Last night at FHE Andi was having a hard time sitting and being quiet. We asked her yet again to please sit down and be reverent. She said, "Okay, I'll try." To which Carter replied, "You can't just try, you have to do." I like that.

Bentley is seven months old! She is still such a skinny girl, but has been putting on some weight now that she finally started taking solids!! Hallelujah! She just decided one day to start liking them, and now there is no stopping her. She eats 4-5 jars of baby food a day, plus about 2-3 bowls of rice cereal/oatmeal with formula added in. Consequently she's sleeping through the night too!!! About 9 hours or so. I feel like a new woman! She is still only in 0-3 month clothes. I'll put her into 6 month clothes, but she just drowns in them. She is also only in size 1-2 diapers.Bentley is a chatter box and giggles a lot too. She crinkles her nose up when she smiles big, and she also thinks it's funny to crinkle her nose and breath in and out really loud. She makes a scratchy noise with her throat a lot that is pretty funny. If she wants to get your attention she'll just stare at you until you look at her and then breaks out into a huge smile. She is starting to try to crawl already! She'll use her legs to scoot forward a little bit and also draws her knees up under her a lot. As for sitting, not even close. When you try to get her to sit up she automatically arches her back so that if you let go, she'll just fling back like she's spring loaded. We're working on it. She has a Dr's appointment on Wednesday so I'm excited to see what she weighs in at. Other than that, she has turned into such a joy. She is so happy and content now that she's eating. Love her.

I love Sundays

This is what our Sundays look like... and I love them.

Taytum

Taytum just needs a little post of her own so I can keep up to date one some of her latest happenings. She is getting so much more grown up looking. I am sad she is losing that fleshy little loosey goosey bubbly Taytum look. She still acts that way, but she's just not looking that way so much anymore.
She is talking a lot more and makes us laugh constantly with the funny way she says things. For some reason a lot of her words end in "p". One of her best enunciated words is "lap" because since as long as I can remember she always wants to sit on our laps and read a book. So she'll grab a book and come stand by you and say "lap" until she is safely perched on your lap with a book.
Perhaps that's where all of her words ending in "p" began. For example: drink = dreep; snack = snap/slap; treat = treap; well = welp; book = boop; black = blap; look = loop.
She also has a cute way of saying helpee for "help me" and pushy for "push me." She calls our phones "hellos." Some of her other favorite words are mine, no, milk, love you, hi, grandpa (also means grandma), uh-oh, baby, yellow, purple...
As of a few week ago Taytum loves the swings! She used to just like sitting in them totally still and would flip out if you pushed her even a quarter of an inch. Now she can't go high enough. Not sure how she got over her fear of them, but she did.
A few months ago we set her on the potty because she thought she wanted to sit on it, then once on it she decided to hate the potty and would adamantly shake her head "no" when asked if she wanted to sit on the potty since then. Again, about a week ago she decided she wants to sit on the potty a lot. She has yet to go on it, but she'll strip down and take a seat, and I figure that can't be a bad thing.
She is in love with Bentley and is constantly bringing her toys, putting her binky in, giving her kisses, trying to hug her, or begging to hold her. Taytum has the most amazing pucker when giving kisses, by the way. Consequently they are some of the juciest, fleshiest, kisses ever.

PS... I have tried to upload more pictures to go along with this post at least a dozen times and they upload all funky colored and streaky... Boo Blogger!

Busy Bee #2

Andi started preschool on Wednesday, and needless to say, loved it. She picked out her own outfit for the first day. She asked if I would stay in the car when we got there. I told her no, that I wanted to come and say hi to Miss Janet and the other moms, but assured her from here on out she can go to the door by herself. When I picked her up she gave me a very thorough recap of her day, including not only what she did, but what everybody else did and played throughout the morning. My little informer. My only complaint is that preschool isn't five days a week. I'm sure Andi would agree! That being said, it's amazing how the dynamics in our house change with even just Carter being gone. He's my easiest child probably, but not having him around with Andi in the mornings to be noisy and wild and fighting and getting along, makes our home quite calmer. It's been a fantastic start to our school year and we are all just loving having our schedule and set routine. Simply splendid!

Yeah, I'm going to be that mom. It's my prerogative to brag about how amazing and smart and awesome my kids are. Carter received this note in his Thursday folder yesterday...
Yup, he's "a very polite student. Very patient and attentive." Then today he was only one of four students in his class that got to pick a prize out of the treasure box for being a five star student. Mrs Sahni does five star student checks at random and if you are doing all five things (ie hands to yourself, listening, eyes on the teacher... whatever the five things are) you get a prize. Way to go Carter!

Fair Fun

Last week my parents came to town for a short little visit. We were able to slip in a few fun things, but the fair was definitely the highlight. My kids are so entertaining to watch at the fair. They have so much fun with everything! Well, mostly, Carter kept asking when we were going to go ride rides. We were able to distract him a bit with the animals and butterfly pavilion.
Carter & Andi milking a cow:
Feeding/petting the animals:
And finally, after watching the pig races, walking around some booths, and treating ourselves to some delicious fair food we made it to the rides:
Carter & Andi both got unlimited ride wristbands and we got our money's worth about 50 times over. I think their favorite ride was the big swings. Not the little double swing posted above, but the older kid swings. They probably went on it 10 times, not exaggerating. Same with the dragon roller coaster and this tipping, rotating boat ride that actually has some good whip to it. They also went down this slide about 10 times.
It was so adorable to watch the two of them run from ride to ride and just hop in line and then chat as they sat together waiting for the ride to start. I can't imagine what the found to talk about for so long (we stayed until the fair closed at 11pm), but they just looked like the best of friends and it made my heart happy.Taytum thought she wanted to go on rides and kept saying "Choo-choo" over and over again in hopes of going on the train ride, but visions of Disneyland kept flashing through my head and I remembered how much she disliked almost every ride at Disneyland. So, to pacify my sweet little daughter, we let her go on a pony ride, which she clearly loved, as you can see. And then she was treated to an Icee.
Bentley was a doll the whole time and pretty much looked just like this:The rest of the time with my parents was spent playing our new Toy Story Mania Wii game- totally fun- eating out, going bowling, and we went on a date to El Gallo Giro down in Kuna- tasty. We had so much fun and feel so blessed whenever we have grandparents take the time to come and visit and get to know these sweet, amazing, little grandkids of theirs.