Presley's 11 Months. Oh me, Oh my!

Well, shortly after I re-committed myself to blogging (ha!) my laptop kicked the big one (may she rest in peace). So my peachy pie turned 10 and then 11 months all without me documenting any of her milestones...boo! But now I have my beautiful new computer and its time to play catch up!

At 10 months and 1 day the Peach decided she had had enough of this sitting around busines and just took off.  Literally. It was like one minute she wasn't mobile and the next she was into everything! It was the cutest, most precious thing. She looks like this little baby doll crawling around with her perfect little crawl movements. It seems as though she had thought and planned that whole 10 months about all the different things she could get into and now she is excuting her plan perfectly.  She is like a twister moving thru here, dumping everything in her path.  Its so cute. I have to laugh at myself at the difference with my response to this mess between having my first and fourth child. I remember when Kobe was little just following behind him and putting everything back in its place and I would feel so frustrated at times that I couldn't keep everything perfect.  It seems as though I've come a long way over the years and have gotten better at letting things go,  as now I find myself saying  "Isn't it so cute how she moves from one thing to the next?"   Its settling in that this is our last "mess maker" and I'm loving and enjoying every stage of it.

She is eating much better these days. She still is very picky about what she eats.  She loves meat and pasta. A girl after her daddy's own heart! ha! Green beans are the only vegetable she will eat consistently.  And she refuses to eat fruit of any kind. :( Arrgghh!  I still try at each meal to put some kind of fruit on her tray and am just hoping one day she will change her mind!

~ Other milestones over the past two months...


* She gives a good  wave now when you say 'bye bye'


*She has perfected her 'more' sign. We are working on 'Please, thank you and drink' now.


* She says da da, hi , mama on occasion, duh (for done) and thats about it.


*She doesn't mind at all letting us know when she's frustrated by balling up her fists and letting out at a huge scream while shaking her head and fists. Its so funny. I'm sure it won't be so funny in another year or two.


*She's started kissing this month. Thats right, those big open mouthed, slobbery kisses where it looks more like she is trying to eat you. Its so sweet.


*She is doing so great now with her sippy cup, too! It took the longest time for her to drink from anything. But these last two months she has gotten better and better. She will only drink water. She does not like juice at all. Oh my...what picky taste buds she has!


*At exactly 11 months (to the day!), she moved out of our room and into her room she shares with Kensi.  I had been waiting to do the big transition until Christmas break just in case she had a rough time settling into her new bed.  She has done great going down at night. We are a week and a half in and this is our routine:  I lay her down, turn on her fish aquarium, give her her blanky and tuck her in tight and pray with her. And then she just rolls on her side and watches the fish until she drifts off to sleep. That part has been so easy! The hard part has been after about 5-6 hours she wakes up. So thats around 1ish or so.  I usually end up feeding her in my bed and fall back asleep.  She did have 1 night so far where she slept 12.5 hours. It was glorious for her! I however kept waking up every few hours and running in to make sure she was ok. Still breathing. Hadn't jumped out of the crib. haha. It was like I was just waiting for her to need me or something.


This has been a tough transition for me.  I have definitely had some teary moments and have to fight the urge to not bring her back to our room. I don't know why its so hard for me every single time. I mean this is the 4rth time now we have moved a baby to their own room, it seems like it would get easier. Not so much for me.   Like it is with every stage, its bittersweet......so fun to see her love her new bed and adjust so well to sharing a room with her sister, so sad that this part of our story is done. We will never have a little baby with us in our room again.  Our little Presley is growing up.


Kensi, on the other hand, has been absolutely delighted to have a new roommate.  I am so, so proud of her. She has done so great with this new arrangement. I was concerned, as I'm sure you could understand, with what the Goose may try with the baby in there. But so far, she has been fantastic!  I keep waiting to go in there and find them both in the crib or some other crazy idea she may cook up. ha!  I love that they get to share a room. I shared a room almost my whole life with my sister and we had the best times laying in bed at night talking and making up games to play.  I'm excited for them to be able to share this with each other.

And just for fun, here are some pictures of the big move...

This is her cradle that sits right beside my side of the bed.  Think she looks a wee bit big for it?  I say she still has an inch or two at top and bottom to grow before she's out of it. haha...just kidding. :)

I got these fun stickers for their door! The Peach and The Goose...together at last!

 All tucked in and ready for nighty-night. She absolutely LOVES that Baby Einsteen Aquarium hanging there.

 Kensi always likes to run in and help me get her up from nap. I haven't been brave enough to let them nap together yet.  Kensi is semi trying to grow out of her naps and usually is up to no good at naps, so I've been letting her take naps in my bed.

 I can just imagine that Kensi is trying to plot and pull poor Presley into one of her schemes. Oh boy!

 Let the good times begin! Kensi is absolutely so excited to have Pressers sleeping in there!

Peachy-pie, you are growing so quickly.  I want time to stop, just for a while, so I can enjoy these stages a little longer.  Words cannot describe how I love you.  You have been a special gift to me straight from God's heart.  I love you so much Presley-girl.

Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

I love this time of year! Everything about it...the lights, being with friends, decorating the house, carrying on family traditions and making new ones, setting aside intentional time to celebrate Jesus coming to earth and just the anticipation of all thats to come.    We got our (tiny) tree up last week.  I love putting it up a little early just so we can enjoy it a little longer.  I say its a lot of work, so we might as well make it last as long as possible.  I'm a "tree is coming down Jan 1" kind of girl, so I love getting it up the end of November.  

The kids were delighted to help pull everything out of the attic and get to work! And the older two are really at an age now where they are truely a big help.  We turned up the Christmas music and got to it! Its always so much fun unpacking the ornaments. Its like seeing old friends again. Remembering when and where each one came from. Its a walk down memory lane. It was fun to share different stories about some of the special ornaments with the kids.  

Kobe, Maddie and Kensi took charge of decorating the tree, while I hung the stockings and set up our Dicken's Village....

Aaron was the official 're-stringer' of the ornaments that had lost their string...

And this little lady was just in charge of crawling around and looking adorable!

I love making all these memories with the kids.  I was just thinking today this Christmas is 10 years now of having kids with us for Christmas and I just love it.  Its so incredible to experience it all thru their eyes.

Last night we made it out to the Christmas parade with some dear friends.  Let me tell you it is no easy task getting 6 kids bundled up for freezing weather, but we did and had a great time!  It was so so cold!

Presley got right in on the action. I set her down there and she just started crawling around right there on Rt 11. Ha! Her little nose was so red she looked like Rudolph, but still looked as delish as ever!

Sweet friends

I love this pic of me and my Maddie. I was just noticing our hair looks exactly the same. You can't tell where mine ends and hers starts. ;)

The Goose was front and center waving and hollering to everyone that passed.  She loved every minute of it. She kept saying " can it be my turn next for the candy." ha!  She thought the people throwing the candy should hand them out right to her instead of throwing it.

Mesmerized by a marching band.

Our girl Jaiden was on a float this year for her church.  Had to snap a pic of our sweet JJ!

It was such a lovely evening.  But we were all glad to come home to hot cocoa and play some games! It truely is the most wonderful time of the year. 



A Whole Lotta This and That

Three cheers for me and my new commitment to keeping up with this blog!  Woohoo! This is my fifth post within a two week time period. This has to be an all time record. :)  Anyhoo. My mind is filled with all kinds of random thoughts so here goes....

1.  I cannot believe that the calendar is being truthful with me when it says today is November 24th. Where in the world did this year go?  Didn't I JUST have a baby?  I think this seriously has been the fastest year of my life.   I cannot believe we are right here at the Holidays again.  Makes me want to be so much more intentional about being in the moment and enjoying each moment with the kids because life is speeding on by.

2. Tonight we are putting up our Christmas decorations! I can't wait! The kids have been asking for a few days now, and tonight is the first 'free' night we have to do it. I love, LOVE this time of year.  So much excitement in the air. And I love it even more experiencing with my kids and thru their eyes. 

3. Miss Goosey has been so busy this week and its only Wednesday.  Sometimes all I can do is shake my head and laugh.  Monday she decided nap time is overrated and decided to pass on it. I kept putting her in her room and every 10 minutes her little face would appear between the railing of the stairs begging to get up. I told her no, laid her back down, she would come back down. This cycle repeated all afternoon. Anyway, she never ended up going to sleep and once the other kids woke up I let her get up. So that night as I am tucking her in bed and going to turn out the light,  this beauty caught my eye.

Thats right, red crayon all over her walls. What a masterpiece! Our budding artist carried her artwork throughout the house for all of us to enjoy. Down the stairway...

And a little diddy on the bannister, too!

She is something else.   I guess she got bored when she was protesting nap and let the creative juices flow. 

She is far and away the most mischievious child we have.  Into something ALL the time!   I still haven't cleaned it off. I figure if she worked so hard creating it we should at least enjoy it a few days.  All I have to say is thank goodness for the Magic Eraser!

Tuesday night I was walking by our downstairs bathroom and out of the corner of my eye I saw Kensi leaning over the toilet with her hands down in it. Nice. I asked what in the world she was doing and she turns around and is rubbing her soapy hands together and says " I can't weach the water to winse the soap off my hands." Classic.  She was just rinsing off in the toilet. Nothing wrong with that.  One of the hardest things about parenting Kensi right now is trying to not laugh while I should be correcting her....ack! She is so funny and she has (in her mind) such a good reason for all these crazy things she does.

Speaking of funny, this ones a doozy.  Whenever Kensi needs to go #2 in the potty she always takes all of her clothes off. (I know this is a little TMI, but I'm sure the Goose will think this is funny when she's older).  I literally laughed until I cried the first time I went in and found her like this. Anyway, its just something she always does.  So the other night, we were at El Charro and Maddie and her needed to use the bathroom. So they ran ahead of me to the bathroom. When I got in there they were both already in each stall, so I went in the one Kensi was in to help her.  And to my surprise, there sat my girl naked as a jay bird....shoes, socks everything. Not one stitch of clothing was on her.  hahahahhaha . She is so crazy. Oh my goodness, I laughed so hard.  This girl just feels comfortable wherever she is. When she's got to take care of business, she just gets down to it. It doesn't matter where we are or whose there.

One more Kensi thing  and then I'll move on. Every night for the past few nights when I go in her room to kiss her one last time before I go to bed, I find her with no clothes on except her panties. I have to re-dress her in her sleep every. single. night.  It is so, so funny to us for some reason.  We ask her every morning why she does it and she says, " I just weally like sleeping with no clothes." Ha! What a girl! 

4.  I have recently done a re-vamp and reorganization of my life and schedule and I'm loving it! I feel like I am getting done the stuff that has to get done and not constantly feeling like I'm playing catching up.  I love feeling organized  and having a plan.  I have found this year that I have felt overwhelmed with keeping up with all the kids and the house and just life in general.  I wish most days there were 26 hours in a day.So I'm thrilled with how smoothly things have gone the past few weeks with everything having a specific time to get done. 

5.  Aaron's mom bought this little number for Miss Presley this week and I absolutely LOVE it. Its one of my all time favorite pieces.  I think she looks like a beautiful  little flower.  Its the little things in life that excite me.

6.  The other night during devotions, Aaron was worshipping with the kids.  Little Miss Pres got so into it! We were all struggling to not laugh the whole time.  She just sat on Aaron's guitar case and  was just  "squeal-singing"  as loud as she could and just squeezing her little fists together while singing. It was hilarious. 

It was so funny and the kids were laughing so hard , which just delighted her. It was so cute.  Even thru the humor of it all, Aaron prayed that she would always have such a spirit of worship thru her whole life. And to that I say a great big AMEN!

Tommorrow is Thanksgiving.  Still not sure how it snuck up on us so fast.  Looking forward to watching parades, peeling potatoes and just enjoying family all day!  No early morning black friday shopping for us this year. :( Aaron has to work 6-2p and I am not crazy enough to go alone with 4 kids! Maybe we will go in the afternoon just for fun!  Kobe and I love our Black Friday shopping so we may just sneak some in.

We have so much to be thankful for.  We are so, so blessed. Happy Thanksgiving!

Kensi-isms

Kensi has had some great stuff come out of her mouth lately. Aaron and I usually just look at each and bust out laughing at this girl. She is so, so funny and the best part is she doesn't even mean to be. We always say she is three yrs old going on about 45. She talks so grown up and just tries to take care of everyone and everything.

~Aaron came home from work one day and asked Kensi if she had taken a nap that day. " She looked right at him and did a half smirk with one side of her mouth and said "I did indeed." hahaha.

~About a month or so ago she was drinking from her water bottle and stopped and looked up at me and asked, "Does Jesus feel the water as it slides past my heart? " :)

~Yesterday we were at the table and I said, "Kensi what do you want for Christmas." She said, "An Ipod." hahahahahhaha. This still makes me laugh out loud. What a silly girl.

~She loves to sing songs all the time. And I'm usually pretty impressed because she knows the right words most of the time. But there is this one song that she sings that I love so so much, that I just can't correct her and tell her the right words because her version is so cute. The song is "Shout to the North and the South" , but Kensi's version is "Shop to the North of the Sun." Its so cute to see her sing it with so much heart.

~She makes me laugh on a daily basis. She is good for my soul. I just love the way she talks. If I ask her to do something she usually says "sure" with an inflection in her tone. Or if she wants to do something else she will say "Actually, I want to......". haha. If she's really mad at me about something ( I know hard to believe this perfect angel every gets mad...ha!) she will say "Mommy, I'm weally mad at you." Its so cute, and I have to try hard not to laugh because we are trying to nip this attitude in the bud.

Oh this girl is so so funny. I just love this stage she's in and want to bottle it up to keep forever.

Happy Birthday Brian

26 years old today. How is it possible that he is really not here? I can just imagine the party going on up there. Nothing down here compares. Today he gets to celebrate his birthday, in person, with His Creator. What must that be like?!

Today, I pause, and remember his life...my sweet, little cousin who grew into a man that literally would leave his mark on this world. This world is radically different because he was here. Thinking and praying for his sweet Mom & Dad and brothers and sister on this most difficult of 'firsts' they will have. Praying comfort and incredible peace surround them. Its so hard to understand why, but so comforting to know he is Home with Jesus.

Happy Birthday, Brian!

Peachy Pie's First 9 Months

I just wanted to take some time and write some details of my sweet little girls first 9 months. Its so hard to believe in three months she will be one year old. What a complete delight she has been. I've loved watching her grow and see her personality coming out. She has truely been a bright spot in our life.

For my own memory I just want to jot down some mile stones she's had...

Around 8 weeks old she gave us her first 'real' smile. It was so exciting. Its so funny what we do just to get the reward of being smiled back at. I always think how much work tiny babies are and how intensely your love for them is and to finally have some sort of response back is just so fulfilling and satisfying. Also at 8 weeks she finally started sleeping thru the night! (She had gotten up about 2 times a night the first two months, so this was a milestone this mama was ready for!).

2 months ~ I can't find what her weight / length were first this month..ack! Thats what I get for not keeping up. I want to say it was around 11 lbs or so. Which is definitely a bit tiny for being one of our kiddos!

4 months ~ At this check up she weighed in at a whopping 14lbs 11oz and her height was 25". She did a lot of growing those first few months!

I had to add this one because its one of my faves. This girl (just like her daddy did) LOVES her ears! She constantly plays with them when she is tired or nursing. So sweet. I took this pic of her one night just hanging on to both of them.

5 months old ~ She finally mastered the art of sitting up during this month.

6 months ~ She packed on 3 more pounds by 6 months and weighed in at 17 lbs and was 26.5 " long. She has pretty much styed in 90th percentile for her height and around 50th for her weight. We also tried around this time to start feeding her some baby cereal to get her ready for when I went into surgery. She HATED it and kept spitting it out at us...ha! This little lady had some strong opinions and didn't mind letting us know! Every time over the next few months she saw a spoon coming toward her mouth she would smack it away and shut her lips tight. We tried everything...veggies, fruits...she didn't like anything! Ack!

This month was also the arrival of two sweet, little teeth. This is the earliest any of our kids have gotten a tooth! Now, to put those teeth to good use. :)

9 months ~ She only gianed 1 lb since her last check up weighing just 18lbs 8oz and was 28.5" long. I was so surprised by how little she still was. This is unheard of for my kids. They were all well over the 20 lb mark by this age. I guess she is truely the 'runt' of my litter. ;) I also think that her boycott of food has contributed to her 'smallness'. We have finally figured out with the food thing that she just isn't into baby food at all. We tried every kind. She never budged. She has been solely breastfed for 9 months. So at her check up, the doctor said I should give her an iron supplement because usually at this size the breast milk wasn't sufficient enough iron intake. So I decided I was going to buckle down with her instead with the food situation and she has been doing really well as long as I give her things she can pick up with her fingers and feed herself. hahaha. She was holding out for the good stuff. So we just feed her whatever we eat and she is eating better and better all the time. I can't say that I blame her, baby food is not the most tasty of foods.

She is also working on crawling. At around 8 months she finally made some sort of attempt to get in the crawling position. So for the past month she has been perfecting that and does a mean rocking motion. But so far no movement. Any day now though I'm sure she's going to take off. Last night she was going backwards a little bit, but just hasn't quite figured out how to go forwards.

She absolutely loves her brother and sisters. Its fun to see the relationship each of them has with her. She loves playing with them and just lights up when they come in a room. Especially Kensi. She will try and wiggle out of my arms to get a glimpse of her and then just grin and coo from ear to ear. Precious.

So far she is only saying 'da da'. And boy is she ever a daddy's girl! To say those two are in love with each other is an understatement. She's holding out on me and making me work hard to get a 'ma ma' out of her. She also just this week has been raising her hand for bye bye. Aaron and I have been trying to get her to do it for a while and finally she ever so slowly raises her hand with palm open to wave bye bye. Its more of a salute really. ha. It is the funniest thing.

And the tooth count is up to 6 now! Woohoo! Bring on the steak!

Peachy-pie, you are such a treasure to us. Life with you has been so much sweeter. You are so happy and full of life, and starting to be a bit fiesty, too! I have loved every moment with you, even the 2am feedings. You are our sweet baby peach!