Nine Months

K is nine months old today!  She is growing stronger every day.  I see little changes all the time and I am always amazed by her.

She is scooting a little faster and picking up every piece of lint and dog hair along the way.  Of course, all of those things go into her mouth - gross.

K loves to open drawers and cabinets and empty out the contents.  This is so funny to me because my other children never cared to do this.  We hardly had to babyproof the house with the other three, but K is very inquisitive and wants to explore everything!

K hangs out in this cool activity seat while I shower and get ready in the morning.  She used to be content to play with all of the little toys on the table, but now she has figured out how to make the thing move across the floor so that she can explore the contents of the drawers and cabinets.

This is our dry cleaning basket.  K loves to pull out all of Dad's shirts.

No shirts in their right now, so she will have to resort to pulling the liner out of the basket.

 

She hasn't hurt her little fingers yet, but I worry that she will.  Ouch, that would hurt.

When am I going to shower when she outgrows this seat?  I have no idea.

We recently bought a jogging stroller.  K seems to like it.

One thing K does not like right now is for me to leave the room.  If I walk out of the room where she is playing, she screams.  Soon, she will be able to follow me!

Play

C has been playing around with laser pegs this week.  Funny thing is that a friend mentioned them and I thought they sounded cool, and then I found this unopened box in C's closet.  I believe he got them for his birthday (last August) from my father and we just forgot about them.

R made bottle cap jewelry using this kit a friend gave her for her birthday (March - not too bad!).

I left some sheets of bubble wrap (the kind with the huge bubbles) on the floor just to see if anyone would notice.

They noticed!  After jumping and popping bubbles for a bit, R put the sheets on top of some pieces of cardboard to make a hideout.

The bubble machine was a big hit.  I love the amount of bubbles it makes, but it does go through bubble solution really fast.

Second Grade Performance

Today, we went to C's second grade performance.  It was a Reading Round Up.  The entire second grade (89 students) sang a few songs and then we went to C's class to see some of his work.

The students were supposed to wear jeans and white shirts.  C does not like jeans at all.  He actually hasn't worn jeans since he was a toddler.  He wasn't thrilled about it, but he wore them.  I also bought him a new white shirt so that it would be clean for the performance.  Well, the performance was after lunch and I put cherries and chocolate chip cookies in his lunch - so much for the clean shirt.

C has been working on this project for a while.  Every student chose an animal, and he was very excited to do his project on bears.  The entire project was done in school, and he learned a lot.

Tom purposely made this funny face.  

Collin with his friend, Miles.

Miles, Jack, Collin, and Evan

ACK - I didn't get a picture of C with his teacher!!!!!!!  She has been wonderful.  C had a great year and often says that second grade is his favorite so far.  He has six full days and three half days of school left and then he will be a third grader - that is hard to believe!

COOKIES

I made chocolate chip cookies using a recipe from one of my favorite blogs, Clover Lane.  The cookies came out great, but you don't have to take my word for it:

Here is the recipe:
1 cup butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 2/3 cups all purpose flour
1 1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 pkg semi-sweet chocolate chips

In a large bowl cream together butter, sugars, eggs and vanilla.  Add dry ingredients.  Mix well.  Add chocolate chips.  I put the dough in the fridge for about 2 hours.

I wanted to make large cookies, so I used my ice cream scooper to measure and scooped dough onto parchment covered cookie sheets.  I flattened each cookie a little before baking.

Bake at 400 degrees for 8-10 minutes (keep in mind my oven is fast).  Cool before removing from sheets.


I sent R next door with cookies for the neighbors because we have had more than enough sweets around here lately, and she is always over there playing, so the least we can do is send over some cookies!

Weekend

Family game night - Villains Monopoly

I found this huge, soft frisbee at Target for just a few dollars and it has already been well worth the money.

Kelly loves being outside with all of us; look at her smiling.

We found this egg (with a tiny hole in it) in our yard.  It looks like candy, doesn't it?

I didn't get any pictures, but Tom went out running yesterday and he pushed K in the jogging stroller for the first time; she loved it.  C and R rode their bikes alongside.  They went about five miles.  Tom said they got a lot of smiles from drivers.  I love that he gets all of the kids out for family exercise.  They all have fun too!  I have to make sure that I take some pictures next time they go.

Thirty-Eight Weeks

K is scooting.  Every day she gets a little better at it.  She does get very frustrated, but she is moving and I am starting to panic about little toys and mulch and every other tiny piece of whatever on the floor.

She LOVES bananas and Cheerios.  I think she could eat this for every meal.  She eats about half of a small banana and quite a few Cheerios.

Finally!