9 Months

I can't believe my baby is 9 months old already! Well, by now she is already 9 1/2 months. There is a two week old baby at our church right now and he looks impossibly small, like there is no way either of my girls were ever that size...even if nine months ago one of them really was. It's amazing how fast they grow and change during the first year. Amazing.

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This little one is trying to stand on her own! She gets up on one knee like this and tries her darnedest to stand up. She always ends up falling forward and catching herself, but one of these days will be the day she actually makes it.

She knows she is doing something big and she loves it!

She is starting to cruise a little bit on the furniture and several times we've seen her stand on her own for 3-4 seconds before falling. I think she will walk a little earlier than her sister did.
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She had her 9 month check up last Thursday and the doctor said she is looking great! Thankfully she didn't have to have any shots this time, but the doctor did find a "nasty" ear infection in her left ear. Poor baby! She gave no hint whatsoever! No pulling, fussiness, poor sleeping, nothing. She was as happy as ever. So now she is on amoxycillain (sp?) for four more days, but thankfully, she likes it so its no trouble to give it to her.
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She is 17 pounds -25% and 29 inches - 90% but since her head circumference is keeping up with her height they aren't worried that she dropped to the 25th for weight.
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She is doing pretty well on eating...still very opinionated about what she likes and dislikes but the dislikes are getting fewer and farther between. Some of it is about temperature. I thought she hated yogurt, but then I tried warming it up a tad and she ate the whole container. Bread is by far the favorite and she loves anything she can feed herself. She had a lot of fun with some green beans at Noni and Papa's the other day. :)
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One of my favorite new things she is doing is turning the pages when we read books. I think it is so sweet. She waits for me to pause and then turns it over and gives the page a slap. She LOVES to slap things. She slaps her highchair tray over and over once it is empty...we are working on not slapping faces. I think she mostly likes the noise b/c she also loves to bang toys together.
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One of my least favorite things she does right now is that she finds bits. It doesn't matter if I have just swept and vacuumed she can still manage to find the tiniest bit of fuzz or whatever is there and brings it to her mouth. I dig things out of her mouth ten times a day. :P
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One great thing is how snuggly she is. Bug was NOT a snuggler, and I love the way this one will snuggle into my neck when she wakes up and right before she goes to bed. So sweet.
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She is such a happy baby. She has started laughing like a big girl lately, and it is so cute. She smiles her way through each day and brings much joy to our household. What a little angel. She can also be a little stinker...she has learned to scream her head off if we try to make her do something she doesn't want to...b/c when that happens with her sister we come rescue her. But for the most part she is our little ray of sunshine and we are thankful for each day with her.

The Silver Lining

Okay, so last night I was a bit out of sorts with the whole daylight saving thing, but this morning it has won me over. I found the silver lining. This morning...before 10:30am I:

*did a workout before the kids woke up

*had everybody done and cleaned up from breakfast by 9:00am

(never happens!)

*had three loads of laundry washed and two dried and folded

*unloaded the dishwasher and then reloaded it w/the dirty dishes

*cleaned out the fridge from top to bottom

(quite a task, believe me!)

*disposed of all the moldy nastiness that resulted

(and salvaged the affected containers)

*put a batch of garden carrots in the steamer

(to make into babyfood)

* and put away the rest of our stuff from the weekend

Coming from someone who usually doesn't get the kids (and herself) dressed and ready until a few minutes before noon (right when Daddy comes home for lunch) that is a lot!

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So Daylight Saving and I are definitely back on happy terms! I'm sure you were all worried about the relationship. :)

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Anyway...we had another busy weekend around here. Well, we weren't "around here" which was why it was busy. T was asked to be a groomsman in the wedding of one of his college roommates so we took a little road trip. We were planning to stay two nights, but I'm not sure what we were thinking b/c hotel sleeping never works out very well for us. I guess we were being idealistic. Reality hit about 3:00am when K started sleep talking for the third time, waking her sister up, which resulted in about 30 seconds of screaming that felt like 30 minutes. Thankfully the hotel was really nice about canceling our second night without any penalty (maybe they just wanted to get rid of us and our midnight screamers) and we headed for home as soon as the wedding was over.

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But it actually worked out pretty well b/c since we were planning to stay all weekend it felt like we had an extra day off. We ended up spending Sunday at my parents house, and then after dinner we all went to Walmart and bought presents for our shoe boxes for Operation Christmas Child. I love that program. I think it is very "real" for Bug to pick out presents for a little girl who is her age and think about what she might be like and where she might live. We are having a shoebox packing party at our church next Saturday and I'm looking forward to seeing how many we can fill this year!

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Well, this post has gotten kind of random so I will wrap it up...maybe I'm still off-balance from all that daylight saving trouble yesterday. :) Have a happy Monday!

Schedule Schmedule

Did you get to sleep in this morning? If you did, you probably don't have children b/c kids don't care one whit about sleeping in so you can get an extra hour of sleep on Daylight Saving morning. They only know that they are hungry and Mommy won't feed them, and they are tired and Mommy won't put them to bed.

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Or is that just my kids? I have my kids so scheduled that you can pretty much find us doing the same thing at any given time of day that we did at that time of day one week previous and will be doing a week from then. Wow, that was a confusing sentence...I think I'm just tired b/c even though the clock says it's quarter to ten, my body says it's quarter to eleven and to go get into bed.

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Yes, I'm rambling.

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Anyway...the point I was trying to make is that daylight saving is not so fun for those of us who are big on schedules. I love schedules and routines. It's just my Type A personality. I think that is why I love Babywise so much, b/c it is all about routine. Boo eats 4 times a day 8am, 12pm, 4pm, 8pm. She naps from 10:30am-12pm and again from 2pm-4pm, which happens to be the same time her sister naps. That gives Mommy and nice long two hour break everyday. My girls are winding down by 7:30pm, Boo is in bed by 8:15, Bug by 8:30. It makes for a very happy (or is that just me?), tightly-run ship.

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I know scheduling is not for everyone. I have some friends who have absolutely no routine at all, and while that would drive me crazy it works for them and their families. They probably adjusted to the daylight saving without even noticing it happened. Me on the other hand...my whole day was out of whack. I bumped our schedule back by half an hour, and it just seemed wrong, but thankfully my kids are more resilient than me and will probably be back on track by tomorrow...we'll see. For now I'd better go to bed before I fall asleep at the computer.

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If anyone is still reading by the end of this post (who is not thinking I am a total weirdo) goodnight. :)

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Oh, and here is a picture, just to redeem this rambling post to the extent that that is possible.

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Taken by Bug

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And I have no makeup on.

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Okay, I'm done now.

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Really.

Goodnight.

3 1/2

Our big little girl is now three and a half! I can't believe she is halfway to four. The time continues to escape faster than I could ever have imagined. She is such a ray of sunshine in our lives. What a fun little girl. They made piggy cupcakes at Awana last night (thanks to Noni, and Aunt Karen's creativity!) so we put a candle in one and sang Happy Birthday to her...three times. She would have insisted on a fourth but Daddy gave up. :)

She did blow out the candle several times. :)

Love that sweet face.

Height: 40 1/4 inches
Weight: 32 1/2 pounds

Some of my favorite things she says right now:
"retend" - pretend
"nola bar" - granola bar
"ham-bur-bur-ger" - hamburger
"Pri Sun" - Capri Sun
"yo-gut" - yogurt
"ax-ih-didn't" - accident
"later day" - yesterday, earlier today, or later today
"Wa-mirt" - Walmart (sounds like varmint with a w)
"fumb" - thumb...I don't understand why she can say thank, three, this, that, but she still says, "fumb", but it's so cute I don't correct her
"Don't argue me!" - she says this when she gets frustrated that we aren't letting her do something. When she argues with us we say, "K, please don't argue with me." It's hard to explain to her that there are some things that a parent can say to a child but not vice versa. We also have this problem with, "Can you sit down and be quiet now please?" :)
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Some of our favorite things she does:
The other day she started doing pelvic thrusts while dancing...I know for a FACT that she has never seen anyone do that so I must assume it is a natural thing, haha, and when I looked at her funny she said, "I'm pumping my booty!"
She also thinks it's funny to spank herself and, heaven help us, it looks so funny that we can't help but laugh, which, of course makes her do it even more. What a nut!
Whenever she does something bad, or accidently breaks/spills something (which pretty much happens every day) she says quietly, "I'm sorry, Mommy. Do you forgive me?"
If she does something for us, cleaning up her room, doing a chore, etc. she will look up with such a joyful smile and say, "I'm a blessing!"
Throughout the day I hear her making up songs, and often times they are just the words, "I love you Jesus!" sang to different tunes. When I hear her I think her little voice must sound better than the most famous singer in the world, to Him.
She will randomly stop whatever she is doing and say, "I love you Mommy! (Daddy or Boo)" It is so sweet. And often times if we are playing or coloring next to her she will just lean over and kiss our cheek, hand, or arm.
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She may be off-the-wall hyper, neverstopsmoving, and very intense/dramatic at times...okay most of the time :) but she is such a sweet little girl and we are so thankful for each day we have with her. She is definitely a blessing that we thank God for everyday!

Our Little Cubbie

K started Cubbies this fall! T did AWANA when he was younger, and although I didn't, I'm a big fan of the program. She was so excited that she is old enough to go to Cubbies and she has the added bonus of her Noni being her Cubbie teacher!

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I have been meaning to take my camera in and get some pictures b/c the Cubbies are so darn cute! T is working with T&T boys and I am working with T&T girls, so after being with the "big" kids all night these little guys look so tiny and adorable!

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Boo rides around in the hiking backpack all night and she and I skip out on the last session so I can bring her home a little early. It's definitely not easy to work with her squirming around all the time, but it's not too bad...so far...she's getting increasingly unhappy about being confined for 1.5 hours. :P

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Here's K with one of her little friends. My mom said he leaned over and kissed her on the cheek tonight when they were coloring! So funny.

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It was bible character night. K, of course, wanted to be Jesus since He is her all time favorite hero of the bible. I put my sweater on her with tights and a pillowcase around her head.

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My mom had to take her to the bathroom and I guess she was having trouble getting a hold of the sweater so she could go and said, "Ugh! WHY did Jesus wear this??"

She LOVES the circle and is SO proud of herself when she runs so fast.

Giving it all she's got!

She was about to bust when she was through and came back to the line listening to the praise of her group.

But the best thing about Awana is that she is learning more and more about God and how much He loves us.

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We can't wait to see how the rest of the year turns out!

But I think her Daddy is going to have to keep a closer eye on those Blue-Cubbie vest wearing boys! :)

Wordless Wednesday

Happy Halloween!

I hope everyone had a great Halloween last night! We have definitely made the most out of the holiday. The girls wore their costumes four days in a row!

Thursday was the start of our festivities. There was a Halloween Bingo at my mom's school and a "Not-So-Scary Halloween Party" for pre-schoolers at the library. So we got the girls dressed up to go. First we had to trick-or-treat Mama.

K was very excited this year since she remembered all the fun and candy from last year. :)

They had a bunch of little games for the kids to do at the library party.

I thought this strawberry costume was so cute!

They had a ring toss, coloring pages, stickers, and some other crafts for the kids to do. K had a great time!

On Friday I got them dressed up again and we went to Daddy's office to trick-or-treat and show off their costumes.

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Then on Saturday my friend, Katie, had a harvest party at her house. She painted pumpkins with chalkboard paint so the kids could draw on them. What a cute idea! And perfect for little ones...K was the oldest one there. There were also foam pumpkin kits to make faces and such with.

K loved it! And she loves her princess pumpkin! She has been playing with it this morning. Last I checked she was spinning it around in a twirly chair. :)

The Cow and the Puppy with their Princess and Ghost

She had so much fun at that party. When we got in the car she said, "That was a real good party. I had fun!" And then later on the drive home she kind of sighed and said, "I love E." (the boy in the photo above). :)

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Last night, since Halloween is Grandma's birthday, we decided to have an Open House so our friends could stop in and get warm and have some snacks while they were out trick-or-treating. There were so many houses participating in trick-or-treating that we actually didn't see that many people we know. We had over a hundred trick-or-treaters. 108 to be exact...yes we like to count them, my husband is an accountant. :) And when we took the girls out trick-or-treating we saw TONS of kids. I bet we only got a fraction of the kids, since our house is not on Main street.

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We all chipped in a bought Grandma a new digital camera for her birthday!

Boo was SO happy last night! She loved her ducky costume I guess. This was K's old costume, and the cow costume was one my mom had bought for a Nativity play at their old church, so we actually didn't have to spend any money on costumes this year. Yay!

We had a chocolate fountain. Yum.

And an octopus swimming in french onion dip.

And some used q-tips.

(white chocolate covered pretzels, marshmallows on the end, dipped in peanut butter)

And some mummies.

And some Frankensteins. Is this not the cutest Halloween decoration you've ever seen?? My friend made these boxes out of paper! SO cute!

And here's our happy little duck again. I love when she is smiling so hard that her eyes are nearly closed. :)

I was so happy that it didn't rain and we got to enjoy some trick-or-treating!

K was a little shy at first and then she started getting bolder. Every time she saw a house with their porch light on she yelled, "That one! That one! Let's trick-or-treat them!"

After we went out for a while we came back and sang Happy Birthday to Grandma.

What a fun night!

Now we'd better start eating candy b/c we've got enough lying around to last us till Christmas!