crawling or bear walking?

Riley started crawling this weekend.  It takes some situating on his part to get that body all flopped around and ready to crawl, but he can do it.  We caught him pulling up to his crib rails as well.  I picked up a walker for him to use outside and he is quite pleased with himself when he gets to zipping around the driveway in it.  He doesn't really care for the shoes I make him wear though!

He still has not cut a single tooth.  It looks like they are right there and ready, but still no teeth.  He's probably going to get half of them all at once!  I am starting to transition him to table food regardless of the no tooth thing.  I get some pretty good faces out of him at times...he wasn't a fan of steamed carrots tonight.  For that matter, neither was Brody. 

Memorial Day Weekend - the recap

Busy weekend. 
We had a picnic at one lake and visited another lake, we had a wiener roast, took bike rides, played in the sandbox, played in the water and Brody took a dip in Merna and Papa Jerry's hot tub.  We lots of pictures to share, but these will have to do for today.

If only every weekend in the summer were a 3 day weekend...

Memorial Day Weekend

The weekend isn't over yet, but we have been having fun so far!

Allison R!

Thursday night, we had extra special company....Allison R! 

Allison, Allison and I all lived at 4-H House together 10 years ago.  Has it really been that long ago?  She gets down our way on occassion for work and it's always nice to catch up with her when she does.

Thanks for stopping Allison and come back soon!

some random i-phone goodness.

in the video, brody sings 'happy birthday to you' followed by him blowing out the candles and then he feeds riley some pretend birthday cake and says 'yummy, yummy!'

brittney's baby shower.

 (my sisters and yakey cousins)

we celebrated this morning, with the help of a lovevly spread of brunch type foods.  there are a lot of excited people, including grandma myrna kay, waiting to welcome baby into the world.  only 8 more weeks...

riley's 1st tractor ride.

peonies

my favorite flowers are blooming!

spring planting

 brody does a lot of this right now...hanging out the window, telling me to get him out of here so he can go work, which sounds more like 'urk'. 

 then he finally gets to ride...last fall he would ride about two rounds and call it good.  this spring he is lasting longer...sometimes long enough so mom and i can help move trucks if need be or i can run home and start dinner.

 riley is so far just along for the ride with me.  as long as i provide him with a snack and drink, he is usually quite content.

when it's time to leave, we usually get happy smiles from everyone.

every morning and evening, brody gets his tractors out of the shed and farms the house.  he occassionaly gets stuck and has to get his back hoe out to dig him out.  he makes some pretty awesome tractor noises.  when he isn't farming, he is making sure he has his working pants on to go work at the elevator or put up a grain bin at the elevator.  he also is constantly telling me he is going south of town to work.  (south of town being the location of one of the farms and some grain bins.)  definitely a little farmer in training at this point in his life.

Argh Matey!

sometimes you just want to eat crap, so we ate the mother load of crap today.

long john silver's...fried food at it's finest!

while we were there, a little group of pirates overtook the restaurant.  their wanted pictures are below.  if you capture any of them, watch out for the fried food diapers!  yikes!

mother's day

we celebrated mother's day all day long on sunday. 

i got to sleep until brody woke up.

kurtie helped make breakfast AND did some of the dishes.

  we made lunch for grammy & grampy and chris, katy & eli.

we took our first bike ride of the season and put in some serious play time outside.

we celebrated next door in the evening and brody had lots of  his 'people' to play with.

after the boys went to sleep, kurt and i got to swing on the new porch swing they gave me for mother's day!   

happy belated mother's day to all you mama's!

alicia's graduation party

saturday, alicia graduated from eiu with a degree in education.  we rushed home from isu graduation to go celebrate with her.  the backyard party was a little slice of heaven for brody and riley with the trampoline being the biggest hit.

 congratulations alicia!

court's graduation.

Saturday, Courtney (also referred to as KeKe in this house) graduated from ISU with a whole list of honors.  She now has a degree in education and will start her teaching career this fall.  But before she starts teaching, she has to get hitched this summer and before she gets married she has to go to the pool with us just once! 

 

We are so very proud of you Miss KeKe!

both the boys are fighting double ear infections. 
riley is cranky and clingy between his wrinkly nose smiles.  he is on a quick path towards a ear, nose, throat specialist if he continues to get these nasty ear infections.

outside of brody not eating much, he seems rather unaffected. 
his grammy bought him a pair of working gloves so he is constantly ready to work. 
most recently he told me he was driving his car to the elevator to work because grampy needed help working on a tractor.  he was going to help uncle bill, uncle pat and uncle dave too.  if he had it his way, we would leave daycare tuesday-thursday and go to the elevator to visit. 

 until next time...

Easter 2011

egg hunting - all had coins or fresh fruit in them. 

the boys are all young enough that finding a strawberry or blueberry in an egg was just fine with them.

 riley chose to sleep instead of hunting eggs at grammy and grampy's house.

 the great-grandchildren. 

natalie was born january 1.  the first girl in a streak of boys.

please note that riley, eli and cohen all weigh just about the same.   

brittney will be the next to add to the family. 

my guess is, that come july, brittney and zach will be seeing pink!

and here we are.

note: brody's green boots were not worn to church, although he would have preferred them to boat shoes!  also note that kurt wouldn't wear a bow tie. 

dinner conversation

As we were eating some fresh corn on the cob this evening, Brody and I had this convo.

Brody: Riley have teeth?
Me: No, not yet.
Brody:  Do I have teeth? 
Me: Yes you have teeth, silly.  Do you want to count them?
Brody: 1, 2, 5.  Go grocery shopping for Riley's teeth?
Me: If only it were that easy...

Well, Sara T is the only one that took a guess on Riley's weight, so she does win the grand prize and it does involve IKEA!  However, I think I'll just drop the boy's off at her house and pick them up when I get back from IKEA.  Sara, I'll have my people call your people to arrange all this!

His official nine month weight was 26 pounds even. 



Easter Preperations.

brody's new talent.

so sunday afternoon, kurt could hear riley waking up.  before he could get upstairs to get him, he heard a boom and then little feet padding down the hall.  the next thing he knew there was a little voice saying 'riley awake!' in the monitor which was followed by all kinds of happy squeals.  same thing happened yesterday and this morning.  when you ask him how he gets out, he lifts his leg and says, 'like this!'  i do believe kurt will be converting his crib to a toddler bed tonight. 

today

riley is NINE months old today.

he had his well baby visit yesterday.

can you guess what he weighed?