Pulling up is happening a whole lot more often around here!

Valentine's Love

Look at these super cute kids! It's a little late but Happy Valentine's Day!

Maggie's 6th Birthday

My sweet girl is SIX years old. So wonderful. Having her has been such a special blessing from the Lord. I know I don't cherish every day like I should, but Maggie still makes my heart full to bursting! 

Here are some pictures from her special days (Friday was her birthday, Saturday was her party).

Maggie got a special birthday crown in her kindergarten class. Gramma and Grampa joined her for lunch (Maggie wanted only them to come, not Mommy or James). the cafeteria offers a wide variety of salads, which is great. Their dressing selection leaves something to be desired, however. Their CHOICE was Ranch. Not really a choice when that's the only flavor they have.

 Getting ready for gifts!

Annual balloons.

 Sweet girl, sweet card. So cute!!!

So just because she LIKES Justin Beiber (which we are not encouraging) does not mean people need to be buying her Justin Beiber merchandise!!! ACK. I will be hiding this and another set of note pads soon. But she was excited about her notebook and her Hello Kitty fedora, which has been worn to school 3 days this week.

 Gramma Spaid got Maggie a set of diamond earrings. That's one set more than her mama has...

And the ultimate gift, one every 6-year old girl dreams of, a REAL bow and arrow set. Ok - our 6-year old dreams of them. She's asked for several years already. She and Daddy will have lots of fun with her new compound bow.

Posing with her cake for birthday night, and the cake pops I made for her party.

Owl cake pops.

 I bought a some super cute clip art designs on Etsy.com and designed all my own party decorations and invitations. I love stuff like that!

These girls are all sitting still for the picture, but it was UTTER CHAOS AND PANDEMONIUM while we made the other party favor (a little stuffed owl- no pictures in progress, too crazy), made mini pizzas, ate dinner, had cake pops, watched Maggie open gifts.There were 13 crazy kids in attendance. I needed an ibuprofen when they all went home.

Maggie and her two besties. 

She did ask specifically for one cupcake so she could blow out a candle.

 The cake pops were met with great anticipation, and enjoyed thoroughy.

 I decided to allow gifts this year, since a lot of the other school girls have parties with gifts, and I didn't know how it would come across if I said "no". It was an experiment and fun this year - we will not be doing that again, for many reasons.

All the girlies posing with their owls.

Maggie and Zayli with their owls, Zeke had to sneak in for the picture. 

And James as already in bed for the night when I realized I hadn't taken a picture of Tyler and I with Maggie. 

Maggie had such a great time at her party. She said it was her Best. Party. EVER. I will call that a success! (And I get to do it all over again for James' 1st birthday party in a month!)

My dear sweet girl, I love you so much. You light up my days, Sunshine!

Christmas 2011 Pictures

So it's, uh, February. And I'm just posting pictures from Christmas. Pitiful! Sorry.
Click below for the link.

Spaid Christmas 2011

My little lefty enjoying his first goldfish crackers. 

Exploding Diaper

Probably not how I should spend 5 minutes updating my very neglected blog, but it's funny.

James' diaper exploded overnight, it must have had a tear in it or something. What a crazy mess. Those polymer crystal-things were all over his front, with a similar amount in the rest of his PJ's. And I couldn't just pop him in the bath, either. I didn't want that stuff clogging my drains. It took at least 10 wipes to pick them all up and get him clean. And I am SO glad his jammies are zip-ups and he can't get inside. Jeez!

Ok. Here are some other pictures from the past couple of weeks (poor Maggie - with her being in school I don't take quite as many photos of her anymore. I will remedy that this weekend with her 6th birthday)

Here's James drinking from a bottle. He's very proficient now. We're moving on to sippy cups.

 We had to install gates both upstairs and downstairs last weekend. Mr. James likes to make a beeline to the stairs as soon as no one is watching him. They are a hassle but worth it.

 And when people aren't looking he likes to eat shoes. All kinds: mine, Tyler's, Maggie's, clean, dirty, new, old, slippers... It's a gross habit we're trying to break.

 And the tupperware cabinet. He's found it and loves it. It still is not quite enough to keep him from fussing when I'm making dinner, but it does provide a couple minute's distraction at least.

And I noticed that my iPhone pictures are quite red. Not sure how to remedy that.

James - 10 Months

What a cutie! So we've made it to 10 months. I say it every month, but James is such a happy baby boy! He can feed himself finger foods, does well with a sippy cup, can hold his own bottle, army crawls all over everywhere, loves his Allistair the alligator, LOVES his mama and reaches for me when other people hold him, did really well at Christmas with all kinds of new faces and places, can play the recorder and duck call (thanks, Poppy!). Let's see, what else... When he is near chairs he can pull himself back up to sitting from being on his tummy, but hasn't sat up on his own in his crib. I've heard that bigger kids take a little longer to get their full mobility because they have more mass to move, and I believe it. However, James' army crawl is really fast, you can't turn your back on him for a second!

He is REALLY LOUD. I'm not surprised, really, but sometimes I think he is going to pop my ear drums. Happy noises, crabby noises, they are both quite voluminous. No words yet. He's got a lot of consonant sounds he can make, but doesn't really put them together. I had hoped he was trying to say "mama" - but that's died out mostly.  I weaned him over Christmas, and that's gone fairly well. He's STILL not sleeping through the night, mostly because I am a softy this time around, and haven't had the heart to really make him cry it out (although this morning at 5a.m. I did let him cry for quite a while before I got up and got him a bottle). I'm not sure what he weighs at the moment, but I'd say hefty is a good descriptor. His 12-month pajamas are stretched to the max, length- and width-wise. I put him in an 18-month outfit yesterday and they were none too baggy, and the PJ's he has on above is an 18-month size.

Still in love with my little man. And he's giving me big kisses now which make up for all the hair-pulling that goes along with said kisses. I love those slobbery kisses!

James' turn on the recorder

James got a hold of Maggie's recorder, and figured out how to make noise on it! He did really great before I got out my phone to video it, and then he needed a little help to do it again.

Mini Concert

Maggie was listening to some Christmas the other night, and started hooting on her recorder. James pulled two cups from his toy bin and started banging them together to join her. We got a short clip of them playing together. We tried a couple times, and every time we started the music and Maggie played, James would, too. He's so little yet, and I forget that they are really learning so much so quickly. It was really fun to watch!

Nine Months, are you kidding me?!

James is 9 months now. I can't believe it. In 12 short weeks he'll be a year. Gotta get started on that party!

He babbles with lots of consonant sounds, says Mama like "ba-bma", army crawls, claps, waves, greets everyone with an upturned hand, is learning to feed himself. He is so happy, it's wonderful.

His 9-month check up was Monday, 12/5. 22 pounds, 15 ounces, 29.3 inches. Still at the 90th percentile for height,  a little below 90th for weight. He is wearing 12-month stuff just about exclusively still, some 12-month pants are too short or too tight.