Random Moments in February

This is something Tom has always done with our kids. He puts his head right in front of them and they attack it, sometimes munch on it, and just have a blast. They really enjoy this little moment together.


I thought this was a cute one of Payden. Declan was sitting across from her, and she just loved it. She's also eating one of her favorite cereals, "cocoas" or rather Reese's Peanut Butter Cup cereal.


My friend Krista had to go to a postpartum check-up, so we watched her son Caleb. He and Payden get along so well. It's fun listening to their little conversations. I often wonder if they fully understand each other. After chucking toys at each other (and having a blast), they headed outside with all the cars. I found them under here giggling their little heads off.


Caleb would say "shush" so they'd both get really quiet. Then Payden would bust out with a LOUD noise and they would both burst into giggles. Then Caleb would say "shush" and they'd do it all again. It was too cute to watch. I also love Caleb's little feet sticking out from underneath the slide.


Generaly I don't post many shot of Tom and I, but someone, probably Shelby or Taylor, shot a few of us, so I thought I'd share them. Here's Tom being a goof for the camera as always.


I swear I look tired in every picture that's taken of me. That's probably because I am. What with horrible cedar allergies, family illnesses, and kids who always disturb my sleep, I am one tired momma . . . and it shows.


After Halloween, I sort through the candy and set aside the candy that will be good for making gingerbread houses. This past year I set the candy aside and then forgot about it as we got busy with a family illness right up to Christmas and so we never made our gingerbread house. Well, I have continued to forget about it until Payden found the candy the other day. With it being a FEW months old, I wasn't too excited about her eating it. This picture was probably taken right after I told her the candy was a little old and might not be the best. I let her and her sisters enjoy some and then I immediately threw it out after they went to bed that night.


These shots were taken as they watched tv together. First a sweet kiss from Shelby.


Then here are Payden and Taylor enjoying one of our favorite drinks . . . Izze. We LOVE that stuff.



With as short as February is, it turned into a long month as we ended with everyone sick, which I'll write more about later. Anyways, we did have a few good moments here and there admist our sicknesses and our amazed that we are one more month closer to Tom's graduation.

Our Eyes

I thought it would be fun to take pictures of our eyes. What's funny is that we kind of think of Tom and the kids as being blue-eyed, but looking at them, they're not so blue. In fact, Tom's look pretty grey.


I've always thought the random brown speckles in my eyes were interesting, especially the huge spot on my left eye.


Shelby definitely has lost most of her blue as well and looks grey.


Of the girls, I'd say Taylor's are the most blue.


It might be hard to see in this picture, but Payden actually looks like she has yellow in her eye. Weird huh?


Declan has the eyes that all our babies have had . . . pretty blue eyes. It'll be interesting to see what happens to his as he get bigger.

San Antonio Live Stock Show and Rodeo

Everyone in San Antonio knows that February means rodeo time. With this being our last year in San Antonio, we wanted to make sure we had one last visit to the rodeo. It happened to be a cool day, which we loved, so we bundled up and headed out. Here's Declan all bundled up. I'll have to say I LOVE this sling. It was the one thing I'd never had with the girls, and I'm loving it. The nice thing is even Payden fits in it. Anyways, with him on my hip and Payden in the stroller, we headed in.


We were hungry and ready to eat some good ole rodeo food. There were a few musts . . . funnel cake (Tom LOVES LOVES LOVES them), grilled corn with Parmesan cheese, BBQ, and some sort of hot dog for our hot dog queen - Payden. We found the corn first and got the big girls eating. Then Tom went to find a hot dog for Payden. The only thing he could find was the HUGEST corn dog ever. He decided it was probably a little much for Payden and helped her out by taking a bite . . . you can see what she thought of that.


She told him off, as she does so well, and then immediately dug in to enjoy her "hot gog."


Here we are posing for a picture. Can you tell Payden's saying "cheeeeeeeeese?"


After enjoying our food, we decided to head over to the kid area. As soon as the girls saw the blow-up playarea, they were dying to go on them. Unfortunately, the playarea was packed, so we compromised and let them go on one before we headed to something else. While on this Spiderman blow-up thing, Payden had a bit of an accident. Those red poles knock over and a boy came charging through and didn't see Payden and ended up knocking her right over. He was really sweet and helped her up and made sure she was okay. Fortunately, being #3, she's used to getting bowled over at times and handled it well.


Can you see how much the enjoyed this?


They were a bit bummed to leave, but immediately perked up when we headed to the petting area. I bought one cone of feed and the girls and I headed in. There were tons of goats, a couple of llamas, a few pigs and sheep, and some deer. The girls LOVE animals and were in heaven.


They were also excited to get to feed the animals, but ended up being a bit dangerous. The animals get really aggressive and crazy when they smell the food. This guy decided he'd jump up on me to go after the cone of food in my hand. It's a good thing I was just handing bits of food to the girls because they'd have been knocked over if they had a cone in their hands.


The girls had tons of fun and went to animal after animal after animal, enjoying petting them and feeding them.








When we finished with the animals (and had made sure we were nice and sanitized), I sat down with Declan to feed him while Tom and the girls walked around a bit. First they got these "cool" hats from OceanSpray, and then they decided to take a picture with the Vlasic pickle stork.


I'm not going to say anything about the hats, but will let this next picture speak for itself.


When they got back to me, Declan was fast asleep. They decided to let me join in the fun and gave me my own hat to wear.


Again, amen to the sling. When we're out and about, it's the only way he'll fall asleep. Doesn't he look so cute?


We then headed back to look at some of the animals. The girls love posing and Tom loves taking pictures of them, so they thought this wagon would be a great photo op.


Now as we were walking around in our "cool" hats, I noticed that we seemed to be the only ones wearing them. I decided to take mine off and soon the others followed suit. We found another kid area and again had to stop for a photo op. You would never believe from this picture that that rooster was FILTHY.


Then we headed in to explore the kid area. They have lots of different animals and informational areas. It's nice because in one area you can see most of the animals you'll see at the rodeo.



There were also pigs and turkeys and chicks and rabbits. By this time, we were ready to go, so we headed back to the car. I love going to the rodeo and wished we'd seen more of the animals, but we had fun and are glad we made it one last time.

Taylor's Discovery

We were getting things ready to go to the rodeo when Taylor comes running in the house, excited about the discovery she'd made.



That butterfly did a really good job picking the right spot to land . . . excellent camouflage.

Cute Kids!!

Shelby was playing the computer, so of course Taylor and Payden wanted to watch. Payden then asked me to let her hold Declan. I thought they just looked so cute.




I love that my kids love doing things together, and I love my cute kids!!!!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Well Valentine's was a little different this year because Tom was out of town. The night before I decided I wanted to make little cards for them (we usually just write them little notes). It took a long time, but was fun to do and to personalize them. I even made cheesy quotes to match the pictures.


We tend to keep Valentine's pretty simple . . . a little note with some candy and this year was no different. I guess maybe we keep it simple because we want them to always know how much we love them . . . each and every day, not just on one day. I guess being poor probably contributes to this as well, but the kids love it all the same.



On the 15th, since Tom was returning home that night, we made a Valentine's note for him and tons of hearts. Right before the kids went to bed, we picked up and laid the hearts in a trail from the door to the table where we placed the candy and note for Tom. The girls were soooooo excited about this. Unfortunately, I forgot to get any pictures, but Tom loved opening the door and seeing the hearts the girls had cut for him and then finding the note and the candy.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Our Big Boy

It's amazing how quickly time flies. Declan is already 6 months old, and I just can't believe it. At his doctor's appointment, he has continued his slowed growth. I'm still trying to figure out why he grew about 7 lbs. the first 2 months and is no only growing about a pound a month. Anyways, he's officially 19.4 lbs (75%), 27 in. (75%), and his head circumference is 80%.

He really is getting so big as he sits well, loves to play, laughs, and giggles. Shelby had the camera and caught this good shot of Tom playing with Declan. Declan was having so much fun.


Well here's that big head of his. EVERYONE comments about how big his head is. Actually, until this checkup, his head was always a lower percentile than his height and weight. I guess now we can say it is big, but I honestly just think he has a uniquely shaped head and then those big squishy cheeks (or jowls as I call them) add to the big look.


He is now sitting in a high chair. He LOVES being up with everyone else.


He LOVES to sit. Unfortunately he HATES rolling or really moving at all. In fact generally he rolls for one reason - because we put him on his belly and he wants to be on his back. It's really funny because it's like an instinctive move. The moment you put him on his belly, he extends his right arm, bends his head over that arm, and then his body rolls over. It is so funny to watch. If we want to give him any belly time, we have to block him from rolling over, but he gets too mad, so he doesn't get much belly time.


Okay, this next photo has some poo in it, so you can skip it if you want. I had to put this because of this weird thing that continued to happen with Declan's poo. Just once it was weird, but multiple times made it even weirder. On this day, Declan had woken up from his nap and pooed while in his bed. I picked him up and even looked at his bed, but there was nothing there. I'm walking downstairs when I touch something and see that it's poo. I then realize that my arm feels like there's something on it. I look down and see this huge glob of poo. Now there's hardly anything on his clothes (other times when this has happened his clothes are absolutely clean), but yet here's is the huge glob of poo that just came out of his diaper somehow and landed on my arm. It is the oddest thing . . . and completely gross too!


He's getting so big now that he's actually able to put his pacifier in his mouth although sometimes he doesn't get it quite right. He was so proud of this. I just laughed and laughed.


Because we are growing out of our house and because sometimes I have 3 kids who need to sleep in 3 different rooms, Declan still sleeps in his carseat. I just LOVE looking at my kids while they sleep. It's such a peaceful, tender moment. I'm thinking that blue bird blanket is going to become a must when he sleeps. When we lay him down, we tuck that to the right side of his head, and generally he closes his eyes and buries his face in it. He also loves to suck on it whenever he's lost his pacifier. I guess I'd better find out where my sister bought it just in case I need more.


Okay this little position with his thumb is something he's constantly doing . . . especially when he's tired. He just hooks his little cheek and holds it there.


I mentioned that Declan has jowls. Well what typically happens to those soft, squishy cheeks is that they get munched on . . .


or kissed. We just can't help it.


For some reason, Declan is constantly rolling his ankles (I was about to say twirling, but that didn't quite fit him). When he gets really excited, then he starts rolling them even faster. I can't figure out why he does it; the only thing I can come up with is that it feels good. Anyways, just look at his feet in these 2 pictures and you can see that he's in the process of rolling his ankles.



Anyways, we're so happy to have this cute little boy in our family!!! We love you Declan!