But Wait, There's More!

A shout-out to my man, Billy Mays...

And a zillion more photos for you! That's an 80 jillion dollar value, yours for only taking the time and bandwidth to check out my worthless blogging skillz!

Full of Precious in her rockin' green tee with a beautiful message!

(Thanks Uncle John and Aunt Whit)!

Halloween Cousins

Mad Faery!!

Wouldn't stay still for a good shot.

Back to the pumpkin patch for annual photos.

Sierra is obviously more excited than my two can muster together...

Liam and Pumpkins

Baby Girl and G'rents.

Stay Still so we can get a picture of both of you.

Fine! Daddy, you're just gonna have to be in this one!

Trapped in the pumpkins and thrilled to death about it.

Mommy's got mad skillz!

Pumkin Rides...?

Picture of the Baby.

Wait. No.

She decided it was time to sit (behind the pumpkins) right as Josh snapped the shot.

Mom, I totally have better things to be doing!

Fine. We'll just take a picture of me, then.

Liam's teeth keep falling out of his head.

and in her desire to emulate big brother, Bellie busted her face in the driveway.

Didn't manage to take any teeth out.

But looked like the victim of a botched collagen injection for a few days...

Yay for building Traditions!!

her new favorite game is "In"

That Time of Year...

We had brithdays. I have pictures. Tah dah!!

I decorated Elliott's "cake"

(devil's food with butter cream)

Liam got to help decorate his cake
(pumpkin toffee pecan with cream cheese)

and Liam got to decorate Elliott's CAKE

(you know, the one she gets to destroy)

Liam got a whole bunch of Science...

and Art.

Elliott got educational noisemakers

and other noisemakers

and a Too-Cute 'fit from Auntie Kate

And then there was cake!

the end

Way Behind, Way Ahead

So, I haven't blogged in forever (my deepest apologies). This puts me way behind on updating about the kids. Here goes:

Liam finished kindergarten and has been promoted to the first grade. He's an absolute GIANT and I shall not be remotely surprised if he is the biggest kid in his class. He started Kung Fu classes about 6 weeks ago. I have already noticed a pretty major improvement in areas like balance, coordination and concentration. He takes classes on 2 weekday evenings and on Saturday mornings. There is a 9 year old in his class, and Liam, my 6 year old, is about 1/2 an inch shorter than the 9 year old. He wears size 8 husky to 10 regular, depending upon the clothing. He's about 77 pounds. I don't know his height off the top of my head, but I assume that he'll be taller than me before he leaves elementary school. Frightening.

Bellie is growing by leaps and bounds. She has 4 teeth, two bottom front incisors, and two top lateral incisors. It looks like the top front incisors are trying to break through. She has ninja speed when she crawls and she's quite the little escape artist, especially during diaper changes. Her diet has expanded immensely in the past month. She loves mexican food, particularly refried beans and avocado. She has been pulling herself up to standing since a few days after she figured out how to crawl. She's been cruising since a couple days after that. She will also stand, unsupported, for several seconds at a time. She'll be 10 months old on the 5th of August...she took her first two unassisted steps last night in front of a crowd of friends. I was not in the room. I wanted to cry. I know it will be a bit before she is confidently walking and that there will be many more episodes of tentative "baby" steps. But that I missed the first ones just hurts my heart.

We set up Liam's slip-n-slide yesterday and had some friends over. The kids had a blast. And once it got dark, we put the kids to play at the Wii, and the adults had their go on the slip-n-slide. We had a blast, but we are all paying the price today with sore joints and skinned knees, but no regrets!!

Here. Have a major photo dump!

Elliott sits in Liam's empty splash pool to watch the boys on the slip-n-slide

Anthony couldn't quite the hang of propelling himself forward

Liam got it after a couple of rounds

Yay, Summer!

Elliott sometimes folds herself in half to sleep

Liam in Kung Fu

Elliott meets Auntie Kate and cousin Merritt

And has a pickle

And has a rollicking good time with Atticus

Just the cutest little button in history

Photo Dump and Brief Update

Chillin in the Tub (sink)
Rat Tail

She sits on her own

Can hold her bottle

Had her first Easter

And even dressed in pink, with pig brother in blue. how fitting

And wears herself out in her activity center.

We're busy busy, and as always, I suck at taking tons of photos, and then suck at getting around to loading and posting those that I do take.

Frick!

We have a 4 month check up tomorrow, complete with vaccinations. She'll be a tired and fussy baby for the rest of the day.

In the mean time, we just had to get a picture of this precious, loud Dr. Suess get-up before she outgrew it entirely. It was one of many adorable outfits gifted to us by a friend of my sister. I'm still getting through them all. It was two huge boxes of baby clothes. Some she'll never get to wear because of size and season issues. But I realize that I never would have been okay just with dressing her in her brother's hand-me-downs. She's just too precious a girl to not occasionally look all girly.


She's sitting up supported these days. Holding her head up for extended periods of time, and really starting to get toys. This awesome jumper seat was a Christmas gift, and I have no doubt we'll get countless hours of play from it before she's too big!

She's still exhausted...a lot...Here, we're both exhausted!

And anyone who understands that I call her Elliott, and will always call her Elliott, and knows from whence came the inspiration for that name will understand that this onesie, lovingly crafted by my artistic sister, made me howl with laughter! Its still way WAY big on her, at a size 9-12 mo, but I just had to get a picture! It will get plenty of wear this summer!

Apparently, that last "c" was an accident, and a true "Frick" moment for my sister. Fun!

As I suspected, Liam's parent-teacher conference was a nearly endless stream of compliments. He's doing wonderfully in all his subjects, and as the teachers were going over the report card explaining the 1-2-3 grading system (1=needs improvement, 2=meets expectations, 3=exceeds expectations), and noting that Liam made 3's across the board, the one teacher looked at the other and said "Do we really think Liam's that smart?" To which the other teacher replied "We really do!" I'm so proud of his performance, and I am thrilled to tears that he loves school and learning as much as he does!

Nothing New

I have no new pictures to post, but realize its been a while since I've updated. So...we're all doing well. Ellie is starting to try to roll over. I've been second-guessing myself about agreeing so hastily to her first name...but I had a talk with someone who had a similar experience, and she assured me that it would be okay...that she'd grow into her name, and I'd grow more used to it as the time passes. I still wish I could convince more people to call her Elliott instead, but I suppose after nearly 1/3 of a year, they'v gotten used to saying Kari. Maybe I'll eventually adjust to hearing it.
I've got parent-teacher conference this week for Liam. I'm sure I'll be able to post after that about what a wonderful, smart, and big-hearted kid he is...and he really is. He still fawns over Ellie, but not quite as much as in the beginning. I knew the honeymoon wouldn't last forever. I'm impressed it lasted as long as it did.
Josh has been sick twice within the past two weeks, and all I've had this season is a minor (if persistent) cold. That's really backward for us. He's been bad off enough that I've been able to convince him to take something for it twice now. This is completely unheard of in our household. Maybe next I could get him to call his doctor, because this really is very out of character for him and I'm a little concerned.
That's more-or-less all that's going on around here. I'll try to get some new pictures up soon-ish.

Belated Christmas Post

This is what most of my attempts of taking pictures of Christmas look like.
I do know that Liam got some new pajamas...and lots of other stuff. Tons of games.

Elliott didn't care about presents any at all. This is how she looked at all the different family gatherings during present-opening time.

In the end, it wore everyone out.

I hope you all had safe, happy, and fun holidays. I'll post more updates soon!