More Time with Great Friends!

Jamie Steele's husband, Micah had to be in Waterloo for business today so she and the kids decided to come with him. I just so happened to be in town for Kindermusik this morning and then I also had to stay in town for a church meeting for our upcoming camping trip. My meeting wasn't until 7pm though so I had the whole day to hang out! We met with some other moms at a park in CF for a picnic and then Jamie and I along with the kids headed to my parents' house to play and relax. Isn't little Levi just adorable? And Naomi couldn't get enough of baby Adah. Austin and Isaiah had a blast shooting each other with squirt guns and running through the sprinkler. And after Kezzie woke from her nap, we treated the kids to some ice cream at 4 Queens! Another great day!

Yuck!

Brian and I were out of the living room for a moment while Adah was playing on the floor so when we walked in to greet her with a smile we were a bit surprised to see her face...Poor girl must have spit up while on her belly and then rubbed her face in it. She never even cried about it! She is such a laid back baby!

Oh Happy (mon)Day!

What a great way to start the week! All smiles! And here is Kezzie sporting her newest (consignment shop) jammies with her wild morning do (that needs a major cut!).

Adah is 7 MONTHS!

Adah sticks her tongue out all the time still. It doesn't seem so much like she is doing it to rub her gums anymore like I once thought. It's just her personality!
We started her on oatmeal 6/8/10 after another horrible attempt at rice cereal. She is doing pretty good with the oatmeal mixed with a little bit of banana puree and water. We do this at bed time before her last nursing of the night.
Adah is rolling all over to get places and even scoots herself with one foot while halfway between the rolls. It is so cute and frustrating to watch as it takes great effort to go very little distance!
Adah gives hugs and kisses and says mama (I am pretty sure it's intentional). She doesn't do this on command or anything but she will grab both sides of my face and faceplant her face into mine with her mouth wide open. She will also rub her face on mine. She will also wrap her arms around my neck to give me something like a hug! I love how different Kezzie's hug is from Adah's but they mean the same thing and melt my heart just the same!
Sometime in the first or second week of June we quit swaddling Adah at night and quit using a wedge (Praise the Lord). We simply lay her on her back and give her her little taggies blanket and let her decide how she wants to sleep (she usually ends up in one of the corners). We cover her with a blanket on her legs but it doesn't always stay there all night. We had one really bad night while transitioning into this...she was up 8 times that night. I refused to feed her as I knew this wasn't the problem. The next night she was up 2 times and the next only once. She is now doing a great job at sleeping and soothing herself in the night! I love it when the hard work pays off...it's so rewarding!
Adah is such a cuddler. When she is sleepy she will lay on me and almost fall asleep every time. She loves to lay her head on my shoulder too even when she isn't sleepy. I don't remember Kezzie being this cuddly! I love it!
She loves to play with her toes. And will even suck on them.
We started sweet peas 6/22/10. She LOVED IT! But not so much anymore (6/26). We quit trying to give it to her since she won't eat it anyway!

The months keep flying by...hopefully next month her post won't seem so unfinished! I feel like I am running out of time to do this but it is definitely something I look back at and enjoy! Thanks for reading and keeping up on our family!

Whitesell Family Get-together!

It's been a reallllly long time since we have gotten together with my mom's side of the family so it was great to get together this weekend and see everybody...well almost everybody! With a family that big, it's pretty hard to get everybody to show up but there were a lot of us there. None of my sisters and their families were able to come but several of my cousins were there with their kids. We met up at Byrnes Park in Waterloo for a picnic lunch and then headed over to the pool for some much needed cooling off (there was a heat index of 100). I don't have any pictures of the huge slide, but Kezzie went down it about 10 times and LOVED it! I had to go with her, of course since you had to be 48" to ride solo-this probably just made it that much more fun for her! When we weren't swimming we were eating more yummy food and the kids were busy running around shooting each other (and innocent bystanders) with squirt guns. I managed to get Adah to take a small nap in the stroller so that tied her over until we got in the car to head to Grandma and Grandpa's house for the night. Austin was with his dad again this weekend so he missed out but was fishing anyway! I left Brian home sick :( What an awesome time spent with family. I feel so blessed!

Keziah is 31 MONTHS!

I can't believe it either...she is another month older! How does this happen? Time is going by so quickly and the saying is true "Time flies when you are having fun" and nothing describes life better with the kids God has given me!

Kezzie is getting smarter, of course! She has been able to count to 10 for a long time now but this month learned how to make it to 20. Just recently she started to count beyond 20. If you help her get started she can usually continue on to 30. She will frequently miss a number here and there though! Still, very impressive! Another thing she is doing is she is 'measuring things'. She will stretch out a toy or piece of string and say 'twenty pounds' as if to say its length. So cute! She says the same thing when she is weighing herself too. I suppose the doctor's office is where she is getting the idea from!

Every morning Kezzie gets the farm animals out of her barn and lines them up. They can't ever be lined up on the floor though, they must be standing on some kind of pedestal. She gets frustrated if she can't find something to stand one of them on. She pretty much leaves them to sit there for the rest of the day until clean up and then she does it all over again the next day. She has recently even started lining up the animals from her Little People Noah's Ark set.

She isn't doing the greatest at listening these days. I am sure it is her age but I feel like I am failing miserably as a parent...any tips on getting her to do better with this would be great!

Kezzie is starting to say the funniest things-some that make sense and some that I can see how she would think they make sense. I will be starting to record these so I can share them with you and keep them for my own records! She makes me laugh so much by her goofiness! I just love this girl!

Still her favorite thing, by far, is the Wiggles. However, Dora is coming in a very close second. I think she struggles with who she wants to watch between the two every time we get in the car for a long ride.

Kezzie has really taken an interest in Adah lately. She loves to make her laugh and smile. She will copy things that I do to get Adah to smile (ie: if I pretend laugh uncontrollably to Adah she will laugh hysterically-Kezzie will do this at random times, sometimes it works!). She is also a very big helper when I need a burp clothe or Adah's paci. I have also caught her rubbing Adah's head to soothe her when she is crying. And very often Kezzie is quick to show Adah off to people at the grocery store or wherever we venture out to. You better believe that there is also another extreme to this relationship! Kezzie HATES to share (so abnormal, huh?) and will pretty much do whatever it takes to get her toys away from Adah. I have witnessed some brutal behavior coming from such a tiny person! She will shove her, poke her and just plain yank a toy right out of her mouth/hands if she doesn't want her to have it. Kezzie will always claim that it isn't safe for Adah to have and that's why she is taking it away. What a great Love/Hate relationship!

I can't express enough how incredibly blessed we are. God has given me an enormous job and responsibility. It is a great journey that He is leading me on!

Kindermusik & Swimming!

We now have kindermusik on Tuesdays for the summer session. And as a perk Emily and her two boys (Ethan-almost 4, Bennett-2) get to join us! She is trying to ready Ethan for pre-school and what better way then to get him into a room with a bunch of other kids where he has to listen and follow directions! He is doing excellent with this! Kezzie is also enjoying it. Not as much as the winter session we were in previously but still likes the activities. She is very shy when it comes to pretending in front of others and there is a lot more of it in this class. Since Austin would be a huge distraction to Ethan, I make sure he is elsewhere for the duration of the class. This week I had it lined up for him to go to his old sitters house (Nancy) whom has an underground pool! She arranged to have some of the other kids that were in daycare during his time to come and swim with him, so he had a great time. Once kindermusik was over the girls and I then got our suits on and got in the pool too! It was so much fun and a perfect hot sunny day too!

A Friendly Visit!

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We had the privilege of visiting one of our dearest friends this weekend and their newly adopted son Levi. We used to go to church with them when we all lived in and around the Cedar Falls area but just don't get to see each other often enough now that they moved to Dubuque and we moved to New Hampton. We decided we would go stay at their house for the weekend and after driving through some horrendous rain we made it there at almost 8:30pm on Friday. Saturday we went to an Arboretum with many flowers and a fish pond where you could feed the fish with food bought in the gift shop. Keziah enjoyed watching the fish eat and fight for every piece. It is a beautiful place but it was extremely hot so we didn't do a whole lot of walking around. We quickly headed back to their house for lunch and naps. During naps, the guys (Micah, Brian, Isaiah and Austin) all went over to a baseball card shop to look around. When they got back Jamie and I got to have a break and go to an awesome consignment shop where I got some really good deals on things for the kids. I even got myself an Abercrombie t-shirt!

Here are the two beauties of the bunch-Naomi and Keziah! It has been a while since they have seen each other but didn't have any trouble settling in to play together! Austin and Isaiah were the same way even tough Isaiah is quite a bit younger. Austin is such a good sport and ended up having a really good time with him and even showed him how to get a good campfire going! Levi had a blast with them all too. He is so carefree and smiley all the time. He enjoyed following the bigger kids around and doing whatever they were doing or he was happy to just play by himself. He is such a sweet boy and adorable too!

Sunday morning we woke up and got our stuff all packed up and then we went to church with them. Since it was Father's Day we thought we would leave right after church and go to my parents' to eat lunch and lay the girls down for their afternoon nap. We had such a great weekend. Too bad it had to come to an end! We love you Steele family! We look forward to the next time we get to hang out with you all!

Sprinkler Fun!

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Today was the perfect day to jump around in the sprinkler. Unfortunately our lawn had just been mowed and not raked so we had to do it in the driveway. It was still so much fun though. Adah and I sat in a lawn chair and just watched while the other two played. Austin brought out one of his old and very weathered remote controlled cars (in case the sprinkler ruined it) and raced it through the water making it skid out. Adah had a blast watching it go all over the driveway. I think this was a first for Kezzie but she surprisingly didn't mind the water in her face as much as I thought she would! And lately she has a thing with catching ants and carrying them around (unknowing that she squished them to death) as if they are her friends. So she spent quite some time doing that as well!

Heartland Days!

It was Heartland Days in New Hampton this weekend. A time for the town to get together and hang out! Friday morning the Library was putting on a story time/balloon artist show. My mother-in-law was kind enough to come over and listen for Adah while I took Kezzie to it. It was so much fun and just adorable. My friend Maria came with her five kids. Two of them even participated! The guy would tell a story from memory and he had 'hats' for the volunteers that put them in the character they were playing. He would then expect the volunteer to repeat what he said. Maria's boys did such a great job acting out the parts they were assigned to do!

There was also a parade on Friday night that we took the girls to. Austin was with his dad this weekend so he didn't get to join us. Adah loved the wagon ride but HATED the parade (and she was skipping her evening nap)! There was way too much noise for her liking-especially the fire trucks! We got there a little early to get a spot and I packed a picnic supper for Kezzie. She enjoyed eating it on the blanket and waiting for the parade to get started. Keziah loved it all. And best of all she got a whole bunch of candy! She didn't really get the concept of running after the candy and putting it in your bag from the beginning but learned quickly as she watched the other kids around her! She had so much fun and won't stop talking about 'the paray'! Cousin Rylan got to join us too. Jamie and Crystal were hanging out so they came and met us at the parade with Rylan. Isn't he just too cute?!!

Cousins!

Yesterday we spent the day with the Coyles and Brian's parents. It was great to have them in town and see how much the boys are growing! I love this picture of Henry and Steph!

New Videos!

There are 16 new videos down below...some are more fun for me to look at then they will be for anybody else, but take a look! Puddle Jumping is one of my favorites!

A nice break!

Over memorial weekend and extending into the next week we took some time to hang out at the river. Austin finished school (YIPEEE) on the 28th so we were free to stay and celebrate. Since my mom was off work watching Rylan for the week (and taking advantage of it by being up at the river), it made it really easy to want to stay up there too (my dad couldn't resist either so he took off work)! We ended up being up there from Friday the 28th to Thursday June 3rd. We had a blast! There were some really really hot days and some cool days too. We even had a couple days that were absolutely perfect! And it only rained one day-just enough for me to see if there were any leaks in the good ole camper! Everything held up great! The kids all slept really well with Adah having an occasional cry in the night. Daddy even came and stayed one night with us! Keziah really got into playing with Perry and Cindy's kids this year too. She is getting older now and enjoys pretend play a lot-which makes life easier for me! Aside from the occasional bump and bruise, there was nothing major to report! Austin of course had a wonderful time with Joshua. They enjoyed going out in the canoe and fishing across the river from the lots. Austin always looked forward to the night time because Grandpa (my dad) took him out every night fishing until 10/10:30. They would go to an area that entered into the main channel where there was a deep pocket there. They seemed to always come back with some nice sized bass and walleye. And of course if you are going to catch them, you have to clean them...so Austin got a good lesson in filleting! Almost every night we would enjoy a good campfire and an occasional s'more. I tried to let Kezzie stay up about every-other-night (until 9/9:30) We also enjoyed many walks with the kids. Keziah always insisted she walk. We never could understand how she had so much energy to go so far and still press on the rest of the day! She is so full of energy! One of the funniest things that happened that week was after it rained we decided to take a walk after being cooped up from the rain. As you can imagine, there were many puddles along the way. I originally told Kezzie to stay out of the puddles since she had her tennis shoes on, but she just couldn't resist. After not listening one time and getting all wet, I decided to just let go for once and let her get wet and dirty (I knew we were going home the next day). The entire walk she and Austin we jumping in every puddle they could find. She would come to one that wasn't very big and say, "Wook (look) at this one Austin, it's perfec (perfect), it's just my size!" She is so adorable! We got back to the lots and she discovered an huge one to play in. I caught some video of it until she ran off looking for Austin (she loves that kid).

We are truly blessed to have this luxury of a place to get away. I am already looking forward to the next time we can get up there. And as you can imagine...so are the kids!

Too many to choose!!

They are all just too cute to only pick a couple and stick on the blog...so why not just post them all?! Kezzie and I were going crazy with the camera the other night! This is the result. We even caught Adah in the act of rolling over! And I caught Kezzie actually being nice and sharing with Adah! I'm sure that will be rare as they get older. It already is pretty rare!
Today, for the first time Kezzie came to me tattling on Adah stating (in a winy voice), "Mom, Adah pinched me." I thought, 'oh no it's beginning'! Obviously Adah didn't do it on purpose! I don't look forward to all the tattletaling between the two!

Stacks!

I recently received my kit in the mail to store my breast milk so I can donate it to a milk bank...Kezzie has discovered the containers and spends countless amount of time stacking them. You need to also know that there are three different shapes/sizes of containers...she is partial to just one type and sorts through them all to find that particular one! Here she is with her newest creation-a third layer started!

Comps!

This is Keziah at about 6 months old...

And this is Adah at about 6 months old...

I'm not sure if they are all that similar?! The older Adah gets, the less I think they look alike. Adah's head is bigger or something...she's just chunkier all around. Still as beautiful as can be though! They are just uniquely individually made!

Thumbsucker!

Adah has discovered the satisfaction of sucking her thumb. Although she still prefers the pacifier, when found, her thumb will do just fine! It's so cute too!

Aren't new toys great?

Thanks grandma Smith (my mom) for the money to buy this incredibly convenient and fun toy! I knew I was saving that money for something special! Adah absolutely loves it and I love that I have somewhere other than the floor that she will stay occupied while I get lunch/supper fixed!

A visit to Great Grandma Smith!

We got to see Great Grandma Smith today. She recently had some skin cancer removed from her nose so we like to check up on her to see how she is doing and give her some extra lovin'! She didn't have any girls of her own so she loves it when she gets to see mine. And Kezzie always enjoys sitting up to the piano and playing a little tune. We love you Grandma!

Adah is 6 MONTHS!!

I have done a horrible job this month at keeping up with what Adah has been up to but I will try to remember-the days seem to run together and she is just growing so fast! The beginning of the month (5/3/10) she mastered rolling from her front to her back. We also started cereal this month...not sure the exact date and it really doesn't matter because she totally hated it. I tried it for about 2 weeks straight and eventually I just decided it wasn't worth the frustration it was causing both of us. We will try again in a couple more weeks!

Adah had her six month check up a little late this time since she got her 4 month shots late. There has to be a certain amount of time in between her 4 month shots and 6 month shots. So on June 4th we went in for her check up. She weighed in at 15lbs. 14 oz. (50%). She is 26" (50%) long, however, looking back at her 4 month check up she supposedly only grew .5" in the last two months so at some point something wasn't measured correctly...no big deal-she's still average! Adah did have to get some shots and Kezzie didn't like it that she had to watch her sister get hurt. Adah was pretty crabby the rest of that day and into the next but slept pretty good at night.

Adah is getting really close to being able to sit up and does a great job of getting around by rolling. Of course, she hasn't quite figured out that it can get her across the room by any means, but if there is a toy barely out of reach she can easily figure out she can get to it by simply rolling a couple times!

Adah is still at six breastfeedings a day. And still takes 3 naps a day. She is still sleeping about 11 hours at night!

The newest look we get from her is her tongue sticking out 24/7! It is really cute but I miss seeing her smile! I think her gums must be bothering her because I can often catch her chewing on her tongue and rubbing her tongue on her gums. Poor baby!

What a joy it is having another beautiful daughter. Our family is incredibly blessed to be able to smile and laugh with Adah! With her one ear that sticks out further than the other and a new mole that just appeared out of no where a couple months ago...we love her to pieces and are excited to see what she has for us next!