Baby Jump House

I know I'm not very good at blogging these days. We've finally figured out how to get the pictures ON our computer, but the process isn't as efficient, so I'm not as likely to get on and do it every night like I used to. :(

But here's a post for ya.

Paige is getting even more in to soccer. She always hustles, although I notice she's more of a defensive player. She's her mother's daughter. She's not too worried about chasing the ball when her team has it, but she's all over it when the other team does. She randomly decides to play goalie sometimes. Haha. They're not supposed to have goalies, so her coach has to tell her not to.
I'm also happy to report, we are not living vicariously through Paige! Ha. I used to think, based on what you see with a lot of people at their kids' games and other events, and from movies and everything, that lots of parents live vicariously through their kids, at least to some extent. I hadn't specifically thought, or worried, about it with our own kids, but at the first game it suddenly occurred to me that I didn't care if Paige was good or not. I mean I'd like her to be good, because obviously she'd probably have more fun. Let's be honest, it's just more fun to do things you're good at than if you're awful. But I PERSONALLY couldn't care less if she's the best player on the team or the worst, as long as she's having fun.

I also don't care if she ends up loving sports, or wants to keep doing dance, or both, or neither. As long as she's trying and experiencing things and having fun. So anyway, I just found that that was a relief, to find that we won't feel the urge to push them to do things for US instead of for THEM. Not to get all deep on you. Ha.

Today at practice, her coach said she's really coming out of her shell. Paige is hard to explain to people, she can be shy, but it depends on the situation, and the type of people she's around. (Her mother's daughter there again) When she does open up, she has SO much personality, and won't stop talking to you. Ha.


Cason was eating his sandwich the other day and told me it looked like a bow tie.
He's our scaredy cat. He won't even walk down our own hallway to go to the bathroom unless one of us goes with him. He used to tell me Swiper might be there and get him. Swiper is the fox from Dora the Explorer. I guess he's technically a "bad guy", since he steals things, but Dora always catches him and he's pretty wimpy. So it was funny that Cason was scared of him. He doesn't mention Swiper anymore, but he's still nervous to go anywhere alone. Yesterday before church I was getting ready, and I walked into the dining room. Cason was in there alone, finishing his cereal, and he smiled at me and said "I'm not scared! Daddy telled me God always bees with me." :) So cute.

It was the church's anniversary, so they had a little barbecue after the service, and there were 4 or 5 jump houses for the kids. They loved it. Toward the end most people had gone home, and lots of the jump houses were empty. So Veronica and Jess asked the girl in charge of one of them if the babies could play. They LOVED it.

Aivree tried walking around and kept falling, and Neely did her bouncing on her knees thing.

Those scabs on her nose would be the rug burn from her face plant off the chair.

We noticed Caso pouting in another jump house, with the kid in charge of that one trying to comfort him.
I went to see what was wrong, (and take pictures of him pouting) and found out he was sad the girl wouldn't let him in with his baby sister. So we asked if it would be okay if he promised not to jump with the babies in there.

Neely was happy to have him there, and he and Paige were proud to show her off to their friends.

First Somersault

Neely did her first somersault today. Ha. It was awesome. She was doing the usual headstand, looking at me and Caso from underneath her legs, and she just leaned forward a little too much, and suddenly her momentum carried her over into a somersault. She landed on her back and just stayed there a second in shock, and then looked at me and started to laugh. I think I saw her try it a few more times during the day, when she did headstands, but she'd get nervous and stop before she started to roll.

She also did a faceplant off of Cason's little toddler sized arm chair. She was sitting in it, playing a sort of peekaboo game with Cason, and suddenly popped up to standing and did some crazy sideways move before I could even react. She fell over the arm of the chair right onto her face. I of course was sure her neck was going to be broken or something, and called Jess to come home. He got there in time to have her grinning at him as he walked in the door. He comforted us for a few minutes and went back to work. She had a rugburn on her little nose though, poor girl.
She's a crazy dancer the last few days, dancing on her knees as usual, but it's evolved into more of a bouncing move like Cason likes to do. She gets all excited about the music too and squeals and screams and laughs while we all dance.

She's been wearing cloth diapers for a few days now. I've always kind of wanted to try them, but was intimidated. But our kids all seem to have sensitive skin and get rashes from about 6 months to 2 years, no matter which disposables I try so I thought I'd finally try cloth. So far it seems pretty simple, especially since you have your choice of all different kinds now. I should have started much sooner, would have saved us a lot of money, not to mention how much less trash we'd be creating. She looks awfully cute in them too.
Paige was sick last night, so we spent the first half of our day being lazy.
But she felt better all day, so eventually we realized how beautiful the weather was, and spent our afternoon outside.
I even got to cuddle a napping baby on the porch swing. That swing has to be one of my most prized possessions.

The weather's been awesome for several days. A few days ago it was rainy outside and cozy inside.
And so cool out today. Some days I feel too lazy to make it outside, but every time we do I remember how much better it feels out there and tell myself to do it every day.

Potty Talk

Cason was WAY less interested in being potty trained than Paige was(and at much younger than he is). But all of a sudden he just started going in the toilet. He was pretty much potty trained for weeks.

And then his birthday came, and right after he had a stomach bug. He was throwing up and also had other symptoms, ones that interfered with potty training. So for a few days, even after he was better, we had to work at potty training again. One day he had an accident, and I cleaned him up. He was chatting with me as he put on a new pair of undies, and said "Sometimes it's okay to go poop in your diaper." Ha.

I told him, "Only if you're a baby though, and you're not a baby anymore, you're a big boy."

He goes "Some people just poop in their diaper, and they say 'it's ok, it was just an accident.'"

I said "No, Caso. You're not sick any more and you're big enough to know when you need to go."

So then he told me, all cheerful and casual: "Sometimes I poop in my diaper, sometimes I don't. Some people are mad at me, some people aren't."

Haha. Thankfully he started going in the toilet again a couple days later, so we're good. But I forgot I'd written down these quotes that day, and just found them again. :)

Beast

We went on a walk/bike ride the other morning. When we got home Paige and Cason still wanted to cruise around the driveway for a while. So Neely and I hung out watching them.
Cason almost ran over a big moth in the driveway. I think it freaked him out, so he asked if he should squish it.
Since it was the size of a small cat, the thought made me sick, so I said no. Ha. We discussed what to do,
and decided to take some pictures instead.
Then moved him into the bushes in our front yard so Jess wouldn't drive over it when he got home, and leave our driveway looking like a murder scene.

Spoonin'

I'm gonna start this post off with a picture of sweet Gia spooning Cason:
We had a nice long weekend. Used Monday to hang out in our pajamas even longer than we usually do. The kids made up a new game using the rulers Grammy sent them. The game was called "Measure". Ha. They just raced around the playroom measuring "10 things as fast as you can". They just ran around holding their rulers up to whatever surface they stumbled upon, and yelled out numbers.
They also made some crazy towers with their daddy.
Neely destroyed them much less often than you'd think.

Later I made Jess take me on the usual drive around downtown, to get a Carls Jr cookie, and then stare at and dream of living in one of the really old houses.

THEN we took the kids to the park for a while, came home and actually cleaned up our backyard a bit.

I pushed Neely in the swing some,
...and noticed that now that she's mobile she likes to bruise up her forehead constantly like a certain older brother used to like to do.

10 Months

Neely turned 10 months old the other day. She is 22.5 pounds heavy, and 29 inches long. (As I suspected, the nurse's measurement was a bit off last month)

She's still our sweet, funny girl. She's been being really naughty, trying to make us laugh by doing things she shouldn't, like putting things in her mouth that don't belong there. She'll stick it in her mouth as fast as she can and then crawl toward me with the naughtiest smile ever. Or she'll hold something and move her hand slowly toward her mouth so I'll grab her arm to stop her. I usually say something like "NEVER eat that" while I do it, and then she cracks up as I take it away.

She's been talking a TON all of a sudden, and it's really cute because she has a language of her own that reminds us of Paige's. Paige would say "Deeeedle deedle deedle" or "diddle diddle diddle" or different versions of that, and her cute voice combined with the really funny way she pronounced it all made it SO funny. Neely's is so similar and funny. But she says things with lots of vowel combos that sound hilarious. Like "Doid", which is pronounced like the "oy" in "boy", and "Duud", pronounced like "Dew-ud" really fast. And the other day she said "Bo-dwa". Ha. It's weird, because Cason never had a language like that, just the girls.

Another thing he never did that both girls did around this age: Headstands.
She also loves to be outside. If we carry her with us to put Gia in the backyard or something, she tries her hardest to get down and if you carry her back in and close the door, you've ruined her life.

She learned to give us high fives this last Tuesday, and she thinks she's quite cool.

She loves dancing lately, and has a certain move she always does. When she hears music she gets up on her knees, and then kind of arches her back-pushing her belly forward, then straightens her back, arches it, repeat. Eventually it makes her lose her balance.

I tickled her the other day while she tried to crawl away and she collapsed on the floor cracking up, and I noticed her laugh sounded a little bit big girlish, and less babyish. :(

She seems to be like her brother and LOVES to eat. If we have food, she has us cornered immediately.
Jess shared his rice with her the other day and she was so grateful.
He showed her how to sign "more" a couple times.
Then yesterday he was sharing food with her, and showed her the sign one more time. The next time she was ready for a bite she moved her hands toward each other and said "ma". We figured it was a coincidence but then she did it the next couple times she wanted a bite too. Fast little learner. Although her version of the sign looks more like she's about to clap her hands than anything, but it works.

She still loves the Rock'n'Roar Dino, and easily puts the balls in the holes now. I was watching her the other day and noticed she remembers where the ball is going to come out, depending on which spot she put it in. There are 4 places you can put the ball, and a separate exit for each.
She'll put it in the hole, and usually the ball kind of hesitates before it really starts rolling. In that moment, before you see it start to roll, I noticed her eyes and hand immediately go toward the spot where she knows it's going to come out, so her hand is already waiting to catch it as it rolls out.

She also likes to climb. She tries to get up on the fireplace hearth, and climbs onto Cason's bed, stands holding on to the footboard, and smiles proudly and a little mischievously at us. Her newest one is climbing into Cason's little armchair and just sitting a while. She got on it today and I grabbed the camera. I could've sworn she gave me a quick little thumbs up, but I figured I imagined it. But then a minute later she totally gave us one and held it! Jess thought it was pretty funny, and then I realized I got a great picture of it. She's the coolest.

September!

It's September! But it's still pretty hot out. :(

Still, I went to get the mail the other day and saw this certain (our favorite) tree on our street is losing it's leaves, and that made me happy.
And even though it's still blazing during the day, we noticed a huge difference in our house at night. We even need to cover ourselves with sheets, and sometimes even blankets to keep warm. The kids' room was even cool enough that they could survive the night in there, so they had their first night in their own beds since spring. Jess was reading to them, and I thought I'd bring Neely in and start introducing her to the bedtime story routine. It didn't go "well" exactly, but it was really cute and happy. For some reason Paige wanted to sleep with Cason. She's usually the one who wants some space at night, and he's the cuddly guy, but we thought maybe she was nervous about not sleeping with us for the first time in a while, so we said okay. Neely recently found out she can climb onto Cason's bed by herself, and she's pretty proud of it.
So when she noticed Paige AND Cason up there, she had to be there too. She climbed all over Cason, which made him laugh...which made Paige laugh...
...which made her happy, which led to her doing her lovey headbutts. So Jess was reading, and nobody was listening. They were cracking up SO hard.
It was really cute, but they were getting pretty wound up, so after a minute I got her down. Then she just tried to climb all over the book Jess was trying to read, grabbing at the pages.
Finally Neely and I had to leave and let them calm down and actually go to sleep.

She's 10 months old tomorrow!