Kendree - 8 months

Man, every month that goes by leaves me with my mouth hanging open, wondering where the time has gone!

This little princess is getting so big!

The updates:

• She is a pro sitter-upper and prefers to be in that position when on the floor, so she can see everything that is going on around her!
• Claps her little hands--which may be close to the cutest thing ever. 
• Loves all foods.  Easton had clear favorites at this age.  She will eat as much food as I will give her.
• Puts everything in her mouth--but shows no signs of teething (that is just fine with mama).
• Has stopped sleeping through the night.  She gets up at 4am for a feeding, but would then sleep until 8 or 9 if I would let her.
• Is taking two naps a day regularly with the occasional evening cat nap.
• Is a little stranger-shy.  Especially so when she is on the tired and/or hungry side.
• Prefers girls to boys (sorry, it is true).  This does not apply to her daddy, but all other boys are second-rate.  My mom says that this is pay back for Easton, who much preferred the boys to the girls.
• Isn't too close to crawling.  She gets her hands all ready, but hasn't yet figured out how to get her knees underneath her.  Again, another thing that mama is not pushing at all.
• Gets wherever she would like to--between rolling, scooting and pivoting. 
• Doesn't have consistent ticklish spots--every day is new.  Quite the challenge when you are dying for some Kenny giggles!

And now, on to the pictures. Yesterday was her official 8 month mark and she was in a gorgeous dress from Aunt Kari, so I decided to take some pictures.  I have 15 pictures that look very similar to this:

Dumb camera.  I'll have to dress her up again!

Easton loves her, she just isn't so sure about how she feels...

And now some shots from today:

And a video of the clapping.  Just imagine that orange ring is not in the way. Oh, and the "thing" she keeps turning to look at is her older brother.  She still adores him!

After all of that waiting...

Remember when I made you look at every single step of the bedding I made for that daughter of mine (at the time I had no idea if she was a girl or a boy)?

Well, Easton made the transition to a big boy bed and we finally set up the crib in Kendree's room when we moved to Cheyenne.

And I have pictures to share--hooray!

Thanks for sticking with me!

See this little (ahem, excuse me, BIG) boy right here?

[In the LARGE chair at Sam's Club]

He is binky free!

On Monday night we had our Bye, Bye Binky party.  We'd been gearing him up for it for three days (with talk of two more days until your Bye, Bye Binky party, one more day...etc.).

He picked out the cake at the store, helped mom bake it and was VERY excited to blow out some candles (because at the age of 2, you don't just have cake without some candles involved).

We then decorated the padded envelope, got one last suck on the binky and then placed them inside (we had two left around the house).  We sealed it up and drove to the post office to mail* them to the baby boys** who needed them.

How has it gone?

It took him two hours to fall asleep the first night, but he then slept through the night with no problems.  Yesterday, he didn't have a nap (but I attribute that to our wonky schedules on Tuesdays--I probably could have picked a better day) and last night he fell asleep in the car on our way home from running an errand and again slept through the night.  Today, he had a nap (albeit a short*** one).  We'll just take it one day at a time.

*We did actually mail them off.  Our mailbox is a locked one with an outgoing box that wouldn't fit the padded envelope.  I wanted Easton to remember dropping the envelope into the mail, so we went to the post office and he dropped it down the shoot.  Thanks to the Fisher Price Little People DVD with "mail carrier Kelly" he understood that she would be getting the binkys and taking them to the baby boys who needed them.
**The "baby boys" live at Grandma's house.  She'll be "taking care of" that envelope for me.
***Short for Easton, meaning 1.5 hours. The boy normally sleeps for 2.5 to 3.5hours.

An Actual Announcement

but perhaps not the one that my last post had your brain leading towards.

RONNIE

PASSED

THE

BAR!!!

It's like a gigantic weight has been lifted (and I'm not even the one that took the test!).

A non-announcement

You may (but probably don't) remember that when we announced my being pregnant with Kendree, we had Easton wear the shirt seen here.

I had him wander into my parent's house with it on and just waited for my mom (who was the only one home at the time) to notice. 

She didn't.

So finally, I had to say "Easton, show Grandma your new shirt!"

Then she caught on.

So, when Easton showed up at her house about a week ago wearing this shirt...

(so, you can't really see it, but it says "Big Brother")

...my mom casually says to me, "Is this shirt a NEW shirt for Easton?"

Not getting what she was implying, I said, "Yes.  Grandma Cali got it for him."

And so she says, "So does it MEAN anything?"

Light bulb clicks on.

And I rush to say, "NO, it does NOT mean anything.  No announcements from me.  Maybe when Kendree shows up in a shirt that says 'big sister'."

But bless her heart for checking.

Kendree - 7 months

Our little Kendree girl continues to grow up--darn it all.

I feel a bit like a broken record, but she is still the best, happiest, most content baby you'll find.  I know you all think I am making this up, but she was babysat by a non-family member for 10 hours last week and my suspicions were confirmed.  She's an angel child. 

My guess is that she is just over 17 pounds.  She is in size 6-9 and 9 month clothing (except for anything made by Gerber in which she wears 18 months--side note: I'll never figure out why their sizes are so off).  She can sit up for about 3-5 seconds on her own and then gets so excited that she launches herself backwards.  The balance is there, just not the perseverance. :)

She is cooing, squealing and babbling like crazy nowadays and gets especially excited when Easton walks into a room and pays her any attention.

While she immediately puts everything in her mouth we still have no sign of teeth and to be honest I am perfectly okay if it stays that way for a while.  Kendree is successfully eating rice cereal now and we are introducing other foods this week--hooray for branching out!

She continues to love the swing and the stand-up bouncer thingy, which is great for me.  Easton gave up the swing at 5 months, but I love having a place to put her that is at least a little "big brother-proof."

She has finally mastered rolling from her front to back, but still only does it a handful of times every week.  She is perfectly content to hang out on her belly and I guess if she is, then I am too.

Now on to the pictures.

Eating Rice Cereal for the first time:

Such a good girl, chilling in her car seat.

Official 7 month shoot:

And the one that didn't quite work out.

Pretty girl:

He will do his part...to avoid those epic battles

Last night, as Ronnie and I were doing our nightly "straighten up the living room, dining room, kitchen" routine, he was putting a few stray pieces into a book/playset that Easton got from Grandma and Grandpa Cali.  It looks like this:

It has a board book in the first few pages and then opens up to two toy compartments and a place to store the play mat that it comes with.

Ronnie says to me, "When I put these away, I always put Buzz and Zurg in two different compartments.  I wouldn't want to be the cause of a massive battle after we go to bed."

Gotta love a guy who is always thinking.  I'm sure Buzz was grateful (not as sure about how Hamm, the soldier, Rex and Woody felt).

Easton 2.75 years

Wow, can you believe he is thisclose to 3 years old?  It's going to rock his world when he has to tell people he is three and not "two ana half."

Easton is crazy.  He loves to read books, sing songs, line up his cars and watch movies.  His current favs include ABC Signing Time and Casey at the Bat (classic Disney cartoon).

Easton has been sleeping in a big boy bed since we moved into the new house on August 3rd.  We figured why not totally rock his world and do all of the the changes at once?  No, actually, it went really well, because we didn't have to go through the "giving the crib to Kendree" fight.  He got a new bed and a new room and a new house and it was just. that. exciting.

He sleeps awesome in it for both naps and bedtime and still doesn't really get that he can get up when he wants to (but who am I to teach him that!).  I have a feeling that when we finally take away that binky, we may have more of an issue, but that remains to be seen.

Easton is 37 inches tall and around 27 or 28 pounds (none of those measurements are official, just Ronnie and I randomly measuring him). He is still skinny as a rail and though he needs the length in 3T pants, they fall off his skinny bum (a trait from my side of the family).

He is currently very into signing all of the letters of the alphabet and recognizes all of his letters when you point to them.  At first I thought it was just because most of his books with letters are in alphabetical order, but then he shocks me with reading out "O-F-F-I-C-I-A-L" off of one of his toy cars and proves me wrong.  He reads from left to right about 50% of the time and right to left the other 50.  I figure I don't have to push that too hard just yet. He recognizes numbers 0-12 and still has difficulty counting consistently from 12 to 20.  We get phrases correct (like 18, 19, 20) but numbers are still jumbled and missing in the middle. 

Easton also loves colors and shapes and rainbows are quite possibly his favorite thing ever.  He loves them in books and movies, but then last week we were going to Wal-Mart and saw a double, full, rainbow.  It was so funny to see him realize that they actually exist in life.  He almost couldn't list off the colors fast enough.

Easton is getting to be such a great big brother.  He loves his "Kenny Bear" and while he is still a classic big brother a lot of the time, he wants to help her and include her in things that we do.

We love our Easton--and he loves you!

Easton Riding the Elmo Ride at Sea World

I know that only close family care to watch Easton ride a ride at Sea World--so that is why this is on the little ones blog. 

Ronnie and Easton are in the Orange Elmo (which Easton requested--we are starting to think that may be his favorite color, but can't be sure).

Our California Trip

We were able to spend some time down in California with Ronnie's family and had a GREAT time!

Here's a taste of what we did:

Kendree got to meet Grammy. (It was a happier time than her face portrays, well, after she got a little sleep it was).

We went to Sea World.  Easton was terrified of the Shamu show (the loud music and noise, I think) but then settled down and enjoyed the rest of the trip.  When we got home that night, Aunt Katie asked him if he had seen any sharks and he said, "I no see no howdy howdy!"  (referring to the shark in Toy Story that puts on Woody's hat and says "Howdy, Howdy, Howdy")

Easton got his face painted (baseball on one side, basketball on the other)

He also rode the Elmo fish ride and had this look on his face virtually the entire time.

Kendree was a great little girl as usual.  Although shortly after this picture was taken we discovered a massive blow-out.  Good thing mom brought extra clothes!

Easton got to meet Big Bird and Elmo--and wasn't at all afraid of the massive characters!

The best part was what both kids did before we were even out of the parking lot (and Kendree did not get burned--she just has that "turn red as soon as it sees the sun" skin that she inherited from her mama).

Ronnie, KaLee, Easton and Grandpa Cali got to go to the Angels game

And we hung out at a water park as well!  Easton loved soaking Grandpa.

We also had general crazy times--playing with the stuff that Daddy was sorting through.

We can't wait to see everyone again!

Kendree - 6 months pictures

Better late than never...here's the pictures of Kendree at 6 months.

Official Momma shoot:

Hanging out in the swing

"Hold you, Kenny!"

The trip of a (Ronnie's) lifetime

My dad's brother has a boat in Alaska (and yes, I realize I could have used "uncle" in that sentence, I was just wanting you to understand where all the connections are).

Three to four times a year he invites three people to go up to Alaska with him to fish.  They do halibut fishing, salmon fishing and some crabbing.

On the 5th of July, at the family barbecue, my dad was bragging to Ronnie and I about how depending on when his Alaska trip panned out, he may not be able to help us move (luckily for us, and unluckily for him, he was indeed around for the moving).  Ronnie mentioned that he would LOOOO-OOOO-OOOVE to go sometime.  My dad said that he would ask Larry (my uncle) if all of the slots were full.  Ronnie and I didn't think it would actually pan out, since Larry normally has a line of people ready to go.

The next day, my dad called Ronnie and asked if he was serious about Alaska.  Ronnie responded "YES!" and the plans were set.  It took a bit of schedule re-arranging and all of the budget for Ronnie's birthday and Christmas's for the next five years or so, but he was ready to go.

There are just four things you have to do to go on  an Alaska trip:
1. You have to not annoy Larry, my dad, or the other gentleman who went.
2. You have to be okay with eating seafood for every meal for a week.
3. You need to be able to sleep through multiple people's snoring.
4. You have to not annoy Larry, my dad, or the other gentleman who went.

I guess Ronnie passed all of the tests, as he did not get thrown overboard and came home safely.

Now on to the pictures!

Ice from the glaciers.

Beautiful scenery.

Ronnie catching a skate ray (unintentionally)

The ugly side of halibut.

Whales, whales and more whales.

Ronnie with a silver salmon.

Waterfall

Ronnie with another salmon

Crab!

Ronnie and my dad by the very large halibut that my dad caught (pretty side of the halibut shown).

Why Hello There!

Let's see if we can get some catching-up accomplished on this little blog of mine, shall we?

We're back from various trips and settling into the real world.

Ronnie started work, the kids and I are keeping busy (with what, I don't know) and life in general is great.

While I know that "catching-up" posts generally stink, I'll try to make them as painless as possible. :)