stuff

Just some post-Christmas pictures. I always have too many pictures that I want to post, but these are some of my favorites.

Noah's first experience with snow.

Braden eating snow. He LOVES snow days. When he came back inside his arms up to his elbows were that frozen red that hurts, but he didn't care. As long as he gets to play in the snow, it's all good.

The kids Christmas morning before opening presents. They were both fairly subdued opening presents. Braden wanted to open everybodies' presents, but we convinced him to let us open (most) of our own. So he decided to give everybody their presents instead. He had an uncanny ability to always give the right present to the right person.

Kevin and Braden playing with Braden's Christmas present. You have to cock them before you can shoot them. It's funny because Braden just can't remember the word, so he's asked us to lock them up and knock them up. Umm, no thanks.

Daddy and the boys.

Me and the boys.

And, finally we have a video of Noah walking! It took forever because every time I got the camera out, Noah would get so excited and start waving his arms around. He has a hard time standing up like that, let alone walking. He walks much better now than he does in the video. He's decided to make walking his primary mode of transportation, now.

Merry Christmas!

Just wanted to wish evetyone a Merry Christmas! I hope everyone has a great holiday!

Pictures and a video

I just wanted to post some fun stuff.

Braden "washing dishes"

Noah pulled the crackers off the table. He really likes crackers.

Click on the picture to see it big, then check the eyes. (Imagine them without the red-eye.)

Braden being cute.


Noah being cute.


The boys being cute.


Braden fell asleep on his chair while eating his bedtime snack. He's done this before, but this was the most precarious.


My little trick pony
I caught Noah doing the funniest thing with Braden's lawn mower. (Braden calls it a "lawn mower truck".) Noah loves playing with it, but I don't think he quite understands the correct way to do it.

Walking and potty training

Well, Noah has officially taken a step (just one) a few times now. By the end of the week I think he might be taking multiple steps. The fun begins!

Braden is starting to potty train. He's worn underwear a few days without any problems, but he has accidents most of the time, so we usually keep him in diapers and he tells us when he's going so he can go on the toilet. I don't think he quite understands or can tell when he needs to go before he's going. But this is definetly progress. Just a few months ago he was totally ambivalent about using the tolet and wearing underwear. The end is in sight!

Funny stuff

So I got an e-mail the other day of funny church bulletins. I'm posting my favorites here.
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The sermon this morning: 'Jesus Walks on Water.' The sermon tonight: 'Searching for Jesus.'

Our youth basketball team is back in action Wednesday at 8 PM in the recreation hall. Come out and watch us kill Christ the King.

Ladies, don't forget the rummage sale. It's a chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house. Bring your husbands.

Don't let worry kill you off - let the Church help.

For those of you who have children and don't know it, we have a nursery downstairs.

Next Thursday there will be tryouts for the choir. They need all the help they can get.

The Rector will preach his farewell message after which the choir will sing: 'Break Forth Into Joy.'

Irving Benson and Jessie Carter were married on October 24 in the church. So ends a friendship that began in their school days.

At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be 'What Is Hell?' Come early and listen to our choir practice.

Scouts are saving aluminum cans, bottles and other items to be recycled Proceeds will be used to cripple children.

Please place your donation in the envelope along with the deceased person you want remembered.

The ladies of the Church have cast off clothing of every kind. They may be seen in the basement on Friday afternoon.

This evening at 7 PM there will be a hymn singing in the park across from the Church. Bring a blanket and come prepared to sin.

Ladies Bible Study will be held Thursday morning at 10 AM. All ladies are invited to lunch in the Fellowship Hall after the B. S. Is done.

The pastor would appreciate it if the ladies of the congregation would lend him their electric girdles for the pancake breakfast next Sunday.

The eighth-graders will be presenting Shakespeare's Hamlet in the Church basement Friday at 7 PM. The congregation is invited to attend this tragedy.

Weight Watchers will meet at 7 PM at the First Presbyterian Church. Please use large double door at the side entrance.

The Associate Minister unveiled the church's new tithing campaign slogan:
Last Sunday: ''I Upped My Pledge - Up Yours'

The sweetest thing

So, at dinner last night, I asked Kevin who he thinks is the best cook ever (I figured he would say me, but he really means it :P). Before Kevin can say anything, Braden points at me and says, "MOMMY is!"

And this morning, Noah woke up earlier than Kevin or I wanted to get up. So I took him out in the living room for an hour, then brought him in to our bedroom to switch with Kevin. I put Noah on the bed next to Kevin and got under the covers, and when I looked at Noah again, he had curled up on the pillow next to Kevin.

How sweet is that?

Copycat

So, Noah is our little copycat. Braden is too, but Noah is little enough that you don't really expect it. We've caught Noah copying (mostly Kevin) before, but today was the best.

During dinner, Kevin had to spit out a piece of meat with gristle in it. A minute later, Noah leans over the side of his chair and makes this disgusting noise, so I say something to that effect to Kevin. Kevin looks at me and says, "Well, you should have seen what came out of his mouth." Apparently Noah saw Kevin spit the meat out and decided to try it to. Wonderful.

Jokes and toilets

Sounds lovely, huh?

Braden is -hurray!- starting to go potty on the toilet more. Most days he'll tell us at least once that he's going potty, so we tell him to stop and get him to th bathroom. He doesn't get yet to wait and go after you get to the toilet, so he doesn't usually get much out. We're thinking about trying pull-ups for him, since I don't think he's ready to switch to underwear. Maybe in a few months we'll have a diaper free kiddo!

Also, Braden just learned to do this:

The great hair debate

Yeah, so, this is way better than those silly presidential election stuff that's been going on lately. (I'm not serious. That's all sarcasm.)

Anyway, I have a bit of a dilemma. I want to do something to my hair, partially 'cause I'm sick of it and partially 'cause Noah's driving me nuts always grabbing it. He's got a thing with my hair and holding and pulling it, not fun. So, my dilemma is that I can't decide what to do with it. I kind of want to leave it fairly long, just because I like it long, though I know that doesn't do anything to solve my Noah problem. I'd want to do something different if I did keep it long. Or I could go fairly short. My favorite is this shoulder length and curly, a la Sophia Bush. (Sadly, I am using celebrity shots, they always have great hair.)

Or I like this cut, as seen on Jessica Simpson.

Or I could do something else, but I don't know what. Let me know what you think. I like hearing other people's opinions. It drives Kevin crazy, so I'm going to ask him less.

We have a crawler!

Another quick post. This is a couple of weeks late, but Noah has started crawling. It's funny that usually he's either crawling to me whining to be picked up or crawling to Braden's bat. It's still his favorite toy. I've even seen him crawling while holding the bat. Noah is now trying to stand without holding anything. He can stand with no help for 7 seconds. He's also cruising better.

You can hear Braden talking in the background.

Well, here's just a quick post. Braden was a dragon for Halloween. We decided on that kinda last minute, thus the thrown-together-with-sweats costume. (I was trying so hard to get everything done early this year.)

Noah was Curious George, technically. But without The Man in the Yellow Hat (somebody didn't want to dress up for Halloween) he just looks like a monkey.

The day after Halloween we took the kiddos out to Scheels. It's a new sports superstore (and I mean super- Scheel's is considered the largest sports store in the world) in Sparks (Reno). It has all sorts of fun stuff. First, at either entrance is an aquarium. One has freshwater fish, the other has tropical fish. Then, for the kids is a small (6-7 ft.) climbing wall and jungle gym. There's a ferris wheel, and a race car driving simulator. Actually there's three and you can race the other drivers. Kevin's favorite part was the gun section. My favorite part was the women's clothes (not just a sports store!) and Braden loved the fish and ferris wheel and Noah loved everything! Braden and I rode the ferris wheel together and we had an extremely long ride, about twenty minutes. Braden spent the first five laughing. We had a lot of fun. For perspective, Kevin took pictures of us from the second floor of the store.

It's so crowded, though, that when I got some food to snack on I was in line for thirty minutes! Braden got wound up to the point where he couldn't calm down, so maybe next time we'll aim to go later in the day so he can maybe get a nap in the car on the way there. You live, you learn.

Cute pictures!

So these pictures were so cute, I had to share them. Aren't these boys adorable?

Oh, and some small news. They just realigned the ward boundaries in our stake. It needed to be done, our ward was huge and had tons of little kids, especially nursery aged ones. And one of the other wards was tiny, so they realigned things to try and help out. The only problem is I don't think it helped much. Fallon fourth ward is still huge with tons of little kids; they only moved a few of us out. Yep, we got moved. We're now in the medium sized ward. There are a few other couples with young kids in that ward, but not many. Two other young couples moved with us, the rest stayed in our old ward, including all the ones we were friends with. So we'll be seeing less of them, but hopefully will make some new ones. What gets me the most is that I'm going to miss my Primary kids and I don't even get to say goodbye. Although, I'm glad I'm not the Primary President. She lost five teachers, the newly called pianist (my mom), and the secretary. Yowser! I think that almost everybody who changed wards is in Primary. And our favorite nursery leader is staying (sad for Braden!).

Lattin Farms

For those of you who don't know, Lattin Farms is an actual farm that is opened to the public for things like corn mazes, market fresh produce, a bakery, interesting jams, dressings, butters, etc., and general fun for the family. Also, Kevin and I met and had our wedding reception here. Anyway, we took the kiddos out to the farm on Saturday. When we got out of the car Braden sees the "cow train," gets all excited and says, "I want to go there!" So first thing first, Braden rode the cow train. It's just barrels fixed up like cows and jerry-rigged to the back of a tractor (there are seatbelts, and every child must use them). He had a blast! That's really all he wanted to do, but we did convince him to try something else.

The bouncer! He loved it! I guess he was pretty happy that we convinced him to get off the train. They also had a little blow up jungle gym type thing for kids who couldn't or didn't want to do the bouncer. It had a little crawl through tunnel. That's what this shot is.

We also went and fed some goats. Braden thought that was pretty cool. We didn't get any good shots of that, and well, goats aren't that great anyway. Before we left, we got some shots of the kids in the pumpkin/gourd patch.

Poor Noah just wants to be bigger so he can go and do all the cool things that Braden gets to do. But even then, he had fun just watching everything that was going on around him. Lattin Farms is pretty much only open when there are things ready to eat (and be sold), and don't usually have lots of fun stuff like this until the corn maze is ready, so this isn't an everyday occurrence. All in all, it was a pretty great day. My only complaint was how many bees there were. It's a good thing for them, sure, what with pollination and all. But I just kept thinking about what if one of the kids or I got stung and it turns out that we're deathly allergic to bee stings. A littl paranoid, I know. The funny thing is that I even had a dream with lots of wasps and bees and hornets in it (indoors and out) because I was so nervous. Strange, huh? But we really did have fun. Maybe we'll go again and take the kids to the maze. Or maybe not because the maze is huge and you have to stay out of the corn. Good luck keeping Braden out!

This is pretty cool.

http://howmanyofme.com

So I found this on someone else's blog and thought it was pretty cool. It does first and last name and then tells you how many people in the US have the same name. Turns out, I'm pretty rare! There's only 7 of me (depending on how recent their records are). If I use my maiden name (I was a Hassell once, after all) then there's only 2! Try it out! Let me know where you stand.

This is nuts!

So, just a few days after cold weather and snow, the weather here in Fallon is now sunny and warm (in the 70's). Talk about crazy weather!

Snow Shocker! and other Random stuff

So, as much as I like the snow, I don't think I like the snow in October. Just after the kids and I woke up this morning, we looked out the window and it was snowing! And not just a little bit. It was snowing quite hard with big flakes (think quarter size), but it's too warm to stick. It's unbelievable! Here it is, the beginning of October and it's snowing! It hardly snows in winter! Hopefully this isn't a sign that winter is going to be colder than usual this year. Poor Noah doesn't have any winter clothes because we lived in Hawaii when Braden was a baby. Looks like winter gear for Noah is moving up on my priority list.

This is the lovely view outside our dining room window.

We took Braden to the dentist the other day and he was so good that he got tochoose something out of the prize box. He chose a cool army guy. It was wrapped in plastic so Kevin told Braden that he could have it in the car. Well, pretty much as soon as it was unwrapped, Braden snapped the guy's head off. Nice one.

Sorry the picture's sideways. I forgot to fix it.

Wowzer!

So, in one of my last posts I mentioned Noah playing with Braden's bat. Well, that bat is Noah's absolutle, 100 %, no-doubt-about-it favorite toy. If you take it away. He goes into meltdown. If he's having a meltdown, give him the bat and he's almost always happy. If you put him down and he's anywhere near the bat, it's like he's magnetically attracted to it. I'm serious. He loves that thing.

Oh, and another update. Noah is starting to shakily cruise around our furniture. And he's about to start crawling. He gets on his hands and knees and sometimes rocks and then he either stretches out and falls on his tummy, or he goes back to sitting. I think in another few weeks we might have a crawler on our hands.

Be a good sport!

Everyone needs to play...This is Fun!

1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember--it can be funny, weird, awkward, random, etc.!

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you.

Please do it!

Amazing!

This is just going to be a quickie, but I was so excited that I had to post this. Braden actually used the toilet Saturday night! There's hope for him, still!

Kiddo update and pictures

Well, lets get the update out of the way, then we'll do the fun suff.



Both kids are on the mend. Braden's got a small cough, but he doesn't have disgusting amounts of snot coming out of his nose anymore. Good thing. He was driving me nuts with his whining and crying because "I've got snot!" I think he equates snot with bloody noses -he's had a few of those recently- and it scares him. Noah is still a little stuffy, but also pretty much done with the runny nose. While it's nice to not have to be constantly wiping his nose, he slept better when he was runny and not stuffy. Now, Kevin and I have the cold and poor Kevin got a sinus infection from it that is aggravating his asthma. Yay!



Braden turns three tomorrow! Holy moley! (Or holy gracious as Braden would say.)! He's doing fine. He's going to be our little sports star, it looks like. He's good at soccer, baseball (NOT T-ball), basketball, and he's got a wicked spiral when he throws a football. A few months ago he astounded me by reciting most of the alphabet. I'm not exactly sure where he picked that up. I didn't teach him. It's a good thing that he does pick things up well, I don't always do the greatest job teaching him. Braden also loves praying. It's the funniest thing. He likes to bless daddy to exercise, among other things.



Noah just turned 6 months 5 days ago and is showing signs of being a sports star, too. He likes to play with Braden's bat, and even swings it some while holding it right. Noah started pulling himself to a stand about a month ago. that's a month earlier than Braden did. Braden started walking at 8 months, so I told Noah he can't start before that. Although I don't think that I'll be mean and knock him down when he's trying to walk. A couple of days ago I was eating crackers while holding Noah and he took one from me and started eating it. I was shocked. He was so resistant to starting solids and only barely started to actually like it. But that's runny food. I didn't think he'd want actual solid food any time soon. They grow up too fast.

Okay. Now that that's out of the way, it's Picture Time!

I never realized how much alike Braden and Noah look until I saw this picture.

We went to the train museum the other day and got to ride the train. It was pretty fun.

Shiver me timbers!

Ahoy, maties! Take a gander at this fun article. If you don't I might be makin' you walk the plank.http://www.tampabay.com/features/popculture/article817148.ece

Geez! Revisited

So, it's been less than a month since the last time the kids were sick and, guess what, they are again! They've both come down with this horrible cold that produces lots of snot. That's just annoying for Braden, but it makes it really hard for Noah to eat and sleep. The poor kid actully stopped eating for a while and I was starting to get nervous because he wasn't dirtying any diapers either, but he started eating again, so I'm okay. As irritating as this is -two kids sick at the same time!- at least it's just a cold.

Vacation!

Okay. I should have done this a while ago but, yes, we did go on our vacation. We left Sunday (August 24) after church and drove 2 1/2 hrs. to Twin Lakes near Bridgeport, California. Both kiddos slept almost the whole way there, which was nice, but braden whined the whole last half an hour until we got there. Noah woke up not long after Braden did and was so happy. I don't know why, but if Braden is crying (or in trouble) Noah is almost always happy.

The night we got there, we saw a deer. Braden was so excited. Actually, he was excited about everything. He got to sleep in a big bed, he had his first s'more, and -best of all- he got to go fishing! Every morning when he woke up he'd yell, "The sun's up! Time to go fishing!" We pretty much spent all day, every day fishing, eating or sleeping. What a life!

We all caught at least one fish, though Braden got help. He liked trying to cast his own little pole

(that was hilarious) and helping us reel in ours. Most of his time was spent trying to sneakily through rocks in the water and chase ground squirrels. Noah had fun either sleeping in his sling, getting carried around, or playing on the sand. Well, at least he did like playing in the sand until he tipped over face first into it. Poor kid had sand all over his face! If we had gotten pictures we could tease him when he's older about eating sand, but alas. No pictures.

All in all, it was a nice relaxing vacation. Maybe we'll do it again sometime.

Geez! Part two

Well, Braden is getting better. With antibiotics his bug should only last 1-3 days. Also, he's not contagious anymore, so the likelyhood of Noah getting it now is small. That's the follow up. On with the rest of the story.

Noah has eczema. It's fairly bad. I've always assumed that it's caused in part by allergies. Well, it's finally starting to look a little better, but a few days ago he started getting another, different rash. We didn't worry about it too much, since we're used to seeing a rash on him, but it started getting worse, so we decided last night to call and make an appointment for him. Well, this morning we're all kind of busy and don't remember right away, so I went to put Noah down for a nap. He didn't want to sleep, so I go to pick him up and his face is covered with this rash. So I'm like, Oh crap! and go to tell Kevin that we need to just take him in (our doctor does walk-ins) when I notice he has hives on his hand. The poor kid looked like he was attacked by mosquitoes! So Kevin takes him in and the receptioninst says, "Is he sick?" Kevin told her no but that he has a "funky rash and hives." So she told him he had to make an appointment and come back later. She didn't ask how old he is, if this is the first time he's had this, nothing! Luckily, the appointment was for later today. So Kevin again took him in, waited to be seen in a not busy waiting room for an hour, got Noah weighed, and then waited another half an hour to be seen by the doctor. They were both asleep by the time someone showed up. Not the doctor! The doctor wasn't in today, so a PA from the hospital emergency room was filling in. She said there was nothing they could do for him, except we could try kids Benadryl cream. Gee, helpful. She did check his throat for strep and so far he looks okay. Also the diarrhea is going around and nothing to worry about. So that's good. Oh, by the time they went to the appointment the rash on his face was gone (he still has it elsewhere) and the hives were gone too. He till has tiny red dots where the hives were, though. Can't they just test him for allergies?

Also, this is not the first time we've been unhappy with the staff. We love the doctor, but hate the staff. We're going to try a different doctor. The PA even reccommended one.

Geez! Bad timing!

So, Kevin actually took some time off of work this week so we could take a little mini-vacation. We were looking forward to going out to Twin Lakes and taking Braden fisshing for a couple of days, but it wasn't to be. At least, not yet. First Noah has come down with a mild case of diarrhea, I think it's very mild rotavirus, but other than the diarrhea, he's fine. So we thought, no big deal. We'll still go. Well, the day before our vacation started (so, yesterday), Braden started acting sick. At first he was just tired and had a fever. But as the day went on he started getting worse. His stomach hurt, especially bad if you touched it, he felt dizzy, and he kept getting a higher and higher fever. It got so bad that I ended up calling Kevin to come home from work early. Braden's temp was 104.6 and he was in some pretty bad pain, so Kevin took him in to the emergency room at about 10:00 PM. They didn't get home until 1:45 AM! Poor Braden! So while they were there, the doctors/nurses (?) went to give him Tylenol, but Kevin told them that Tylenol makes Braden throw up. They gave it to him anyway and, guess what, he threw up all over himself and Kevin. They gave Braden a kid sized hospital gown to wear (he ended up wearing it all night). When they checked Braden's mouth, the doctor was shocked by how bad he looked. He couldn't believe that Braden was still swallowing and talking because he apparently has Strep bad. So now he's on antibiotics and he's even grumpier today than yesterday and he's refusing to take his medicine. Kevin's had to literally force it down him twice already. Great vacation.

Oh well. Thinking about it, though, I see that things worked out at the best time. Kevin is home to help me. I know that I couldn't take care of Braden and Noah like this by myself. And, since Noah has diarrhea, maybe that will help keep him from getting Strep, because the bug would (hopefully) get flushed out before it could make him sick. Plus, Kevin took time off through next Wednesday, so we'll hopefully still have time to go to the lake. Small blessings that make a big difference.

Where did the time go? And other ponderings

Actually, I shouldn't say ponderings. I just told my Primary class that pondering is when you're really thinking deeply about something, especially something important. As most of my friends know, I don't do much pondering. I should probably have said something else, maybe "And other stuff." Anyways, on with the show.

I just realized that Noah (my baby!) is going to be five months old in just over a week. What?! I thought he just barely turned four months old last week! Heck, when did that even happen? Geez. Time keeps flying faster and faster and I can't keep up. Oh well. Not much I can do about it.

Speaking of Noah, he is one noisy baby. Right now he makes that phlbbt noise and when he wants to be picked up he goes, "Mmmm. Mmmm," and arches his back if he's laying down. And, just like Braden, when he cries he says,"Mamma. Mamma." For a while there, if a toy got out of his reach he'd make the funniest sound, like a frustrated animal. I wish I had some sound clips of him, he's hilarious!

OK. To refresh everyone's memories, my parents are divorced, and my dad is remarried and has a 3 year old daughter. Well, not anymore! My dad now has twin boys. They were born this July, I think on the 17. I don't know for sure, since I once again found out third hand.

Oh, and Braden said the funniest thing the other day. About a week ago, he was eating an Otter Pop type popsicle with my mom on her front porch. It was getting dark and some stars were out. When an airplane flew by (all you could see were the lights) he said, "Look, Grandma! It's an airplane-star! It's almost like a spaceship!" Also, my word of the moment is incredible. The other day something happened and Braden said, "That's incredible!" Clear as day.

Tag

O.K. I was "tagged" by a friend so this is my tag blog. Enjoy!

Rules:
Each player answers the questions themselves. At the end of the post the player then tags 5 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment letting them know that they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answers.

The Five

Ten years ago…
1. I had just turned 15.
2. I was in between my freshman and sophomore years in high school.
3. I was kind of a misfit (not a nerd, not a jock, not cool, not very memorable).
4. I just finished doing long and triple jump in the Silver State Games.
5. I did my fourth year hike at Girl's Camp.

Five things on today’s “to do” list...
1. Shower.
2. Feed me and kids.
3. Give kids nap.
4. Have Family Home Evening
5. Read.

Five snacks I enjoy...
1. Candy.
2. Baked goods
3. Leftovers that are too small to make a meal.
4. Strawberries with sour cream and brown sugar.
5. Ritz crackers topped with cheddar and a slice or two of pepperoni.

Five things I would do if I was a millionaire…
(I'm assuming this is after tithing)
1. Pay off all debts.
2. Buy a house.
3. Invest.
4. Follow a set budget.
5. Have some fun! (ie. visit friends and family, decorate said house, shop, travel, etc.)

Five places I have lived…
Only five?! I'll skip some.
1. North Carolina
2. Florida
3. Tennessee
4. California
5. Hawaii

I don't know 5 people to blog. (Seriously! I don't know very many friend's blogs, and of the fewI do know, most have already been tagged.) So, here's my whole 2 people. Katherine and LaNae.

Some goings-ons

http://m.rgj.com/news.jsp?key=87572&rc=loYesterday we had some crazy weather. What looked like a normal summer storm ended up producing at least one tornado. The link at the beginning is for a newspaper article. Yikes. And to make matters worse, I let Kevin's parents take Braden out to the ranch yesterday. (That's not the problem.) When Kevin told me about the tornado warnings, he said thathe'd just talked to his parents and they hadn't left yet, so I tried calling them to see if they knew about the warnings but I couldn't get through. So I had no idea what's going on with Braden or where he is in the middle of this tornado warning, and am starting to get really nervous. Well, it turns out that Kevin had talked to them more than an hour previously and they were well on their way out to the ranch before the tornado warnings were issued, so Braden was not in any danger. The strange thing is that I had had a dream the night before where a giant man eating (though, thankfully flightless) bird was trying to get at us to eat us and I couldn't find Braden. I did end up finding him and everything was okay, but the parallel between my dream and real life was kind of weird.

In other news, Noah is now four months old! When did that happen? We took him in for his appointment today and he now weighs 14 lb. and 2 oz. (although I think he weighs a little more than that) and is 25.5 in. long. He's the same length as Braden was at six months and weighs only a little more than a pound less. At this rate, he'll be bigger than Braden in a year or two. Noah's on about the same milestone track as Braden was, meaning he has rolled over, can sit up without support for a minute or more (but he doen't do it all the time because he wants to stand-apparently sitting is for babies), he can pass objects between his hands and is starting to make repetitive sounds, but only mama. He talks more than Braden did, though, and I think he'll be a little behind Braden on the whole walking thing. He still looks quite a bit like Braden, only bigger. By the way, Noah is 3 months olds in that picture. I haven't gotten any recent ones downloaded yet.

Braden is turning more and more into a little boy. The things he says and does crack me up. We've been teaching him our last name (we hadn't even thought of doing it until last week) and so if you ask him what his name is he'll say, "Bradenman Henrix," although sometimes he says "Henry." Then if you go through and ask him everyone's names he'll say "Kevin Henrix," "Kari Henrix," and Noah is "Bradenman Henrix." We're like "Nooo. His name's not Braden. What's his name?" Then he'll get it right. Also, Braden will randomly call Kevin and I by our names instead of Mommy or Daddy. I think it's funny, but Kevin always saying, "No, you call me Daddy. You call her Mommy." I figure it's just a phase that he'll grow out of. Braden's going to be out at the ranch until Wednesday or Thursday. While cleaner than usual, my house is too quite! I can't wait till he's home.

Fun? What's that?

I just read an article about how to have more fun. It talked about some common excuses people give for not having any and what you can do to fix them. One of the excuses was not remembering how to have fun. That's exactly my problem! Too bad I can't remember what they said to do about it. But all is not lost, I'll just have to read it again. If anyone wants to post a comment on what their no-fun excuse is, I'll let you know what the article said to do about it. They were actually good ideas.

Lately I've been feeling bad for Braden. He doesn't get to have near as much fun as he needs. Everybody's too busy to do anything with him, and we don't have a yard to play in so poor Braden gets pretty bored. Maybe that article will help us help him.

Teething?

Noah has been driving me nuts lately. He hardly sleeps and trys to chew anything he can get into his mouth. It seems like maybe he's teething. I sure hope not. He's already bitten me a few times and it hurts more than enough without teeth. At least if he is teething, he'll stop being so annoying soon.

I love my kids!

I can't believe I'm doing this

Well, I've finally given into peer pressure (namely Suzanne) and decided that doing a blog can't be any harder than sending out e-mails to everybody I want to keep in touch with. So here I am plugging away. Hope you enjoy!