Halloween Past

I love the month of October. It means getting out Halloeen decorations, wearing cooler clothing (everywhere except where I live) and it kicks off the holiday season. I have loved the costumes the kids have worn over the past four years, so I thought I would share. The kids (well at least Makenna and Camden) are old enough now to choose their own costumes, so I will have little say. Luckily, Delaney still has no interest in choosing one! Here is the past 3 years.
2007
Minnie Mouse

Boxer


2006
JoJo and Goliath

2005

Cheetah

Pea pod (only 1 month old)

Delaney 7 months

Delaney is 7 months and just getting ready to crawl. She get's up on all fours and just rocks back and forth. I remember Makenna and Camden doing that for a while before they crawled though. She sits up to take a bath now and I can give all three kids baths together (I'll have to get a picture soon). You have to watch your toes when she's in the walker, zooming around the house. We need to babyproof because anything she grabs anything in her reach. She LOVES to eat and is now having those awful, disgustingly-messy-but-so-much-fun-for-Delaney biter biscuits.


Kelley came over this weekend and we took Delaney out for the first time in her shopping cart cover. She loved being able to look at all the people and the bright colors.

She is getting big so fast!

Family Rock Band

For Christian's birthday, he wanted money to buy RockBand. So now our weekends (or Christian's at least) are spent playing the drums, guitar and singing. Together we are Blue Quad. That's the name Camden selected for our band because right now he is super attached to the blue quad that was on top of his birthday cake. Anyway, the kids love playing too, so here are some picture of our band.

Well Checks

I took Makenna and Camden to their well checks today. I thought everyone might want to know how they are doing.

Makenna weighed 32.5 pounds (24th percentile) and is 38.5 inches tall (18th percentile). Not bad for a little girl who was at the 0th percentile when she was born! Because she is now 4, she was given an eye test and hearing test. On the eye test they have to identify pictures. I think she would have been better at identifying letters because she came up with her own names for the pictures. For example the circle was a cheerio to her! She did great at the exam, very healthy and received 4 shots. She was more upset by the bandaids than the shots themselves. I thought kids were supposed to like bandaids, plus our nurse picked out the coolest glittery star bandaids and all Makenna did was cry!


Camden is close behind at 29.5 pounds (26th percentile) and is 37.1 inches tall (41st percentile). Makenna are getting so close in height that they are really starting to look like twins. Camden got to have his blood pressure checked for the first time (so cute because they called it giving his arm a hug). Interesting fact: Children's blood pressure is much lower than adults. His pressure was 84/40 which is normal. If we were that low we would wonder if we were dead! The appointment took a bad turn when we had to pin him down to look in his ears (he has this horrible fear of people touching or looking in his ears. Because of his struggle, the doctor ended up scraping his eardrum, making him scream louder. It just adds to this fear I guess. He only had to have a finger pricked to check for anemia (negative) and the TB test. He was still upset about the ears, but he's a trooper.

Overall two very healthy children!

Happy 30th birthday Christian

Christian celebrated his 30th in style...in a surprise trip to VEGAS! After Camden's party, we took the kids to my parents so they could watch them and we could "go out" for his birthday (which is the next day). On the way over he kept saying he was so exhausted. I asked if he was too tired to go out and he said no. I asked if he was too tired to drive to Vegas and he said, "Yeah." I said, "Well, that's what we are doing tonight...driving to Vegas." He didn't believe me at first, but it finally sunk in. We ended up sleeping a few hours at home and leaving Sunday at 4:30. We stayed at Mandalay Bay for the first time and he got to play in his favorite casino to date. It was their beachside casino and you sit overlooking the wave pool in an open, bright room with the dealers wearing bikinis. It was actually a lot of fun and he won $150 there! The rest of the trip was relaxing and adventurous as we explored a new hotel to us. We highly recommend Mandalay Bay! Happy Birthday to Christian!!!!

Camden's 3rd Birthday

My little boy is now three years old and I just cannot believe it. He celebrated his birthday at our house with a truck/car/motorcycle/rocket/quad/boat/anything with a motor, party. It was just a simple party at our house with family and close friends. Of course it was crazy as always with 8 grandchildren running around. I think Camden had a blast and it was exciting to see everyone's reaction to the haircut. Both Nana's seemed to be the saddest to see the long hair go. I have to admit, part of me misses the little surfer boy look, but the new haircut certainly shows off those big blue eyes. As far as presents go, Camden got lots of rockets, motorcycles, 2 word world games, and a leapster. Now Cam and his sister can sit and play their leapsters together. Here are some pictures of the party.

Camden's BIG Haircut

We cut Camden's hair short on his third birthday. I actually handled it much better than I thought I would. He was so excited to have his hair, "just like Daddy's." At his party everyone was shocked. I am still in shock and it's hard for me to recognize my little boy. He looks so much older! While I am sad to lose his surfer boy look, I realize it was losing it's curl and needed to be done. His hair is now straight and looks great. More birthday pictures to follow...

Table Rock Lake

Here are some pictures of our trip to Table Rock that we take every year. My camera broke on Day 3, so there are not too may pictures at all. It was a great trip though! Makenna and Camden want to live in our "cavin" (cabin) because they thought it was so great. I don't think I want to live in a one bedroom with five people though! A week is about the longest I would want. What a great week to spend with family.

Funny Things the Kids Say

There are those words the kids say that you just can't figure out why, but they cannot seem to say them right. You would think they would be the same words across the board, for all children, for some reason, certain words pose problems for some kids and not others. Makenna and Camden have some, and many of them are the same because they talk like eachother. Here are some of the ones I can remember:

-aye sup down (upside down) - only a Makenna saying
-panpakes (pancakes) - both, I guess Camden looks to Makenna for pronunication, not me!
-puh cute er (computer) - This one cracks me up when Makenna wants to play games on the puhcuter
-pacipacer (pacifier) - Makenna can say this one correctly now but Christian and I have a hard time calling it by the correct name
-toilip (toilet paper) - not sure why Makenna still says this
-Make ed (Naked) - "Looke I'm Make ed"
-Alligator (elevator) - I seriously thought Camden thought we were going to ride an alligator or something one time, and he was getting so frustrated when I kept telling him there were not alligators at the mall.

-"bottom burps" Okay this one is funny and Christian and I have yet to correct this. When Makenna "passes gas," she one time told me, "That was just my bottom burping." I thought it was so funny and cute at the time that I didn't tell her any differently. Still at the age of four, and for Camden too, they say, "Excuse me, my bottom burped." It's so funny!

Camden can read

Okay I do not want to use this blog to brag, but I am so proud of Camden that I had to post a video of his reading at two years old. It's not bragging, it just a way for me to keep records that my kids can look back at years later and follow where they were at in life. Plus, I think everyone that would read this loved Camden anyway, so hopefully you are proud of him too! Back in March I was playing with the Magna Doodle with both Makenna and Camden. I was asking Camden what letters I was writing and then having Makenna read the words. They were just short, CVC words. I realized Camden was having trouble not saying the sound and just providing the letter name so I said okay Camden try to read this word. The word was TAB and Camden goes, "/t/ /a/ /b/ /tab/". I was blown away, I had no idea he knew how to read! I gave him more words and he could read most of them. Word World has to be the biggest helper, it has shown him how to blend the sounds. Anyway, I decided to add a video of him reading. I wish Christian had not included me, but oh well. I want Camden to be able to look back and know that he could read when he was two. Go Camden!

Look what I did!

I am so proud of myself because I double french braided Makenna's hair the other day. The reason I am so proud is because growing up I never could do a single french braid by myself. Megan and I used to both french braid my mom's hair together. It was great teamwork holding the pieces and trading them to complete the braid. Anyway, I put the TV on for Makenna and this was the final product. Needs work, but pretty good for my first time...at least I think so!

So Many Milestones

In the last week, Delaney has experienced a multitude of milestones. First, and most exciting...she got her cast off!!! The x-ray showed a healed femur and she is as good as new. It was a little scary though because she started screaming in pain about 5 minutes after they took it off and I could not calm her down. I thought maybe it wasn't healed, but they said it could just be hurting because it was stationary for so long. Poor thing, it hurt to have the cast off now! She is great now, moving both legs equally!

Milestone #2 Turning 6 months
I cannot believe my little baby is halfway to a year! Knowing it is most likely our last baby, it is going WAY too fast. I remember with Makenna and Camden I wanted them to hit the milestones so quickly because it was exciting. With Delaney, I want to freeze time.
She went to the doctor and is a big girl! She weighs almost 18 pounds and is 27 inches. This places her in the 85th percentile for weight and 89th for height! Wow! Camden started out the same way though and has fallen, so I don't think she will be an amazon child or anything!

Milestone #3 Eating Baby Food
I wanted to wait until she could sit up without the cast bothering her, so the next day we started rice cereal. She wasn't too sure about it, but managed to take a few spoonfuls. Now we've tried applesauce and squash. Not surprisingly she likes the applesauce best!


Milestone #4 Sitting up
She got her stomach muscles back in shape and is now sitting up (for the most part). She still gets a little tired after a while, but she loves the new perspective.


Overall we are so blessed to have such a wonderful baby. :)