Time for a nap!

Talon usually eats lunch, then goes down for a nap. He's down to one long nap a day (it usually lasts 2-3 hrs.), unless he's really cranky and looks tired, then we'll put him down for another nap in the early evening for an hour or so. Anthony put Talon in his chair to eat lunch, then sat down on the couch to feed Kaitlyn her bottle. Usually, Talon will eat for a while in silence, then when he starts to get finished, or wants out, he'll let you know. This time he was unusually quiet, so Anthony got up to check on him to see what he was up to. This is what he found...

He had fallen asleep in his highchair! Anthony came and woke me up because he knew I'd like to see it, but I was too late. He had already woke up by the time I got downstairs. When Anthony showed me these pictures I laughed so hard!

Mr. Smartypants

Conversation between Talon and Mommy yesterday:

Talon: Mama? Mama? Mama? Mama?
Mommy: Yes, Baby?
Talon: Mama? Mama? Mama? Mama?
Mommy: What, Baby? What?
Talon: Mama? Mama? Mama? Mama?
Mommy: What, Talon? What do you want?
Talon: Mama? Mama? Mama? Mama?
Mommy: WHAT DO YOU WANT, TALON?!?!
Talon: Mama? Mama? Mama? Mama?
Mommy: That's it! I'm changing my name! I'm not Mama anymore!!
Talon: Da-da? Da-da?

New toy

We got Talon a potty chair, and I've been trying to introduce the idea to him about his new "big boy potty". So far, it's been a new toy in the box that he's been pushing around the living room and chasing Kiki with.

Smiley girl

Kaitlyn is starting to smile all the time now. She really likes to interact and be talked to.

(The look of surprise on her face immediately after I took that last picture and she saw the camera flash)

All in a days work

These are just some random pictures of Talon, taken throughout the day, being his busy self.

After breakfast, standing at the sliding door in his slippers watching the snow fall.

Running his remote control car

Little Chef Boyardee.
Talon loves to play with the measuring cups and spoons. I got him his own set that I keep up in the cupboard with mine so I still have some to use when I need them.

Mmmm... Popsicles!
He'll sit and eat one after the other until I finally have to cut him off!

Remote control car

This is the remote control car that Talon got for Christmas. He loves for someone else to operate it so he can watch, then run away if it gets too close. For the longest time, he was too scared of it to pick it up, so when it got stuck somewhere he got frustrated. Now, he's just really cautious if he has to move it for some reason. Kiki goes into 'attack' mode with it. They crack me up!

Blanket thief

Kiki has become quite the blanket thief. If she sees one of the kids' blankets laying around and not being used, she lays claim on it, cuddles up and goes to sleep. She makes the most pitiful face and looks at you with such sad eyes when you take it away from her.

Talon is such a little bookworm. He LOVES to be read to, and he will sit and entertain himself for the longest time just looking at books.

Miss Spitty

A little update on Kaitlyn...
We took her to her 2 month check-up, and she weighed 10lbs. I can't believe how fast she's growing!
She's been very spitty (to put it mildly) since she was born. She spits up so much after she eats, it amazes me she gains much weight at all! She gets pretty fussy. We ruled out Pyloric Stenosis because she was gaining weight so fast; so at her last appointment, Dr Godfrey diagnosed her with GERD and put her on Zantac. It doesn't help with the spitting up, but does help her not be in so much pain with it. At this appointment, we decided to try her on Prevacid. I hope it helps. She should outgrow the reflux eventually, but I feel so sorry for her until she does.
Both of the kids had to get their immunizations as well. Kaitlyn actually did very well. She cried for a couple seconds and was over it. Talon, on the other hand, didn't take it so well. He had to get all of his 18 month shots, and one would have thought he had been shot literally! I can't say as I blame him, he had to get four shots- two in each leg. The first one he kinda made a face, like he couldn't figure out what was going on, and why I was holding him down. The last three were very traumatic! He did his little mad squeal every time he looked at the nurse after it was over. She tried to say 'bye' to him when she left, but he just turned his head and made a pouty face.

Talon loves to kiss on his little sister!

Great deals!

Yes, I got caught up in the "pinching your pennies" craze this week. A lot of the girls at work kept talking about how much money they saved on the Albertson's sale of the week, so I thought I'd try it. Turns out it WAS a great deal! The thing that sounded so great to me was the amount I could save on diapers. I was a slacker and didn't get my act together until the last minute, so I didn't get to the store until Tuesday night. The sale ended Tuesday at midnight. We dropped the kids off at Papa and Granny's and were off to SAVE! SAVE! SAVE!! Unfortunately, all the Albertson's stores in the area were completely cleaned out of the Pampers that were on sale. One of the store managers told me that one lady came through and cleaned their back room out of 180 packages of diapers (Kinda makes sense why there was none left!). We drove all over creation, and went to at least four different stores and nobody had Pampers, I finally asked one cashier if she would call around for me to see if ANYBODY had diapers, so we weren't just wasting gas. The last store we ended up at (which happened to be the 1st one we had tried, but that's a whole story in itself!), had a few smaller packages in the sizes we needed, so it was still a pretty good deal. The worst part was going through the check-out line. The way the sale worked, you had to do every transaction separately, and they were all in $30 increments. It took me about an hour and a half just at the cash register! I was very glad Anthony was not in the store with me at that time- he would have been mortified beyond words! I had a total of 15 or 16 different transactions, and they only had one check stand open. Yeah... I know!! It was worth it, though. We spent $220. 54 on $565.90 worth of products. We saved $345.36!! We could have saved even more, but a few of the transactions got mixed up, and I didn't think the lady would be very happy to delete and run some of them over again. I do think that next time I will go a little earlier in the week... and wear a disguise so no one will recognize me! ;0)

My purchase included:

(12)- Jumbo packs Pampers, (1)- lg box Pampers, (4)- Gain laundry detergent, (8)- boxes of cereal, (10)- 12 packs of Coke Zero, (7)- bottles Pantene shampoo, (2)- Giant roll packs of Bounty paper towels, (6)-boxes Puffs tissue, (3)- bottles Johnson's & Johnson's baby shampoo, (4)- boxes Betty Crocker brownie mix, (5)- pkgs of Cascade dishwasher soap, (3)- Dawn dishsoap, (2)- 5# bags of potatoes, (4)- boxes Pillsbury toaster strudel, (2)- packages frozen vegetables, (1)- Comet cleaner, (2)- boxes fruit snacks, (2)- 6 pack containers Yoplait yogurt, (3)- boxes Mr. Clean magic erasers, (1)- lb. butter, (1)- dozen eggs, (1)- 64oz. Minute Maid orange juice.

(Just the Pampers would have cost about $180.00 @ the regular price!)

Utensils

Talon loves trying to feed himself with utensils. Actually, we've only given him a spoon so far. As crazy as he gets with the spoon, I'm a little nervous about the fork, so I think I'll start him out with a plastic one for now! (The knife might be a little while!) ;0p

As you can see here, he's not the most accurate when it comes to getting food IN his mouth- he ends up wearing a lot of it on his face and clothing. A good portion of it ends up shoveled onto the floor as well, as he pushes it around on his plate trying to get the food onto the spoon.

The other morning I gave him some cereal with a little milk. I turned my back for about 10 seconds, and he had the bowl tipped upside down on his tray with his cereal floating in a lake of milk. He thought it was a blast. Me... not so much!!

Yes, he is stripped down to his onesie in this picture. We went out to eat after church on Sunday, and I had forgotten to pack a bib. I really didn't want to have to get red jello out of his clothes!

Redneck Sightings!

My aunt sent me some of these 'redneck sightings', and I thought they were so funny I had to share them. Hope you enjoy them as much as I did!

Redneck Time-Out

Up to the minute weather report.
You might be a redneck if...

Redneck grill

Redneck horseshoes

Redneck Harley

Redneck lawnmower

(My husband said, "That's actually kinda cool!" when I showed him this one. Scary!!)

More snow!

Yipee... it snowed! We woke up to about 6 inches of snow yesterday morning, and it continued to snow off and on throughout the day. Talon got to try out his new sled and snowsuit. I took him for a ride around the neighborhood yesterday evening and he loved it! He would drag his hand on the side of the sled and collect snow in his glove, then eat it as we went. Kiki went along with us and had a blast. We even let Reese into the front lawn to play in it. Of course, Talon couldn't stand just riding in the sled, he eventually had to get out and play in the snow. We tried making a snowman again, but the snow was too dry. Daddy came outside to throw snowballs with us. Usually Talon loves it when he gets hit with a snowball, so Daddy threw one at him and hit him on the top of the head. He giggled until it fell down onto his face and neck and started melting. He then broke out into tears. It was kind of funny to watch it all take place. You could almost see it register in his brain that the snow was actually cold! I took him into the garage to shake the snow off, and I thought he would want to head inside. Nope! He wanted right back outside, and didn't even want to wait for me to put his hat and gloves back on.

It was garbage day today, so I decided last night that it was probably time to take down the tree. I don't think the needles would have lasted on there another week. I took it out into the garage to strip the lights off, and was so glad I didn't do it in the living room. After I was done, there were probably more needles on the ground than on the tree. I can only imagine the fun in trying to get that mess out of the carpet! For some reason, it's just not quite as exciting taking down the decorations as it is putting them up! It's like, "Hmmm, now where am I going to store all this stuff until next year?".

Talon was a little sad to put up his singing reindeer stocking that grandma got him. I just don't know if we could handle too many more days of "...just hear those sleigh bells jinglin', ring- ting- tinglin' too...". Anthony asked me yesterday to PLEASE put it up. I told him I would after Talon went to bed so he wouldn't see me take it. Well, guess what Talon wanted to play with first thing this morning when he got up and saw it laying on the living room floor. YUP! I had forgotten to put it away last night. So, to save my marriage (wink!) and our sanity, I quickly redirected Talon to another toy and made the stocking disappear! Isn't it amazing how you have to replace the batteries in toys almost weekly, but stuff like that will last forever?!?! I'm sure it will still be going strong for years to come! Love you, Mom!!! :)

(Yeah, the after-Christmas effect just isn't quite as festive!)

Family photo

Kaitlyn (7wks)

Kaitlyn is getting big so fast! It's hard to believe she's already almost 2 months old! She's getting quite the personality. She smiles a lot now, and loves to see everything!
Talon loves his little sister and tries to help take care of her. He calls her "See-see". He likes to put her binki in her mouth when she loses it, and likes holding her on his lap. When she cries, he gets a really worried look on his face, and says "Oh!".

We've caught Talon a few times recently walking around the house with one of Kaitlyn's pacifiers in his mouth. He never would take one when he was a baby, but now that he sees her with it, he thinks they're fun to chew on. Little goof-ball!
Anthony was sitting in the living room the other day, and Kiki came tearing through with one of Kaitlyn's pacifiers, sucking on it like a baby. He said it was HILARIOUS! I wonder who could have given it to her?!?! (wink, wink!) What a pair, those two!!

More snow please!

We went shopping after Christmas because Talon needed some snow boots, and we were hoping to find a really good sale. Well, we didn't find boots, but we found him a snowsuit for 70% off!
$$ Cha-ching! $$
It is a little big, so he kinda waddles when he walks in it. It's so cute!! Now all we need is more snow!
We've been pulling him around the house in his sled- he thinks it's great! Aunt Melanie took these pictures of him trying to seat belt his stuffed dog in so he could take it for a ride.

Grandma and Aunt Melanie come to visit

Happy New Year 2009!

Well, it didn't work out for my whole family to come to Idaho for Christmas because of the weather and road conditions, but my mom and sister were able to fly over last Sunday to spend a couple days with us. It was so good to see them! I was hoping that they might get snowed in here and have to stay a week or two! ;oD
We stayed up WAY too late every night, probably ate too much junk food, did a little shopping, played some Phase 10, took LOTS and LOTS of pictures... we had a great time! Talon had a blast, of course, and both of the kids got spoiled! Kaitlyn was hardly put down the entire time they were here, and Talon had someone to entertain him constantly... he loved it! Auntie Melanie even pulled him around the house in his new sled. Every morning when he got up, the first thing he wanted to do was run to their bedroom door and wake them up to play. If I would start whispering and keep him away from the door so he couldn't knock, he would start raising his voice in the hall so they would know he was up and wanted in. The little stinker!

They brought a whole suitcase full of gifts, and by the time it was all over, it looked like a tornado had struck our living room!! Both of the kids got a ton of new clothes; and Talon, of course, got a bunch of fun toys and books. Aunt Melanie got him a remote control car that he likes to play with, and is scared to death of it at the same time. It's pretty funny! Uncle Jeremy and Aunt Donna got him his own real guitar. He loves it! He thinks it's pretty fun when Mommy sings along while he plays. Grandma got him some blinking Christmas socks, and he wants to wear them 24/7... even to bed! I'm still trying to figure out how to wash them without ruining the lights. Sometimes he gets off balance when he walks because he's not watching where he's going- he's too busy looking at his feet!

Sigh! Off to the airport on New Years Eve!