Nine Amazing Months

Everett turned 9 months old yesterday. He laughs, demands, army crawls, claps and talks! He is such a little boy already...it's gone by much too fast.

California

On Halloween we drove to California to see my family and friends for the weekend. I was very excited to go home, because I had not been there since April. It was the longest Ventura drought I have ever experienced. Hopefully, it will never happen again!

We did the Halloween thing with my parents, my sister and my brother-in-law, and my three little nephews. Kate was so excited to get to dress up with her cousins! Kate was Tinkerbell, Austin was Peter Pan (we planned that), Zach was Mr. Incredible, Ian was Winnie-the-Pooh, and Everett was a dinosaur. Here are some pictures from the parade that they do in my parent's neighborhood every year.

After the kids were done getting candy, etc. we went to my friend Ruth's Twilight Party. She did an excellent job! Yeah, Ruth! It was very fun, and I'm even more excited for the movie now.

The next couple days we spent with my family. It was nice to actually get to hang out and spend quality time with all of them. We even had a slumber party that night. I don't think it worked out that well for Tamara, but it was fun to get to all stay up late together. We went to a baby shower for my friend Kristen that night too. It was very convenient that most of my friends were there. I miss all of them a lot! (The next picture is of my best friend Ruth's daughters with Kate and Ev, and the one after that is all of the kids at the shower.)

Monday we went to Disneyland with my parents. Kate loved it! I can't wait to go back, and take her again. Everett did really well too thankfully. Kate's favorite things were the Tea Cups (she calls them the Coffee Cups, haha!), the parade, and Pixie Hollow, where she met Tinkerbell. Next time we go to Disneyland we will stay longer though. One day is not really enough with little kids, because you can't go very fast. Oh well, I guess we'll just have to go again soon!

Ben & Everett's first boat ride

Last Sunday it was actually cool enough to go on Papa's boat. Kate was very excited, she has been waiting all summer. It was the first time that Ben and Everett were able to go out on it, and it went very well! There was no sea sickness, and everyone made it back alive.

Saturday Morning

I was just sitting here drinking my coffee, not really doing anything. That doesn't really happen very often. It's nice! Anyway, I thought it was time for a little update. This last week in Kate's school the theme was Dinosaurs. Kate actually really likes dinosaurs. For about 5 months the only book she wanted read to her before bed was How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight? by Jane Yolen. She also has a stuffed T-Rex that she always sleeps with. She liked playing with some miniature dinosaurs that I bought her. We did some classification with them, which she really likes doing. She loves sorting things and putting things in order, even if the order doesn't always make sense to me. I taught her a few factual things about dinosaurs, and then showed her on a world map where different dinosaurs lived. It always surprises me how much she loves maps. Maybe she will be a cartographer when she grows up. Do they still have those anymore? We also went over the letters L and M, and reviewed the numbers 1 thru 5. I have a feeling she is going to be able to write all of her letters before she can even read. A little backwards, but she really likes trying to write the letters. I wasn't even planning on teaching her to write yet, but she always asks.

Today we are going to the Arizona Natural History Museum. It will be Kate and Everett's first trip to a museum. They have a lot of dinosaur exhibits, so it should be fun. I'll put pictures up later. Then tonight Brian and I are going to his parents annual Wine Tasting Party! Yeah! I actually get to have wine this year. I've been pregnant for 2 of the parties, and not being able to have wine at a wine party is not that fun.

Another first for this lovely Saturday...Brian is at Dunkin Donuts right now buying some yummy breakfast. Well, I've actually never had doughnuts from there, but supposedly they are so good. I'm excited to try them!

Fall pictures!

A few weeks ago we took Kate and Everett to Portrait Innovations to have their first pictures taken together. It's a great place to go if you have one near you. Pretty good prices, and the photographers actually have real cameras so they can move around. Most of these types of places have stationary cameras so you're just trying to get your kids to actually look at the camera. Here are the adorable results!

3 Months

Yesterday Everett was 3 months old! He is the cutest, sweetest little boy. He already lets me sleep through the night, how nice of him. He smiles and laughs at all of us, especially Brian. He is "talking" more everyday, and I'm afraid he is going to be just as loud as Kate. He can almost hold his head up when he's laying on his stomach, but he's not on the ground as much as he probably should be because of Kansas and Kate. They don't like to leave him alone. He's grown a lot in his first 3 months...5 1/2 inches and almost 6 pounds. He's a big guy! Here are some pictures from his 3rd month.

A Good Monday

I think I mentioned in my last post that I was starting "school" with Kate. Each week we have a theme and we do different activities and workbooks covering language arts, math, science, social studies, cooking and art. We are doing pretty basic things, I'm not too crazy! This week our theme is Apples. Today I put apple cutouts all over the house, and she had to go find them all and put them in a basket. I figured she would like this, but I had no idea how much. I ended up having to do this many, many times. We also made a book about apples, after she listed her favorite things about apples. I was not really sure when I chose what we are doing if she would be able to, but she is always surprising me with how much she understands. It's been really fun so far being her teacher!



Everett is coming more "alive" everyday! He smiles all the time and is such an easy going little guy. I love the little noises he makes, and he is always moving. That's kind of scary actually! He goes for his 2 month check up later this week, and I'm excited to see how much he has grown. I'm pretty sure he'll be in the 90th percentile or higher. Kate always is and he seems bigger to me.



Tonight we had dinner with our volleyball team. It's something the team does every week. Thirteen girls between the ages of 14 and 18...it made me happy that I don't have a teenager. No matter how hard it is to have a toddler, I was thinking tonight how much harder (in a very different way) it will be to have teenagers.



Well, it took me a few days to write something again, but at least I did :)