My baby is One Year Old!

On Tuesday, Alex turned one year old. It is hard to believe he is already that old. He is such a cute little guy. We are so glad he's part of our family.

I think he was quite oblivious that it was his birthday. He played with his new toys, and got into the cupboards like usual. He enjoyed his birthday cake. He kept trying to grab the candle when we were singing to him.

It seems kind of sad when a baby turns into a toddler. They don't snuggle much anymore.

When I took Alex to his 1 year old checkup, he weighed 22 pounds, and was 31 1/2 inches tall. He has grown over a foot in one year. The doctor said that we needed a padded room for Alex. That's how active he is. He is into everything and only stops when he is sleeping. Its a good thing that he still takes naps, or I might just go crazy.

It's Beginning to look a lot like Christmas.....

At least my kids think so. It snowed on Saturday night and Sunday. We got about half an inch. By the time we got home from church it was all melted. Rachel was disappointed. She was hoping to play in in it.
On Sunday morning after breakfast, I sent Caleb downstairs to his room to get ready for church. A little while later, I came down to see if he was ready. I found him and Anna huddled together under a blanket with "Jingle Bells" blasting from his CD player. I laughed. It is not even Halloween yet. I didn't even know he had a CD with Christmas music on it.
On the way to school today, the kids were asking how long until Christmas. Oh man, don't start asking that already. I told them I didn't know because we were still counting down to Halloween.
It seems like just a week ago, we had our AC blasting. Now its the furnace. This was sure a wild temperature swing.

Anna Turns 3...and more

Anna with her cake at the Rowley family birthday party.

Anna with her new dolls

On Monday Anna turned 3 years old. We celebrated her birthday with the Rowley family on Sunday. As you might notice from the cake picture, she had 2 of the 3 candles blown out before we had even finished singing "Happy Birthday".

On Monday, my parents and sister Leslie came over for the celebration.

Anna woke up really grouchy on her birthday. She is usually really grouchy in the morning. She threw a giant fit because she realized that she had fallen asleep and slept all night in her clothes. So, I quickly gave her the present that was her new princess pajamas. That cheered her right up, and then she was excited about her birthday.

Anna saw a picture of a barbie cake I had made for Rachel several years ago, and wanted a barbie cake for her birthday. She helped me make and decorate it. It looked pretty good until I let her get out the sparkly frosting gels. But she loved the cake anyways. And it tasted way better than store cake.

Anna had a fun day.

Anna is getting older now, and is enjoying creative play. She has played for hours with the "Peek a Boo Barbie" dolls she got for her birthday.

Alex's birthday is in just a few more days. He is actually starting to talk a bit. The other morning, he woke up first (like usual). We were laying in bed wishing we could sleep a little longer. He started to call "Mom". Then he moved on to "Dad". Pretty soon he started saying "Rachel, Caleb, Anna". I didn't know he knew how to say the other kids' names. I guess he was tired of waiting for me to get him out.

When I changed his diaper the other day, I said "Poo Poo", and he also said that. Yep, I guess I am already teaching him potty talk.

Blog Update

Alex, the little climber.
Alex picking the flowers.
Rachel at her awards assembly.

Well, I haven't been so good at updating my blog lately. So here's what has been going on with us.

Last Friday, we took our kids to the Corn Belly's corn maze at Thanksgiving Point. I had a coupon for 93 cent admission. I was quite pleased, because it only costed us $4 to get in. The person in front of me paid $10.50 a person. (Ok, that's enough of the "I love coupons" for today)The kids had a blast. They didn't love the actual corn maze. After a while they got tired of going in circles and getting to dead ends. We did make it out of there fine. What they really loved was the carnival games. There was so much to do. Jumping things, slides, games etc. We stayed for a few hours. They were completely content after a good dose of sugar from the cotton candy.

On Saturday, I got up and went running with Mom and Les. We ran from Leslie's house to Mom's house. I didn't stick around for breakfast this week.

After showering, I headed off to swimming lessons. Swimming lessons for me. I am hoping to do a Triathlon in the spring. However, I need to learn to swim properly so I don't drown and so I won't be last place. I actually had fun swimming. I've been able to sort of swim since I was a kid. The thing I am working on is proper form and breathing. I had fun at swimming lessons. I haven't taken lessons for myself for something for a long time.

On Saturday evening, we went to a restaurant called the Bambara with Dan's company. It was nice. The food was strange and fancy. And someone choked and spit their wine on me. But all in all, we had a good time. People didn't get too drunk, which was good. Really drunk people are annoying. There was one other couple that didn't drink as well. I loved the dessert, Creme Brulee.

On Tuesday, we went to awards at Rachel's school. She was student of the month for her class. We are really proud of her. She is such a good girl. Her teacher adores her.

The rest of my week has been quite busy.

Alex is getting to be quite a climber. I just finished loading the dishwasher. He unloaded the bottom rack. Then he climbed on the door to unload the top rack.

I gotta go be the taxi mom, so that's all for now.