Lennon's new obsession

Lennon has suddenly become obsessed with Shelby's guitars.  He goes over to them and begs for us to get them down and play with them.  He is even satisfied by me playing and I don't know the first thing about them.  It's pretty cute and he gets very upset if you won't get it down for him.

He also has been making this noise lately that sounds just like he is saying "lordy, lordy, lordy"  It's pretty funny, especially when he was doing it at church last sunday.  He's moving more and more away from "baby foods."  He pretty much won't eat any vegetables if they are pureed, but we have much better luck with freshly steamed veggies or frozen thawed mixed veggies and such.  He'll eat almost anything that is in the fruit category and he is taking after Mia in his LOVE of oatmeal.  We had been pureeing it until this past week when we discovered that he would just scarf it down the way Mia eats it which will definitely be nice to just have to make one breakfast for both of them.  He definitely has a much different temperment than his sister did at that age.  He protests strongly if you take something from him or don't give him something he wants, RIGHT WHEN HE WANTS IT!!!  It will be interesting to see what kind of toddler/kid he is.  I'm going to have to be right on top of my game with him for sure.  He sure does have a sweet little smile!

Mia hanging out with Angel while he enjoys his newfound freedom in the great outdoors!

 The newest member of our family, Chelsea...the male betta fish.

This is what happens when a little girl with lots of dress up clothes gets a little brother.

  Mia showing off her gymnastics skills at her soccer game last week. 

  That's one cool dude!

                                          Mia on her hike with Shelby

Our last family photo before releasing Angel into THE WILD!  well, just Malden, but you gotta watch out for those townie cats!

Growing and Changing

A lot has gone on in the last week.  On Tuesday when I went to pick up Mia from kindergarten they were passing out goldfish to all the children whose parents said it was okay.  Well as you can imagine after that first parent said yes, it's not as if the rest of us had any choice but to say yes as well.  So, we bring this little fish home and Mia names her Goldie.  Then Naomi suggests she give it a regular human name because that is what she always does with her animals, so the name changes to Christy.  We put the little thing in a cleaned out flower vase and The Brills give us some extra fish food they had laying around.  Wednesday comes and goes and Mia is loving having this new little pet.  Thursday she waves goodbye to Christy and says she'll see her after school.  As I'm cleaning up the house in preparation for our playdate with Miranda after school I walk into the kitchen and notice that Christy is laying flat on the bottom of the vase.  Could she just be sleeping?  Wishful thinking.  She was dead.  Super dead.  I panic.  Great, after the way Mia reacted to those stinkin sea monkeys she was really going to take this hard.  I call Shelby to see if he has any bright ideas and we decide we'll just have to let her get a new fish to make up for it.  Lennon was sleeping late so I had Suzanne pick Mia up and bring her home.  When she arrives home Miranda had also just pulled up.  Mia goes running over to Miranda..."I got a fish.  I got a fish.  I have to show you my new fish.  Her name is Christy!"  I had to stop her.  "Mia, I'm sorry honey.  I have some bad news.  The goldfish died."  Hysterics.  Mia suddenly goes running into the house crying "No!  No! No!"  It was like a scene from a movie.  We decide to bury poor Christy in the backyard.  I send Mia and Miranda outside with spoons to dig a little hole.  Then Mia said a nice little prayer.  "Dear God, I really loved Christy.  Please take good care of her in Heaven.  Amen"  Then I gave both girls some candy to get their minds off of the sad dead fish situation.  Even Amy, Miranda's mom, was getting teary eyed over Mia's genuine despair.  So, I promised Mia we would go out saturday as a family and pick out a brand new fish.  She seems okay about that, but still very sad about Christy.

Friday.  Lennon and I go to the zoo with a bunch of our friends.  He loves seeing the other kids running around and reaching up into the trees.  At my friends urging I also let him crawl around the playground.  He got pretty dirty, but I figure he's a boy and I was definitely a little uptight with Mia, so what the heck.  I don't think he really noticed the animals that much which was the opposite of Mia.  At that age she lived for the zoo.  She loved just staring into the exhibits at the different animals at the Denver zoo.  Shelby's office closed early so he comes home and we all have a relaxing evening together.  

Saturday as promised we went out to PetCo and chose a new fish.  I talked with an employee who informed me that Betta fish are far easier to care for than goldfish, so we stuck with them.  They are much cooler looking anyway.  After much deliberation Mia chose this nice dark blue male Betta.  He really is a pretty fish.  She didn't want to have to give him a boy name though, so she named him Chelsea.  We got a great little fishbowl from The Christmastree shops and then we had to get a net, some food and some water conditioner from the pet store.  

Fish bowl with cat hanging over the edge   $10

Brand new Betta blue betta fish                    $15

Net, food and water conditioner                   $10  

Helping your sweet little five year old get over her dead goldfish....PRICELESS!

Once we got home and had some lunch Shelby and Mia went out to Breakheart and hiked some of the trails and brought some squirrel food in hopes of getting up close and personal with some woodland creatures.  They ended up having no such luck, but they still had a great time.

On another note, after we had finished getting Chelsea all set up in her new home we started thinking about what to do about the nasty kitty situation.  Angel has just been getting worse and worse and making the house smell more and more like ammonia and feces.  My friend Amy had suggested we make Angel and outdoor cat, but I am afraid of fleas so I just put that thought to the side.  This day however I decided to see what Mia and Shelby thought of the idea.  They both went for it right away.  In less than five minutes they were saying their goodbyes and readying him for life outdoors.  I couldn't believe it.  It was too easy.  We took some family pictures and let him out the front door.  After about half an hour outside with him we finally came in the have dinner.  It seemed he was just going to hang around outside the house.  Mia shed some tears just before we let him out of the house and then again each time he went behind something and she couldn't see him momentarily, but overall it went over very smoothly.  Later that night he started pawing at the back door and we felt bad, so we let him in downstairs and decided that he could come in at night and most likely if he was outside all day he wouldn't pee and poop all over the floor downstairs.  So far we have been right.  Shelby spent most of the day sunday ripping up the carpet downstairs and cleaning the concrete.  Hopefully we are going to get a carpet remnant from somewhere for cheap, cause the concrete is pretty ugly.  Still, ugly is soo much better than that smell!  

In other news....Lennon is officially, totally, no doubts about it WALKING!  He's been taking two or three steps at a time now for about two weeks, but finally yesterday he got up the courage to just do it.  He now has walked the length of the living room several times and he is getting a pretty big kick out of himself.  He still falls a lot and gets around a lot faster crawling, but it's coming along.  Here's a video clip:

Today it's Memorial Day and we are getting ready to go to a Mem Day Party at The McCoy house.  All our friends will be there and it should be  blast.  Lennon loves being outside, so that part should be easy.  Mia had been told that they would celebrate Memorial Day at school on Friday so she made a "patriotic egg."  Don't ask me why it was an egg, but it was.  It was cute and looked like the American Flag and she wrote the pledge on it too.  She brought it to school in hopes that the teacher would hang it up while they celebrated, but she was sent home with it in her backpack.  I asked her if her teacher liked it, but she told me her teacher couldn't hang it up and told her it was because "in America you can go to jail for making fun of the American flag."  Is she crazy??  Why did we get stuck with this communist teacher??  I cannot believe she has so little understanding of the US government.  Shelby and I are pretty frustrated with her and really hoping that next year Mia has better luck in the teacher department.  Oh well.  On to the party!

Finally Getting Around to Posting Something

Gaga and Jackson at The Wiggles Center in FriscoLennon at Papa and Nana's pool
Of Course Reagan was the only one looking at the camera!
Mia finishing a Fudgesicle at Gaga's house
Grandmommy and Bill with Lennon and Jackson

Mia being a goofball at Papa and Nana's pool
Mia loves to get lots of snuggles with Jackson, Hillary and Gaga when she sees them
Adorable little Jackson trying not to eat in his high chair
Mia loves having all the babies around
Mia and Peyton on the porch swing at Gaga's house on Mother's Day
Could she be any cuter???

Last week we were in Texas for Hillary's big 3-0!  It was so much fun.  We were supposed to leave on Tuesday, but we extended our stay thanks to Hillary's smooth talking with the airlines and didn't leave until Thursday.  Mia stayed with Gaga for most of the time and they had a blast!  They went horseback riding, had a fancy tea at a tea house in McKinney and went to see Nim's Island...TWICE.  Lennon got to go swimming for the first time at Papa and Nana's house and he really enjoyed it.  He had a lot of fun playing in one of their potted plants.  He actually ended up almost totally destroying it in the end.  Sorry Papa and Nana!  He had a really good time though!  At first he was afraid of their new puppy Freckles, but once he got used to her he was fine.  Lennon and Jackson still don't really have that much to do with eachother, but they deal with eachother pretty well.  Jackson has an awesome playroom and Lennon had a great time exploring it.  While we were in town Lennon also got to use the high chair that we used for Mia and that was used by all four of the kids in my family before that.  On Mother's Day Dustin, LeNan, Peyton and Reagan got to come over to Gaga's house.  We had a really nice low key day.  Everyone helped out a little with food and then we just sat around and chatted while the kids played.  It was really fun to have all the kids together.  I loved witnessing first hand Reagan's love for the camera.  Sooo funny!  She really can feel the camera on her.  What a ham!  It's so exciting that Mia and Peyton are getting to the point that they can play together.  It's going to be soo much fun with all the new little cousins being the same age.  Another day Hill and I took the babies out to see Grandmommy and Bill.  It was great for me to see them with Lennon.  Being so far away I want to take every opportunity for him to get to know them as much as possible.  He had a great time playing with the stash of baby toys Grandmommy keeps on hand.  At the end of the trip we met up with LeNan and the kids once more at The Wiggles Play Center in Frisco.  The kids had a ton of fun, even the babies had plenty to do.  Once again Reagan amazed us all with her easy going nature.  She is just such a joy of a baby.  Sitting there smiling, just happy to be alive.  At one point Jackson was sitting on a little ride on toy and Lennon came up behind him and pushed it for a while.  It was really funny.  That little dude will be walking around pretty soon.  I'm so excited that we are going to get to see so much of all sides of our family this summer.  We're all really looking forward to the various trips and visits from family.  Thanks for everything Hillary, Jay,  Papa, Nana, Grandmommy, Bill, Dustin and LeNan.  You all made our trip this time awesome!

First Steps

Lennon is now taking three to five steps at a time without falling.  Tonight he took five steps paused and took three more then paused again and took two more steps before grabbing ahold of the coffee table.  That is the best he's done so far.  I don't think it will be very long before he is officially a walking baby!  

In preparation for me going to the sleepover at the Science Museum with Mia we decided to start having Shelby put Lennon to bed so that he was used to going to bed without me.  We were both afraid it was going to take some time and crying for him to get used to it, but last night it went off without a hitch.  He didn't make one peep of protest.  Ahh, relief.  

He's getting more and more fun every day.  He's really starting to enjoy himself now that he is so mobile.  He LOVES being outside.  We went to Mia's soccer game today and he had a blast playing in the grass and chewing on Giovanni's mom's cell phone.  

Registration for the fall soccer season is starting and Mia doesn't want to play anymore.  Shelby and I are both kind of sad to see her quit, but she really doesn't enjoy it that much.  It's just nice to get up and get outside for a couple hours in the morning with the kids.  I guess we could just start going out to the park or something instead.  

Teeth, Planes, and Automobiles

Lennon has his third tooth officially.  I just noticed it this morning.  It is just to the right of his top right tooth.  From what I found online that is uncommon, but hopefully not a problem.  I have already worried "what did I not eat enough of while his teeth were forming?"  and that kind of thing.  Shelby says I'm being ridiculous, but for some reason I can't help but worry about what harm I am unintentionally causing my children.  I guess I'm a little crazy.  I think I come by it honestly at least.  

We leave the house in the morning at 7 AM and don't get to Texas until 2 standard time.  For a total of 8 travel hours not including the time it takes to deplane, get out luggage and make the 45 minute trek out to Murphy.  Should be interesting.  I am packing a whole ton of food for the kids and hoping that we don't have any major disasters.  Lennon will have normally had two hour or hour and a half naps by the time we arrive in Dallas, and my guess is that he will have had zero minutes of sleep by the time we get there, so he should be a real peach!  Trying to be positive about it, but it's difficult.  Say a prayer for me anyway.

  

Love, love, love...

Mia got some very exciting news at school yesterday.  Giovanni told her friend Angelina that he likes Mia.  She was so thrilled that she ran to me after school to tell me the news.  She was laughing and said "what if that means that he actually LOVES me?"  She says now she has definitely made her final decision that she is going to marry Giovanni.

In other news...

We have been showing Lennon all the pictures on the wall in our hallway every day.  Yesterday he impressed us all by pointing to the people we named.  He can point out Granmommy and Grandaddy, Gaga, Papa and Nana, Mia and himself.  I need to get some pictures framed of all the little cousins so that we can start working on those too.  

We also gave Lennon his first little haircut yesterday.  Shelby took the day off of work to get caught up on school stuff and he helped me by holding Lennon while I trimmed his bangs a little.  He didn't even notice what was going on so we got it done super fast.  He looks pretty cute.  I need to go do a second round of nine month pics now that he's got a new haircut.

Lennon's New Toy

Gaga got Lennon an early birthday gift. He got a big kick out of "walking" around the house unassisted this afternoon.

Communication

Okay, we are pretty sure that Lennon has been nodding his head yes to us for about the past couple of days now.  It's not super definite, but it seems like it.  We'll ask him "do you want some food?"  or "do you want to get down" and we are using sign language and stuff and he seems to be nodding his head yes when that is his desire.  It's sooo exciting!  I think he is just dying to communicate!  He doesn't have the "no" nod down yet because when we ask him if he wants down and we get no response and we try anyway our efforts are usually met with much protest.  He definitely knows what he wants and when he wants it.  

He's also starting to make the transition from cruising to walking.  Don't get me wrong, I think it will still be quite some time before the transition is complete (cross your fingers!) but he is starting to move from one piece of furniture to the other with less hesitation and he can even balance holding onto nothing for several seconds as long as he doesn't notice what he is doing.  Once he realizes that he's not holding onto anything he sits down or falls down or grabs something, but he can definitely balance.  It's crazy!  He is into everything!!!  And he takes his blankie everywhere he goes.  We know have three in rotation because they get so filthy from him dragging them everywhere he goes and dropping them in the street and stuff, but luckily he doesn't notice.  I am soo excited to be in Texas in just a few days and see him with his cute little cousins!  I've been trying to show him pictures everyday of all his relatives and say their names over and over, who knows if that will make any difference at all.  Oh well, it's worth a shot anyway!