10 Months Old!

Allie Jane is 10 months old now!!! :(
She is hardly even a baby anymore, and she never stays still for more than 3 seconds.   Taking these bear pictures is increasingly difficult, so we have fewer and fewer good shots to choose from each month.   Allie is into everything.  She is so very, very busy during all of her waking hours.  As I type this, she is emptying the trash can next to me and spreading the contents all over the room.  She then turns into a human hamster and shreds or eats all of the paper for me.  So helpful!

Here is a picture of my helper:

By the time I've taken this picture and posted it on here, she has moved on to another pursuit.  She is now disassembling things on the other side of the room.

At 10 months old, Allie is crawling faster and faster every day.  She is pulling up to standing on anything she can, and this morning, she even climbed up the stairs.  She has gotten quite vocal when she is hungry lately too.  I think she might be in a little growth spurt because she will scream her head off and then down a whole thing of baby food in a few minutes.

She also just LOVES her big brother and sister.  She lights up from the minute she sees them when she wakes up.  Allie would be completely content to just crawl all over Kaden and Maddie and pull their hair.  They are only willing to cooperate with this for a limited period of time.  She also loves being kissed and tickled and has the most infectious laugh!

We love this little girl more and more each day.  Life is certainly more crazy with three kids, but well worth the extra baby snuggles and entertainment.  We are, however, not nearly ready for how mobile she is.  Our baby proofing is definitely sub par.  But we will get there eventually, and until then, we just try to keep her distracted and busy....you know...like shredding and eating paper...That keeps her busy for quite a while :)

First Day of School

Last Tuesday was a big day in the crazy train household.  Kaden started Kindergarten (all day!) and Maddie started preschool.  Kent was out of town for two weeks during the start of school.  Luckily, we had Grandma and Papa come and help us out.  Grandma took the kids shopping for school clothes and got them new backpacks.  What a treat!  They were both so excited on their first day.  Kaden is doubly excited because he gets to go to the same school as our 11 year old neighbor who is in 6th grade.  He loves her, plays with her, looks up to her, learns so much from her, and now he gets to go to the same school as her.  He is just in heaven :)

Here are a few shots of the kids on their first day of school.  Everyone is growing up so fast!

A couple more quotes...

When the Olympics were playing we saw a lot of American flags.  Every time Maddie sees one now she yells, "It's the miracle flag!"  I think miracle must sound like American to her, but we kind of love the way she says it.

On the way to Kaden's first day of school last week he said, "I'm kind of nervous."  So, I told him it's normal to be nervous because he didn't know what would happen, but once he went to school and saw how everything worked it wouldn't be scary anymore.  To which he replied, "Yeah, I can do anything".........(insert long pause where I am about so say something affirming and then he finishes with...)...."except drink beer."  Hmmm....

Quotable Kids...

Here are a few quotes from the kids in the last few months that I wanted to write down before they are forever forgotten...

Kaden asked me whether or not ghosts have bodies and I said, " I don't know."  So Kaden said, "I'll just ask dad, he's the smart one."

Kaden turned to Maddie and said, "Maddie, you're the funniest person I know!"

I told Maddie that I don't want her to turn four and keep getting bigger.  Then I said, "On second thought, maybe I do want you to turn four, three is exhausting me!"  Maddie just said, "Three is exhausting me too."  ...Good to know we are on the same page with that one.

Kaden was explaining to me that cavemen took pictures of dinosaurs and then after the cavemen died his teachers got the pictures.  He knows this because his teachers showed him pictures of real dinosaurs in school.  I said that the only problem with that is that cavemen didn't have cameras.  To which Kaden replied, "they could use their phones."

Kaden and I were meeting Kent at a restaurant for dinner.  He asked if Kent was there yet and I said I didn't know yet because he had to come all the way from work.  Kaden said, "Yeah-he has to pack up all his money had made at work before he can come.  He works all day so he makes a lot of money and he has to pack it all up!"

Kaden was going through the coins in his piggy bank and wanted to give me some.  He said, "Dad works so hard for money and you keep spending it all.  But I have a whole bank full, so I will give you some."

Maddie was talking about marrying Kaden or her Papa.  I suggested maybe she marries one of her friends like James.  (He is about 1 1/2).  Maddie said, "Yeah, like maybe when he starts talking."

The other day Kaden found some money and he said, "I have so much money....I'm pregnant!"  I think he has his words mixed up a little.

That's it for now...it covers some of the best from the last few months.   Kids...they say the darndest things.

A big oops...

Last Saturday Kent and his manliest friends had a great time having a guys night, killing and grilling a chicken, smoking cigars, and drinking some manly hard liquor.  It was a night they'll never forget.  As far as the kids know, Kent took Dottie (our rooster) to a Rooster Farm.  He is crowing happily with all the other roosters every morning, and generally having a wonderful life.

 Fast forward a couple days...I had been out for a couple hours and when I got home the kids announce that they found....yes you guessed it....a chicken foot in our backyard!  How exciting!  Kaden tells me he thinks a snake snapped the foot off of someone else's chicken and brought it to our yard to eat it.  They have not connected the dots...or the Dotties...so to speak.  Seems they might think it a little coincidental that they find a chicken foot right after Dottie left, but we were apparently quite convincing in our wonderfully picturesque stories about the rooster farm.  Kent did get a little grief from me on this one, but how was he supposed to know a wild animal would go through the bag of chicken remains that he left sitting on the side of our backyard?  Hmmmm.....

And that is just a little snippet of the excitement we've had this week on the crazy train :)

9 Months Old!

Little Allie Jane has done it again...made it another month on this crazy train that is our family.  In fact, she is not completely along for the ride anymore.  It seems more and more that Allie is not only a part of what we are doing, but she often has her own agenda and her own opinions.  In the last couple of weeks, she has moved to a full on crawl and she is now pulling up on anything and everything to stand up.  She is just so pleased with herself and her accomplishments, and we are just beside ourselves because we are nowhere near ready for all that she can now do and get into!

Here is Allie being so proud of herself for pulling up and playing in the kitchen.

Allie is such a source of light and joy in our home.  She has the biggest smile on her face from the time she wakes up.  She then gets more and more excited with each person in the family that she sees.  In the last week, she has had several days where she is running a little fever, but she has remained amazingly happy.  She has two little teeth on the bottom, but that is it for the teeth count at this point. She is growing faster than we would like, she is happy, and we have decided to keep her!

A little of this and a little of that...

There has been so much going on around here, and I have had so many witty blog posts in my mind.  Then days go by, more has happened and the backlog of unwritten blog posts is feeling overwhelming to me.  So, we'll just have to go with more of a summary of all that has been happening lately.

• Our rooster (Dottie) is still with us, but his days are numbered. Kent and some of the guys have planned a "Kill it and Grill it" party for this coming Saturday.  Sorry, Dottie, only 3 days left of this lovely little life you have led.  We will remember you fondly...sort of.
• All five of our chickens have literally been flying the coop lately.  Kent and I went so far as to educate ourselves with a YouTube video and then clip the wings of three of the chickens.  And still they all just jump or fly our of their pen as they prefer the more "free range" situation that the entire backyard provides.  I have about had it with herding them all back into their area several times a day and cleaning up chicken s$%* on the back porch.  I kind of think Dottie is the instigator, though, so we will wait until he is gone to decide what needs to be done next.  If all goes well, we will start getting eggs out of the remaining chickens in the next month or two.
• Speaking of flying the coop...Allie jumped out the crib for the first time last week.  She was getting up on her knees and we knew the crib had to be lowered soon. I put her down for her nap and was barely downstairs when I heard the thump.  I found her sitting up in the middle of her room...practically laughing at me.  I had to immediately lower the crib all the way and so far she has not escaped again.
• In the last week, Allie is now fully sitting up and crawling.  Gone are the days of the army crawl.  She is all hands and knees and into everything.  Allie is sort of quietly into everything.  Just quiet enough that you sort of forget about her until you realize she is sucking on the fireplace poker (hypothetically, of course!), or some other equally undesirable activity.  She is the sweetest thing in the world, but something tells me she won't stand being forgotten for long in this crazy family of ours...
• Last weekend we went camping for the first time as a family of five.  We went with three other families that all had small children.  The kids had a great time wind surfing, playing in the water, playing in the dirt, eating s'mores and sleeping in the tent.  We had a great time, but were thoroughly exhausted after two nights.  Here are a few camping pics...

• Kaden had his first T-ball game this week.  Kaden's uncle Andy said that Kaden is "first in the league in sand sculptures"...meaning that he spends a little more time playing in the dirt than he does watching the ball.  He has a little ways to go on his skills and knowledge of the game...but we are taking baby steps. Here are a couple pics from his first game.

And lastly, Kaden has taken to sleeping on the floor lately. Maybe it's because it's a fraction of a degree cooler on the floor than on his bed, and we are doing anything we can to beat the heat in our house lately.  But tonight, either he convinced Maddie to join him or she just did it on her own.  And here is what we found when we went to check on them.  I'm not sure that Kaden's foot would appeal to me as a pillow...but to each his own.

That is all for now folks! ( I don't know why the writing shows up the way it does with a white background and it is driving  me crazy!)