10 Months Old

My baby... my little baby... my LAST baby is 10 months old today... I can't believe it! My sweet girl has really come out of her shell this past month. It seems like you don't really get to know your kid's personality until they are fully mobile, and I have to say that Jane's personality has come as a bit of a shock. She was so sweet and docile as a young baby, so imagine my surprise when it turned out that she is totally nuts!

Ok, so maybe that picture isn't the best representation of her craziness....

And neither was that one :) Oh well. Janie has really developed her standing skills and instead of pulling up now, she prefers to stand up without assistance in the middle of the room. She does it ALL DAY LONG. She stands up, she laughs and feels proud of herself for up to a minute and then sits back down only to pop up to standing almost immediately.

She is pretty fearless and not at all timid like I thought she might be. She climbs, she topples, she gets herself into toy boxes and through it all she stays really happy. She is constantly moving but is also fairly content and can entertain herself for hours if her sibs don't try to manhandle her :)

She loves to pull things out of containers... folded things, organized things, clean things... and scatter them all over the floor. Because of this, I have started to teach her what no means. I will pop her on the hand when she grabs something and tell her firmly, "no". When I did this with Micah, he always went for round two but on the second pop he would get upset with me for thwarting him. With Lizzie no pop was required, just the stern "No" and she would break down in tears and abandon her pursuit. Now Janie had been so compliant that I didn't see her response coming.... I pop her (gently guys, don't go all crazy on me), say no and she looks at me, laughs, and goes for it again immediately. Repeat cycle up to 20 times and she never gets upset. She will eventually get bored and move on, but even on the 12th pop, she'll look at me and laugh like "Mom, that didn't hurt at all!". Oh dear.

Just an aspect of her that I wasn't expecting :) But Janie is super social and tons of fun. She laughs a lot and smiles a lot.... she also eats a lot. She loves pretty much anything we give her to eat which is such a nice phase... I wish her sibs would still do that.

We love you sweet Janie Bear... happy 10 months!

Children's Museum

We went in town to the Children's Museum last week with some friends and had a great time! Micah LOVED playing with the outdoor water exhibits and stayed VERY focused..

After dragging him inside to try to escape some of the school groups, we came upon this exhibit where Micah got to make a quilt block....

And Lizzie got in on that action as well...

Micah was a little excited when he figured out which slot made the crops grow :)

And Lizzie, of course, was thrilled to find a car to play in....

Poor Larissa had to take the very tiny, very exposed elevator upstairs :)

Can you tell from this picture how much my kids love Physics? I had no idea that was genetic ;-)

Lizzie and Julianne :)

I may have helped out with building the clubhouse.... I may also have been the one to drag us all in there because I was dying to play with these... that might be what happened ;-)

We had a great time and the kids took REALLY good naps that day!

Another Day, Another Game

So I headed off last Saturday with my parents to watch the Ags take on LSU in College Station... I've never seen anything like it. Tailgating has really exploded in Aggieland since I graduated and pretty much the entire campus was blanketed with people cooking out and having a good time... it's really cool to see! Anyhoo, one of the many groups tailgating included two of my college roomies, Tess and Jen, that were there with Tess's parents in the their awesome A&M RV....

It was so great to see them, especially because Tess now lives in the Northeast and I haven't seen her in forever. Anyhoo, our season tickets this year are next to the visiting band which worked out well for my dad who is an LSU grad and a proud former (high school) band geek :) This LSU band member was really nice about letting us get a picture, and I love how he kind of has a 70's look to him (which is when my Dad was in school there)...

And just for funsies, here is a mild (trust me) sampling of Tiger game day apparel... I wish I had some pictures of other outfits I saw, but you'll just have to use your imagination. Pretty much anything you can think of was there in purple and yellow.. it made people watching amusing :)

For a quick soccer update, Micah scored TEN GOALS in his game that Saturday!! Nate ended up taking him out so that the other kids could score. I'm so proud of him and how well he is doing in soccer... I'm going to miss it when the season is over :P

Little Punkins

While in San Antonio for Asher and Evan's birthday party this weekend, we brought the cousins out to a pumpkin patch and attempted to do the impossible.... get 6 kids between the ages of 9 mo and 6 years old all look at the camera at the same time. It actually turned out better than I was anticipating :)

We even got an ok family shot out of it... complete with drizzle and humidity induced Texas big hair for me ;-)

This one was my star subject that morning.... Micah just wanted to run around and Jane was tired, but Liz was cooperative and smiley...

I did get some good ones even if J was a bit tuckered out...

This pic isn't great, but I love the outfits together.... I may need to set up another photo shoot in these outfits and try to get all three kids together. It wasn't going to happen that day with Micah distracted :P

Daddy and the littlest punkin....

The kiddos with GG...

Janie and Memaw....

All 6 of her grandkids...

I love this little fuzzy head...

I'm a fan of this one too :)

Kisses for Daddy...

Happy girl...

Us two...

Rub a dub dub, 5 cousins in a tub....

I FINALLY caught up with him...

We had a great time!

Micah's First Goal

Micah's cheesy cheese smile has morphed into a super creepy smile... I don't think it's an improvement :P

"And I'll give it a hi-ya, and wooo-ee, and then I'll kick her sir" Micah was demonstrating proper kicking technique to his buddy Tim~

Anyhoo, on to the point :) Micah scored his first goal!!! He kicked it all the way down the field and into the goal without any help from his teammates (or the other team, they are a 3 yr old team, after all :P)

He definitely won the victory dance prize for the day... well, the season actually. All of the other boys score and then kind of stand there like they aren't quite sure what just happened... The second Micah's goal crossed into the net he broke into a full smile, jumped up and down about 50 times and yelled happily. There he is above giving the coach a high five and below with a smile so big it looks like his face might crack :)

It was hilarious and so much fun to see him so excited! He was still in full smile halfway back to center field....

and even when he got back to the middle~

Janie (and her adorable snaggle-tooth) were also very excited....

Lizzie required candy corn bribery before she would show her enthusiasm to the camera...

That Memaw is a smart one...

We have a bad weather make-up game tonight and it would be so much fun to watch Micah score again... I may need to try and videotape :)