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Rapid Fire

Hayes' brain is on rapid fire right now. In the last few days he has learned to crawl, learned to clap, and learned to wave. All while trying to cut the other three top teeth. Needless to say, there have been many sleepless nights and lots of fussiness. And that is just from me. ;-)

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Father’s Day

Last year we went to the restaurant at our local airport for Father’s Day. We really enjoyed it but because it was only the four of us we didn’t have a table right at the windows to see the airplanes. We said if we did it again we would have a bigger party because they got the tables at the windows. A friend of mine heard me say this and said they would go with us. So this year we went as a big group to celebrate the dads.

Our reservations were for a mid-afternoon brunch and we got to sit right on the windows. The kids were super excited. We saw a bunch of airplanes take-off and land.

One of the planes we saw was this vintage bi-plane below. You can also see a corporate jet taking off behind it.

After lunch my friend asked if we could go out by the plane to get some pictures. Luckily the pilot said yes. All of the kids were excited to be so close to the plane…ok, so the parents were pretty excited too.

Happy Father’s Day, Lance. Thanks for being such a wonderful dad to our brood. They are blessed to have you.

He is sooo close

He can inch forward just a bit. He gets so frustrated. He will be crawling soooo soon.

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Chunky Monkey with teeth

Hayes weighed 19 pounds, 12 ounces today. We went to the doctor for his monthly vaccine. When I was telling the doctor how bad he slept last night and lately she checked his gums. We noticed that he has randomly cut his left eye tooth. No front two teeth yet but I imagine they are not far behind.


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Babysitter Wanted

Just under two years ago we were having a horrible time finding a reliable babysitter. Fortunately I met someone who recommended a sweet sixteen year old girl who had just started her junior year at a local private Christian school named Taylor. The first night we had her babysit we came home to a clean kitchen with the dishes hand washed and sitting on the counter to dry and the kids were asleep in bed. I knew that moment that she was our girl. And told her she did not ever have to wash our dishes again. I also knew that the day would come for her to graduate and go off to college. That day has sadly come and I don’t know that we will ever find another babysitter that is as amazing as her. I am kind of in denial about this and don’t want to think about it. The kids love her…well, Reese and Sam. Hayes wants nothing to do with me leaving him behind. We did try that one night and he cried for 45 minutes. She finally sent us a text and asked us to come home.

Saturday we went to her graduation party and finally got to meet her sweet family. We were so happy to be able to celebrate her graduation with her even though I just wanted to tell her she wasn’t allowed to leave! We are going to miss her so much. We are super proud of her and will definitely keep her busy on her summers and school breaks!

Seven Months Old

I am a day late in getting this post up but Hayes was seven months old yesterday. I snapped some very informal pictures of him this morning before we started getting ready for church. I think these might be my favorite of the monthly pictures though because I really think they capture his personality.

At seven months old:

*He loves to blow raspberries (is that what they are called??). He will mimic us when we do this and the big kids get a kick out of it. He thinks it is pretty funny too.

*We had a rough couple of weeks with him where it seemed like all he was doing was crying. He would wake up three times a night and was sleeping horrible during the day. While his naps aren’t getting much better, he seems to be doing better at night (minus last night where I was up every two hours with him…let’s hope that was a fluke). For several nights before that he only woke up once a night.

*He will give me kisses when I ask. I haven’t seen him do this with anyone else yet. When I say, “Gimme kisses!”, he will open his mouth really wide and lean towards my mouth. It is some slobbery goodness.

*When Lance sticks his hand out and tells Hayes to give him a high five, Hayes will reach his hand out and slap Lance’s hand over and over.

*He wants to crawl sooooo bad. Like I have said before, he can get where ever he wants by rolling around. When he is seated on the ground he puts his hands down and turns his legs to try to move. He will walk his hands forward but can’t figure out how to get his left leg out from under his belly

He is trying so hard though and can still usually get what he wants. Both Reese and Sam sat themselves up from lying down right before they started crawling and he has not even attempted to do that. It won’t be long though.

*He is very vocal and still overall a pretty happy baby. He is usually content but when he is not every one knows.

*He is absolutely attached to me and if I walk away from him he screams the most pitiful scream/cry.

*He is not a big fan of solid foods. I was trying to feed him some mixed vegetables the other day and he was making the funniest faces. The kids and I were giggling at him and I captured this video…

*Sam is starting to get a little rough with Hayes and we always warn him that one day Hayes is going to get him back. If I had to bet, I think Hayes will be bigger than Sam eventually. When we compare sizes at the same age Hayes is two pounds heavier and 3/4” taller. I had to buy Hayes new clothes because he is too big for the clothes we have from when Sam was this age. I bought Hayes all 12 months clothes this last trip. They seem to be perfect.

Waiting on the Tooth Fairy

During spring break I noticed that Reese’s bottom two teeth had a gap between them that hadn’t been there before. We realized those teeth were slightly loose. Last week Reese came to me and said that the bottom right tooth felt funny. I gave it a little wiggle and it had loosened a good bit more. I told her it wouldn’t be long until it was time to pull it. Each day since then Lance has asked her if he could pull it and she said no. This morning he told her it looked like it was ready to come out. She would not let him do it but then asked me to pull it. I don’t know why but the thought of pulling her tooth grossed me out. But I told her I would give it a try even though I was not ready for her little smile to change. It was a chapter I wasn’t ready for.

I got some dental floss and tied it around her teeny tiny, sweet little baby tooth. I really didn’t know how to pull a tooth. While Lance recorded it I went to pull the tooth and the dental floss slipped right off. He stopped recording and I tied the dental floss on again. I was just kind of messing with it trying to see where it needed to be and how tight I needed to pull it.

Before Lance could even get the recording going again I had pulled Reese’s tooth. He got it started right as the tooth came out.

There were some tears because she said it hurt a little. She also said she was so glad she did it though.

When we first noticed that her teeth were loose I went on to Etsy and let her pick her own tooth fairy pillow out. She chose the owl in the picture below. It has a little pocket on the front that the tooth/money sit in. She is super excited to see what the Tooth Fairy brings.

A couple of weeks ago I went to a Scholastic book fair warehouse sale and saw a tooth fairy book. I decided to buy it and give it to Reese when she finally lost her first tooth. Tonight we read it before bed. It was just a silly little book but fun to read.

Recital ~ 2013

It has been a busy few days for us! Yesterday afternoon Reese had her dress rehearsal for her ballet recital which was tonight. At the rehearsal we can take pictures and videos right up at the stage. I love being able to get these pictures of her.

She always has the biggest grin when she is on stage. I really wanted to get her is some sort of drama camp this summer because of this love but it doesn’t look like it is going to happen with our schedule.

This morning when she realized it was her recital day she started jumping up and down and squealing.

This year’s theme was Alice in Wonderland and her class was Fireflies…I don’t really know the relation to the theme though.

They were cute none the less. My parents, my grandma, and Lance’s mom all made the trek for the show so she came home with three bouquets of flowers.

We had the boys with us too. They both did surprisingly well.

We were all so proud of Reese and loved getting to watch her shine.

Success!

Reese had her first swim meet last night. She was so excited!

They write all of their races on their arms. Some of the big kids even drew pictures and other words on their bodies. I am glad Reese stuck with her name and events on her arm. I imagine before the summer is over she will want to do what the big kids are doing.

She had so much fun swimming each event. I thought she may get a little nervous with the number of people lining the pool but she didn’t even mention it.

GO, Reesey-bug, GO!

She swam a 25 freestyle, 25 backstroke, and was the second leg in a free relay. They dive off the blocks in the deep end but have a seated start in the shallow end.

While the kids were swimming, Sam and Hallie played on the phone. Even though Hallie is Reese’s BFF, I am pretty sure Sam might like her even more. He asked her if she wanted to come over to our house. We were leaving half way through the meet because the little kids are done by then. Hallie’s big sisters still had to swim during the second half.

She said yes and they decided she would have a sleep over…her first.

And it was a success. The girls stayed up until 11:30ish watching a movie on the iPad in Reese’s room. When Reese woke up this morning, she woke Hallie up and said, “You made it through the night!”. They both got big grins on their faces. If Sam could have slept in Reese’s room too, I bet he would have in a second.

This morning they got their ribbons and a donut. Reese was super excited to get her ribbons!

We were super proud of how well Reese did. She had a blast and that is all we wanted.

American Cuties

We had a fun weekend. It was pretty low key. Saturday morning/afternoon we spent with Lance’s parents and that evening we spent with my parents.  After church on Sunday we went to the pool with some friends. Monday we stayed around the house most of the day but went out to lunch at Taco Mac. I couldn’t let the weekend pass with out some pictures though.

While I think this picture is fun, I really love the look on Sam’s face.

I think it the best picture of him we have gotten in a long time.

Kindergarten Comparison

Here is the comparison picture of Reese from her first day and last day of Kindergarten. I wish I had taken her picture in the same dress both days. You can really tell how much she has grown when you see her in the same dress. It is much shorter now. I am not sure that her look has changed too much. She looks slightly older but you really have to look for that in her face. Through out the year she never wanted to wear her hair down. She always wanted it in some kind of pony tail. She gets so hot with her hair down. Even though I love when her hair is down, it is much more work so I was fine with it being up.

I can’t believe she is officially a first grader now.