a little one. Believe it or not she didn't know what to do with the candle. Luckily she didn't try to grab it and Ben and Sarah Kate helped her blow it out after we sang.

She may not have known what to do with the candle, but she had no problem figuring out what to do with the cupcake. With all the other kids we had to put some frosting on our finger and feed it to them before the would try the cupcake and then they just kind of make a mess with it. Grace didn't need the help. She went to town.

As you can see she still made a mess, but she actually ate quite a bit of it. It was a good night and we are so glad she's a big happy, healthy 6 month old. I can't imagine my life or family without her. She a very happy smiley baby who loves her big sisters and brother. Overall she's just a joy. We are so grateful to have Gracie as part of our family.

Gracie's New Trick

Gracie's such a brilliant child. Though she can't sit up yet she has taught herself to crawl around (OK, it's more of the get up on your hands and knee's and then flop down thing, but I have seen her do a few crawl movements) and she can get to wherever she wants to go. However, she has recently learned a new trick that's so much fun. She has begun to really enjoy eating fruits and vegetables, and at the same time has learned to blow raspberries. I guess when you learn to do two different things at the same time it's only natural to do them AT the same time. I guess I should clarify that she only does it with veggies, you know the ones that are more likely to stain. I've taken to feeding her with one hand and holding the other hand up near her mouth to catch the spray. It's the only way I can keep my clothes and face clean.



Here she is blowing a raspberry with her sweet potatoes. Yes, I'm aware that it would have been smart to put a bib on her, but I was too lazy to go get them out of the dryer.

Now she's just being cute in her seat. She loves the camera and stops doing everything when she sees either the video camera or the digital camera. As annoying as the raspberries can be sometimes, she is oftely cute making them and they sure make her happy. She always smiles or giggles after she does them.

Oh! On a side note. I wanted to put a video of her giggling on here a couple months ago when she started giggling, but as I mentioned above I couldn't get it on video because everytime I'd bring the camera out she'd stop. Kenny helped me tonight and I finally got a good giggle on tape so I thought I'd share it. She laughs a lot like Hannah.

The Karate Tests

This weekend was karate testing again. I don't know about anyone else, but it seems like testing happens a lot more often than once every two months. Anyway, they changed the testing around a little, again. This time it was because they got too many complaints about keeping the little kids out to late on a school night. Therefore, Ben tested at 4:00 on Friday and Sarah Kate tested at 10:00 in the morning on Saturday. Because Hannah was so sick, we rotated who got to go and who stayed with the little girls.

Ben with some of his classmates. Believe it or not he's at least a full year younger than all of them.

Kenny took Ben, along with Sarah Kate, and the report was that Ben did well. He struggled with his attention and his willingness to participate at first, which is typical for Ben, but pulled it together as the test went on. He had to do the side kick and Kenny said he managed to break it, which was good considering he had never broken one that way before.

He was very excited to get his new red belt. I was a little worried about him having to give up his blue belt, but he had no problems and he's discovered that he's almost to a black belt.


Sarah Kate did well on her test. I was able to go watch her, along with Ben who didn't do well. Sarah Kate paid very good attention and did her form spotlessly. When it came time to do her board breaking, which was the jumping snap kick, a little like the Karate Kid kick, she struggled thanks a lot in part to Ben who wanted to hold the board. As I was trying to sit on Ben to keep him away from the board I was rescued by Mr. Jeff who held the board for me so I could deal with Ben. Sarah Kate was the next to last one to break her board, but once she decided not to be afraid of it, she broke through it with no problem. (In case you couldn't guess Ben got in A LOT of trouble.)


Sarah Kate went from a purple belt to a light blue belt. She gets a light and a dark blue belt whereas the little ninjas (under 5) only have one blue belt. She's very excited to be in with the blue belts and change classes, times, and forms.

Sarah Kate in her Light Blue belt. She's obviously telling me something. Whoever knows what!

The Never Ending Sickness

I hate being sick and when you have a family of 6 it seems that sickness' can last FOREVER. We had a wonderful time at the Cherry Blossoms on Wednesday the 2nd, but sadly it was the beginning of a downfall for our family. On the way home Hannah threw up twice and then once again in the driveway. She threw up in bed three times that night and once in the morning. Over the next week we all took a turn getting sick. Thursday was Ben's turn, then me on Friday, Sarah Kate got sick on Friday night (we tried to joke with her that if she was going to get sick she should do it on a weeknight so she can miss school. She didn't think it was funny given how much she loves school.) Let's see, Kenny ended this batch by being sick on Saturday night into Sunday.

I thought we were finally over it when Hannah got another fever this past Thursday night and threw up again. She has yet to have a day without a fever ever since. I think it started out as the stomach flu, but has since turned into a double ear infection. Being that she's allergic to amoxicillin, they've put her on a drug called Azithromycin. It tastes horrible and getting her to take it is a real chore. Hopefully it'll work and she'll start feeling better. She hasn't had a decent night sleep in about a week (which means neither have we) and all she does is cry. I know she's in pain and I feel so bad for her. I truly hope she can be feeling better before we leave for the cruise next week. This and ever other sickness better be far away from our family by this time next week.

We took Hannah out for a walk to the marina on Saturday, despite still being sick with a fever. She enjoyed the walk in style, riding in the jogger with her sippy cup and sunglasses.

Cherry Blossoms

It's Cherry Blossom season here in DC again. I don't like much about the East, at least not compared to the West, but I will say that the springs here are beautiful. The freeways are spotted with random daffodil's, most of the trees are blooming with pinks, whites, and purples, and everything else is green. As a family we look forward to the Cherry Blossoms every year. Not only are they beautiful, but they symbolize the ushering in of spring. We take the opportunity every spring to go in and see the blossoms and try to get a good picture of the kids. Normally the cherry blossoms are in bloom over General Conference and we take a stroll through them between conference sessions, but this year, probably due to the mild winter we had, the trees bloomed early. So we planned our trip for Tuesday April 1st.

Tuesday was a wonderful spring day. The temperature was in the low 70's, the sun was shinning, the blossoms were in full bloom, and the kids were all in a good mood. After fighting traffic we managed to find a fairly good parking space and we headed off to get pictures near the blossoms. As we were strolling through, Kenny got the camera out to take a picture of the kids only to discover I had left the battery in the charger at home. I hate it when I do that. Needless to say, we didn't get any pictures taken, but the kids enjoyed the warm outing running among the trees.

Because of our failure for pictures we decided to try again the next day. The weather was cooler, but we only had one more chance because there was a storm coming in and there was a good possibility the wind would blow the blossoms off the trees. I got Sarah Kate out of school a half an hour early in order to miss the traffic, we planned a picnic, and remembered the camera battery. Though it was cooler, our second trip was a huge success.

Here's what we did:

We climbed tree's, many tree's in fact, and even hugged them.

Sarah Kate, our super brave girl, was outshined by Ben and couldn't take him climbing the tree and her not. She worked really hard and managed to get up it, but not without some fake tears.

Hannah has no fear and loved being big like Ben and Sarah.

We visited the Jefferson Monument.



We had a picnic dinner on the grass and Gracie enjoyed eating her pacifier.

Daddy took charge of all of the kids (yes, Gracie is in the back of the stroller, you just can't see her.)


The kids enjoyed looking at the 'Ocean'. Ok, it's really the Tidal Basin, but Ben insisted on calling it the Ocean no matter how many times we told him otherwise.

We practiced different areas for pictures. I think the one we decided on was the best, but that's just me.