A Budding Artist

When they've not been busy arguing, the kids have been getting along pretty well lately.

I walked into the kitchen and saw this:

 The masterpiece.

I laughed out loud when he showed me. The most shocking part is that she didn't even get mad when she saw her portrait!



True Love

This little girl has her sweet big brother wrapped right around her little finger. He absolutely adores her and will do anything to try and make her laugh.

She was in the kitchen, becoming tired of her Exersaucer and he was in the dining room trying to finish his homework. I walked in the room to see that he moved his homework onto the floor beside her to try and keep her happy.

Here they are squealing together. She has recently figured this out and now does it all the time. When she's happy. When she's mad. When she's needing a little attention.

It sounds like she's trying to speak dolphin. 

I'm going to try really hard to remember how happy he is with her right now. Because I know that pretty soon he'll be wanting her to get out of his stuff!

Our Punkins

Instead of carving pumpkins, this year we painted them. Kendall even helped me do hers. Well, the K anyway. I wanted a picture with them showing off their masterpieces. The ONE of them all smiling/looking at the camera is at the bottom. Waaaaaaaay down there...

So close... 

FINALLY! SUCCESS!!! I love, love, love this picture. Trace got tickled and it makes me laugh just looking at this one. Kinsey is looking sweet and Kendall is looking at the camera! 

BOO!

Presenting...The Unknown Phantom and the cutest little Karate Girls around!

Kinsey's costume came from Trace's dress-up box. She wanted Kendall to match her outfit, so Hunee whipped up a baby black belt costume. I tried and tried to get Trace to be a black belt, too, but no. He wanted something scary.

Our neighborhood doesn't really do much for Halloween so we decided to go to a Trunk or Treat at the Methodist Church. Our neighbor, the other Unknown Phantom, went with us.

I don't know why this picture keeps uploading sideways. And I'm too annoyed right now to figure it out, so just tilt your head. There aren't any pictures of the boys because they were far too busy throwing darts and sticking their hands in mysterious buckets of goop to pose for pictures.

 Hi-Ya!

Trace had pink eye and got to stay home from school today. We were in the car on the way to eat lunch with Chad when he says, "Mom, when Kinsey gets mad she pretends to know karate." As I was giggling, he added, with a chuckle, "Yeah, it's fun to make her mad."

Spoken like a true big brother.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

I love when the kids run off with my camera. I could comment on these, but I think I'll let you imagine your own captions.

Kendall is 4 months old

Kendall is 4 months old today, October 9th. It is so hard to believe she's been in our lives that long! Seems like just the other day we were choosing her birth day. It was about this time last year that we found out we would be adding to our family.

She weighs 16 pounds 2 ounces and is 25 1/2 inches long.

She is still taking Zantac and it is working so well. She has really turned out to be a happy baby. She happily goes with me to eat lunch with Trace and Kinsey at school, to dance class each week, baseball games, and cross country runs on Saturdays. We can even make it through the grocery store without incident now!

She is really starting to sit up on her own for longer periods of time and is looking for things to grab. Kinsey's hair is a favorite. She is laughing more and more, especially at the big kids when they sing and dance and entertain her. She has a set of fabric stacking blocks that she loves. One of them in particular is to be a favorite thing to play with.

She is eating rice cereal really well now. We will do that for a few more weeks before she gets baby food. She can sit in a restaurant high chair by herself now and is happy to do it long enough for one of us to eat!

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!

Cross country is still going strong. The kids ran in the second one-mile fun run of the season today. The age groups were a little different; K-2nd, 3rd-4th, 5th-6th.

Trace won for his age group!!! He ran his mile in 7 mins and 30 seconds. He ran a great race and was thrilled to get that little tennis shoe trophy when he crossed the finish line. When I got to him right after the finish, he asked, "Are my legs still there?" He ran so hard to make sure he got first place.

  

Dad cheering him on the last 100 yards.

In this shot you can see the second place runner. You have to look really hard for the maroon shirt behind the soccer goal in between the man in the blue shirt and the woman in the orange.

It was very early on a Saturday morning. We all wanted to stay in bed this morning. 

Kinsey went to cross country practice last week and has decided she LOVES running! She walked in the door from practice and asked me to go running with her. Right then. We went for a short run the following night. We ran 3/10 of a mile and Kinsey talked the entire time. About running, maybe one day having braces on her teeth, why I don't like to run near strange dogs, and more about running. After a 4 minute run, she was ready to pack it in.

Kinsey and Abbie

They planned matching outfits for this race. And they decided they would stay together the whole time. Many times Kinsey stopped and waited for Abbie. And they did finish together!

The pre-race pose.

Although it may look like she is posing as a boxer, this is her running stance.

 Pre-race stretching

Here they are waiting for the starter's gun. With their ears plugged.

The home stretch!

It was a very good day at the track today!

Run Trace! Run!

Trace has decided to run Cross Country this year. It's a six week season and there are four different runs in which he will participate. The first one was tonight, a one-mile run. He ran a great race and came in 6th out of about 50 4-6 graders. They gave medals for the first 3 girls and the first 3 boys. He missed a medal by about 6 feet. (He was the 4th boy.) So for the next race, he'll kick in the afterburners a little bit sooner!

He's in the middle of the picture, black shirt, red shorts, leaning on his knee. Just to the left of the boy in the white shirt.

Rice Cereal - 15 weeks (3 1/2 months)

Kendall had her first taste of rice cereal yesterday. Let's just say she didn't love it.

I don't have any pictures of her eating because we took video. And it is FUNNY! She made faces like we were giving her pickles and lemons. And at the end of the session, her bottom lip quivered and quivered. Bless her heart, it was so precious. Trace had a taste of it, but we couldn't talk Kinsey into trying it.

I can't believe it's already time for cereal!

Forest Festival

The dancers at the studio where Kinsey dances performed a clogging routine at the Texas State Forest Festival on Sunday. Kinsey wasn't that interested in the performance, but when she found out that we weren't going to the carnival unless she danced, she changed her mind.

Here she is shooting paintballs...with Dad's help.

 Last year, Trace surprised me and rode a ride I would never consider riding. This year he was ready to ride anything! This one is the Cliffhanger. He rode it over and over and over.

Then he and Dad rode the Tornado. Another ride I would never even consider. He wanted to ride the Ferris Wheel, but when he and Chad got up to the front of the line, the man had a wrench out doing a little repair, so they passed. Whew!

Here's Kinsey's type of ride. She is just barely under the height limit. I don't know what she's going to do next year! But I can't say that I blame her. She even got a little nervous the first time she rode the carousel.

Kinsey talked Trace into riding the carousel with her once. Yep. He's hiding his face. Evidently, riding the carousel is a real step backwards after the Cliffhanger and the Tornado.

Trace stayed at the carnival with a friend and Kinsey got her face painted to make up for the fact that she couldn't stay, too. A little glitter makes it all better. She chose a purple butterfly because purple is Justin Bieber's favorite color.