Sibling Bonding

Having three kids is a wonderful, busy and often exhausting experience.  I get so much love from these three babies of mine.  It seems like Kayda and Dillon are getting so mature now. 

Kayda is totally ready for kindergarten.  I'm so exciting for going in to work in her class and walking her to the school bus and back home at the end of the day.  She is back into her dress kick again, maybe I need to take pictures of her in her many, many dresses.  She doesn't want to wear anything else...ever.  I'm not sure how I ended up with a girl that loves to dress up so much but she looks so goregous I can't help but encourage her.  She is working on reading, she picks it up very quickly and can count to 100, we're working on adding and subtracting now.

Dillon is getting so smart!  Grandma G and I went in to work in the preschool for a center day where each person runs a station.  I was running a station where the kids were given a worksheet, they were supposed to read the number and color that many of a certain picture.  For instance, there might be the number three with four cows next to it.  They had to leave on of those cows blank.  Dillon was one of two "bumblees" (kids who turned 4 this school year) that could do this without help.  He's writing his letters and is such a good student.  I am so glad that both of my children follow directions and focus when a task is presented to them.  We are constantly being told how wonderful they are.  (We have parent conferences Tuesday for Kayda, SO excited!) 

Carson is on fast forward, he's as big as Kayda and Dillon were at a year,keep in mind he's 7 months old.  He's doing his little army crawl, cruising the couches, getting himself from stomach to sitting, pulling himself up to standing on just about everything, crawling up a step from the family room to the kitchen at Grandma and Papa G's, and he mimicks how you play with things (we were playing a drum and he proceeded to play the drum right after us).  He is back to loving baby food, though he is much more interested in our food.  He loves to go upside down an d "fly", he smiles at pretty much everyone, he is fascinated by animals and his big brother and sister. 

 Kayda and Dillon can get Carson to smile even if he's mid cry. He wants to be playing with them all the time. A favorite play place of theirs is Uncle Justin's couch. They love all the pillows. Don't worry Uncle Justin, we're being careful with it.

 Here's Carson sleeping on me, he is SO cute!

 Carson wants to play trains too!

 But that doesn't mean big brother and sister always want him to...

 Well hello beautiful blue eyes!

He wants to stand up ALL the time!

Look what I can do!

Carson is quite the little sitter.  He loved sitting and playing with this activity table today, he played with it for about 10 minutes which in infant time is FOREVER.   There are two times he'll fall over now, if he gets startled, and if he decides he wants to get something.  He is starting to get closer and closer to crawling, he kind of shoves himself around on the floor now. 

I wish you could see his dimples but whenever he smiles he dips his head down and I just can't seem to get them! 

Picture Play Time!

Yesterday Kayda and Dillon were entertaining themselves by rolling balls towards eachother to "crash" them.  They were having a fantastic time and Carson was perfectly content to sit and watch!  He is getting so good at sitting, he made it for about 10 minutes while I collected all the garbage and took it out to the curb.  I checked on him throughout the whole process and he didn't fall over or get upset at all!  He tends to be happy as long as he isn't hungry or tired and he can watch big brother and sister play.

Today I decided to get out the camera again and get more pictures.  I feel like I've missed the last month in all the chaos of moving and finishing everything on the house.  Kayda and Dillon were playing horses and Carson was happy to sit and watch them again, great opportunity right?

 I couldn't seem to catch his full smile.  He has the most adorable dimples!!!  I'll have to keep working on that. 

 Kayda was being little miss serious and wanted to pose, but NOT smile. 

Carson LOVES this snake.  It's a dog toy (that was NEVER used by a dog) and he can't get enough of it.

Everytime Kayda and Dillon wanted a picture "with their horses" they would hold them up so I couldn't see their faces so I finally just took the picture like that.  I found it amusing when I looked at it.

SO cute!  I just can't get enough of my babies.  Course only one of them is still a baby.  They're all growing up way to fast. 

Such big beautiful blue eyes!  We are so screwed when our kids grow up... the teen years are going to be a nightmare.

Winter Ice and Power Outage

So far it has been a VERY busy month.  Right after Dillon's birthday we found somebody to rent the house so the craziness began.  I spent the first week over at Grandma and Papa G's trying to get the basement cleared out for us.  Then it was time to start moving in, in the middle of this phase the snow and ice hit.  Now we're in the process of finishing all of our projects throughout the house to get it ready for the renters.  The power went out Wednesday morning, came back on that afternoon.  Then it went out again Thursday morning and just came back on today, 4.5 days later.  It was bad timing for a move, between the ice on the roads and the power outage it made it all pretty difficult. 

In more detail, the first of the snow started on Saturday and came and went throughout the week, until Thursday.  Wednesday was the heaviest snow day, at 6 inches.  Then Thursday it turned into freezing rain.  It created a sheet of ice on top of the snow and coated all the tree branches in half an inch of ice. 

 

 Normally snow doesn't reflect this much!!!

 This tree is litarally bent in half from the weight of the ice.

 Check out those pretty icicles.

We spent a lot of time huddled around the fire to stay warm.  Of course the basement was nice and warm with the gas fireplace.  I was a second too late to catch Kayda and Dillon playing blocks with Carson. 

 He can sit REALLY well now.  He only really falls over when he gets excited about something (He tends to smile with his whole body).

Carson is quite the roller.  He doesn't need to crawl.  He rolls everywhere he wants to go.  He went from being in front of daddy to being by the diaper bag in about 30 seconds. 

Antipacifier Ch 2

Well, we're on day three of Kayda without her pacifier. It hasn't been as bad as we thought it would. Saturday was Kayda's first day without it. During the day there has been absolutely no problem, granted at nap time we have been out and about so the last three days she has been falling asleep in the car. At night it has been a challenge, between the muggy heat, the "no pacifier" rule and the fact that she's working on two teeth, she has taken an hour and a half to get to sleep. Unfortunately by an hour and a half I mean almost constant crying to the point that I'm offering her water because her voice is getting hoarse. Granted after she finally does get to sleep she is sleeping much better. She slept through the night Saturday night and then last night she woke up once.

We're also kicking Dillon out of the bed and trying to get him into his crib. This has been an adventure. He's waking up frequently enough that I've taken to sleeping on the floor in his room as an attempt to make my life a little bit easier. My advise for everyone who is planning to have more kids and doesn't have a strict "no pacifier, no mommy and daddy's bed" policy is JUST SAY NO!!! Letting them have pacifiers and sleep with either mommy or daddy made my life bearable while I was working but trying to end the behavior is not fun.

To talk about something happy, Kayda can officially (and has been able to for a short while) jump so that both feet get off the ground. Dillon is working VERY hard to figure out how to roll over. He can ALMOST make it BOTH directions. He can sit up pretty well on his own now, he only topples over every once in a while and he's really close to having a tooth.

Wrapped around their little fingers

Kayda has everyone wrapped around her little fingers. She managed to get Grandpa G AND Daddy to play in the sandbox with her.

Meanwhile Dillon slept oh so happily in Mommy's arms.
We're having so much fun now that the weather is SLOWLY getting nice out. Kayda absolutely loves to be outside so now every chance she gets she is out there. Dillon is starting his new streak. He is holding his weight up standing up on his own (we still have to balance him of course) and he can almost sit up on his own. He is laughing now! He is literally a bundle of JOY he is as happy as they come.

He and I went back to take a nap last weekend, when we came back out we found Kayda and Daddy snuggled up sleeping on the couch. I love having babies that love to be snuggled. It makes the world a brighter place.

They grow up so fast!

Wow he is getting so big and so strong so fast! Grandma G has been letting him spend a little time in the exersaucer and he loves it! He has decided he likes to sit up and look around so he gets kind of crabby if he's awake and you make him lay back where all he can see is the ceiling. He likes to talk to people now, he makes all kinds of cooing sounds. When he had enough of the toy I pulled him out and big sister automatically wanted in! I raised it up as high as it would go but her legs are still bent up. You can't see it really well in the picture because of the shadow from the couch but that's okay it's still funny.

Kayda has learned a few new tricks. She has decided that if she gives you kisses you will take her to do whatever she wants to do. So now if you pick her up she'll point at what she wants and give you unlimited kisses. She has also decided that she REALLY likes any sauces so if there is ketchup or hot mustard sauce or ranch dressing she'll dip her food in it and then lick off the sauce. Eventually she'll eat her dipper but she uses as much sauce as possible first.