11 month update

Drake reached 11 months on August 10th! Time is just flying by. His birthday party is only 2 weeks away. We have had a lot of new things happening in this house in August! On the 18th, Drake started walking! I wasn't expecting it at all. He still doesn't just go all over but every day he gets a little braver and more confident. He says so many words. I can't believe how vocal he is. Once he started focusing on the walking he hasn't said any new words. My mom says that is because he is using all his energy to learn walking.
Here is a list of the words he can say!

Hi, Bye Bye, Daddy, Mommy (sometimes calls me me-me), Nanna, Pappaw, bath, uh-oh, baby, poo, yes, no, ball, he tries to bark like a dog and says vroom, vroom when he plays with his cars or hears a motorcycle. I feel like there is so much more but I can't think of it right now.

He had his first 2 haircuts. I cut about an inch and a half off the top myself and then I decided to go ahead and let Julia (she does my hair) clean it up and give him his first real cut.

My first haircut!



Like my new do?

He enjoys going to school to pick up Stella from Kindergarten. Now that the kids are back in school he has been taking a 2-3 hour morning nap. FABULOUS!!! Mommy gets a lot done in the morning. I don't have stats because he hasn't been to the Doctor sense his 9 month check up. I am guessing he is pretty close to 18 lbs. He is all table food now. I still buy the veggies in baby food because he eats them so well and I want him to eat his veggies. VERY IMPORTANT! We have just switched him to whole milk and he is completely off bottles. He is so easy to switch. I would love to eliminate the pacifier as well but we will wait until after his birthday. He still has no teeth. I can't believe it. My other two kids didn't get them until 10 months. My mom says we were all 1 year old before we got teeth. We just switched him to size 4 diapers. He is such a small guy. The size 4 still seems
big.


I have to feed myself:)

We have been busy planning his birthday party. I hope it all comes together! It should be very cute! So on September 10th we will have an 8 year old, a 5 year old, and a 1 year old. CRAZY!

Walk it OUT!

Drake started walking yesterday. I was not expecting it at all. He is not going around all over yet. Just back and forth in between things. I can't believe it! I will try and get it on video soon!

Blessed

I was very honored to be asked to be the Godmother of my best friend's little girl, Elizabeth! I feel very blessed to have such a wonderful friend in my life. I love her and her whole family so much. Little Elizabeth June is such a blessing! She already reminds me so much of her Mommy.

Elizabeth was baptized August 16th, 2009. I was so happy to be a part of this. Thanks you Rhodes family!

First Day of School

This is the first year that we have 2 kids in grade school. I can't believe Stella is already a kindergartner. She has been in school for a week now and she loves it! We knew she would. They are learning how to read and write their colors and they wear the color of the day each day. Her & I have enjoyed picking out her colorful outfits and deciding how to do her hair each day. I love that Stella likes to mix and match and wear different things than her peers. She is very fashionable! She had her first homework assignment this weekend and really enjoyed doing it.





Stella's first homework assignment!

Riley started 3rd grade last week and he wasn't nervous at all. He has the same teacher and classroom this year since he is in multiage. That makes it a lot easier to adjust. He wasn't too thrilled about starting school but he has enjoyed seeing some of his friends he didn't see over the summer. He started football and baseball practice last night. We were only going to do football but he really wanted to play fall ball and he talked us into it. I don't worry about him being able to handle it all because he loves sports and works very hard.

Girls, Girls, Girls

As I got behind on my blog a lot of things happened. One of the most important was Elizabeth June Rhodes was born ( a month and a half ago). Despite me not posting, her Auntie Abby is very proud of her and wants to show her off so here are some recent pics. We have enjoyed spending a great portion of our summer with her & her mommy! Also, my sister's twin girls are 2 months old already. I can't believe how fast it has gone and they have changed so much. They are still quite little and baby Elizabeth (2 weeks younger) has surpassed them already. They have all spent some time together a couple times as well. Enjoy the pictures! I think 2009 was the year of the GIRL!!! We need more beautiful girls in this world. Aunt Abby loves all 3 of you precious angels!


Stella & Elizabeth

Mommy, Elizabeth & Auntie Abby

The new family

Sophia, Elizabeth, & Claire

Another Summer has come and gone

The summer has almost come to an end and to me it is bittersweet. As much as I love my summer with my kids, I am ready for the fighting to stop! haha! I know mine aren't not the only kids that argue but man I don't know how my parents or anyone's parents did it. My children fight over pointless things such as who sat in a certain seat at the dinner table the night before. I have to constantly remind myself that they are great kids and they are still learning (as am I!).

I am not really ready to let my Stella go. You moms who have sent your children off to school know what I am talking about. With Riley I was sad but I was excited for him to start this whole new adventure. With Stella it's different. I know what school brings. They change once they start school and they never go back to being your baby or your "little helper". They get a sense of independence and learn some good and not so good things from their peers. Those magical years where they mock mommy and learn solely from the people you choose for them to learn from are over. These past 5 years have gone by way too fast. Though challenging to say the least, these years have been so rewarding and fabulous. I can't even describe the joy Stella has brought into our lives. Oh I must stop before I cry.





We have made it through another year of summer sports and now onto my favorite time of year FOOTBALL SEASON!! Stella had her first year in T-ball. She had a lot of fun and enjoyed having her Daddy help coach. Though deep down I hope she doesn't want to play next year. Softball just isn't one of my favorite sports. Of course if she insists I would never tell her she can't. Riley had another good baseball season. He really perfected his fielding and worked hard on his batting fundamentals. He was rewarded for his great play by being on the All Star A team. It was so fun to watch him play. He impresses me every time he plays. God has blessed him with a gift and I can only hope he takes that gift and does great things with it. Stella also took swimming lessons and she is getting a lot more comfortable in the water. She has shown tremendous improvement this year. Riley took his first tennis lessons. He showed some interest last summer but we were not able to get him into lessons. Once again he showed us how athletic he is. I don't know how he will choose what sports to do when he gets older. Right now he plays football, basketball, soccer, baseball, and tennis. Crazy but so much fun to watch.





We made it through all that and now another year of school is upon us. Riley will be a 3rd grader and Stella our Kindergartner! Good luck to all the kids this year and praying for great teachers!

Update on Drake. Thank goodness I will still have one child still at home. Drake is 10 months (just about 11 months) and he is all over the place and talking up a storm. He is walking around furniture and with his toy car. He has started to let go and try to balance. It won't be long before he is walking on his own. We have had some issues lately with not keeping his food down and getting hives. We think he has a food allergy and we never knew it would be this hard to diagnose. Neither Jason nor I have ever had an allergy so we had no idea how difficult it is to figure out. We hope to get an answer soon. This has also caused some issues with not sleeping. He won't take naps in his crib and wakes up in the middle of the night. It has been quite frustrating but I know we'll figure it out. He is gorgeous and smart little boy and we are just so lucky and blessed to have him.