A case of the sickies

love them

 I am amazed to think that next week we will be in November.  I have no idea what happened to October but it is almost gone.  We have stayed busy as always but not all of it has been fun.  It started with Callan getting sick at our family picture day two weekends ago and ended will Camden getting something similar which was a few days of cleaning up throw up and poo.  We were going to go to the pumpkin patch on Thursday and Chad even took off work but we woke up to Camden saying his tummy hurt.  We did carve pumpkins but I will post them on a separate post.

it's our bath time

Carter has done some funny things lately like when he brought us the potato heads with just ears or just arms.  He was very proud of his creation.  He also got to experience live TV for the first time.  We don't really watch a lot of TV anymore so we stopped DVRing the kids shows in our bedroom.  So one day at the end of quiet time I let Carter watch some TV.  It was about 10 till 3:00 and he was watching "The Cat in the Hat" on PBS.  When it was over he let me know so that I could put on a new show.  When I told him that it was on the TV and I couldn't go on to the next show he was perplexed.  I told him to wait patiently and the next show would come on.  It was Curious George.  He shrieked in excitement when the show just "came on".  Welcome to live TV Carter!  Another funny interaction we had was when he told me he really wanted another Callan Reed.  I clarified and asked if just wanted another baby. He said no, he wanted another Callan Reed.  I told him it would be hard to have two Callans because when I called out "Callan" how would they know which one I was talking to?  He gave me a confused look so I tried explaining it again only this time I used his name.  Explaining to him that if we had two Carters it would be very confusing.  After this explanation he just looked me in the eye, shrugged his shoulders and said "nevermind, lets just have one Callan" and walked away.  

potato head creations

favorite saturday morning activity. 

they love to flip

even callan gets in on the action

Camden is an amazing little sponge.  The kid is smart as a whip.  Don't let his shy soft spoken demeanor trick you.  He picks up on every little thing and uses it all to his advantage.  His potty training is still going well.  He told me in Target the other day that he had to go and he tends to tell us in public places because I think he likes to check out the bathrooms.  I have been meaning to blog about this funny little quirk he has.  Whenever we read he always likes to end the sentence with us.  Even if it is a book he doesn't know.  He just quietly sits on your lap and mumbles the end of all sentences as if he is reading the book.  It is quiet and subtle but he does it all the time.  I think it started when the two oldest could finish the sentences of rhyming books.  It is so sweet to hear him trying to read.  He will also do it in the car when I use my blue tooth to call someone.  When I say the name out loud he says it a millisecond after I do.  I am also not sure if I have ever posted that he calls a balloon a "baa-boon"  Our poor little guy got sick on Wednesday night and had a miserable next couple of days.  By Sunday he was one the mend but even today he still seemed a little sluggish.  

pukey baby

morning *sick* nap

still sick

carter reading to camden

Little Callan baby.  This boy is loving toddlerhood.  He is learning so fast and changing every day.  He got his seventh tooth the upper right incisor.  I swear there is more coming in due to the fact that his hands are always in his mouth.  Callan was the first of my kids to master the sippy cup in two days.  I was amazed at how quick he adjusted.  With the other two I remember having to tip it up when the milk got low so that they would finish it.  Not Callan.  He maneuvered that cup right from the beginning and get all the milk out with no help from us.  We have also marveled in the fact that he can shake his head yes, and he seems to do it appropriately.  I only remember the other two shaking their head no all the time.  I will try and give Callan a bite of yogurt when we are nearing the end and he will turn his head or push it away.  I will say "are you done?" and he will shake his head yes.  Then I will say "do you want more?" and he will shake his head no.  It is probably all just coincidence but it really blows my mind.  He really does them both equally and appropriately.  He is still walking more and more but doesn't choose it as his mode of transportation unless we are there. That is about it on the new things the kids are doing.  I will post some pictures of pumpkin carving and pictures of the kids at Vala's.  

matching jammies

brothers

hiding in the closet

emjoying legos

standing

silly boys

Professional pics!

callan love the playground, and love going down head first on the slide

on the bridge at holmes park

my boys

i love this family one

my tree climber

crazy boys

our traditional picture on the bed, except we got a new bed from last time.

camden's mad face

brothers

this is sometimes the best we can get these days

this is what happens when we step back and let curt work his magic

ham

showing how strong he is

this was the only picture of him in the wagon. the rest were of him climbing out.

smile kids!

Here are some of the pictures we took for Carter's 4 year and Callan's 1 year. Thanks again to Curt Brinkman of Lifesastoryphotography.com for taking them for us. I am not posting a lot of them because I don't know what I am going to do for a Christmas card yet.

Callan's cake smash

This is also a little late in posting but I wanted to share Callan's cake smash pictures that Curt Brinkman of Lifesastoryphotography.com took. They turned out even better than I could have imagined. I love them!

while the parents are away...

The kids will play. Even though these pictures are being posted late I wanted to share a few pictures of what the kids did while we were in Texas.

Callan and Mason

Camden fishing with grandma

Al helping Carter reel in his fish

Noah and Carter having a "hole" lot of fun.
(glad this happened at grandmas house and not ours)

Carter working on his workbench and Camden playing on his

"The Luckiest"

In the words of Ben Folds, I am "The Luckiest". Not only did I get a week away to Texas to spend time relaxing and rejuvenating, I also got to have a scrap booking weekend last weekend. This time Chad was super nice and let me go have the weekend to myself with good friends and try and get caught up on some much needed scrap time. Last weekend really made me think how lucky I am to have such a great family and a great husband. I am a better mom because of it, and a better person, so thank you. While I was away Chad even ventured out to the grocery store with all the kids. He was a true Mr. Mom. Here is proof of all of his hard work.

eating some cheese from the deli makes the trip a lot more fun

This last week was pretty busy even though I am not sure what all we did. I had my first MOPS meeting and Callan and Camden got to play there. (Carter was at school) Carter had his fall preschool pictures taken and we tried to enjoy the wonderful weather. The evenings have been spent with the neighbors and days just fly by with the normal activity.
Carter has been enjoying the outdoors and still loving his swimming lessons. He is doing really well and is consistently swimming the width of the pool in one breath and is not being held by the teacher. They have even let him swim out to them for about half the width. We see improvement every lesson and he is more and more confident. Carter got an opportunity to do a "Water Walk" with our church on Thursday night. The point of the walk was to give people a sense of what it is like for people in other countries who have to fetch their water everyday and how much work it is. So Carter, his cousins, and my parents walked about a mile while carrying a bucket of water. The most best part of this was this amazing photo that Curt Brinkman of lifesastoryphotography.com took.

Carter, Grace and my mom carrying their buckets of water

Carter also got to go with me to Target one evening and pick out a new piggy bank. We only had two at our house and we had coins set aside for Callan to put into a bank. He was very excited about his new "world" bank that he got. He even pointed out where we live. So we had a coin party and everyone put their coins into their new banks.

with his new bank

Camden with his bank

Carter is also excited about his bean plant he got in sunday school two weeks ago. He wants to grow his bean stalk like Jack in the bean stalk. So we have been watering it everyday and are amazed how much is has grown. The first picture is after one week. (it was barely visible when we got it)

(sorry it is blurry)

another week went by!

Camden is still trucking right along with his potty training. He is doing great and it seems like it is just routine to him now. He is having very few accidents and is really proud of himself for doing it. Hopefully it keeps up and he will be diaper free! He is napping in underwear now too!

playing at the park

Little Callan is still moving. He is taking 4 to 5 steps unassisted fairly regularly now and will walk almost anywhere while holding your hand. He finds new mischief every day and believes his is one of the big boys. He likes to wrestle and has now realized he can climb up on Camdens bed. He thinks it is funny until he falls off. But after a few tears he is right back up there, happy as a lark.
he *loves* to slide!

I was messing around in manual mode on my camera and this is what I shot.
my boy hard at play (exploring his type "a"ness)