Ralph

Kellen’s hair has been doing some funny things lately and the other day Todd looked at him and said, he is starting to look like Ralph from the Simpsons.  Is it the hair?  Or is it the shirt?

Chicks Dig Scars

Aunt Tay Tay was driving through town on her way from DC to Florida and we were going to go out to dinner with her fiance!  Since grandma was in town, she offered to keep the bigs at home and we took baby Kellen with us.  About 3 minutes after leaving the house grandma calls and all I can hear through the phone as Todd is listening is “bleeding”, “stitches”, “hammer”.

Turns out Riley threw a wooden hammer at Finn’s face, breaking the skin right under his eye.  Grandma couldn’t tell at the time if he would need stitches or not but she assured us we should still go to dinner and we could figure it out in an hour when we got home.

By the time we got home, things had calmed down, the bleeding stopped and Finn was OK with holding an ice pack on his face so it wouldn’t swell and grandma had applied a butterfly band aid and all was right with the world.  Stitches were not needed.  All was forgiven.

“Riley, I forgive you for throwing a hammer at my face.  Chicks dig scars.”

Climbing Trees

No one has broken a bone in a while so Todd thought this was a good idea….

Kellen is 10 months old

We were at church Sunday when someone asked me how old he was.  I immediately said he was 9 months old and then it hit me, wait, what day is it?  Holy guacamole, he’ll be 10 months old tomorrow.  I’m really trying not to focus on the fact that he will soon officially be a toddler, and am focusing instead on planning his birthday party!  I’ll also be honest and mention that I’ve been planning his birthday party since May, when he was only 1 month old!  (I have a party planning problem.  But this one is gonna be good!)

10 months old with bruised up legs like my big brothers!!!

 

Kellen listens and watches intently when you’re talking either to him, or if the family is having a conversation, he really sits and listens and watches.  He likes seeing how things work, he will take every toy and immediately flip it over.  He still has an obsession with wheels.  I’m not sure that he is going to be our most athletic boy, he still isn’t very good at catching/rolling the ball back and forth with me and he topples over ALOT.  He will just be sitting there playing with something in his hands and suddenly he has flopped over.  It is the funniest thing!  He’s a carb lover!  I’ve been trying to get him to eat table foods, ANY table foods, and the only things he will actually eat besides purees are all carbs (cheerios, pretzels, crackers…)  I *think* I got him to eat grapes yesterday, and he might have actually eaten a pea.  Hard to tell with the amounts thrown on the floor and in his chair. 

He is very determined.  Redirecting does not work well with him.  But he doesn’t throw a fit, he just keeps going right.back to where you don’t want him to be.  Kellen can hear the refrigerator door open from any room in the house and practically flies to the kitchen to get into it.  He is obsessed with being in the refrigerator.  (Ironic since he won’t eat the food in it!)  He is also obsessed with our Mr. Sun/Moon night light and is constantly pulling it out of the wall.  He likes to blow spit bubbles.  He sounds like a TV/movie recorded baby.  All of his sounds (coos, laughs, babble) sounds exactly like what you hear in a movie/TV.  He still is the happiest baby ever!

And just some cuteness!

Looking up to big brother!

It has always bothered me that we didn’t have a baby raincoat.  So when I was alerted to a huge coat sale recently, I found this gem!  Its a little big, but maybe it’ll fit him for a while.  Especially since Riley just broke his (super awesome dinosaur) rain coat.

 

And seriously, look how cute he is!!!!!

Potty Training 2.0 – UPDATE

After the last time I posted about Riley’s potty training, things got really bad and then really good.  I had gone back through the blog to see the posts I had written about Finn’s experience, and they ended up being EXACTLY the same for Riley.  We had a couple of good weeks, we started big boy underwear and were doing great, no accidents, and then, holy moly.  I went into his room after naptime and found him and his room covered in poo.  A Poocasso is what we call this.  It was the most disgusting thing I’ve ever dealt with.  Though I don’t think he was trying to be malicious or to make a mess.  He had an accident in his big boy underwear and decided to try to clean it up himself.  He took off his pants and his underwear, put the poopy underwear in the diaper pail (which made an awful mess that was really difficult to clean) and then had gotten some on his hands in the process and evidently was trying to wipe off his hands on every surface in his room.  The thing is, I didn’t hear him make a single sound until I went in there.  That day he had another accident and the two days following.  And then, that was it!  We haven’t had an accident since!  He also goes potty all by himself now, I don’t need to remind him or ask him, he just goes on his own!

Super proud of our little man!

Christmas is Over

we were very delinquent in taking down our front door wreath and outside lights….this picture was taken on 1/22/12 the day they finally came down.  :::hangs head in shame:::  but this is adorable!  Finn was having so much FUN decorating his bike….and himself!

Beautiful Imperfection

I LOVE this picture….mostly.  This picture was taken when Kellen was 9 days old.  It was the first time we took him out to eat.  Grandma took this picture and I just love it.  I love how teeny tiny he is, I love how he is completely sacked out.  I love the way I’m looking at him.  I love how his feet were always too big for all of the footie pajamas and you can kind of tell in this picture.  I even love the lighting.  But what I don’t like, is that I think I look so gross, so I’ve never posted this picture.  I had even asked a friend to photoshop it for me, which never happened, but I’m OK with that now and I’m OK with sharing it, because I really do love this picture.

Same as this one.  Kellen is the best cuddler.  When I pick him up, he lays his head down on my shoulder and then tucks his hands down between me and him.  I snapped this picture of it because it just melts me every time he does it.  I don’t ever want to put him down and I linger with him for so long every time.  Again, I think I look so gross in this picture, but look at him!

I read something recently that made me realize that I did not want to miss documenting these moments because of some stupid hang ups I have with myself.  These pictures are just too precious.

Driveway Riding – Take 2

Evidently daddy wasn’t deterred from our last driveway riding outcome (aka Riley’s broken leg)…..

   

Thankfully no one was hurt!  And Kellen had a blast!

Bath time

Bath time can be completely crazy with the three boys in one tiny tub.  But every now and then there is pure, sweet, cuteness!

 

Sending Hugs

I saw this adorable idea on the internet to make hugs to send in the mail!  I knew grandma and papa would LOVE them!

 

They are getting too smart!

The boys have approximately 6,589 cars.  They fight over them ALL.THE.TIME.  Because 6,589 cars is just not enough for them to play with, they always have to have the same ones.  It is painful.  Not too long ago we started toy time-out which has been AMAZING.  The other day they were fighting so much over their cars that I went in, without saying a word, started putting them all into this huge storage bin I bought for them, closed the lid and walked away with them.  As I was picking them up, Finn knew something was up, he started to get all hysterical “momma, what are you doing????”  “momma, we’re sorry!!!”  “momma, where are you taking our cars????!!!???”  I put them in time out and came back and calmly explained that to the boys.  They were HYSTERICAL.  For like five minutes, and then it was quiet while I was cooking dinner.  I came back out and found this.

I had forgotten all about these “cars”.  But they were playing nicely and quietly together with them.  Which was good because I don’t know how I would have fit them all in time out!

Sick Baby K

Our little man has been sick sick sick!  :(  So sad!  He has been congested for about a month now.  A week before Christmas he had his first (double) ear infection and pink eye.  A week on meds, a check back and he was all clear.  Another week later and now he has another double ear infection and he is suuuuuper congested.  I feel so bad for the little man.

Sleeping upright in the swing.  I just *love* how he tucks his little hands up under his butt, how he snuggles his face against the head rest and how he crossed his little feet.  Oh, how I love this baby!

But during the day he is pretty much his usual happy self! 

Todd walked into the house from work, saw Kellen in our room and said “who is the old man in our room?”  hahahahaha  I think he looks adorable!

Potty Training 2.0

We had our first accident today, so now I can officially post about potty training.  It has been going SO good that I really didn’t want to say anything about it one way or the other to jinx it.  But, now that we got our first accident out of the way, I can give the deets.

First of all, his buns look so stinking cute in big boy underwear.  I seriously die every time I see him in them!  Gah!

Secondly, he is a total rock star!  I really thought that he would be so much harder to potty train than Finn, just because he can be stubborn and because I swear he pees every five minutes.  Finn can hold it for HOURS.  BUT evidently, so can Riley!

I had said that I would start after Thanksgiving, which was our last road trip for a long time.  But when the time came, and I would ask him if he wanted to wear big boy underwear, he kept saying no.  And he didn’t want to wear a pull-up either.  So I gave it a half-hearted attempt for a couple of days and then just bagged it until after Christmas.  Two weeks ago I asked him again and he said yes to the pull-up.  He kept the pull-up dry for a week, so on Monday we started with big boy underwear and were accident free for 4 days!

He has been sick off and on for the last two weeks as well.  This morning I found him with vomit in his bed and he was just kind of off all day and he hadn’t been drinking very much.  We had tried to go potty twice and nothing happened.  While I was busy making lunch and went in to get him, he had a pee and a poo accident.  TOTAL MESS!  But he was pretty sad about it, so hopefully it won’t happen again (or at least too many more times….)!

He’s been really awesome with the whole thing.  Super excited about it, willing to try and has done lots of poops too!  So far he hasn’t told me that he has to go, but I suppose we’ll get there.  Fingers crossed that 'we’ll be (daytime) diaper free by the end of the month!

Happy New Year!!!

We rung in the new year with lobsters and champagne (and chicken nuggets and milk)!  The weather here has been BEAUTIFUL!  So new years eve we got up early, went to the farmers market to pick out our lobsters, went hiking at Sweetwater State Park with friends, napped, raked leaves into big piles for jumping and cooked up our lobsters!  It was an amazingly awesome day!

Our three little lobsters!

 

Heading into the pot!

and while they boiled – leaf pile jumping!!!

Dinner is served!

We did this two years ago, Riley was just a baby and Finn was 2 and was TERRIFIED of the lobsters.  That year we also waited until the boys were in bed to have our own quiet dinner.  But this year we bought a lobster for the boys (or extra for momma and daddy!).  They were a little unsure, but they both did a good job of giving it a try!

 

And friends had dropped off a bunch of noise makers for us, so after dinner and before bath we headed out to the front porch to make some noise!  Check out Riley in his BIG BOY Underwear!!!  (more to come on that)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!