The Kiddie Cat Walk

Oh, this picture worries me.

Where did she get this?

And is this my future?  Rolling eyes, mini skirts... boys sneaking around outside?

Byron resorting to patrolling with a shot gun...

Okay, perhaps I am getting carried away.

 But seriously!

The girls used up an entire roll of duct tape

to make a few little numbers.

And I mean little.

 You will not be seeing these again or outside of our house.

 But they sure had fun putting on a show for us.

I think Kean had about the same reaction the rest of us did....

these girls are craaaaazzzzyyyy.

Blackmail

Who is that darling girl behind Holland you might ask?



 Any guesses?

 The girls had fun with this front to back make-over.

 Almost as much fun, perhaps, as our dear friend Mark Moomey did.

Please take special note of the earrings and Barbie sticker on his shirt.

This "girlie-girl" will likely be entering the most manly of places come next fall:

He's up for Westpoint and the Coast Guard.

When he's running our country someday in the future, we'll whip these puppies out!



Checked Out

Byron and I had a nice night off (read as:  got away from the kids).

My friend, Eric and his girlfriend, Kara treated us to the polar opposite of nosebleed seats

to our local Idaho Stampede (the farm team for the Trailblazers, the Jazz and the Nuggets).

The Stampede played against and came back to win against the Laker team.

It was one exciting game

and a lovely evening.

Snotsapallooza

Peanut woke up with a a good ol' cold this morning.

And while that's not so terrible (as long as he doesn't get worse as in hospital worse)

what is driving me CRAY-ZEY

is that he's finally figured out how to blow his nose.

 How wonderful you are probably thinking...

yes, it is a good developmental milestone,

until I tell you that he is constantly showing off this new trick

without a tissue.

He blows... and there it goes....

It's pretty gross.

You can thank me later for posting these pictures instead of

the ones I chose not to take.
P.S.  The "handsome"shirt is one he got for Christmas from G and G Klingler.  We LOVE it since that is our favorite name for him.

Smiles All Around

Drum roll please: 

Finally here it is mid-January and I'm about to post about Christmas Morn.

Ah, but I say, better late than never.

Holland, the little sneak, woke up at dark-thirty.

We made her leave everyone alone until a little after six, when we called my folks to head on over.

Then it was time for the stampede...

 Yep.  Santa came.

 Reese got the American Girl doll she wanted...

 Kean got the train set, I think he would have wanted, if he could have told me...

 And Grammy and Grandpa spoiled the kids (as usual)... the girls got

a sewing machine with the "fixins"

 and Holland and Greer got the hit of the year:  Roller Blades.

 Grandma Kay sent each of the girls an angel to hopefully encourage them to be more angelic!

 And momma scored big-time with a treasure hunt

that led me to a new washing machine and dryer (mine were

nearing the antique stage)!

Byron got some cool woodworking tools:  his first project?

A cabinet to sit my new washer and dryer on.

Double score!

Christmas Eve

I'm slowly getting caught up.

Every Christmas Eve, we get together for one of our favorite meals:

all appetizers and desserts, a few musical numbers and our oftentimes very irreverent rendition

of the Christmas Story.

This year (as always), Byron was the donkey, Kean was Baby Jesus (who wouldn't stay put), my tom-boy niece,

Morgan was Joseph and............

Derek, my nephew was Mary.

All three of my girls were wrangling over who would get to be Mary

so Derek put an end to it and said it was his turn.

We loved it!

 Holland, my niece Lindsey and Greer were the 3 Wise Women.

 Katie was the angel and Reese was her "little" angel.

Our very talented cast....

 The other big excitement of the evening is the opening of the cousins' Christmas presents

and the traditional opening of Grammy's homemade pajama bottoms for each of the kids.



A Lot Of Christmas Cheer

One of our family's very favorite Christmas traditions is attending our

good friend Mary K's annual holiday par-tee.

This is her nephew Mason holding the Keanster.

Mason is a mere 6 foot 7.

Kean comes in at around 2 feet.



 The party is mostly adults... but a handful of kids are invited--- obviously ours.

 And every year, Mary K (below in the corner in the white)

brings in entertainment for the party.  One year, she had a couple of actors from

the Shakespeare Festival, another year it was a magician, another-- a comedian.

Somehow or other, our girls have always kicked off the evening with a few Christmas Carols.

This year, they sang Up On the Rooftop and Christmas Bells Are Ringing.

Reese stole the show with a bit of a solo.

The girls are pretty brave.  There's probably about 150 people at these parties.

This year Mary K's college aged son and his buddies got up after the girls

to do their own caroling.

Let's just say they'd been nipping a bit at the bar and had no qualms about getting

up and belting it out at the top of their lungs.

Too bad I didn't take video so you too could listen in.  It was funny stuff.

Interpret that as they were awful.

 The hired entertainment this year was three personality packed singers

with some great pipes.

This was their Santa Baby rendition.

 On top of the always fun entertainment and the killer food--

some of our dearest friends in the world are always there:

here's Reese with Foad and Susan

And Kean with Ali and Joannah (Joannah happens to also be Greer's 3rd grade teacher).

Plus, I get to hang with the most handsome guy at the party.



Oh Christmas Tree

I know I'm way outdated with this post-- but be patient.

This is the closest I'll ever come to a journal.

In early December, the Moomey's took Kean for the day and

Byron and I took the girls up into the mountains to hunt down a Christmas Tree.

 While we were expecting it to be cold, we weren't expecting much snow.

 Wrongola.
We should've brought the snowmobiles instead of the four wheelers.

Holland insisted she was a better driver on the snow than me...

so Reese and I piled on behind Byron and H took Greer.

(She is a good little driver, by the way).

 We found two lovely trees (one for us, one for my folks)

and had great fun.

Love Idaho... and love the fact that the snow stays up in the mountains

most of the time and not on the roads where I live.

More Milestones

I had to hurry and finish that last post because Kean's Occupational Therapist, Maureen arrived.

And just to emphasize that he is making strides-- Keanut dazzled us during his hour session.

 After months of practicing and showing him-- he stacked blocks for the first time.

And he did it several times!

 But that wasn't all he had in his bag of tricks for the day;

for the first time he purposefully (is that a word?) put toys away-  -

blocks back in the bag in this picture.

He is finally starting to "get" processes.

And I'll tell you, my heart is smiling.

Big time.

The Peanut's Progress

Could I be any further behind on my posts?

Hold on everyone...   we have a lot to catch up on.

I probably ought to start with Kean.

 He must be what we like to call in a learning window-- 'cause the kid is blossoming.
He has mastered the art of pulling himself up to a standing position-- in his crib, to the couch, to a chair etc.
He, as of the week of Christmas, can walk along the couch-- which by the way, was our goal with therapy.
As evidenced by the picture below, his new- found reach is allowing him to get into all kinds of things.
In one fell swoop, he nearly destroyed the horsey mobile hanging over his crib. 
There used to be three other ponies sewn on those leather straps.
Sigh....

 He's also turned a corner in the communications department.
He now regularly signs more, all done, bath, night-night, eat, lion, monkey, bird.
And he has expanded his verbal repertoire to making several animal sounds, saying hi, bye-bye, up, dad-duh and momma.
And once in a while he will surprise us by mimic-ing a new word-- such as big.
He works so very, very hard.

 Thankfully, he gets an overabundance of help from his sisters.
In more ways than you can imagine.
Holland decided to do makeovers on her sisters....

And Kean couldn't be left out--I just wish I'd gotten close ups of his dainty painted toes and fingernails.

 Finally, at nearly 2 1/2 years of age, he has officially mastered crawling.
For months, he has done his army crawl-- well, the week of Christmas, he surprised us
with traditional crawling!!!!

I was excited when my girls reached each of these milestones.
But, everything with him is so different.
Each tiny goal we meet is hugely celebrated. 
I really couldn't have had a better Christmas!

Up In Heaven

Yesss!

It's over.

My days of hunting down cows on the lam have come to an end.

Ol' Jailbreak and Houdini have gone to that sweet corral in the sky.

 Maybe I should clarify that and say their spirits have gone to bovine heaven.

Their meat is in our garage coffin... um, I mean freezer.

I will admit the day they were "taken" was a bit bittersweet.

We'll remember them fondly -- especially this summer when the grill

is hot and the steaks are sizzling.

P.S.  My apologies to all of my vegan friends.

P.P.S.  We've got three new little cows:  Sir Loin, Sir Steak and oops, they gave us a girl on accident: 

 Sadie Guinevere Barker  (you had to see Camelot). 

We won't butcher her.  The girls are already planning on having her have some babies.

Oh my, what have we gotten ourselves into?