All Smiles

This girly never stops smiling. She is so happy, coos and talks all the time, and is now starting to laugh. Oh Emmy we love YOU!!!

Thumb vs. Pacifier

It is official... Emma sucks her thumb.

However, Carter still prefers the pacifier, even if it is pink and not his.

Monkey Bread

Kirk came home from work with a great new recipe... MONKEY BREAD. The kids and I thought we would give it a try. It was really good and SO easy. The kids basically did the whole thing, I just supervised. The recipe we tried is from Allrecipes, but as I was looking through our family cookbook what do ya know, it was in there too(and I just discovered it after having the cookbook for about 5 years)

Star Student

Kaleb was thrilled to be the first person to be star student in his class. He got to make a poster about his favorite things, and sit in the rocking chair at school and tell the class jokes.

I am Special Because...
Loves to laugh, joke, and tease.

Always has a smile on his face

Is a good worker and helper (does his jobs everyday)

Loves to play games (video games, board games, card games, etc.)

He often gets awards from school too for being such a great student. Yesterday when I picked up the kids from school, his teacher came up to the car and told me what a great little boy Kaleb was. I complimented him in the car on doing such a great job and Katelyn revealed that Kaleb told his teacher to come tell me how great he was.

Movie Night

We have made it a tradition in our family to have movie night every week (Thanks Jen and Joey for the idea). We get dinner from one of our favorite restaurants and eat on a blanket in the family room as we watch. This week we watched Dreamer. As the movie started Kirk and I were in the kitchen getting drinks for dinner and Katelyn called from the other room "It is PG, can we get some parental guidance in here"

Ashley's done it again

Ashley has let us be her "models" for her upcoming mini photo sessions and I LOVE them. I will always look at these great pictures she has taken of our family and be grateful for the rest of my life. Thanks Ashley.

Check out some of the pictures here

Oh how I love you, let me count the ways

Reasons I love Carter:

• if you make eye contact with him as you casually walk by he will hold his cubby little hands out for you to pick him up. Oh I LOVE that boy!!!

• He is so gentle and cute with Emma. He likes to push her in her swing and just look at her. I left him in the room by himself for about 5 seconds while she was on the floor and when I came back he was leaning over with his head on hers. They smile at eachother and it reminds me that they have been friends before.

• He never tires of playing with tupperware or climing in the cupboard and closing the doors. And it is especially fun when his sister plays with him.

• He only has 2 tiny bottom teeth at 15 months, and he has the cutest giggle!
• He can say "more" (usually while eating treats, or fruit) and "uh oh".

• If the bathroom door is accidentally left open you will find the toliet paper completely unrolled and he will be in the bathtub/shower playing and eating soap.

Carter had his 15 month dr. checkup and unfortunately the dr. gave us a black mark on our chart when we had to report that Carter still drinks from a bottle. He informed us to get rid of them ASAP and that our family should do a "good-bye ceremony" by throwing the bottles in the garbage and waving good-bye to make the transition less traumatic. I thought that seemed a little extreme and knew Carter would adjust just fine if we skipped the ceremony and just eased him in a sippy cup. He woke up from his nap and I gave him his sippy cup of milk... he cried and cried until I finally gave in and put the milk in a bottle which he happily drank. Looks like we will be having a good-bye bottle ceremony soon (but not too soon)

He weighs 23 lbs and is 30 1/2" tall