So we had another kid! Yeah, I know I haven’t been in touch on my blog. At all! Big enough news to post, our first son. He’s a cutie! Check out that smile.

I dub him LittleStrongMan because he is seriously so strong it’s hard to move his arms. He’s a great baby – sleeping, eating, doing all those other things that babies are supposed to be doing at this stage. We are very blessed.

Share

IMG_0236
Originally uploaded by Sara’s Pics

I love you, Paul – 10 years later and our marriage is better than ever!

If I were a great blogger, I’d list a bunch of reasons why I love you, but I’m not a great blogger. Let’s just call it good at: “you’re wonderful.” *smooch*

Share

MsDetermined turned one year old yesterday! Grandma and Grandpa Hurd came over to help us celebrate, and she got to eat the traditional one-year birthday pink cookie. She attacked the cookie with more gusto than either of the other two kids did. In fact, her main strategy was leaning over and eating it from the top on down. She finally did pick up some pieces to eat. At the end, there were only crumbs.

She was also a little distracted when it came to opening her presents. Luckily, there were only two to open – it would have taken us forever otherwise. The box of uncirculated birth year coins from Grandma and Grandpa were a big hit; she opened and closed the box over and over again. And she also enjoyed learning how to play her new xylophone. It hurt Mom’s ears, though, as there was one bar that was out of tune. That’ll teach me to not try it at the store before I buy it. I’m trying to decide if I will try to exchange it or just live with it.

Share

Share

Paul and I returned this morning from a two-night getaway to the Logan, Utah area. You know how some vacations are three-day, two-night? Ours was one-day, two-night… as we got in late Thursday night and left early Saturday morning. We did get a chance to dine at two area restaurants: Firehouse Pizzeria and Hamilton’s. At both places, the server asked us, “any special occasion?” Well, it sure felt like that to me; a night away from the kids is so RARE… (more over there!)

Share

So, wordle.net is getting passed around – it’s a pretty fun tool that you can either enter words of your choosing into, or put in a URL, and it will create random word art for you. Here’s a sample of this blog via Wordle:

Share

I’m notoriously bad at keeping baby books, so I hope that I can keep a general record of when milestones happen. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the exact day that MsDetermined started taking steps on her own, but it was a couple of weeks ago. Around the beginning of September. She still just takes a couple and then falls down on purpose, but it’s a start. Her toes turn in, so she’s not the most stable yet. She’s getting started earlier – at nine months – than any of the other kids, however.

Share

Instead of the first game being next week, as originally scheduled, we found out late last night that LittleMum’s first soccer game would be today. So we ran to the sports goods store to pick up the required shin guards (they were fairly cleaned out, but we found one pair in her size) so we could be ready to send her on the field.

At the youngest ages, practices and games are held together; first, a half hour of practice, then the game. LittleMum did great in the practice! She kicked the ball all over the place, ran around, and kept asking the coach if they could do it again. Once the game started, however, she started to get a little intimidated by the speed of the game, the other girls trying to go the opposite direction with the ball, and needing to watch and follow the ball all the time. Not to mention that the other team was more practiced and aggressive. After a little while, she came over to us in tears. We got her back on the field one more time if Mommy would run around with her, but that didn’t last very long. So she watched most of her first game, but she’s a natural! She just needs to get some confidence and she’ll do awesome!

Share

I’m a little slow, because this is the second week of school. However, we did have a big first week of kindergarten last week! In spite of freaking out a little bit and not wanting to meet her teacher at Back To School Night the previous week, LittleMum was excited to go to school on her first day. She was all smiles and got right into the swing of things in the classroom.

NatureForce did too, or wanted to, at least. She picked up a pencil to sign her name like the big kids. Of course, I had to tell her that she was not staying because she wasn’t quite old enough for school. Then we had a big tantrum in the kindergarten classroom amid the kindergartener / parent traffic. Even though I was holding MsDetermined, I had to pick up NatureForce (who had gone boneless) and drag her out into the hall. I ended up just putting her in the stroller as best I could so we could leave with whatever shred of dignity we had left.

One of LittleMum’s classmates dads must have thought NatureForce was my kindergartener, because he said, “I’m glad I’m not the only one who’s had to drag the kid kicking and screaming.”

Share

This Happy Stars piano has seen a lot of use since our oldest was a baby. You gotta love the dancing – and the music is pretty fun. I am normally not crazy about noise-making toys, but this one I actually like. I don’t know if it’s available any more.
http://snurl.com/happystars

Share