Zoo Trip 08

We went to the zoo last Friday with some friends from Mark's college days. They have a 15 month old and are expecting another little one in October! It was a lot of fun. Surprisingly, the kids did not pitch fits while were there. Liam loved the monkeys. Zoe liked the meerkats and Ace enjoyed the elephants. Josiah just enjoyed getting down to play at the end of the day.

Anyway, enjoy the slideshow!

And here's a video of Liam "talking" with the animals. Actually, he's trying to keep from getting nipped at by the goats.

Neat Photography and Oh No What Happened to the Moon

The following was done with our rinky dink digital camera and my very smart engineering husband who figured out how to do this...I just played with the sparklers!


This is supposed to be a heart, but the camera got started a second late and our kids ran out of sparklers...no fair!


When we talked about planets a couple of weeks ago, we (mainly I) inflated all the planets we had received as gifts and we (mainly Mark) hung them up in our playroom/schoolroom/office area). Before we hung them up, though, we had to have a little fun with them.

Here's Liam burning Ace up with the Sun!!! At least Ace is happy about it.

Josiah, the sleeper, likes the taste of the moon better. I guess it really is made of cheese.

It's late, I'm extremely tired (Josiah no sleep this morning or late this afternoon), I'm goofy, and we've got MOPS tomorrow. More later.

Well Checks & Josiah's 6 Months

Liam and Josiah went today for their well check visits.

Here's the scoop:

Liam is doing great. His height/weight are gaining and he actually jumped up a percentage. She noticed that he walks with his toes turned in and checked and said that it was due to the curvature of his leg and that would correct itself over the next few years.

Stats at 2 years are:
Weight: 28 1/2 pounds (50%)
Height: 33 inches (25%)
Head: 19 3/4 inches (75%)

Josiah's doing good too. His cold has improved and she didn't note any difficulties. She did say that reflux babies sometimes take longer to get over colds. He's doing everything he should do. She told us we could increase his meals to three times a day, but I'm wanting him to nurse longer than one year, so we're going to wait at least a month or two. We've started introducing him to a sippy cup but so far we've just put water in it. He's getting to be a real treat and a definite momma's boy. He will reach out for me whenever Mark has him. He loves his toys and smiling at his brothers and sister. He is working on grabbing his feet when laying down. He rolls from every which way and is working on controlling where he goes. His favorite thing to do as soon as I pick him up is grab both sides of my hair and do a face plant on my face...drool and all. He's got two teeth still and we're guessing by the increase in drool that he'll have more very soon. He now sleeps about 9 hours during the night. His naps are getting better. I can now put him down and he'll roll over and go to sleep. A lot of time, he doesn't want me to rock him and fusses until I lay him down (sniff, sniff...they get big so fast).

Stats at 6 months are:
Weight: 18 lbs, 11 oz (65%)
Height: 28 7/8 inches (95%)
Head: 18 1/2 inches (90%)

Not much else going on. I made it to the gym two days in a row...owww! Hopefully, it will work out for me to go tomorrow, but I have to get ready for a date with Mark and a baby shower on Saturday. We'll see!

Kids Pics and catching up, again.

Okay, the pictures are up and running. I just remembered I forgot our Christmas Day pictures and will have to do those later. Here are the links to the pics:
Liam's Birthday
Zoe's Birthday
Christmas pre-travels part 1
Christmas pre-travels part 2
Christmas pre-travels part 3
Christmas pre-travels part 4

Tracy, the babysitter, Kevin, her fiance, and the kids reading a book!

Daddy's workout! He's working on a video to help other dads abuse...I mean use their kids for weights!

Happy 2nd Birthday Liam!

Liam actually made it to 2 years old. His birthday was yesterday and he celebrated with...a fever! Yes. Fortunately, the few children we invited weren't able to make it. Ge & Granddaddy were able to come up and his babysitter and her fiance came up. Liam's a big sports fan, so we celebrated with football things. This is one of the better cake decorating jobs I've done. Unfortunately, the icing on the letters messed up and the a and a 'p' were messed up.

Waiting to blow out the candles.

Gettin' the hang of presents!

Okay, guess what was the big hit of his gifts...that's right the football helmet...and uniform.

Our bobble head doll!

Granddaddy trying on the helmet! Liam's uniform came complete with pads and a chin strap all with Alabama colors on it!!!

Zoe's Birthday Celebrations

Zoe's actual birthday was on the 20th. We were able to celebrate with Mark's parents. But, I thought I would post pictures from her party which was the 29th all together with birthday so there will be a mish mash of pictures.

Zoe had a "Groovy Girls" Party. I made her cake to look like a fun and funky flower. So, how did I do???

The highlight of the party. Zoe received a Webkinz. She knows what these are because of her cousin who has several. She was so excited. For those that don't know. Webkinz are stuffed animals that come with codes to register the stuffed animal online and then you can do all sorts of neat games and fun stuff online with your "pet."

This was a present from Ge and Granddaddy. Ge and I had more fun with it though...lots of Raggedy Ann memories!


Opening presents at Papa & Grandmere's!

Tellin' time, football, and more...

We're still fighting the cold around here. Zoe's up next with it. She isn't and, my guess is, won't run a fever with it.

Here's a Zoe funny: She has been learning to tell time. While we were visiting my parents, we went out to eat and the establishment had the penny candy/toys in the little dispensers (although they weren't for pennies but actually quarters and some two quarters). So, naturally, the "grands" decided to ask their "grand" parents for some money to get something. It just so happens that one of the cheap toys was a digital watch. Zoe saw and immediately wanted it. She got it and proceeded the whole night to announce: "It's 7:31 mommy." Walks away..."Mommy, it's 7:32 now." Walks away. "Mommy, oh, mommy, guess what it's...7:33." This continued on until she went to bed. My parents, the whole next day, kept asking her what time it was to get her going again! Mark and I were anticipating her getting up in the middle of the night to tell us it was 4:00!

Football funny: Liam got a football man that you bang on and he kicks a ball (Headbangers, I think?!) at my parents' home. It was the first gift he opened.

"butball!" he exclaimed
"Yes, Liam. That's great. Here, open the rest of your gifts." mom, Granddaddy, Ge and the like.
"No, butball, open peese." Granddaddy proceeds to open the football guy up and Liam starts to playing.
"Oh Liam, isn't that great. But you have other gifts to open. Don't you want to open these gifts up?" me hoping he can open his so the rest of us "adults" can open ours.
"Nooo, no, no, no."

He did eventually get to opening gifts and still went back to the football.

Can you guess what his favorite sport is? His birthday party this year is going to be football. I found a football cake pan at Wally World. He saw the cake pan and exclaimed, "butball, burday cake." Oh yes, that's what he's getting for his cake. Too cute.

I promise pictures are coming.

Happy 5th Birthday Zoe!!

About this time five years ago, I was getting ready to deliver our first born child and only daughter. I could never had dreamed what a blessing she would be to our lives. She is growing to be such a sweet and lively young girl and soon a young lady. She is full of life, which is what her name means.

Today, we celebrate with family and then next weekend, we'll have her party with her friends! She got a special treat of breakfast out with Mark and I while the boys played with their Grandmere. We all three enjoyed it. Even if we had to wait 30 plus minutes for our food and Mark's strawberry banana pancakes had onions in them. It was fun to be out with just her.

So, if you read regularly. I know it would thrill Zoe to have a comment posted to wish her a happy birthday!

Christmastime at Ballet

Ace warming up!

Flying!!!

Zoe dressed up as the Spanish Coffee (I think it's coffee) from the Nutcracker.

Spinning Zoe working hard!

Just Some Cute Kid Pics...

This is for Mrs. C who made this cute outfit for Ace...just wanted to show that we were able to use it one more time! He looked as adorable as Ace did. What a beautiful outfit!!! This was on the way to church last week. It was in the 70s when we left for church. Today, it was in the 40s!

Zoe and Liam sharing everything...even germs! Yum!

"Come a little closer, darlin! I'll give you a kiss you little Ladybug!"

Helping to make and decorate cookies!

Here Comes the...

flower girl!

Our long time babysitter turned friend is getting married! We're so excited! She and her fiance asked Zoe to be in the wedding as a flower girl. What a special treat for her!

We've been blessed with a lot of good news this week.

Congratulations T&K!

Sleeping

Well, Zoe has started having night terrors at night. She's done it twice this week. Mark and I were a little scared by it and did a little research last night. Apparently, it can be due to being overtired and there's also a way to help it go away. We're going to work on getting her to nap or getting her to bed earlier than the boys. A night terror is when a child wakes up within two hours of sleeping crying and screaming. Sometimes they walk around the room. Their eyes are open and they can see things in their room but they aren't awake. Zoe's night terrors come with her looking and batting at things on her bed and crying when she looks at them. From what we found, you're not supposed to wake them but just comfort them and try to get them to calm down. And they don't remember it happening. It's also hereditary, but when I told mom she said that I never did that. Last night she kept hitting at a small pillow on her bed. I prayed over her eyes and she calmed down almost immediately. I'm thankful that God helped her to calm down. Both times she's done it I was close to calling our pediatrician...but thankfully she calmed down quickly probably within in 10 to 15 minutes.

Josiah is now doing much better during the day. He can put himself to sleep in the morning and in the afternoon. Now the goal is to extend nap time from 45 minutes to however long he needs to be rested. He's also doing good at night. He still wakes a couple of times but Mark is able to get him back to sleep without much work and then he nurses at 5 or so in the morning.

Ace still has a fever that is fluctuating. It got up to 100.7 last night but he still acted fine with it. Weird!

Motorboat, motorboat

Ho Ho Ho...Merry Christmas!

My Sweet Kids

How cute are they?! It's safe to say that Josiah adores his big sister and big brothers! Zoe's getting to be his favorite though.

This week during school we talked about the moon and astronauts. The kids made a space shuttle and went to the moon. Here's their shuttle!

Yesterday, we took Zoe and Liam to build their "bear" at BABW for their birthday. Zoe picked out this nice pink leopard (surprised?!). Liam picked out a monkey. Well, we picked it out for him and he picked out the Spiderman shirt. After the trip to BABW, we headed to see Santa. We got there just in time because school buses were unloading. Zoe and Ace went straight to see Santa and told him what they wanted. Liam handed him his new monkey.

For those that don't know or are just tuning in, Santa only brings one thing to our house. The kids get three gifts from us and one of them is usually a gift for all of them. Well, Zoe and Ace told Santa what they wanted and then he asked them what else. They froze. They had no clue what he was talking about. So, Ace said he wanted a candy cane. Mark and I were proud of them and their lack of greediness. Next year, we'll have to coach Santa ahead of time to just bring one thing for each kid.

More brother sweetness

This time it' s Ace and Josiah. Wednesdays seem to be the days for Josiah to learn something new. He's now learned how to blow raspberries or motor boat mouth. He was showing off his new talent last night after church and I was blowing raspberries on his belly. Ace asked to try and then did it and Josiah had the biggest time laughing at him. Ace was a little worried that he hurt him but soon started grinning and doing it again. Did I have the video camera? Of course not!! Uggghhh.

Field Trip!!!

My kids have no concept of what this means and I pondered whether I had lost my mind this morning as we set out to a local art museum for Toddler Thursdays. Then I remembered that I have no brain to speak of...so I was good :)

Anyway, after getting lost and ending up at the city history museum, we made it to the art museum and headed over to hear the end of the talk about color (which Zoe and Ace already know but I thought they'd have fun. Then we went to do our art activity. It turned out better than I expected.

Zoe, Ace, and Liam all made bubble art. Zoe called her's "Bubbles of Art." Ace called his something that was incoherent (he makes up his own language sometimes).

So here's what ya do:
Take some dishwashing soap and drop some food coloring in it. Have the child (or you if you child doesn't know how to blow yet) blow bubbles then place a piece of paper/cardstock on top of the bubbles. It makes really cool designs.

We only saw one child suck instead of blow and taste some yummy soap. Liam was very good at letting me blow for him and when I wasn't paying attention he'd call out "bow, bow peas" Just a couple of spills on our part and we were good.

After the art activity, I took them around the museum. It had a lot of wonderful, beautiful paintings that Zoe and I enjoyed looking at and Ace kept wanting to touch. Liam was firmly strapped into the stroller (I may have lost my mind but I know what's smarts!) and Josiah was napping in the stroller. Ace about gave the security guys a heart attack but they left us alone for the most part and Ace enjoyed holding my hand most of the way through. As we were walking around, Zoe said she wanted to be an artist when she grew up. Surprise, surprise!! I can't wait to see her face when she sees what "Santa" is bringing.

After the art museum we decided to head over and see what our city history museum held. To be honest, I can't tell you about the history of our city, but I can tell you they had a cool train engine locomotive and car and a streetcar and a really great little play area that held the three olders attention while I breastfed Josiah.

So, that's been our day and I'm hoping the kids get a nice long nap so they can play with daddy while I go out with MOPS.

Drawing a...

Zoe started drawing people last year (she was 3 1/2). Here's a picture of her first drawing:
I was reminded this week how different our children are and how God has blessed them with different gifts and abilities. Notice her person is a ballerina (this is her first drawing, no lie) with a body and arms and legs in the right place.

Here's Ace's first drawing he did this week:

This is how preschoolers at 3 1/2 should be drawing! Ace told me this was the giant falling down. I suggested that he might want to put eyes and a mouth on it, and he informed me he already had (opps!). They're on the right side of his face. I think the jellyfish thing beside the big person is David. I love his silliness. He's so creative in telling stories.

I guess I'm bragging on Zoe a little bit, but Mark and I both have noticed how she seems to enjoy drawing and have a knack for drawing things. She amazes me daily as she comes up with different things to draw and can do it. Her first drawing she got upset because, she said the arms didn't look quite right. Such a perfectionist!

And, in keeping with the season, Zoe has now been studying the art of drawing Christmas trees! She got the idea to draw them on her own and she's been drawing them since Thanksgiving (before we got our tree or had decorations out).

Sweet Brothers

Liam is really starting to show how much he looks up to his big brother, Ace. I'm using this as a teaching tool for Ace so he understands what's at stake when he acts up. He's not really getting it.

During our "puking period" on Friday, Liam rushed over to see what Ace was doing at the potty...then proceeded to try and throw up in the potty himself. (see how sweet...just kidding...it gets cute, keep reading).

Ace then went to lay down and Liam grabbed his blanket and lambie and lay down beside Ace. Later, when Ace thought he could get up, he was sitting on the step going to the playroom and Liam came up and sat beside him and put his arm around him. It was beautiful and not a camera in sight! This may never happen again. Oh well, now it's preserved on here for all to see.

Random Pics

Pictures from November.

Let me out!

Zoe "reading"

My manly man burning brush!

Goofy face

The sandlot kids with a neighbor.