Our cute kids!

I decided it's high time for a "kids" update. They have grown so much lately! I'm thankful that they play together well. Even though they can make the living room look like this in about 5 minutes:

Kaylee just goes into her room and brings out ALL the toys. Then dumps them all over. And Ben crawls around and does whatever damage he possibly can. Yes, that's right, Ben is crawling! Finally! WOOHOO!! A lot of people complain about when their kids start crawling or walking, but I love it. More independence = less whining, with my kids anyway. And anyone that knows me well knows that I do not like whining. So the less whining there is around my house, the better.

Alright, I'm going to start with Kaylee. She'll be 2 1/2 on January 31st. Remember my blog post a while back about how I thought she was going to be a great big sister? I was so right. She is an AMAZING big sister to Ben. She looks out for him like nothing else. She gets really concerned when he falls and gets hurt and if I'm not in the room and he bumps his head, she comes running to tell me right away. It's nice to know she's looking out for him.

Everyone at church loves her. I get complimented all the time on how good she is during meetings. They tell me she is wonderful in Nursery. She plays well with the other kids, she listens, and she participates. The other week one of the leaders told me she seemed ready for Sunbeams (she still has a whole year left) because she listens to the lesson, and she LOVES singing time.

She's started talking so much the last few months. She took her time with talking for sure, but now she's a little mockingbird. I have to admit that I need to be more careful with what I say. I say the word "stupid" far too often. "Ugh, this stupid thing won't work." "Stupid cat! Get outside!!!" You know. Nothing horrible, but I never realized how much I use it until Kaylee started copying me. And one day she said "Stupid Mommy!" when I couldn't get something to work right. That was my 'moment' when I realized I better change that. ;) Her favorite word right now is "Okay." The other day at church, I said "Kaylee, you need to sit down, we're going to say a prayer and then it's time for Nursery." She said "Okay." and sat down. You probably have to hear it to appreciate it, but it's adorable coming from a two-year-old. She's starting to put several words together, and sometimes I can ask her "What happened?" and actually make sense of the answer. YES! I love it.

She recognizes orange and pink (for the most part) and right now everything else, she says, is white. She can almost say the whole alphabet, she just misses a letter here and there. She recognizes the letters B, K, X, Y, W, and maybe a few others that I'm forgetting, and knows several shapes.

She's an awesome eater. She will literally eat anything I give her. Okay, there is one exception: a veggie burger. We went to Costco and there was a veggie burger sample that we got. She took a bite, made a HORRIBLE face and gave it to Will. I must admit, I've had a few veggie burgers in my lifetime, and this was not exactly the epitome of veggie burgers. It kind of tasted like half chewed stir-fry. Eh. Not my favorite.

She is officially potty trained as of about 3 months ago. She's doing great. We have the occasional accident still, but it's usually only when she is playing and forgets.

She HATES bedtime. With a passion. I wish I could get her to calm down, but boy oh boy when she gets going there is no stopping it. The last "big" bedtime tantrum she had, she was running half naked around the house and then peed on the living room rug. All while screaming bloody murder. That's the time when I just said forget it and put her in bed, even though it wasn't even bedtime yet. She was supposed to have a bath (hence the half nakedness). Seriously, it was nuts. On a good note, she usually sleeps really well at night. Once she's asleep, she's out for a good 11-12 hours. Aaaaand I probably just jinxed that.



And now for Ben! He is 8 1/2 months old now. He started crawling last Saturday. He's all over the place now, and I seriously think it's adorable. It's so cute when I go into another room and a few minutes later he comes crawling in. Somehow, it's not so cute once they're walking and won't leave you alone for 1/2 a second, like Kaylee lately, but I'll enjoy it for now.

He is also a great eater so far. I believe he's eaten everything I've given him that was NOT a puree. He hates purees, but I'm not too concerned about that one. I give him a bland/cooked/simple version of whatever we're eating in little pieces, and he does great!

He has two teeth so far. I love his little grins with his little bottom teeth sticking out. I can't get a picture of them. Whenever he smiles, he bounces all over the place. It's seriously impossible to get anything but a blank look on this boy's face because he's SO wiggly if he's doing anything other than...well, staring blankly!

He loves to babble. He sits there and says "Mamamamaamama" or "Dadadadadadada" or sometimes "BAH! BAH! BAH!" I love babbling. It makes me smile every time I hear it.

Lately, sleeping is not going as well as it did for a while. After we put him down for the night, he ALWAYS wakes up again within an hour. Sometimes he wants to eat more, sometimes not. It's a little frustrating because our 'couple time' is always after the kids go to bed at night. I'm kind of selfish I guess, and I really like to have some time without kids, so it's hard for me to deal with that. He also wakes up every night again, and naps are always a struggle. *sigh* I despise this getting kids to sleep stuff.

He learned to clap. I kept trying to teach him but he kept his little hands in tight fists and wouldn't do it. I finally got him to, and now he'll clap back at me when I clap at him.

His hand-eye coordination is getting really good. He can find the tiniest pieces of anything on the floor and get it into his mouth. His favorite is balls of hair. I try to keep the floor clean, but man, he can find anything. The other day he found a lime Skittle that Kaylee left on the floor, and really enjoyed that. At least, I guess that's what happened. All I really know is that I picked him up, he wouldn't eat his bottle (made horrible faces), and then I realized his face was green and he smelled like limes. I can only assume.



And those are our kids. They're great!!