Bath Time

Bath Time is always a blast. Keziah loves her bath and always has. Her favorite toy is one of Austin's pool toys-a diving stick. She loves the soft rubber to chew on and loves even more that it can fill up with water and shoot out the sides. She also loves the bucket and likes to try to catch the water as we dump it on her tummy! Bath is always at bedtime so when she gets out she gets to listen to music with mommy in the rocking chair and nurse...one of her favorite things to do, as is mine! Then it's sound asleep in bed!

Dance to the Music!

On Sunday mornings our family makes it a habit to go to church. Recently Kezzie has really been getting into this. Every-once-in-a-while we take her to the nursery, but this Sunday we didn't. For the first part of the service she needed to nurse so she and I were in the mother room for the worship time. We managed to make it back for the message and she did great...she sat so nice and quiet the whole time. Then when our Pastor was done talking we sang a couple more songs. Kezzie really comes to life when there is music to be heard! She dances (kicks her arms and legs really fast) and screams as if she is joining right in singing along. It is so sweet. I think it makes her so happy to 'sing' and worship our Jesus! It makes it really hard to want to take her to the nursery again knowing how much she enjoys the worship time, but we will just have to make it more of a habit to dance and sing at home too! I look at her while she is dancing in church, not caring at all if anyone is watching, and it makes me realize how little expression I show for everything God has done for me and my family. And even though she doesn't know yet what she is so excited about, it is so neat to be able to dance along with her and praise Him together!

8 months old!!

Yes, this is her standing...this girl LOVES to stand and does it quite well!

Today Keziah turned 8 months old...I can't hardly believe my angel is 8 months old. She is growing so fast! It was funny when I was trying to get a shot of her in this chair in her room, she just wouldn't stay still...she just kept squirming and cracking up at me. It ended up turning into a laugh/tickle-fest. She is just so energizing to be around!

Previous Months!!

Newborn (a couple days old): One Month:
Two Months:
Three Months:
Four Months:
Five Months:Six Months:

Seven Months:

Trip to the Driving Range!

We all needed a little outing so we decided after dinner we would go to the driving range. What a beautiful night! Brian and Austin each got a bucket of balls and Kezzie and I sat on the blanket and watched. Kezzie thought it was pretty fun and mommy thought it was relaxing in the shade. Austin did a great job. He is going to be a good golfer someday! After we were done we returned the golf cart to Brian's parent's garage and they were home so we went inside to say a little hello and see how they were doing. Kezzie needed to eat and go to bed so we had to leave.

Note to self...

Kezzie's tooth on the top right on the side came in today. I didn't even know it by the way she was acting yesterday and even through the night...I just made her smile really big and that's when I noticed it. It's barely peeking out of the gum but is still definitely through.

Kezzie is still doing the scooting thing, however she will get up on her hands and knees. I can only count on one hand the amount of times she has done it but she's getting there. She has to drill her face into the floor to get enough leverage to get her knees under her. Once she has that half of her body she gets her arms under her and then she doesn't know what to do next so she just plops back down!

7/20 (almost 8 months) Kezzie went to 5 breast feedings and 3 baby food feedings. She is in bed by 8:45/9ish and wakes at about 7:15. When she wakes she breastfeeds immediately and then goes back to bed by 8:30. She wakes after about 1-1.5 hours, nurses again at 10:45 and then has cereal mixed with a fruit and a little breast milk. At about noon she will go back down for another 1-2 hours. She nurses again at about 2:30 and has a veggie and puffs if she wants. She will lay back down about 3:30/4ish. She will sleep a good 2 hours at this nap and then wake to nurse at about 5:30/6. She will have another helping of cereal with fruit at this time. She will then be up the rest of the evening until bed. At about 8:30/8:45 she will nurse again and immediately go to bed for the night. When Kezzie isn't sleeping she likes to play in the living room on the floor or swing on the swing outside or go for walks with Mom and Dad and big brother.

River Relaxation!

On Saturday Brian and I and Kezzie headed up to the Mississippi River just for the day. It was a beautiful day and not too hot so it turned out to be very relaxing. Kezzie even managed to take a short snooze in the camper! We didn't do much but enjoy the scenery of the river and hear some 'fish stories' from Austin. He went up on Friday with Grandma (Grandpa was already there) and came back on Sunday. I'm pretty sure that boy would live there if he could. Grandma and Grandpa got him an early birthday present-a new fishing pole. He was loving getting some use out of it. We also got the chance to see my Aunt Cindy and Uncle Perry along with their four kids-Joshua, Alicia, Jonathan and Leora! One of the pictures is of Alicia and Kezzie. Alicia couldn't get enough of her. She is just 6 months older than Austin. I wish Austin enjoyed Kezzie that much!!

Note to self...

Every once in a while I will make a post called 'Note to self'. These are going to consist of some sort of milestone or happening about the kids that I don't want to forget. Feel free to clap through life with us or just skip over these little pieces of memory!

I don't want to forget that Kezzie is about ready to start crawling. If you go to lay her on her tummy, her first reaction is to stick her knees under her and put her arms straight out. Although she doesn't purposely put herself in this position, she is starting to use her toes and arms to push herself around the room to get what she wants. I don't think it will be long before she realizes her knees will get her there faster! (7/15)

Old Friends!

Today we had the privilege of going swimming at an old friends' house in Cedar Falls. Nancy Hemmer was Austin's babysitter from the time he was 5 months until he was 7 years old. He always looked forward to going there and we still talk to her on occasion. She and her husband live on a gravel road kind of in the country and have a nice underground pool with a diving board and slide. She said we are welcome to come anytime and it's always nice to see her and catch up on life so Austin and I along with Kezzie decided to go for a dip and cool off since it was such a warm day! And when we were all done we headed over to Grandma and Grandpa Smith's house for some dinner. Kezzie was very tired and decided she really didn't want to nap at Grandma's house so we had to cut it short and head for home. She slept the whole way!

On a positive note, I do think her teeth are feeling much better. She hasn't been as cranky and has been sleeping really well at night. One thing I have noticed a lot in the last couple days though is how afraid of other people she is. She is right at that age when she is starting to realize when someone isn't familiar to her. Her arms will just start shaking and that bottom lip comes out and she just gets so upset. That girl needs to get out more often!!

Proud of our Men!

At the Mid-Summer Golf Tournament Adam and Brian did AWESOME! They really weren't expecting to have much of a chance to win the tournament as there were 75 teams playing, but ended up doing wonderfully. By the end of Saturday they were in 2nd place and when the whole tournament was over they were still tied for second but lost on the handicap hole finishing in 3rd and still winning a good chunk of money! I think they were both shocked at how well they played and Brian said he played better Saturday then he's played in a few years! I think above all that, they really had a good time together. They both came home at the end of playing on Saturday and were pretty toasty red. By the end on Sunday they were feeling very exhausted and weak! Needless to say, I don't think they will be going out golfing anytime this week or anything!

Weekend Fun & Teething Disaster!

FRIDAY: On Friday evening Emily and Adam and the boys arrived about 7:30. Brian and Adam immediately left us ladies in charge of the kids so they could go brush up their skills at the driving range. The next morning they were going to be playing together in a golf tournament. Emily and I didn't do a whole lot but get Ethan and Bennett settled in and ready for bed and feed ourselves some dinner! Ethan found some of our homemade play-doh and we rolled that out for him. He liked to have it perfectly flat and then he would use my biscuit cutter to make circles in the doh (circles are one of his favorite things to draw and he is quite good at them)! He also enjoyed digging in the play-doh with an orange peeler and when all the doh wasn't smooth anymore he would hand Emily or I the roller and say 'gin' (again). Sometime after Ethan was to bed, Brian and Adam came back and we sat around and watched TV growing very tired!

And then it happened...Kezzie wouldn't go to bed. I had tried putting her to bed several times that evening but every time she would just scream and cry. She is always really easy to put to bed and never puts up any fuss but I let her try to cry it out every time thinking she just didn't want to go to bed because of the company. The only sleep she had since 3:30 that afternoon was a 40 minute nap at 6:30. So finally at about 11pm I tried nursing her to see if that would help her settle down and she did go to bed then at about 11:15. But not for long...she got up at 2 in the morning and again at 4:45 at which point I decided to nurse her back to sleep. And that brings us into Saturday!

SATURDAY: Another wonderful day. The day I get to pick Austin up from camp!! Not to mention it was great to wake up and see Ethan's bright sunny smile. He sat and watched Blue's Clues with daddy until it was time to pour the batter for blueberry muffins. He enjoyed watching me do that and then watching them rise and bake in the oven. He munched on some strawberries while waiting for the muffins to come out. I made special mini muffins just for him! He did pretty good sleeping Friday but we had a really noisy storm in the night so that woke him a few times. And then he was up about an hour earlier than usual so he was a little more tired than normal but he handled it pretty well! There is definitely no place like home!

Bennett was a good boy too, aside from the drive up on Friday (he cried the whole way) he was a very quiet and content little one. He actually slept quite a bit and only woke to nurse almost the whole time he was here...he must be growing! I did manage, however, to snap a photo of his sweet face during a moment of his awake time!

We thought it would be a good time to get in the hot tub since Bennett was sleeping so nicely. We turned it down so it was just a little warmer than bath water and the four of us (Me, Emily, Ethan & Keziah) got in for a little relax time! Ethan thought it was so cool and Kezzie was equally impressed (this was her first time in).

2:00pm-time to finally leave to get Austin from camp...so excited! It was so great to see Austin and hear how much he loved camp. It's funny how relaxed you are when your kids are with somebody you know. But when they go away to somewhere they've never been, it's so scary. I wondered if he was sleeping well, making any friends, learning a lot about Christ, being safe. It was all in God's hands, I knew that, but it was hard not to constantly worry! And just to see him and know that he had fun, it was so relieving! He got to do so many things. He said they would have worship a couple times a day and they had free time where they could swim or canoe or fish. And he played a lot of carpet ball and team games. But his most favorite thing of all, he said, was the pillow fight they had on Friday night. Lights out is at 10, but his counselor along with a few other counselors let the boys come out of their cabins (against the camp rules-I think that's what he thought was the coolest!) and have a massive pillow fight until like 11:00. He said it was a blast! I asked him if he learned anything while he was there and he said at worship they talked a lot about how the world is becoming all about yourself and about how YOU are #1 and how YOU make everything happen for YOU and how that's not the way God wants us to think, he wants us to think of others first. And he said they watched a video about a kid who gave up his chance at the major leagues by making himself look bad just to give another kid a chance to make a home run. Austin said he really liked that video. Another cool thing Austin told us about was that they talked about miracles and Austin got to share the miracle of Bennett. I was surprised at this because Austin doesn't like to speak in front of people much but he must have really felt compelled to share that miracle in his life. I thought that was really neat! He also talked a lot about the skits he had to put on. Each cabin was responsible for putting on skits for the worship entertainment. They were always stories from the Bible and each kid would have a special part to play. I thought that was a neat way to help teach the kids some Bible stories!

Once Austin was home there was no way of separating Ethan from Austin. He wanted to be where-ever that kid was. They played with cars in the kitchen and drew together (Ethan loves to draw and Austin does too! I wonder where they get that from!). And later in the afternoon we all went outside to the back yard for some fun in the sun on the swing set! Ethan tried out the slide first going down on Austin's lap and then he braved it alone with his mom at the top and me catching him at the bottom. He also really enjoyed swinging in Kezzie's swing! He's getting to be such a big boy!

And then it happened again...Kezzie would not go to bed. She wouldn't lay down well all day but did manage to get some napping in. Finally at about 6:45 I could tell she really needed some sleep so I gave her some Tylenol, gave her a warm bath and put her to bed. She successfully fell asleep. I decided to let her wake up when she wanted to eat because normally she would have another feeding at 8:45. She woke up at 9:45 and I nursed her and she acted like she was tired enough to just go right back to sleep but she just couldn't get comfortable. She would only fall asleep in my arms (I was loving it though since she never wants to lay in my arms). I finally noticed her chewing vigorously on her pacifier and felt around in her mouth and that's when I found another 2 teeth (one on the side top left and the left front one on the bottom) and one more about to pop through on the side top right. Poor thing. I felt so bad for her. And finally at 10:45 after a lot of screaming from me trying several times to lay her down after falling asleep in my arms and her waking right up, I gave her another dose of Tylenol and she fell asleep for the night. Praise God!

With everyone in bed for the night, it was time to turn in for the night myself! What a long but grace-filled day!

SUNDAY: This is the day my entire family came over for dinner. Saturday was my dad's 58th birthday but he and my mom were at the river (along with Jamie and Keith) so we made plans for them to stop at our house for lunch to celebrate on their way home. Unfortunately Casey, Nate and Gavin couldn't be there to celebrate with us, but everybody else was. All of us girls and our husbands put money in on a self inflating life jacket that dad has been dying to have. He loved it so much he insisted last weekend that he couldn't walk out of Cabella's without buying it. Mom somehow got him to leave without it and Jamie and Keith picked it up for us to give to him.

Before my family arrived we had an extra special visitor. Stephanie and Brady (he is 2 months younger than Kezzie) stopped by since she was in town. Mat (Steph's husband) was playing in the same golf tournament with Riley (Brian's dad). They didn't get into town until late on Saturday because Steph had to work so this was the first we were able to see them. Although we didn't get to sit and relax much, it was still great to get the cousins together and Steph got to meet Ethan and Bennett too!

Lunch was great. I absolutely loved cooking for everybody and felt so incredibly blessed to have my family sitting around my dining room table. I am so fortunate to have such an awesome family and never take a minute for granted that God has given me to enjoy with them. It was definitely 'my cup of tea' to plan a meal and serve them all. And it was great to do it for my dad for his birthday since he has done so much for all of us! God is truly so good to us! Brian and Adam did manage to get a break from golf after their first 9 holes to come eat with the family and update us on how they were playing (see later post for results).

My family didn't stay too late. Everyone was tired from being at the river. Emily and the boys didn't leave of course since we were still waiting on Brian and Adam to finish the tournament. We were all growing quite tired, but still having a good time together. We went outside and played on the swing set some more and blew some bubbles. Ethan loves bubbles. Austin is really good at blowing them. Kezzie really didn't know what to think about them! Bennett just slept! Later, we watched some Blue's Clues and ate supper. We also had some fun with the play-doh again. Adam and Brian got done playing golf about 7:30. Adam loaded all their stuff up and they all headed for home. They had a bit of a drive ahead of them so they needed to get going. Ethan was definitely ready to be home. He was saying good-bye to us before Adam even had everything loaded. He knew he was going to get to sleep in his own bed that night!

With everybody gone, it was time to get our family ready for bed. But then Kezzie did it again...her teeth were just not letting up. The poor girl. I hope it's over soon!! She didn't get to bed until 11pm. Maybe tomorrow will be better!

Green Bean Fun!

This is Kezzie's first for green beans. I didn't have the chance to post her first try at solids so I thought I would at least show this. She is doing a great job eating any and every veggie, however she hates her cereal and isn't really fond of any fruits except bananas and pears. She has been mastering this skill since she was about 7 months, although, we started trying cereal at about 5 1/2 months. She is doing a fairly good job sleeping through the night. She is teething again (she got her first tooth June 20-bottom front right) but this time I think it is on top. She is really sucking that top lip all the time and woke up several times in the night last night. She isn't really handling the teething thing very well, but what can you do?!! Also, her eyes were a very bright blue until about 3 weeks ago. They are starting to look somewhat like a kaleidoscope starting with some dark brown in the middle and tapering out into the blueish grey. She is so beautiful...God is so amazing!

He's Gone :(

Well, my baby is off to camp...I felt like I was sending him off to college. I think he felt a bit like that's what was happening too. He was pretty nervous and tried getting back in the car a few times to come home with me. With Kezzie strapped on the front of me, we walked his belongings and bedding down to where he would be sleeping the next couple nights in a cabin. The guy who took us there said there would be about 6 boys in there with a counslor and I over heard there will be about 45 campers total. I'm sure he is having a blast now that I'm gone and I don't doubt that he is going to make some great friendships...oh the memories of camp from when I was his age!! Here he is trying to dodge a hug from me...I don't think I ever really got a proper good-bye!

As Kezzie and I left with sad faces, we didn't know what to do next (we didn't want to just go back home) so we called Grandma Smith at work since she would be going on lunch about the time we would be passing through Waterloo. I picked up some Culver's (yummy) and Kezzie and I went to her work for a visit. She had to eat lunch too but she got to spend a little time with Kezzie! And Kezzie and I got to stretch our legs a bit too!

Sniffle Sniffle!

My buddy is going away to church camp tomorrow morning. I am driving him to Eldora where Camp Pine Lake is. He has to be there by 10am. He is only there from Thursday to Saturday but I am still going to miss him so much! I think Kezzie might miss him even more. We have a picture of Austin on our mantle that we show Kezzie when he is with his dad and she glows every time she sees it. The house definitely isn't the same when he isn't around. :( We love big brother! I say a prayer that he will learn all that God intends for him to learn and that he comes back a better person. He is really nervous about going (this is a first) so I also pray for peace and strength in his soul. He is going to do great and have a blast, I just know it!

A funny little side-note...we were getting him packed and ready to go and I was telling him the things he needed to stick in his bag. He took one look at his bag and looked up at me and said, "There isn't even going to be anybody there to help me keep track of all this stuff!" Maybe I do a little too much for him if at 9 years old he is just now realizing responsibility!! Oh the trials of growing up!

A walk gone bad...really bad!

This is the second time I have decided to let Austin go to the pool on his own...he has friends there to play with and there are pleanty of lifeguards to watch him (and frankly we are growing tired of each other!). Brian came home to take him to the pool for me only to realize he didn't have any sunscreen on after he got there. I wasn't sure how long he would be at the pool so after about an hour Kezzie and I decided to walk to the pool and get the boy some sunscreen. I figured it was a nice day for a walk and I have been trying to get Kezzie to go longer stretches without napping (mistake #1) so we headed out on our 25 minute venture (mistake #2)! Getting to the pool was not a problem...we applied multiple layers of sunscreen to Austin and snapped a few unwilling pictures of him and his friends and headed back on our way home. Not even a minute into the walk Kezzie decided she was hot, hungry, and tired. What a miserable walk all the way home. She cried the entire time, I felt so bad...there wasn't a thing I could do to calm her. I didn't know I could walk that fast! Now I remember why we don't get to go on many long walks :)

Shine 'Em Good!

My adorable husband decided his clubs needed a good cleaning before the big golf tournament this weekend (Mid-Summer). He and my brother-in-law Adam are going to be playing together, and Emily and I are going to have a blast hanging out not doing much with our four kids! I can't wait to see Ethan and Bennett!!


Kezzie is finally getting this sitting by herself thing down. She is so cute when she does it too! You can tell she could topple at any moment!

Are you ever too old for Play-doh?

Today has been a great day...Austin and I have been making play-doh the last couple days and today we made some more...the color blue! We had a contest of who could make the other person's idea the best and the fastest. He suggested we make a band-aid for the first contest...hands down, he won! Next my suggestion was a flower...we both agreed before I was done that I won that one (a picture says a thousand words-see photo!). It went on from there, making different things. Finally we decided to have a contest who could stretch the same amount of doh the furthest! All this time we had Kezzie sitting with us in her high chair graciously shoving her face with yummy peach puffs!! She's such a doll!

4th of July!

This is Kezzie on the 4th...strutting her beautiful festive dress (bought for $1 at the local treasure chest...don't you just love those stores?!).

We didn't do much but go to Charles City (out of boredom) to get some ice cream there at the DQ and we didn't want to just head straight home so we went to K-mart too. On our way home we happened to notice we were driving in the area where we thought Adam's parents lived (and where they were all celebrating the 4th together). We first noticed Emily and Adam's car parked out front and knew that was the house so we stopped there for a half hour or so and chatted with them. We got to see Ethan and Bennett and all their cousins on their dad's side! They are all always so much fun to see! Austin was with Grandma and Grandpa Smith at the river so we didn't worry too much about getting somewhere to see some fireworks...I think we were in bed by 10!

A Friendly Visit!

Today we had a friend visit for the day from Cedar Rapids. I miss all my friends from there so much so it was really great to see her. Plus she is expecting a baby boy in October so it was fun to see her growing belly and give it a few pats! Here is a picture of Kristin and I!

First For Everything!

Today is my first post! I am excited to finally be getting this going since my youngest is now 7 months and I feel like I have already missed out on putting so much on here! I am mainly going to use this to keep track of the years of growing and memories I hope to experience with my kids and family! I hope that friends and family will also find it fun to see the inside of our every day! Away I go!!