Maren 9 months old

Precious little Maren turned 9 months already!

Still a super happy baby. She is so cuddley. She is so giggley. One of her favortie things is when she chases the other kids around the house (via mom). She gigles and gets to excited and so do they. Both Embrie and Garrett fight over who gets to sit by Maren at every meal.

Yep we had our mean moment of making her eat something she wouldn't like and laugh at her making faces. This was a lemon but before the lemon she was tasting Mint chocolate chip icecream and you would have thought that was just as bad! She finally refused to eat the icecream and since we didn't get a picture before we decided to try the lemon which helped us capture the same face. I mean really who doesn't like any kind of icecream?!

Ever the bump on a log. Maren is not moving around and not even close. She hates being on her stomach and simply rolls over so that she doesn't have to put up with it.  She also hasn't put weight on her legs hardly at all (meaning that when I hold her in a standing position she makes me do all the work and doesn't put her feet down and stand.) We'd discussed this with the Dr. at her 6 mo appt. and then waited another 3 months to re-evaluate. There was little progress so the Dr. gave us the order to get x-rays taken of her hips to make sure everything was ok. With the normal exam he couldn't detect anything wrong but this was a just -in -case sort of thing.  And it turns out the x-rays look fine, imagine that! Ha ha. So my little girl is probably just the product of 3rd child syndrome where her mommy just doesn't have as much time to practice with her. And since the squeaky wheel gets all the attention and she is so easy going  . . . . well there ya go. And about 2 days after the x-ray she started putting weight on her feet a LOT better. Imagine that? That is my luck people!

But you can't get enough of that face right? She is another sweet and chunky girl for us! The rolls are adorable!

Her STATS:

Weighing in at: 19lbs.

Reaching up to:  27"

She is also a pretty healthy baby. She doen't get sick much and doesn't complain too bad when she is sick. Thank you!

I like to do a little comparison with my kids to see who looks alike. We've had a lot of people say she looks like Embrie and some say she looks like Garrett or that she is a good mix. We've thought that she looks most like Garrett but lets see shall we?

Oh my goodness! As I put these together I am looking at them for the first time in awhile!

Maren

Now Embrie weighed more and was taller at this age, but Maren's cheeks take the cake.

Garrett

My much less chunky boy I don't see the rolls or the cheeks on him like the girls have had.

Embrie
Look how much more hair she had.


Well they are siblings but with a look of their own aren't they!

Strike or Spare

We took the kids bowling! They loved it!

We found an option that helped them get a little more power behind that ball



1st ever Dance Recital

Keep in mind that Embrie just turned 3 a few months ago :)

She has loved dance class (we're sad that it is over due to her teacher and little buddy moving away.)

Pre- recital warm up. Embrie in Orange.

They are ready for their debut! Let us in!

blow a kiss to your fans!



Each of the kids did a special dance move before receiving a prize and a hug from their teacher. But Embrie is pretty timid in front of a crowd and so she just stood and glared at everyone.



so fun, good job Embrie!

Home on the range

We went to Cokeville to spend some time with our family there. Plus some other cousins were headed that way too. We decided to make a party out of it! We spent some fun time at the ranch playing (which is not what we did there when I was a kid ... wink wink ;)

 Nothing like getting good and dirty right?!

There are 4-wheelers to ride, and sticks to burn. Garrett and Jaxon helped grandpa Blaine and Papa while they were at the other end of the ranch on the backhoe and tractor. We went on a scavenger hunt, and swung on the tire swing. Yeah I took a lot of pictures of them on the swing, ha ha it was cute.

Also did some ditch burning that day, that is to say the adults not the kids. Who are these 3 old ladies on a 4-wheeler? he he wink wink



you know ...

So I have noticed that when your kids get sick each of them has their own "thing" that is worse for them, ya know? Like Garrett is my fever kid. If he gets a fever its going to be high and it will probably make him throw up at some point.

Embrie on the other hand is my rash kid . She tends to get a rash with most of the viruses that she catches. Maren so far is my healthy kid. I won't count on it forever but so far she hasn't been sick too often and when she is she doesn't complain too much. Weird how that works.

About a week ago the kids (even Maren but hers didn't last as long and didn't seem to bother her too much, go figure!)  had several days with high fevers and it just about knocked all of us out.

I knew they were on the mend when they started to bug each other again. But While Garrett was sick he was so sweet and loving! Not that he isn't a sweet kid but he generally doesn't stop to tell you he loves you or want to cuddle. That was the only cute part of being sick, I got a little down time during the day when we all look like this but at night no one could sleep for very long, poor babies. But on the bright side Maren slept through all of our night time activities.

Winner Winner!

Embrie is the winner of the Ugly Egg contest 2012!



I did it!

I've been talking about recovering my ottoman for over a year now. And I finally did it! This thing is only a few years old but it didn't take long for it to get ruined unfortunately by my kiddos.

Now here are my before pictures. You can't see all of the damage in this picture, but I will just inform that it was stained, by water and whatever else, as well as it had been jumped on leaving it flat and with baggy material, also the button holes were being ripped. Now don't worry we've since had a very long discussion about how we treat things (ok so we've had many discussions and I am sure not for the last time, but rest assured we don't jump on furniture anymore or even have drinks out of the kitchen.)

No damage on the inside

I wanted to do as little sewing as possible and I wanted to keep the inside the same and keep all the mesh material intactand usable. I just wanted to replace the foam and fabric.


So I pulled all the staples and out took the hardware off. Brad and I decided that though I had bought a foam pad to use as extra cushion, that it would need more reinforcement since we wanted people to be able to sit on it if needed. So Brad built a support using scraps we already had, a few support beams cut from a 2x2 or something and a cut peice of partical board. He nailed that into the seat and I placed the foam on top. I picked out my fabric at Ikea.

Ta-da! What do you think?

Now I don't think its professional grade re-apholstry or anything, but it looks better than it used to and it matches what I have been trying to transform my living room into for the past couple of years.

The only thing left to do is scotch guard. Because although we have rules, you never know right . . .