The Latest

Ok, I know, I haven't posted in forever. I honestly have thought about it several times over the past week, but I went back to work on Monday and the kids came on Tuesday, so things aroung our house have been a bit crazy. Treigh and Birkley were on this wonderful "summer schedule"...go to be around 11:30 and sleep into until 9:00-10:00. However, this doesn't quite work when I have to get up at 5:00 in oder to get everyone up, fed, dressed, out to daycare, and back to work by 7:30ish...I say ish because that is always my goal, but it is usually more like 7:45. Treigh had no problem going back to daycare...in fact he begged, and Birkley loves watching the kids play etc.
We had an absolute wonderful summer and as much as I love teaching, I would stay home if I could...however, the finances would, lets say, be a bit stretched...lol!

Birkley turned five months this past week and is growing and changing every day. She is sitting up all by herself and actually prefers to do that and play with toys than anything else right now. She does enjoy the bounceroo and of course when we lay and play. When I put her on her tummy she immediatley goes to all fours now. She was actually rocking this afternoon, but no luck (thank God)! She is eating about 1 1/2 jars of baby food now for dinner, but would much prefer the food on our plates. She threw an absolute fit the other night leaning and reaching for my plate. She really likes biter bisquits and such, I know she is actually not "old" enough, but it is not like I give it to her and walk out of the room. She is talking more and more all of the time and has even started mimicking some sounds too. And, how do I forget, we have our first tooth...well, almost, it is not quite broke through all of the way just yet, and the drouling still comes by the bucket.

Treigh is, as Rich says many times a day, "a piece of work." He surprises me, infuriates me, loves me, amazes me, makes me laugh...each and every day...the joys of a two year old. No, I am in love with this stage of his life because he shows me something everyday that makes me feel good about being his mom. Each day on the way to daycare we pass the golf course. Treigh tells me every morning, "hey mom, there's my dad's and my golf course." One day he told me that "my dad and I live there," and another day he said in the most sincere voice, "I LOVE hitting "golfing shots" there mom." To say the least, he is in love with golf. He is slowly creeping out of the terrible-terrible twos, now we are just in the terrible twos... but getting much better by the day. Rich has many nicknames for Treigh...he has a habit of saying to Treigh, "come on Ron." This has slowly taken the place of "Shoeman." Now, Treigh will say to Rich, "I'm just Ron, you are Ronzio." Don't have a clue of where it came from, but is cute.
Along with being two, Treigh's biggest question to me all of the time is, "what happened mom, and why?"

Bath Time

Here are a couple of shots of bath time...the kids absolutely love it. Treigh just likes it in general and Birkley loves watching Treigh.

Baby Kamden

Kamden McMullen Shields...8 lbs, 21 in

My best friend Brianne and her husband welcomed their second son into the world this afternoon. They now have Kylen, Killian, and Kamden. Congratulations!

Cousins

The cousins, aunt Lu and Grandpa came up for the day. Obviously Treigh is not in any of these pics...he was too busy playing with whoever was not being photographed. He was one worn out boy this evening...9 holes at the golf course with daddy and the boys, swimming and playing with the kids, and no nap makes for a tired toddler!

Cory and Birkley


Kyle and Birkley

Katy and Birkley

MMM...squash!

Birkley had her first baby food last night. We started with squash. She was all about it...then wanted her bottle...like pronto!

Over all, she did well!

Quick Funny...

Treigh was wanting nothing to do with his lunch today, only the bugle chips...however, he wanted a piece of chocolate cake. We battled for some time and he still refused to eat, and I refused to give him cake (although daddy begged for me to cave). I finally did tell him if he was hungry that he could have a lunchable, but that I was not going to cook anything for him. He tore into the lunchable but had not really eaten any of the meat. I told him that if he wanted cake he needed to eat the meat too. He looked at me and said, "that meat doesn't like my mouth"..."my mouth needs that chocolate though." I was proud of myself...he still didn't get the cake until he ate the meat.

Summer fun...

Treigh and Rich go to the golf course almost every morning, as well as each evening. Each night I get the whole report of how Treigh did and since Treigh has been hitting the ball in the air consistently, I thought I should go get it on tape. Here is a pic of Treigh standing next to his clubs. He informed me at dinner the other night that he, "hit it good," that night. I said oh really, and he replied with, "yah, I hit it like Tiger Woods."

Some of his latest saying include...(and again, this is babybook info and may not mean anything)
*everything is not "all of the time," it is "all the way time."
*he informs us if we are being funny that we "are a piece of work"
*when he asks for things he always needs "a couple," not one or two, but just "a couple." He said last night he needed "a couple five or six balls from Rich's golf bag."
*He has been incorporating "probably" and "actually" into his daily speech and he favorite thing to say to us when we ask him something is "I DON"T KNOW!!!"

Sibling love...most of the time...lol!

Birkley in her high chair...just another place to hang out and play...as well as eat of course...her favorite thing to do. We went to the dr. yesterday. She weighs 17 1/2 pounds and is 25 1/1 inches. He height and head were in the 80-85 percentile, but her weight was in the 99 percentile. I told the dr. that she really doesn't even eat a lot. She still will only take six ounces of formula at a time and she only get cereal once a day. The dr. said that I had nothing to worry about...she was healthy and that was all that mattered.

She is really talking quite a bit lately and has started to repeat things when we laugh at her...including the raspberries she blows at dinner time...yes, Treigh and Daddy think it it is hilarious because her cereal goes all over me.

Carson's B-day

Sunday afternoon after we returned from Chicago were daddy was in a wedding, we went to Carson's Demo-Derby birthday party. Carson's mom, Krissi teaches right next door to me. The party was so much fun. The kids got to take rides in a demo car, paint their own matchbox demo cars, eat cake (which was very cool looking), and watch two demo trucks have a mini demo...how fun!

Girls Weekend

I went on a trip to Chicago last weekend with my bunko friends...one of the girls used to be in our group when she lived in Terre Haute, but now we go visit her and make weekends out of it each summer. We went to the spa, out to dinner, to see a comedy show called "The Second City" which was absolutely hilarious, and wrapped the weekend up with a bike tour and lunch. The tour was great too...we got to see the first Playboy Mansion, one of Oprah's homes, and several others great places.

Yes, helmets were required!!!

I was very excited to see the kids when I got home saturday evening...even though I was only gone one night.

Great Grandparents

We went to visit my grandparents and family on my dad's side this past week. This is the first time they had all seem Birkley. We got to see two of the three of my dad's siblings and a couple of my cousins.

Aunt Jane, Uncle Lauro, Christopher and Mark

Aunt Mary and Uncle Peter