Working backward

Well, that's not entirely correct. I probably have some photos/video on my camera currently that I haven't put on my computer. But, be that as it may, here's a taste of our lives from October and November (with the exception of Brennan's birthday, which deserves a whole post of its own!).

Before it got too cold, we took the kids to Greenbluff, which is a collection of farms that are very family friendly. On weekends, they'll have various entertainment. Here's Kerensa riding a pony. She's a pro at this sort of thing already.



So, even though I haven't shared pics from our time in Ohio, my parents came to visit us in October. The kids really enjoyed having them here. They've been gone for several weeks now, but Kerensa still asks on occasion where they are and if they're coming over.



Here's our kids in their costumes. You may recall that Kerensa was a mouse last year. Eh, the outfit still fit her; she loved being a mouse; and we didn't have to buy a new costume. End result - everyone's happy.



Here's Kerensa with her pumpkin. She talks about it in the video below.

I just thought these next two of Brennan were cute. It also gives you an idea how mobile he is!!





And last, here are two videos I thought I'd share.

Interruption

I interrupt this unintended and extended blogging hiatus to say, wow - complete fail for me re updating. It first occurred because I didn't feel or necessarily have the energy to post, but now so many months have gone by that it's turned into a block for me. I'm so far behind and have so many pictures / moments that have taken place that I should share that I don't even really know how to start. Today, however, I realized that I miss this blog and that I will start posting again (sporadically as usual). I just have to get home to my photos! :)

Checking in

We're still here. I don't really have a good explanation for the lengthy delay since my last post. It was a combination of my general haphazard approach to this blog and my decision to read the Twilight series. Those books are hard to put down. While I wouldn't consider that genre my usual cup of tea (hmm, I don't even drink tea), I enjoyed the story. The third book got a bit soap opera like for me and the last book at times seemed like a horror movie, but the writing was compelling. I also liked how each novel was a re-envisioning of a classic.

Anyway, we've been busy. At Brennan's 6 mo check up, he weighed 17 pounds 9 ounces, which means his growth has slowed some. That's just fine for me because he was getting too big too fast! I think during the latter part of 5 months and at 6 months he was having teething pain that interfered with his desire for bottles. There were a few days Lynn couldn't get him to take one. Good thing we had some solids to start on. It took him awhile to decide he liked them, but he finally is downing complete jars! The baby food stage is so fleeting that this time around I'm not nearly as worried about the added grocery expense (I really would like to entertain the idea of making it myself, but when would I do that??). He was sitting up at 6 months, and we got some good professional pics done. I'll have to do a separate post for those. He worked hard at crawling for a few weeks (there's a couple of pics below). He did a combination of an army crawl and a real crawl for about a week before he perfected his technique. It was kind of funny - he would lunge himself forward by his toes and then just sort of drag his legs. Already though he's been pulling himself up on everything! I know it took Kerensa longer before she tried to do that. Not sure if he'll be an early walker or not, but he loves standing and even manages to cruise a bit.

We celebrated Kerensa's 3rd birthday on the 11th. We went to Chuck E Cheese, and she had a blast! I'll have to upload those pics later since I'm so behind in sharing prior ones. I have to amend my prior posts about her counting abilities. At times, she won't even count to 3 right, although it had seemed to me before that she could count to 10. She will sometimes, but other times she seems like she doesn't know which number comes next so she'll guess. I'm assuming this is typical for toddlers. In any event, she is so hilarious! She loves talking on the phone to me now when I'm at work, and I never know what to expect from her. I need to do a better job recording her cuteness!

Well here's some random photos from the last few months. We leave in two days to spend a week and a half with my fam in Ohio, so I'm sure it'll be awhile before my next post.

Princess parties and petting farms

Wow, I have quite a bit of catching up to do before I can get up to the present! I'm not even ready to post Easter pics. Anyway, this post is going to focus on two fun events Kerensa did in April. The first was a princess party. Kerensa hardly knows who the Disney princesses are, but she certainly caught right on to the dress up part. Someone lent me a dress for the event and was sweet enough to let Kerensa keep it. She talked about that dresss for days afterwards!! So here's my princess (and a glimpse of a little prince too!):





We had a few nice days in April, and on one of those I was fortunate to be able to take Kerensa to a petting farm. They also offered pony rides, and I was just sure Kerensa would not want to get on the horse. Turns out, I was wrong. She didn't even hesitate! It was really fun to watch her riding and trying to feed the animals. She was so excited!






Since this post is about Kerensa, I have to share 2 big accomplishments of hers. First, we are done with pacifiers. Yeah, she's almost 3, but since somewhere around age 2, she's only been allowed to have a pacifier at nap/bedtime or in the car. They actually proved to be quite useful tools in getting her to stay in bed at night. We went through a period where nothing seemed to be working to get her to stay in bed. We tried all the suggestions you read about to no avail. Finally we decided to take away her beloved pacifiers for 10 minutes if she got out of bed after bedtime. I know I'm a cruel cruel person, but it worked! Now I'm not saying she never gets out of bed anymore ("I have to go potty" became a whole other issue!), but it's not near the problem it used to be.

Now where was I, oh yeah, getting rid of this addiction. We've been planting the seed for months that she'd be saying bye bye to her "fiers" when she turned 3 or broke them all, whichever came first. She has 4, and they were dropping like flies over the last few weeks. It was actually pretty cute to be tucking her in and her showing me which pacifiers had holes. Finally, the last one gave out on Saturday on her ride home from the grandparents house. Ryan and I geared up for a rough night, but she was fine! She acknowledged that all of them had broken, and it was a total non issue. She even told me that she was a big girl now and didn't need her pacifiers anymore. Woot!

Accomplishment number two is on the potty training front. We have moved from pull ups at night to underwear! I nonchalantly asked her the other night if we should get her pull up on, and she told me "no, I want to wear undies." Now you need to know here that her pullups have been consistently dry for months. I can only think of 2 times it hasn't been. It's obviously much more fun for Kerensa to get out of bed and go potty than it is to go in her pullup, but I still hadn't planned on moving her out of them until she started preschool or something. But she asked, so I took a deep breath and let her independence take flight. So far so good . . .

One last thing I want to mention is her complete adoration of the phrase "no thanks." She thinks it has magical powers or something. Granted when she first started saying it, I encouraged her because she was being polite, right? Then she began bringing it out when I'm not asking a question, but am asking her to do something. I suppose I can't blame her for thinking she can make things optional just by adding "thanks." So funny!

Bath time

Kerensa has always loved bath time. Fortunately Brennan does too, but he's definitely getting too big for his infant tub!