A fun weekend

This weekend we didn't do anything grand but we had a blast. Friday night we just went out as a family. Just the four of us. We don't attempt that nearly enough. Our kids can surprise us with such great behavior sometimes! We went to the Panda and had some sushi and "chicken flied lice" for K. After that we walked down to the Dollar Tree aka the Toy Store. We let K get 2 toys and then we went on home. We awoke on Saturday to snow! That is such a rarity down here that we had to go out and enjoy it! Here are some pictures to recap our weekend:

The three most important people on this earth. So sweet.

My boys.

Look at that incredible smile! This boy has won me over with his amazing personality. He is the coolest kid!!!

Me and K. I just love how sweet she is. We are starting to have great conversations about God. It is wonderful to see her little mind process so much. I was trying to explain Heaven to her last night and she was having a hard time grasping it all. She decided that she would go live with Jesus when she dies if she can take her own furniture. She loves her new bed. (Well her refurbished bed that was so graciously given to us by Allen's aunt)

This is K throwing a snowball at her daddy. She has a great arm!!!

Here they are with their snowman that they built.

Here is their snowman up close. K named her Flower.

She is so sweet in her snow get up.

5 and 6 months

Okay so I have been taking pictures of Tripp but I have been lax in putting them on here. But in the spirit of catching up, I am putting his 5 month picture and his 6 month picture on here in one post. As you can see the weather drastically changed from October to November. Sad!!!!

Tripp also has changed a lot. He has gotten more hair and two teeth!

He is playing with his two favorite things... this soft block and his foot.


Went to the doctor and Tripp's stats are:

28 1/4 inches - 98% for height
18lbs 9 oz - 75% for weight
I dont remember his head circumference but it was still 25% range

He grew 3 inches in 2 months! The doctor measured 3 times!

Tripp sitting up

Tripp is doing so much these days.

A few notable things:

Sitting up
Eating fruits and vegetables
babbling like he is really talking
rolling all over the place
loves Muggsley and Kaylen
Sleeps like there is no tomorrow! From 8pm to 9am consistently (I love you, Tripp!)

Kaylen pestering Tripp

This was so much better before I got my camera. Tripp was sooo mad at her. She was trying to tickle him and he was annoyed. He kept screaming at her. It is too funny.

Halloween

I am playing a bit of catch up. I haven't even downloaded the pictures off my other camera! Eventually I will get back on track with everything... might be after the holidays (once I am back in school).

Halloween was so much fun this year. Kaylen is at a really great age for everything. She had the best time playing on the blow-ups at Willowbrook. We did that and then we trick-or-treated in our neighborhood and then at our old neighborhood. It was good to see everyone. Tripp is doing great. At 5 months he weighed 17 pounds! He is such a great sleeper and a happy baby. He is rolling all over the place and "talking" up a storm. He is so much busier than Kaylen ever was! We have really been having a lot of fun and Kaylen is becoming such a great big helper!!

Arbor

We got an arbor in September. I guess it was a birthday present to each other. Scott, they guy that did it for us, is amazing. If you need any woodwork or any work for that matter, he is your guy! Nice and very smart. Well, here are a few shots of it. He did this is literally 4 days! And if you cant tell the boards on top are at a slant... so it actually shades!! Genius!






I am so far behind on posts... I promise that I will download the last months worth of pictures and get caught up. I have no excuse for my slacking... :(

First Official Field Trip

Kaylen and I went on her first field trip to Tate Farms. We had such a blast. She is so crazy about the corn pits... We were late (shock) and that is the first thing they did. We decided to stop by and play in them a while after lunch. It was really fun to see her play with her classmates and act like such a big girl! I forget how she is getting so big and growing so fast. She is such a smart girl. I also love to see her be sweet to her friends at school. Anyway, here are some pictures from the day. She liked the corn, the maze, the goats, and picking out a perfect pumpkin.

Petting Zoo and the ER

Amy, Emily and I decided to take the kids to the petting zoo during Fall Break. The kids had been home all week and we needed an activity to fill a day up with! I am learning that Kaylen is a little skittish of animals. She was not about feeding them. Emily and I went through a Safari that had Emu, Rams, Bulls, Zebras, Alligators and many other animals and K was terrified. Anyway, this wasn't much different. She really didn't want to get too close. She did, however, love the playground. :) Here are some pics from the day:

Tripp and I feeding the sweet Lama.

Kaylen did love the bunnies but one of them started nibbling on her shirt. She threw him down and decided she didn't like that one. She would still hold other ones but not that one.

Me, Tripp and the girls moving along to our next stop.

Kaylen, Andrew and Rylie excited about the adventure. (We had just gotten there)

Kaylen and Rylie. They really are such great friends. I love watching them play together.

This is as close as Kaylen came to the animals. This one goat. He kept putting his head in her bucket.

She did love swinging on the rings.

Kaylen had a little accident that day at the McDonald's. She was standing near another kid when he was swinging a laminate placemat type thing off the order counter. K got a little too close and it swiped her eye. It cut her eyeball from one side to the other. Such a fluke but so scary. We went to the first ER and I accidentally went to the main ER instead of Peads. Ugh! I had to wait with all the deathly ill adults with my two little ones and then be discharged and sent to the right place. I was so mad at myself! Anyway, we got to the right place and the doctors were bringing in all the rookies to check out the cool eye injury. We finally made it to the eye doc and she put some drops in to paralyze the muscle that would continue to spasm until it healed. She then put antibiotic ointment and a patch on. We went back the next day and the eye is almost healed. It should be fine in a few days. Shew! She can see just fine and all will be well. Amazing! So here she is with Tripp. Sweet babies!

Here is the little man that accidentally got her... he brought her flowers! It was so sweet.

And here she is again. She wanted me to draw on her patch... not my best work but I was nervous drawing on a wiggly surface that had a hurt eye under it. :)

PS. I couldn't of made it through that day without Emily and Amy. They were so nice to come with me and help me because I was a mess! And Allen made it there from Cullman in 30 minutes! And that is with a cop stopping him. He didn't get a ticket. Guess he had a good excuse.

Tripp is doing new things!

Tripp is 4 months old - 15 pounds and 2 ounces. He is now in 50% range for height and weight. His head size has is now in the 25% range. He has really started to fill out.

His first food was squash. He ate sooo well!



He was a messy eater but he liked it.

This is how much was left over! What a great eater!

He loves bath time now. That took a while for him to adjust but now it is a fun time.

What a sweet little sleeper. I love this little guy.


He is now rolling over from front to back constantly... now for the back to front so he can go back to sleep on his own! He loves his paci. Plays with toys and his hands all the time. Is so happy unless he is hungry or sleepy. He cackles when being tickled under his arms. Such a sweet and loving baby! We are so glad he is a part of our family!

I Pledge Allegiance

This morning while I was getting ready Kaylen busted out with the pledge. I didn't even know they said the pledge at school but I guess they do! It is so cute to hear her say such big words that she has no clue of the meaning. Enjoy!




Tripp isn't doing much but laughing and grabbing playthings but he's just so cute doing it! So here is a little video of him too.

Cowgirls and Super Friends

At school it was Cowboys week. They could dress up all week. So we chose two days and did it up! Rylie was a cowgirl for Halloween last year and Emily made the cutest costume for her and let us borrow it. She was sooo cute!

Kaylen had Super Friends week at Dance. So, of course, Rylie was her friend. Rylie is in her own dance class so she already had all that she needed for dance. They were so sweet dancing together.

They had the cutest outfits. They did tap, ballet and gymnastics.


I love this picture of them. They really do love each other. Kaylen couldn't understand why Rylie wasn't going to be in her class all the time. She is still asking when Rylie can come back. So sweet.

Tripp Laughing...

This video takes a little bit for him to get going but he is looking in the mirror at himself. Disregard how I look and all the ridiculous faces I have to make at him. Ahh... the things we will do to get our kids to preform.

And by the way... no babies were injured due to the contents of this film. That instance where he bangs his head on the camera in no way was harmful to him as evident by the lack of crying. :-)





Here are a few pictures of the kids after church today:

God Is Good!

You know those times in your life when things are changing so rapidly and the timing is such that you know God is at work? Well, the last few weeks have been like that for us.

I am going to try and recap what has been going on lately. The first thing was that a friend of ours from church told Allen about a position with her company. He wasn't all that interested at first but the drug sounded intriguing to sell and he really thought he could do a lot to help advance it. So he submitted his resume and that started a rapid chain of events. He had two phone interviews that same week and was flown out to Atlanta the following week. They kept asking him why he wanted to leave his current company and he kept saying that he didn't necessarily want to leave because his company had been good to him but this seemed like an interesting opportunity. Anyway, they were interviewing two other people for the position and one was another friend from church. She had taken a break from pharmaceuticals and needed to get back in. It was going to be bittersweet if he was offered the job and if he wasn't. But God is so much smarter than we are. We got a call, he got the offer and had the weekend to think it over. There were a couple of resons that made it seem like the risks weren't worth the rewards for us. We ended up turning the offer down and staying with his company. In God's goodness, He presented Allen with the offer but gave the job to our other friend at church. Win, win! That was so neat to see how He could take a seemingly lose, lose situation and totally switch it.

That all happened on last Tuesday and that same Friday he got a call from his company to all reps saying that they needed to stay home on the following Tuesday and await a call... there would be layoffs. We didn't know how deep they would be and the possibility of him being cut was there. Even with this news we really felt like God had been so clearly in control of the previous situation and was still in control of this one... whichever way things came out. The results were that both of his partners lost their jobs. About 50% of his cardio-pulmonary team in Alabama was cut. There used to be 5 in the state and 3 are now gone. We are so saddened by all of our friends who are now without jobs. We are also so grateful to the Lord for showing us favor. It is undeserved and we are humbled by His goodness. His job is a huge blessing and we want to be good stewards of all that God has given us. Allen currently doesn't know what his new responsibilities will be nor does he know his new territory. All of that will be told soon and will be effective Nov. 1. Until then he will be trying to cover his entire territory and make up for the loss of his two counterparts. This means some extra nights away. Funny... I don't mind nearly as much as I used to! :)

Dance Class!

Kaylen absolutely LOVES dance class. She has tap, ballet and gymnastics. I am not sure which one she most enjoys. She likes the noise of tap, the gracefulness of ballet (I think she is liking this one the most right now because she prefers to practice this at home) and the equipment of gymnastics. It is so much fun to watch her. I wanted you guys to get a glimpse of it... so I have included photos and a video at the end.








Sweet Kaylen story: Today I took Kaylen into the bathroom at school to change into her dance outfit and she informed me that Alexis was there today (I have no idea who this is). I say how wonderful that is. She then lets me know that Alexis asked her if she wanted to be her best friend and she said sure! I told her teacher about it as we were walking out and she said that they were holding hands all day and that Alexis was new and hadn't been interacting with the kids and she thought her mom probably told her to ask someone to be her friend and she chose Kaylen. I had told Kaylen last week to make sure she was nice to the new kids since she was there last year and knew a lot of people. I am so glad she is doing that! I love her sweetness.

Update on Tripp: Guess I should say that Tripp has rolled over from front to back 3 times now. First time was right before he turned 11 weeks. I thought it was a fluke but he just keeps doing it so maybe not! :)

School Starts!

Kaylen went back to school this week. She is soo excited! She is in the three year old class and loves her teachers, Ms. Denise and Ms. Allison. All she has talked about is getting to paint. That girl wants to paint so bad! It has been a nice break for me as well. I am going to really enjoy the extra time I have during the day. This has been a crazy week with lots going on but next week should slow down and be more relaxing.

Right now Kaylen's favorite area in her room seems to be this workbench. On the meet-n-greet day she had the hardhat on and was using the screwdriver to attach things. Who needs a kitchen or dollhouse when there is a workbench!

These next pictures are our first day of school pics. She loves carrying her bookbag and lunchbox.



Kaylen and Tripp: She is loving him but I am not so sure how comfortable he is with it.

Dance Class here comes Kaylen!!!

I am not going to lie, 3 is a tough age. We have gone through a lot lately. Kaylen has had a lot to adjust to. Most days I want to cry it is so difficult. But every day is also coupled with the funniest things and the cutest faces. How can you get too mad at this face:




She has personality for days. She is so excited for school to start and dance class. We have our outfits and we are ready to go! Monday will be her first class. I will definitely be posting more on that soon!

Kaylen Swimming

Kaylen has really learned a lot about swimming this summer. I am so proud of her! At the beginning of the year she had a death grip around my neck and now she is doing this:



I couldn't get her to even get in the big pool without me. My aunt came to visit and she wouldn't get in for anything! Not only has she decided she wanted to swim but she can also do this:



It is hard for me to remember that she is only three! I hope she is always this brave.

Funny Kids

So last night during Kaylen's prayers this is what she said: Thank you, God, for Mimi and Baba, Momma and Daddy, Mamaw and Papaw and even thank you for Tripp coming out of Momma's belly but PLEASE don't let another baby come out.


And there you have it. I guess Tripp can stay but no more! ;) I think we can oblige her in this request.

I took some video's of the kids. This is of Tripp doing as much as he is doing these days. He is really a sweet baby. I am very much enjoying having him around. The hardest thing about him is that he wants you to hold him 24/7... is that really too much to ask?!?! I just wish that I could do that.




This next video is a 6 sec. video of K... I put it on here because her face is hilarious. She was smiling for a photo and the camera was set to video. Our neighbor was trying to take the picture.



Now this is blackmail for when K gets older. I was trying to get her to go to the bathroom and she is really in to this one Hannah Montanna song called He Could Be the One. So in an effort to get her to stay on the potty a bit longer, I played this song for her and this is what was going on in there:

Kaylen writes in German!

This morning on the way to church Kaylen and I were talking about how Handy Manny speaks Spanish and English. So I thought it a good time to explain to her the story about the Tower of Babel and why we all speak different languages. I told her there were many different languages such as Russian, Spanish, English, German, Chinese... and so on and so forth. So this afternoon she scribbles on a piece of paper and tells me that she is writing in German and that is why I can't understand it. I told her that I didn't know she spoke German... she said that she didn't, she can only write it and what she wrote meant love. Ha! I love how kids minds think.

Btw... her "crown" is from church. She learned all about Queen Esther.