Girly Girl

I'll be the first to admit that having a "girly" daughter was never in my plans.  Yet I ended up with Kayda, my sweet girl who loves all things girly, dresses, bows, shoes, make up (which she never gets to wear) and earrings.  I LOVE it.  I love to play with her hair and see her twirling around in her dresses.  I remember at a birthday party last year Kayda insisted on wearing a dress, I overheard an pregnant lady there say "I'm not gonna make my daughter wear dresses to things, I don't care about that."  Well guess what, I didn't, with Kayda you have to force her NOT to wear a dress.  She would wear one everyday if that was an option.  Anyway, back to the story.  Last night after Kayda's shower I remembered that Grandma G had some sponge rollers and since Kayda's hair has a little bit of curl naturally (especially on beautiful ringlet in front) I decided to give them a shot.  She thought it was SO much fun putting them in, she sat on the counter and handed them to me while I put them all in.  I told her "I don't know if this will work, we may be braiding your hair in the morning but it might give you some pretty curls.  If it works maybe we can do it Saturday night so you'll have curls for Easter."  Her response was "We could take a shower and put them in EVERY night!" 

 Here she is all ready for bed.

  Well, we may have been a little TOO successful. When I took them out her hair went right back into little balls all over her head as is if the curlers were still there. I had to pull on them and hair spray them to try to get them to loosen up a bit. Here she is 30 minutes after taking them out, on her way to school.  She wouldn't give me a real smile, this was as close as I could get.  She wasn't very happy about having her picture taken.  Notice her outfit, she dressed herself, again she would wear dresses/skirts EVERY day.

And here they are all relaxed and perfect six hours later!    Keep in mind I did her hair with hot curlers last week and they were gone in 20 minutes.  Everyone that saw her today kept referring to Shirley Temple.  I've gotta say I was fascinated watching her little curls bounce!  Papa H always calls her a pixie, the curls definitely suited her!

And this is random but here's the kids room all set up at Grandma and Papa G's.  It seems to be working pretty well here, we have a family room and everything downstairs but we don't seem to need it very often.  The kids are loving living here, not sure what they'll do when it's time to buy a new house!

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!

A couple of pictures

I feel bad that so many posts seem to be about Carson but of course when they're that little they change so fast so that's too bad.  I'm sure it'll even back out eventually.  This little man is MOVING.  He army crawls really fast and is starting to get into everything!  He now has 4 teeth (as of about a week ago).  He loves to slide himself off the couch on his tummy (you just have to hold your hand behind him so he doesn't topple backwards).  His favorite thing is to stand up and play with things.  He also really enjoys holding your hands and walking.  He actually takes steps though he's nowhere near doing it on his own.  He is such a happy little boy!  He ADORES his siblings.  He definitely prefers to play with them right around him, he'll get upset if theyr'e too far away from him.   Kayda and Dillon adore him too.  It's really cute when they're not fighting about who Carson's looking at. 

He's already such a great little helper!  Who knew an almost 7 month old baby could help unload the dishwasher!

Better late than never

Well, we went to see Santa back before Christmas.  You haven't seen the photo because we didn't have it.  Daddy was finally able to pick it up so here it is! 

Considering how difficult it is to get all three even looking at the camera I'd say it was pretty good!  Gotta love my babies!

Off to the doctor!

We headed off to the doctor today for Dillon's 4 year and Carson's 6 month appointments.  Daddy met me down there since both of them got shots, I didn't want to take that on by myself!  And the verdict, they are both growing beautifully. 

Dillon's Stats:

40.75 inches tall - 60th percentile

44.5 lbs - 95th percentile, which the doctor even made note of, seems to be all muscle.

Carson's Stats:

29.25 inches tall - off the charts!

19lbs 7 oz - 85th percentile

Carson has all of 3/4 of an inch until he has "outgrown" his carseat.  I am not looking forward to switching him into a carseat that has to stay in the car.  I like being able to cart him around in his carseat but I'll do what I have to.  The nurse was telling me that the recommendation is to keep kids backward facing until 2 years and she proceeded to say that the law is still only one year so keep Carson backwards facing as long as he'll "fit" which she doesn't think will be very long! 

We're all moved in to Grandma and Papa G's house.  We're getting into a routine, though we haven't finished unpacking.  Kayda's favorite thing to do is play "back seat driver" while Papa is playing video games.  She sits there and orders him around.  Dillon just loves always having someone to snuggle with.  On Saturday mornings Daddy and I will get up and head upstairs to find that Kayda and Dillon have already gotten up and are snuggling next to Papa on the couch all wrapped up in blankets watching him play games.  No Papa isn't always playing games, though he would be if Kayda had her way!  Grandma G is still in Wisconsin with the newest cousin, they're both very excited for her to come back home.

Kayda and Dillon are both very loving towards their baby brother, they fight in the car over who Carson is looking at, love to play with him and will sing him songs if he is crying or upset.  We were trying to take a couple quick pictures and Carson started crying so they were each giving him kisses, naturally I had to make them do it at the same time so I could record it.  It's a regular thing for them and they seem to LOVE being big brother and big sister.

Carson's thing about living here is Papa. He lunges for Papa and loves play time with him. Papa likes to growl and pretend to bite Carson to tickle him a little, so what happened? Carson started making a growling type noise whenever he saw Papa!

Carson is trying SO hard to crawl. See his little bum stuck up in the air? He's pushing with his legs. He hasn't figured out his arm yet so he ends up pushing with his feet and kind of dragging his face across the ground.

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.