Ridiculous

Jed took Kyra to dance tonight and she came home with her uniform that they ordered for her. She couldn’t wait to try it on, so she stripped right now in the kitchen and tried it on. Here she is…



Her brother’s first comment as he looked at her, “Well, she looks ridiculous.” And he walked away.

How many pictures does it take?

So, how many pictures does it take to get ONE good picture of four kids, you ask??? We have yet to figure out the answer to that because we have yet to get a good picture of all the kids together for a Christmas card. We went to my brother and sister-in-laws last weekend and tried to get some outside fall pictures but all we ended up with was wind-blown hair, grass stained knees and all of these random pictures that didn't turn out! Kids...

Reagan 5 Months Old!!!

Day in Review

A few funny things from today:

Gavin's Wife

We were driving home from picking Gavin up from school and like all the other days we talk about how his day went and what he learned. He told me about a few things and then got quiet - I figured that he had finished saying everything that he had to say, when I look in the rear view mirror and he has this grin from ear to ear on his face and he blurts out, "Today Damian told me that a girls from school loves me, he was laughing for five minutes about it and then I was laughing but the girl didn't tell me that she loves me yet..." He pauses to take a breath because that was all said in one long sentence. Then he looks out the window, shakes his head and grins his cute little grin, "I guess I have a wife now." Oh my gosh, it's started already. Jed and I have tried to teach Gavin that girls have cooties, but obviously that lesson needs some work. :-)

Hunting for Lunch

I was getting lunch ready when Gavin started going crazy because there was a hawk perched on the post outside out house. He made me take a picture to show Grandma how close it is - since they hawk/eagle watch together. The he asked if I thought the hawk was looking for a mouse for lunch. I told him I thought that was a pretty good guess, and to keep watching and maybe Gavin could see it catch something. He proceeded to say, "Well, it could probably come in to our house and get lunch since there is a mouse in our house." And yes, we do in fact have a mouse, I haven't seen it yet, but Gavin and I heard it scratching about five minutes before this whole hawk siting took place. Believe me, hawk or no hawk that mouse is living his last few hours!

Cute Pudding Carley

And the cutest part of may day....Carley. They were ENJOYING pudding for a snack today and Carley could not have gotten more of it on her face if she tried - well maybe, we are aren't going to have her try. The first two pictures I took of her she was serious and wouldn't even stop to take a break and look into the camera, finally the third time, she took a bite and then looked and gave me a big pudding smile!

Random Pictures

Reagan all bundled up - we just love winter weather!? :-

Reagan sporting her new winter hat - isn't she cute!

Bald Reagan trying sunglasses - not sure she will ever get hair!

Reagan & soon to be Aunt Lacy!

Reagan and Aunt Jacque hanging out.

Uncle Britton & Reagan

Uncle Bryon letting Kyra play with his $300 phone AGAIN. He loves that he is her best friend when he has this phone! :-)

Gavin showing off his profit from a farmer's market that he and Grandma sold his gourdes at. He was in heaven being able to do this - finally sell something!

Sisters and best friends (sometimes).

Gavin with his caterpillar. Notice he is using the corn instead of his hands to hold it - that's as close as he will get to holding it, his sisters on the other hand are right down there in the dirt digging for worms and bugs and caterpillars. Go figure.

Carley trying on her brother's apple hat.

Kyra eating PB & J with her bride bear that she got for being flower girl at Mitch & Amanda's wedding - this bear goes everywhere with her.

Reagan and Gavin hanging out.

Reagan enjoying some fine rice cereal. Mmmm...

Carley with cherry tomatoes from our garden.

Gavin with watermelon from the garden - this was really good tasting when we cut into it! Way to go Jed.

And Kyra playing a game with Jed and doing her cute belly laugh, which gets us all laughing for sure!

A Mother's Night...

I sometimes think my brothers and my sister-in-laws wonder how in the world Jed and I can go to bed so early some night (if we can manage it, we are in bed by 9:00-9:30). Well, when you have nights like this, you remember why you go to bed as soon as you possibly can!

Last night I went to bed at about 9:15. From 9:15 until 3:00 this is how my night went:

Woken up #1: Reagan - lost pacifier

Woken up #2: Reagan - hungry

Woken up #3: Carley - thirsty

Woken up #4: Ruby - wants out

Woken up #5: Ruby - wants in, or maybe not (to bad dog, you just lost your chance to come back in)

Woken up #6: Jed - snoring, this was our conversation as I nudge him:
"Roll over you're snoring."
"Jed, roll over you're snoring."
Finally he sits up, rubs his eyes, "What? What am I supposed to be doing."
"You're snoring, just roll over and go back to sleep."
He is so clueless. This morning he told me when he woke up he was ready to get out of bed and go put one of the girls back in bed or calm whichever one was crying but he didn't see or hear anyone. No kidding! Including me.

Woken up #7: Kyra - bad dream

Woken up #8: Reagan - needs to be changed and fed and while I was up with her I am sitting in the rocking chair yelling for Jed to go soothe Kyra because she had another bad dream.

And yes, this was all before 3:00am! Believe me, when I crawled into bed at 3:03 I was seriously tempted to search my pillow to find that button. You know, the button that kept going off whenever my head hit the pillow and told everyone else in the house, "hey, she's trying to fall asleep again, quick, someone cry, scream, bark or snore before her eyes close." That's the button I am looking for.

Howling

So this afternoon the girls are sleeping, Gavin is in the kitchen coloring and I am working on the computer and I start humming to myself. Now I will be the FIRST to admit that I do not have the greatest voice, so when I sing or hum, I make sure that I am not “disturbing” anyone else – no one in the room I am in and I by no means do either of these loudly. So, here I am sitting at the computer humming to myself and Gavin with his ears that hear everything says just as serious as can be, “What in the world is that howling noise Mom?” Howling? Are you kidding me? Give me a break, I could barely hear myself. Kids!

School Age Child

We have officially graduated to the "parents of a school aged child". The top 3 things that remind me daily that Gavin is now in school:

1. "Awesome"
2. "Sweet"
3. "Cool"

It is amazing how quickly a vocabulary can change when you "hang out" with other kids - Gavin picked up these words in less than two weeks of school and uses them MANY times a day!

"Turn on the Light"

Last night we were coming home from the carnival at Gavin's school - which all of the kids had a GREAT time! Carley is starting to get very good at directions and remembering where we have been and what road takes you to where etc. It is not very often that she is in the car when it is dark out, like it was last night. So, we are driving home in the dark still about 10 miles from home:

Carley: Mom, where is our house at?
Mom: I don't know, I can't find it. Can you find it?
Carley: I can't see it, it's dark.
Mom: I can't see it either, yet.
Carley: Turn on the light so we can see it.

I am not sure if she meant the van dome light or the sun light but either way it made her Dad and me laugh. I said it before, I will say it again - I love how children's minds work! :-)

Reagan - Jabbering & Laughing

Reagan is jabbering like crazy lately. The three older kids spent the night at Grandma and Grandpa's on Friday night and Reagan didn't stop talking the entire time they were gone, now we can't get her to be quiet - not that we want her to! :-)

The Great Pumpkin Harvest

We couldn't hold the kids off any longer, so last Sunday (in the rain) we picked all of our big pumpkins, little pumpkins and gourdes. Gavin and Grandma are going to take some of the gourdes to a farmer's market this afternoon and have a "garage sale". Gavin has been wanting to do this for YEARS. And it is a beautiful day for it - 60 and sunny - the first sun we have had in well over a week.

Getting ready to charge in after the pumpkins.

This one is too big to lift so she just decide to use it as a seat and take a break (before she ever got started).

Kyra chose to only pay attention to the little "cute" ones.

Gavin, hard at work.

Look at those worker bees.

Carley helping with the smaller pumpkins.

Gavin helping with the big pumpkins.

This pumpkin won for our most perfect looking pumpkin!Jed moving the BIG pumpkins. We have tried these in the past but they have never worked, this year we had a few of them that decide to grow. We weighed the biggest one and it was 83.4 pounds. Way to go Jed! Next year we are shooting for 100 pounds. Shouldn't be hard if we could just have some 80 degree days instead of 60 degree days for the summer!

I am not sure? Jed and Ruby. He said something about carrying everything else up to the house, so might as well carry the dog!?

The girls' favorite part of the day - rides in the wagon.Jed and Gavin hauling ANOTHER load of pumpkins up to the house. Kyra's makeshift balance beam. Hey, she claims she wants to be a dancer when she grows up - she is practicing.

And our harvest! Reagan was at Grandma's - too cold and too wet for any of us but especially her.

Our Great Hunting Dog!?

So, I am sitting at the computer the other day and Gavin comes in the house:

Gavin: Mom, what is that thing coming out of the ditch?

Me: I don't, know, it is a mouse or gopher? What does it look like?

Gavin: Come and look at it, I think it looks like a sea otter.

Okay, that got my curiosity up enough to actually go take a look at what he was talking about.

Gavin, Kyra and I went outside to investigate. Not sure what it is, or where it is at I am walking cautiously around the house. Kyra is in front of me on her hands and knees scoping things out (that's my girl). Gavin is 15 feet behind me, very reluctant to be outside... and that's my boy.

So, a few seconds later, Gavin screams (yes screams), "Mom, right there, trying to get up the front step." And there was this ugly rat/ferret looking thing. So, I get Ruby's attention and she sniffs around and doesn't see this thing that is a foot in front of her nose until I grab her collar and push her face right into it (which by the way was way to close for me to be for my comfort - I don't do rodents or whatever this thing was). Finally Ruby sees it and she pounces around and barks and runs up to it and then runs away - that's our hunting dog. Ruby is a German Shorthair - they are supposed to be wonderful hunting dogs...Ruby is the exception. So, I know that I am not getting close enough to this thing to get rid of it and I know I don't want it to run under my feet the next morning when I have my arms loaded down with bags and kids to take Gavin to school so I have to hatch a plan to get rid of this thing - my plan is my brother. Plan #1 fails - he just left to get parts, "I'll be back in 3 hours," he says. Plan #2 my Dad, he is hauling corn, "I can be there is about half an hour." Well, that's the best I've got so we wait and as we wait we begin to hear this piercing, high screech. I got back outside to see what the heck is going on and Ruby is feeling all proud because she has the thing cornered in the corner of our house (actually the thing ran there by itself while Ruby was out chasing a butterfly). So she barks at it and it screeches at her - it was the most awful sound I have ever heard - give me nails on a chalk board any day. So, Dad gets there - in 20 minutes - THANK YOU!!! He determines it's a mink. Great, now that we know what it is, get rid of it, I don't care what it is. So, he tried to get Ruby interested in it again - and again our hunting dog fails again. So, Dad took care of it - we will just leave it at that. He took it out to the field and buried it and the whole time he is doing that I am thinking, "Less than two minutes, I give that thing being buried less than two minutes." So, we thank Dad and Gavin talks "farmer" talk with Grandpa for a minute and he leaves. Ruby had that thing dug up and was prancing around as proud as can be less than two minutes after it was buried - sorry Dad. That's our hunting dog - wait until it's dead and buried and then get it. I love our dog.

Reagan's First Food

Reagan has graduated to yucky baby food! Yeah! She has had rice cereal, sweet potatoes and peas - all of her Dad's favorites. :-) She seems to enjoy it, especially at the end of her meal when I just give her the spoon and let her play with it. On this particular night, her face was clean when I was done with her, as you can see, she took care of that quite quickly.