Totally Crawling

Ben has been barely crawling for a week now, and ever day we tell ourselves, this is probably the last time he will army crawl, but sure enough he does it the rest of the day!  Until today, he is officially crawling on all fours!

Eating Machine

Ben has been the first baby in our family to literally eat anything and everything I put on his plate or in his mouth.  Months 10-12 are supposed the time when babies are the most adventurous eaters, but after that it's picky eater time.  In an attempt to take advantage of this stage we have been giving Ben everything we are eating either ground up and on a spoon or broken up and on a fork.  So far he has said no to nothing, we are hoping this sticks, because it has made mealtime so much easier than before when I was making a meal for Ben, a meal for the family and some sort of snack food (or pretzels with cream cheese) for Norah.

9 Months

Ben had his over due nine month appointment at the doctor today.  We almost cancelled this morning, as he has been getting his top four front teeth and another bottom tooth this past week, making sleeping a little hard for him and the time would have been right during his nap.  But he woke up at a good time (an hour later than he has all weekend), so we decided to go for it.

He was great the whole time and only whined a bit when the doctor was examining him on the table and off course during his shots (ouch!).  His stats were still on the low side for our family, but it's not because the kid isn't eating.  He weighed in at 20 lbs. 5 oz and 18.25 inches in length.  He is about the 40th percentile for weight and 70th for height-what a shrimp!

The Ramp

This is the ramp Kyle built out of a box for Jack's party.  It lasted one day and a night and then got totally mangled and recycled.

Party Goers

Look at all those kids, Kyle and I hosted these crazies for another par-tay and loved it!

Hummer Time

After some Dominoes pizza and cake eating, it was time for the pinata (or piyata as Jack says).  This green machine was picked up at the local Fiesta grocer just minutes from downtown Plano and incited cries of joy from all the kids when we brought it home.

Monster Trucksters

The boys at the party had plenty of monster trucking fun, coloring/decorating a two-sided monster truck, watching over an hour of Monster Jam Detroit, and a monster truck rally that each kid participated in with their very own monster truck they pulled out of a grab-bag.

Kyle created a bracket on the IPAD and the kids all got to see their standings real time.  It was Jack and Boston in the final race and in the end, Jack's truck won our Monster Jam and Monster Jam Detroit-what are the odds!

Monster Truck Partay

For Jack's party he wanted nothing but monster trucks-fortunately Target had him in mind when they developed this cake.  $12.99-sign me up!

Ballers

The team plays in the Plano league because Allen doesn't have a league for 1st graders.  PSA has some wonky rules, including heavy balls and far away serving lines, but for the most part the season has been one filled excitement and memories.

The girls started out on quite the losing streak, but have matured in the skill department and ended up the season on a better note!  GO ANGELS!!!

The Day Has Come

I'm pretty sure Kyle has waited way too long to pass on his love of volleyball to his offspring.  Other than a few random clinics with the kids over at Lifetime, he has never really gotten much volleyballing in.  Until now.

Kyle started a six year old girl's volleyball which he is the coach of and Ava is on his team-the Allen Angels!

Cookie Cake

Jack was pumped about his cake and wasted no time in blowing out his candles, I wonder he wished for.

Big Boy

After heading to the gym I stopped for some donuts and we all pigged out before opening presents and booking to school with some donut holes to share and a poster to show our teacher.

While Jack was at school I made him a cookie cake and then picked him up from school. For lunch Jack picked Sonic and he ate his corndog while everyone else had cheese and crackers.

We wanted to do something special for his day, so we headed to his favorite funspot-Chuck E. Cheese. What a blast!

5th Birthday

Can you believe this eight year old is turning five for the first time?  Compared to last night's drama, today was perfect. 

I finished up the poster last night after everyone was asleep and when Jack woke up this morning to find it and a pile of presents-he was all smiles!

BONK!!

In order to work on Jack's special day poster for preschool, I needed him to play with Ben.  After about a minute, I heard a cry no mother likes to hear.  I run into the other room to see our sweet baby gushing blood from his eyebrow area.

At this point I'm not sure what is going on, but after blotting and calming Ben down, I see his eyebrow is split open.  Jack begins to explain how he pushed Ben into the point where the stair cap meets the carpet and we are all relieved that his eye is unharmed.

What a sweet, little innocent guy, just whining about his teeth while his mom can't find time to hold him and his big brother plays too rough. 

A trip to the urgent care and a few drops of glue later and Ben will most likely have a scar over his left eye the rest of his life.

Special Poster

At Jack's preschool, we were invited to bring treats and a poster all about Jack on his birthday.  I put a bunch of thought into how the poster should look and what Jack could do to help make it.  He ended up painting the whole poster green as well as painting the signature I blew up of his.  The rest of the poster consisted of these 11 pictures I took of Jack doing his favorite things with his favorite people in his favorite places. 

I hope we win some sort of award for most awesome poster, but I was too excited to send it with him to school to take a picture of it. 

First Testimony

Ava's primary teacher challenged her class to bear their testimony at the next fast and testimony meeting.

We haven't pushed anybody to bear their testimony in church, we figured when they wanted to do it, they would show some desire.

Apparently a challenge from a church teacher was enough, because after talking about it all week an practicing at family night, Ava got up with Kyle, made the walk to the podium and breathily bore her sweet testimony of her Savior and the simple knowledge she has acquired of His gospel in her six years.

It was so sweet, I couldn't stop staring at this little girl who is growing up right before my eyes.

Teething

This little has been struggling big time with his front teeth.  He is in what seems like constant discomfort and hasn't been afraid to let all of us know about it whether it is by not sleeping through the night, waking up early or being downright cranky for most of the day. 

Poor guy, Tylenol has been his best friend lately.

No More Peeling

I just taught the kids to peel their own oranges, not only does it save me the time of peeling them myself, it gives the kids another excuse to play with their food.