9 Months Old

Cannon had his 9 month wellness check today. He got 4 compliments on his gorgeous eyes just during the hour we were at the doctors..and yet I never tire of hearing how beautiful my baby boy is. (Sorry...I know I'm totally bragging)

Here are a few things Cannon loves...

EATING!

Anything and everything. You know how most kids don't like peas, or squash or there is always at least one thing they will spit out or pull a face when they eat...well NOT CANNON. I have yet to find anything this kid won't eat. And he already LOVES to do it himself, as you can tell. Which usually leads to the next thing he loves...BATHS!

With or without Kylee, he enjoys SPLASHING and STANDING in the tub, both of which can really drive mommy crazy sometimes.

He loves doing anything with his big sister, but he especially loves building block towers...
and of course knocking them down too.

He pulls himself up to everything and even started climbing the stairs. I've since put all the baby gates up :( and have started watching him much closer, since he is much more mobile now and into everything. He loves to walk with someone holding his hands and just seems to be growing too fast. He is still the sweetest, happiest little guy I've ever met.

Here are his stats:

Weight: 20.6 lbs. (50%)
Height: 29 in. (75%)
Head: 18 in. (60%)
Cuteness: OFF THE CHARTS!

Are You Kidding Me?

As most of you know, I am not a huge fan of Tuesday's and Thursday's as they are the days I have to work. Not that I don't like working, I actually have an amazing job and really love the people I work with and such, but it just makes things a little hard on my kids. They go to my mom's (which is awesome and I'm so thankful for) but neither of them nap very well when they are away from home and I usually end up coming home super stressed (I do full time work in part time hours) and it's just not a good combination...trying to get dinner ready, kids in bed, not to mention any other responsibilities we might have that night, all while being stressed and having to deal with ornery kids. I know...cry me a river right? We all have days like that even if you don't work.

Well yesterday was particularly a little stressful at work (honestly knowing that I just have a month left is the only thing that gets me through a work day sometimes) and I was supposed to be home to go visiting teaching that night. So I literally got home from work, kissed my kids and grabbed the visiting teaching message (which I hadn't even read) and walked back out the door. We have some really awesome ladies on our route and always end up taking about 2 hours to get it all done. So when I got home, both my kids were in bed. True to form, they hadn't had very good naps that day so they both zonked out early, which always means they will be up early the next day.

So I grabbed me something to eat, watched a few of my TiVo'd shows (can't miss American Idol), checked emails and such, and before you know it, it's 12:30 at night and I'm way too exhausted. I head to bed thinking about how I should still get about 6 hours of sleep or so before the kids wake up and that is not that bad.

BOY WAS I WRONG!

AT 2:30 AM I awoke to laughing and giggling and the sound of Cannon's crib banging against the wall. When I walked into his room, this is what I found...
Now I'm 98% sure that Kylee woke up and went in and woke Cannon up, but he didn't seem too upset about it. They had thrown all Cannon's covers out of his bed and were jumping and playing and laughing...AT 2:30 IN THE MORNING! I had been asleep for maybe 2 hours.

But there is no doubt that the role of mom comes with the price of sleep deprivation once in a while and I figured I'd just change bums, give them both something to eat (since they both fell asleep before Dinner) and get them back to bed and hopefully we could all sleep in today. Cannon followed this plan pretty well, just needing a fresh diaper and a bottle, but Kylee was ready to party.

FINALLY at 5:30, Kylee was ready to go back to sleep. I tried everything and basically she just wasn't tired. I finally was back in my bed at 6:00 ONLY to hear Cannon wake up at 6:30 as usual. I turned to Curtis and told him that if I was going to make it through the day I needed at least another hour of sleep and even though he doesn't usually get up that early, he agreed and got up and took care of Cannon for me. I'm counting down the minutes until he is home again and hoping maybe the kids will take an early nap so I might get one too. I really can't complain too much, most of the time my kids are excellent sleepers. I just REALLY love my sleep! :)

Silly Kylee

Kylee always keeps us laughing. I don't think there is a day that goes by that she doesn't do something that just completely amazes us or makes us smile. She is at a very fun age, constantly learning and exploring and keeping us on our toes.

Recently she found Daddy's "For Deposit Only" stamp for his checks and decided to stamp it on her face. She then came in to tell me she had put on some "wipstick".

We talked (again) about how we don't play in Daddy's office and always have mommy help with your lipstick and makeup. Kylee is also at that hard age where naps are starting to get to be a problem. She still needs them, but not until later in the afternoon and then I usually end up waking her up so she doesn't stay up all night and then she's kind of grouchy and just not very fun to be around. But it seems like if she doesn't get one, she will just CRASH somewhere. Like right in the middle of the floor.

But what can I say, she still just lights up our lives and makes each day worth living. We are sure blessed to have such a sweet little girl in our family.

A Blast from the Past

This weekend I had the opportunity to attend a baby shower of a dear friend of mine and was even more fortunate to get to see even more dear friends from the neighborhood I grew up in. It was so fun to reminisce and just be together again, if even for a short period of time.

I hope these girls know how much I adore each of them and how thankful I am for their friendships growing up. We had a really cool Young Women's group (including some of the best leaders ever) and many fun times together.

Family Pictures

While my sister and her husband were in town we decided we should try to get a family picture of us all together. The only problem was we waited until pretty much the very last minute of the very last day to do it...which meant ornery kids and bad lighting.

Oh well...at least we got some pictures.

The Whole Family

Just us kids

Kids with spouses

Just the grand kids

Trav and his family

Tonya and Daniel

Em and Jon


Tonya made Cannon this TOTALLY AWESOME and AMAZING blanket that looks just like a football field. Curtis of course LOVES it too!

As you can tell, Tonya got most of the talent. She didn't have a pattern or anything, just came up with the design herself and crocheted away. SIMPLY AWESOME!

And Cannon loves it. (He's also wearing the football jammies Tonya and Daniel gave to him for Christmas). What a lucky boy to have such a talented Aunt.

Dog Sitting

My cousin Holly asked us to watch her dog Buddah for her while they were in Florida for a little over a week. I was worried about the kids and if they would kill him and how he would act around them, but actually he was a GREAT dog and the kids just loved him. It turned out to be a pretty fun time.

Sometimes I would ALMOST wish we actually had a dog.

I was still happy when he got to go home though.
Even though he did play really well with the kids.

And was a good dog.

This picture has nothing to do with the subject of the post, I just thought it was cute and wanted to share it. I sure do love my kids!

New Year's Celebration

We had such a fun New Year's Eve party at our house, which I might add was AWESOME for my kid's sake. They had their own toys and beds to get into and it made the night much more enjoyable for me. :) Plus my mom wasn't feeling well so I was happy to take up the hostess responsibilities. We had a lot of great food and fun things to do, so hopefully everyone had a good time.

Wearing our festive hats we wear every year.

Gabby was ready to party!
HAPPY NEW YEAR!


Em and Jon

Bailey and Donny

Some of the fun things we did were...

Danced and sang to Mamma Mia

(I'd just like to add that my family has always LOVED ABBA, even before Mamma Mia was a musical.)

Played Games

(Gabriel brought over "Hungry, Hungry, Hippos" and Kylee was in HEAVEN)

Drank Sparkling Cider

Maybe TOO MUCH Sparkling Cider!

What a silly guy...

Like Father like Son...

Cannon was a trooper and stayed up until about 9:30.

Kylee on the other hand was up until about 1:00 in the morning. She was even still a lot of fun and not cranky or anything. Luckily, both kids slept in the next morning.

Kylee got pushed around in Grandma's wheel chair.

(I love how Kylee's glasses are falling off her face. It totally adds to the old lady in a wheel chair look)

Played lots of Wii

And just had a great time being together.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Too Precious For Words

The only thing I don't like about my new camera is that it doesn't take video...which is totally fine because it isn't supposed to and I get some rocking pictures. Still, I loved being able to take a few short video clips once in awhile on my old one. Today was one of those days I really wished I would have had a video camera. The only thing I did have was my cell phone, which gets a pretty poor picture and only records 15 seconds at a time. But hopefully you can understand what Kylee is saying in these video clips and just how precious a moment this was to me as a mom.