A Friendly Visitor

We've had a little visitor at our house this week. He can usually be found outside of Parker's bedroom in the mornings.

Parker was a little timid the first morning but quickly found the courage to pick him up. One day our visitor brought a friend. Parker didn't know what to do with two geckos in the house. It was hard for a four year old to decide which one to follow as they scurried around in the hall!

It wasn't long before Eden got in on the excitement. She never would pick him up but sure did want to take a close look!

We didn't see our visitor this morning. I wonder if he will be back tomorrow!!!

More Parkerisms and Our Very First Edenism

It has been way too long since I've posted about some of the funny things that Parker says. He cracks us up sometimes with the way that he butchers the English language and it usually takes multiple times of correcting him before he finally says things the correct way. Here are a few of the most recent:

-The poor kid has eczema so bad. One day he came up to me and said, "Mommy, I've got radishes (rashes) on my arm!"

-"Lily doesn't have any clothes on. She's nakeup!" (naked)

-"Mommy, can you get this newt (knot) out of my jump rope?"

-"Mommy, are we going to Granna's to put kenigals (chemicals) in the pool?"

-As we were putting together an ABC puzzle- "V is for Veanstalk!" (The V picture was actually a vine but Veanstalk (beanstalk) could work too!!)

-Howifying glass= magnifying glass

-One night we had a really bad storm with horribly loud wind. Even Cory and I were a little scared. The wind woke Parker up and as we were waiting for the storm to pass, Parker said, "Dad, that rain is so loud in my room. It's a crescendo!" Apparently, you CAN learn something from watching Little Einsteins!

-Pick up cheese= shredded cheese (I'm not sure how this one got started but it's the only thing we call shredded cheese in our house now.)

-Parker: "Mommy, I need to go pee pee."
Mommy: "What?" (we don't usually use this terminology when he needs to go to the bathroom)
Parker: "I need to go pee pee. That's Spanish for tee tee!"

-----------------------------------------------------
Eden is finally talking so much, but we still don't always know what she is saying. I'm sure there are some very funny things coming out of her mouth, but we just can't always interpret them! The one thing that she does consistently right now is add "NO" to the end of a sentence when she doesn't want or like something. She has a hard time saying "don't" so this is her own way to tell us when she dislikes something. For example:

"I like apples, no!" means "I don't like apples!"

OR

"I want green cup, no!" means "I don't want the green cup!"

Sweet girl! We are so proud of all of the progress she has made with her language development and I'm sure this will be the first of many funny Edenisms to come!

Ten Months Old

Lily- you are 10 months old today! Wow! Double digits! How on earth did that happen? As I held your new baby cousin this week, it was hard for me to remember you when you were that little. You are becoming such a big girl and it makes me sad to think that in just two short months, we will be celebrating your first birthday. At the same time, I am so thankful for you and love watching you grow and change every month. Here are some of this month's highlights:

-You are still wearing 12 month clothes (although some of them are getting a little tight!) and have moved into size 5 diapers (the same size that your 2 1/2 year old sister is wearing!).
-You are quite an overachiever! You cut four new top teeth this month, all in a 2 day time span.

-You have become very fluid in your movements over the past two weeks. You can now effortlessly roll, crawl, and pull up on anything. You are not cruising very much, but I don't think it will be long before you add that to your repertoire.
-You are a pretty good eater. You still do not prefer baby food so I try as much as possible to give you whatever we are eating. One of your new favorites is spaghetti. You also love blueberry applesauce and macaroni and cheese.-You started clapping last week and have waved bye-bye a few times.
-You do NOT like to be told "NO!". Anytime I tell you to stop doing something, your bottom lip curls out and you start crying. You are very sensitive and get your feelings hurt very easily, just like Eden.

Several people have told me lately what a happy and easy going baby you seem to be and I could not agree more. I feel very lucky to be your mommy and thank God every day for you. I hope you always know how special you are to our family!

Welcome Baby Ryan!

Yesterday we welcomed Ryan David Rowland into our family! He was a big boy, weighing in at 9 lbs 3 oz!

My sister and her beautiful family!
Unfortunately, I had hand surgery yesterday afternoon and was not able to go meet Ryan until today. I was so ready to get to hold him and did not let a silly bandage get in my way!
Eden was smitten with him and asked to hold him several times.
Parker enjoyed getting to meet Ryan, too! I am so glad that Parker finally has another boy in the family!
Addison and Aubrey are going to be such great big sisters!

My favorite picture of the day- Granna with all 6 grandkids!
Welcome to our family, Mr. Ryan! We are so glad you are finally here!

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Happy Birthday to the most incredible daddy in the whole world!

Cory had a lot of little helpers as he opened his presents tonight! They were so excited about the gifts and could not wait for Cory to get home so they could open them with him. That's one of the things I love about little kids...they usually don't care who the present is for as long as they get to help rip open the paper!

We got Cory an iPad for his birthday, or a "Big Screen" as Parker calls it. (Parker is very good at finding the most perfectly logical names for things-he knows it is a lot like our iPhones but it has a bigger screen!) I think Parker was just as excited about the iPad as his daddy was, or maybe even more!

Happy Birthday Daddy! We love you so much and hope your 36th year is full of great things!

Disclaimer #1: Sorry that Parker is not wearing a shirt in all of these pictures. We had spaghetti for dinner and even though he no longer needs to, he still insists on taking his shirt off to eat it!

Disclaimer #2: Lily was in attendance at our birthday celebration but was happily eating some Puffs in her highchair. I saw no reason to interrupt/upset her just for a picture!

Under the Big Top

Today we got to take Parker and Eden to The Greatest Show on Earth! A good friend of mine called me a few days ago and offered us some extra tickets that she had, so we took her up on it and had one last family summer adventure! The kids were excited about going to the circus but had NO idea what to expect. Parker kept telling Eden that there were going to be lots of jaguars at the circus (I think he's been watching too much Diego!) and when I asked Eden about what she wanted to see, she would just answer "animals".

Eden woke up with a little bit of fever this morning, so we almost left her at home with Granna and Lily, but at the last minute she started feeling better, so we decided to take her along- a decision we later questioned!

Our seats were incredible and the kids really enjoyed the first part of the circus. Then, about 45 minutes into the show, they both started getting restless and telling me, "Let's go home!". We were able to keep them busy with $12 cotton candy (ouch!) and popcorn for a little bit longer, but by the end, Eden was melting down quickly. We left as soon as the elephants were through performing. I'm so glad we got to go and experience the circus with the kids, but I am not sure if they were quite ready for it yet. It's a good thing the circus only comes once a year...they definitely need another year to mature before we try it again. Overall, it was a great day and a fun way to spend my last day of summer!

Modeling the hat that the $12 cotton candy came in!
Family picture (Eden was starting to lose it by this point)

Blogging Funk

I am in a blogging funk. I think it is the heat. There is just no way to be creative or have many cohesive thoughts in this miserable heat. The weatherman said last night that in just a few more days, we will break the all time record of consecutive 100+ degree days in a summer. That's just not a record I'm excited about breaking.

Needless to say, we have been spending all of our time indoors, trying to stay busy and not go too stir crazy. I have tried to be a good mom and keep the kids entertained with different activities, but I'm going to be completely honest- Parker and Eden have watched more TV in the last few days than I usually allow.

The only thing that has given our lives some excitement lately is Granna's new puppy, Buster. The kids are completely IN LOVE with Buster and can't wait to go see him every day. Lily starts screaming and flapping her arms as soon as she sees him. Eden loves to carry him around the house and, luckily, has only dropped him a few times. Parker think he's great and is always trying to give him toys to play with. I am so glad they are getting to experience having a puppy and am even more thankful that it is at my mom's house and not mine!
Lily is literally getting into everything these days- the puppy's cage and refrigerator, just to name a few! She has also discovered the puppy's food and water bowls and gets her feelings very hurt when told "NO".
We have a couple of fun things planned for the next few days- all indoors, of course! I only have 5 more days of summer left and I really want to take advantage of the time I have left with the kids, regardless of the heat. I will end this way overdue post with this picture of Eden, who thoroughly enjoyed her ice cream tonight. Love that girl!!!

Two Trips to the Pediatrician

We took Lily for her 9 month checkup last week. Her current stats are:

Weight: 21.6 pounds (85th percentile)
Height: 29 1/2 inches (85th percentile)

We were not expecting to go back for another visit with Dr. Morrow until her one year checkup in October, but Lily had a little fall on Friday. She fell out of her high chair and got a little banged up. After the initial shock, she seemed fine but I noticed on Saturday that she was not crawling. She would start to get into the crawling position and then she would sit back up. She did this all day on Saturday and Sunday. Not one time did she attempt to crawl, even after I enticed her with her favorite toys and snacks! At first, Cory and I thought that she was just scared or sore, but when it lasted so long, we started to get a little worried.

I took her in to see our pediatrician this afternoon to make sure she didn't think anything was broken and after a thorough exam, she feels like Lily is just sore and still a little apprehensive about crawling. She said she might have sprained something, which is why she is hesitant to put pressure on her knees to crawl. Lily is starting to make some attempts to crawl again but it is a very unusual, scooting kind of crawl. Hopefully, after a few more days to heal, she will be as good as new! Lily has been such a trooper! Except for the huge bruise on her left cheek, no one would have ever known that she took such a tumble!