Family Photos

We took family pictures yesterday while we had the whole family together for Thanksgiving. My Mom got some really good ones. She hasn't done anything to fix them up yet so don't pay any attention to the background. I'll repost after she plays around with them in photoshop but for now I wanted to share some of my favorites. There are a bunch of them and they're in no specific order. Enjoy!

Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving again this year. We are so very lucky during Thanksgiving because our families celebrate on separate days. So instead of picking one family and switching every year we get to spend the holiday with both. On Thursday we spent the day at David's parents house. We had a great time there and a wonderful dinner. We just spent the day visiting and stuffing ourselves full of delicious food. Then on Saturday we were able to spend the day at my parents house. Normally on Saturday we have a ton of family over, almost more than we can visit with but this year was really low key which was fun but I certainly miss all the cousins that I usually get to see. Dutch had a blast on both days playing with all his cousins. He definitely wants to play with the bigger kids now, he sometimes has a hard time keeping up but he certainly tries. Maylee is getting to be a lot more social. She will now go to people other than David and I and not cry. Which is a lot of fun for us to see her being held by her grandparents and aunts and uncles. Noah was in town for Thanksgiving and I always love seeing him. I didn't get very many pictures of Thanksgivings this year but I did manage to get a couple of had to have pictures at my parents. I just get so busy visiting that I forget to take any pictures. But I just had to get these ones . Maylee was filthy after eating dinner so I put in her my moms kitchen sink for a bath. And she looked so little and cute in there. And of Dutch playing in the pile of sand. He just sat there with a cup and poured sand all over him, it was pretty cute. And last but not least David got the kids to take a nap about 30 seconds before we were going to take our big family photo. Dutch and Maylee slept through all the photos except for the last three, Maylee woke up and decided she wanted her Uncle Noah to hold her.

Toilet

Maylee definitely is a different kid than Dutch. There were things that Dutch never did, so I just never even worried about them or Maylee doing them. Well the other day David and I are standing in our bedroom talking when all of the sudden David hears water splashing. So he walks into the hall bathroom to find Maylee standing at the toilet splashing her little hands in the water. I swear that girl finds anything to get into. Her sleeves were soaking wet but she thought it was so much fun. So now I have to be very careful of the toilet lid being open. Here's the little stinker. In this picture she was being entertained forever just by sitting in the laundry basket.

Tunnel

For Dutch's first birthday we got him a tunnel from Ikea. He never really enjoyed playing with it. When he first got it we couldn't get him to crawl through it, it's like it scared him or something. It took probably until he was closer to 18 months to enjoy playing with it. And then he only really liked playing in it if someone else was playing with him. So we pretty much never pull it out to play with. Well I've pulled it out a lot more since Maylee has started crawling. I pulled it out one day after she first learned how to crawl. I figure she would be afraid of it like Dutch was and wouldn't play in there. Nope, she loves it, the first time I got it out she crawled right in. Now Dutch and Maylee love to play in there. I think Dutch likes it so much now because I can't see him tackling Maylee.

Football Game

A couple weekends ago we finally went to one of Craig's football games. We hadn't been all season but lucky for us his team made it to the playoffs so we went to the first playoff game. We had a great time going with Fawn, Dave, Allison and Darren. Of course keeping Dutch entertained the entire time wasn't easy. After he ate all the candy and food he could handle he had enough of sitting on the bleachers. So David took him for a walk and then he was good for a little bit longer but not super long. So then he convinced me to take him on a walk. He of course had his Lighting McQueen car (he doesn't leave home without it) so I took him to part of the bleachers that were empty and he raced his car up and down the bleachers for about the last 40 minutes. He had a blast doing that. We both got a pretty good workout from that. It was so much fun to get out of the house as a family and do something fun. That doesn't happen very often around here, so I really enjoy it when it does.

Twilight

So I went and saw the movie Twilight last night. And if you haven't seen it yet you might not want to read this. I'm not giving anything away. I just I'm stating my opinion. And a lot of people probably won't agree with me but just remember it's my opinion. I did not love the movie. I liked it and I really want to see it again when I am not in a movie theater full of obnoxious teenage girls that scream every time a Cullen is shown. (That is very annoying and distracting to watching a movie, anyways I learned my lesson about seeing a movie on opening night.) Now as far as the movie went, I was really disappointed. I felt like if you haven't read the book you wouldn't be able to follow the movie. Which personally I don't think it should be that way. And I really thought that the acting was not good. I felt like it was a really low budget movie. I think it could have been good with maybe a better director and better actors. But it seemed so low budget and just, I can't say it enough, bad acting. They kept showing the actors faces so close, it was like, hello, take a step back. And it didn't follow the story line, which I understand that they can't have everything from the book in a movie but I felt like they left out important things. Important things that help you to understand the Cullens. Anyways I feel like people that heard all the hype from the book but didn't read it and just see the movie will not understand what all the excitement was about. And now remember my opinion, but I think Edward in the movie is not attractive at all. To me his uglier than he is cute. And I think that the Edward in the movie came across as retarded. In the book he is so smart and really good with words. And in the movie I felt like he was really slow and well just on the dumb side. Anyways, I think everyone should see it and get there own opinions. But that was mine. Like I said I want to see it again minus the annoying teenagers. I think that will help me to like it better. So let me know what you think. I am really curious to see if I am the only one who felt this way. Hopefully not, I hope everyone can just love it but I just did not.

9 Months

Maylee Jane is nine months old today. She is getting so big and yet it truly seems like we have had her forever. I can not remember life before Maylee. I also can't believe it was only nine months ago that our little family was going through every sickness in the world. That seems like lifetimes ago. Maylee is such an amazing baby. At nine months she is starting to cruise along the couch, she is standing up and letting go, her balance isn't very great, she only stands for about 2 seconds, but she's getting it. She loves to eat big people food, she will have nothing to do with baby food, her favorite thing to eat is the ground beef in spaghetti and macaroni and cheese. She still is not sleeping through the night. She wakes up twice a night to eat, I'm exhausted. She is a Mama's girl, which secretly I just love. I love that she needs and wants me although she is starting to like her Dad a lot which makes me happy and sad because I just don't want her to end up like Dutch, who only likes his Dad. She claps her hands and babbles all the time. I love her so much and often times I just look at her and feel overwhelmed with how much I love her and if you are a mom I'm just sure you know exactly what I am talking about. She had her nine month well check today as well. At nine months they test the babies hemoglobins at her doctors office. And Maylee's are low, which isn't a big deal, it just means she has low iron, so she has to be on a special vitamin plus iron supplement until she is a year. And her stats are: weight 16 pounds even, which is the 8th percentile. So she is just a tiny little thing. She was 28 1/4 inches long, putting her in the 75th percentile and her head was 44 1/2 centimeters, that is in the 67th percentile. Which I am still so grateful that she doesn't have a huge head. I'm starting to relax and think that she isn't going to end up with a big head. Anyways she is just such a joy in our lives. We all love her so much. Here she is at nine months, she's playing in the curtains.

Mine

Dutch just learned the most dreaded word (in my opinion). We were sitting in the living room this morning and Maylee was playing with his sipping cup, Dutch snatched it away from her and shouted "MINE". Oh the joys of learning how to share. It was the first time I have ever heard him use that word. I didn't even know how to react when he said it. Nothing came out. I just sat and stared hoping that it was a mistake and that he wouldn't use it again. But no such luck, he was using it again this evening when Maylee was playing with his stuffed monkey. "MINE"

The weather has been so prefect lately. The kids and I have been spending a lot more time outside. Dutch runs in and out all day long and I just love that he can do so. Maylee is already enjoying being outside better than in. And she gets so upset if Dutch is outside playing and she isn't. She has learned how to open the screen door, so now she goes outside whenever she pleases. She is getting more and more brave on the grass. As long as she has pants on she crawl in it. Dutch has found pretty much our only little patch of dirt and feels that is where he should spend all his time. The patch is only about a foot by two feet , tucked away on the side of the house but that is where he wants to be. And if he does happen to get over there before I catch him, all he does is eat the dirt, so gross. I'm not sure if he is deficient in a vitamin or mineral or something but the kid loves to eat dirt. Sometimes I'll go out there and he has mud dripping from his chin. David recently made us a little porch swing, although it hangs from our swing set not our porch. He had some extra wood left over from a job, so he built it. And it is just adorable. So now when Dutch is running wild in the backyard I have a cute little swing to enjoy for me. Maylee has learned how to climb up the little slide in our backyard. It's only about two feet tall but she can get all the way up and then she slips back down. It's pretty cute. I just love am loving the fall weather and playing outside with the kids. It's days like these when I feel that life just can't get any better. Maylee getting ready to mow the yard. I love how blue the sky is and how green the grass is... It's not everyday that I get a picture of the two of them that turns out this cute. Our cute swing...

These pictures are for Dawn. Dutch loved the suckers that you gave him. He ate both, Maylee didn't get any. Dutch says "Thanks Aunt Dawn!"

Halloween ended up being a lot of fun this year and I am really glad that I got my kids costume's because they just looked so cute in them. This year we headed over to my sister-in-law Dawn's house. She always throws a big Halloween bash and we had yet to go, so we made sure to go this year. First we took the kids trick or treating on her street. Dutch wasn't very sure about the whole trick or treating thing. We would take him up to the door and then he would get really shy and wouldn't even open his bag for the people to drop candy in. After about the third house he started to understand that he was getting candy, so then he wanted to ring the door bell but he still would not let them drop the candy in his bag (I think he was afraid someone was going to take his bag with all of his candy from him, so he was being pretty protective) he had to take the candy from them and then put it into his own bag. We had bought him an Elmo candy bag for his candy but of course I forgot to bring it, I'm ever so forgetful, so he just had to use a grocery bag which was so long that it just drug the ground behind him. We only took him to an handful of houses because he was just so shy, we couldn't get him to say "trick or treat" for the life of us. But despite him being so shy he had a fun time and he loved all his candy, especially the suckers. I think he ate all of the suckers he got within an hour of getting them. After we were done trick or treating we just hung out and visited with a bunch of family at Dawn's house, it was really a lot of fun. The kids would not let me get a good picture of them in their costume's. Dutch is going through a stage again where he doesn't want anything to do with the camera. He's such a stinker. These are the best picture we could get of the kids. At the party afterwards Grandma helped Maylee eat her first sucker. Which I'm sure she loved. Dutch and his cousin Ashley... My sister-in-law Allison and I...