9 months

9 months

She

Is taking steps here and there on her own
Has a dramatic temper.
Loves her brothers.
Loves all animals.
Stops to dance to any music she hears.


The 9 months it took for her to get here seemed so long, but the past 9 have gone so fast and I can't imagine our family without her.

Memories- The Box

Under Lakin's bed is a sea of boxes. Old CDs, paperback books, some of my school work from preschool through highschool, toys, and my memory box. Every so often I pull it out and look through it. So when Rylan wanted to look through my CDs I pulled this box out too.

It was put together in 1992, when I was in the 7th grade, with my best friend Melanie. It was our scrapbook of sorts. We decorated it will clipping from Teen Magazine and stickers from the Scholastic book club. Inside is a whole lot of stuff. From 1992 through around 1996. It grew from just Melanie and me to include my other high school best friends- Katie and Andrea

It started with our actual scrapbook. With cover pages for each school year like this one:

Teen magazine was our friend for decorations there too. The pages are construction paper filled with pictures and words on all our memories. Good and bad.

Our 8th grade dance....
9th grade when we spent all free time at the West Town Mall and the Dollar Movie Theater. Buying nail polish in every imaginable color at the dollar store and when boys were our lives.

No teen girl scrapbook could be complete without the pages dedicated to those stars we loved back then. There are pages for Christian Slater, Keanu Reeves and River Phoenix...a little silly looking back on them....

The scrapbook isn't the only thing in that box. It hold a whole lot of other memories- as well as proof that I am a pack rat.

A little black book containing hundreds of movie ticket stubs- times 4. The Mask, Then and Now, Trial by Jury, Legends of the Fall, The River Wild, Batman Forever, Interview with a Vampire, Pulp Fiction- although if I remember correct we got thrown out of that one the first time. And got a talking to by the man who took us out and a lecture to take home to our parents who bought the tickets for us. It was the only R movie we ever got taken out of and we went back and saw it later....
It holds a couple of our 8th grade class newspapers....my name is down there under features...

It holds my calendars- which from 1995-1997 looked like this:
The goal was to have something written every single day. The names of the boys we met around town were recorded, tests, appointments, phone calls, and if nothing happened something random would be written....


It holds the letters- and envelopes- from my friend Andrea when she spent a month at her dad's one summer. Can you tell she's an artist?


It holds this quilt. Andrea and I sewed it by hand in a week. Each of our 4 names are on the side, the corner blocks hold the names of the current-love in each of our lives. The other blocks depict some important event. Our beach house in Nags Head, the Mall, a telephone, the TN Valley Fair, our Moon Walk- when we walked the loop in Cades Cove after dark on a full moon. I love this quilt. It's been in this box forever but when I look at it I can remember each of the things it depicts as well as the week we made it. During a trip to visit Andrea's family in Virginia when we stayed in a cabin. With no hot water the first day, where I got the belt that still hangs in my closet, where there were so many bees in the cabin we started to capture them under jars and stick them with pins on cardboard for our bee collection....

It's Birthday Time: Rylan

Happy Birthday to my 8 year old !

At birth
One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

It's Birthday Time: Cale

Happy Birthday to my beautiful 6 year old boy


at birth

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

And Six!

Growing and Growing up...

Some good things that come from a cold week spent at home with colds:

1. The seeds are planted and beginning to sprout. Little signs of life are pushing their way up through the soil in front of the playroom window.

2. Little ones learn new skills. Lakin is nearly 22 months old....no more diapers (well during the day anyway).

It's like he's leaving all things little behind. No more crib, no more booster seat, no more diapers.

At least he still cries "Mommy" and comes after me if I stray to far from him...

For the first time....

...in more than 7 years I live in a crib-less house. The crib has been a permanent fixture in our house. Sometimes in contained baby stuff instead of sleeping babies, but only for the few months leading up to it's next inhabitants arrival. Yesterday I took it apart....Lakin has resided in the bunk house for the past few days...

Yeah...more growing up going on around here....but apart from the baby not being a baby anymore....I now have a spare room.

A room for things like this:

or this:

and most importantly this:

What is that you ask?? It's half a [ceral] box house. Once we get more hot glue sticks it will be more of a house. And once I eat even more Special K than I have already it will be a whole house. The ideas Cale gets from reading Family Fun...

Growing Up....

Last night I called Rylan inside from playing. He and the neighbor boy came to the door...with whispers of "ask her...".

"Can I spend the night at Austin's house?"

Is it bad that I felt sad? I have been waiting for a day like this. For my oldest to have a friend he likes enough to go to his house and knock on the door without fear. But I then....Rylan and I spend our nights reading after the younger ones go to bed. He is excited everynight to read and see what Harry Potter will do next. But staying at a friend's is so much more exciting than reading with your mom.

Is it bad that I was secretly happy when I sent Austin home to ask his dad first and he said no? And was happy to read that Harry survived his first task in the Triwizard Tournament.

New skills....

Saturday afternoon one of the training wheels broke completely off of Cale's bike. It was his 3rd broken wheel. He'd already ran though the 2 that came with his bike and was now onto the 2 that we took off of Rylan's bike. We have a running deal with the boys that they get a new bike when they learn to ride on 2 wheels. We've tried a number of times with Cale, at his request, but he wasn't ready. He leaned a lot and overcorrected, a lot. But out of necessity this time, we took off the remaining training wheel and gave it a shot. He didn't fall. He didn't lean. He just rode off...

He only goes maybe 20 ft at a time before he stops himself and falls over because he's going too fast to simply put his foot down. He's ready for a new bike now....and is in need of one too....his seat padding has been fading fast and the rust is creeping up too....

Here's the other skill he learned yesterday:

Can you see what he's doing??
That of course made me have to step up and do it too...it never bothered me as a kid. I loved dissections in school. Now?? eww!! I'd better get over it so I can do dissections with the boys before too long!

We've been fishing a lot. It's one of Rylan's favorite things to do. We've been going down to Fort Loudon since it's close to our house once or twice a week. Working on Rylan's fishing belt loop and pin for cub scouts. Of course he is supposed to bait a hook- he can do corn, he can do artificial lures, he can pick up a worm and play with it....but stab it with a hook a few times?? No way!

Hot Air Balloon Festival

We made it to the Hot Air Balloon Festival last night. The weather wasn't the best for ballooning so they didn't lift off, but they had a choreographed balloon glow set to music. My camera was acting up. I charged the batteries just before we left but they were on red as soon as I turned it on and died just as the glow started....so those pictures didn't turn out too well...

We got there at about 5:00 and watched a little dog show before walking down to the pond to set up our blanket and eat our dinner. Just after we ate the balloonists began their set up...stretching the tarps, stretching the balloons, filling the balloons and finally tipping them upright. The boys were mesmorized. The glow wasn't until 8pm and so from about 6:30-8 they stood (or jumped) as they watched. They were so excited and giving thier commentary.

Stretching them out. This one here was the big one. It took 30-45 minutes just to stretch it out completely. It's the Energizer Bunny! Here it is (nearly) full of air. It had just lifted and only the drum still hadn't inflated. The one next to it, The Mayflower, was having some technical difficulties as well. It took off a little bit real low to the ground and got out over the water. It was still tetherd to the van and had a few men pulling ropes but they couldn't get it back over land. It dipped into the water 3-4 times and almost ran into the fountain.

Almost full!

All the way up!

That's about the only shot of them I got. I didn't have enough battery power to snap away like I usually do. There were 23 balloons total. The 3 they were giving tethered balloon rides from went down before the glow. And 3 inflated but must have had some sort of trouble because they deflated and packed them back up before the glow began...they did still participate by blasting their flames from the baskets, just no balloon.

And look!!

Notice the toothless grin!!! FINALLY after month and months of back to back loose teeth. They are finally out. The child needs to relearn table manners and how to eat. He's been eating all weird from the side of his mouth for so long, so he wouldn't touch his loose teeth. The top one popped out on it's own. The bottom one, which was loose and ready for about 3 months, he finally let me pull out...but only after it turned completely around backwards and he couldn't get it back to the right way....I just hope we have a break before the next go round.