Ben

This evening I let Ben crawl around in the hallway while I poured a glass of wine did laundry, and I looked over to see him standing up holding on to the bars of our bannister...looking down.  He had pulled up all by himself!!!  My camera was downstairs so I raced down, sure I would miss the shot...but lo and behold!  The boy held the pose.  Here he is...growing up wayyyyy too fast:

"The problem with a kitten is that....

eventually it becomes a cat." Which is something we found out over the past year or so. Remember about two years ago when NotOurCat Emma had babies and brought them over? Well NotOurOtherCat "Patti" (one of Emma's babies) is all grown up now. So grown up that she has her own little kittens. Four (so far) to be exact. Guess how I know? Because I caught the little bugger this afternoon hauling her baby kittens (by mouth) all the way from the house next door (which is not even her own house) to OUR house. Yep! Hiding in our bushes we now have this:

Look closely...see the little black face?




:
Up close...


The kitten tried to get away and mom swatted her-

 A little later they came out to play...

Count them...one, two...and a tail-

"Uh...guys?  I seem to be STUCKSTUCKSTUCK!"

Pretty baby

Nope.  I'm not getting attached.  At all.

I love love LOVE the tiny-tail-sticking-straight-in-the-air...

Matt is SO going to kill me. I think I'll tell him I'm ready to have another baby. Then maybe he'll let me keep the kittens....

Sunday School

Had the following conversation with Matthew after Sunday School today:



Me: Hey buddy! How was S. S.?

M: Good. I really LOVE Sunday School

Me: (heart warming) that is GREAT!! I'm so glad. So, what did you learn today?

M: Learn? Nothing.

Me: Ok, well, what did you talk about?

M: Nothing. We just ate. I love Sunday School!!!!



Apparently they were each given two doughnuts and two packets of fruit snacks...and spent the whole time eating?????



I asked Cailtin what they did in her class and she said "Puzzles".



Oh dear! Puzzles? "yes but they were about Jesus". (Shew!)



Me: "Did you talk about them while you were putting the puzzles together??"

C:"Yes!!"

Me:"Great!!!"

C: "Like, this piece goes here, no this piece goes there".



Sigh. Again.



Happy Sunday y'all. Hope next week is better...

Good Morning! Today I have a few minutes to update; so here's a bit about the kids:

Caitlin has a seven o'clock game tonight, which is a little bit late...but since their team has started to rally (after three straight losses to start the season) I am looking forward to the game. I am going to try REALLY hard not to scream from the sidelines. (it's harder than you think!) Caitlin is also getting ready to take the CRCT next week; she doesn't seem to worried about it...more annoyed at the interruption than anything else! She loves school and loves to "teach her animals". I spied on her a few days ago while she was teaching in her room and it's too cute. She sets them all up on her bed and reads to them, then asks them questions about what she read. The best part is when someone gets in trouble...usually for talking. She is really stern with them!! While she likes this game, she doesn't want to be a teacher when she grows up-she wants to be an artist! (I'm thinking architect...that way she can draw AND pay the bills.)

This morning Matthew was so excited because he got to take his book of drawings to school...over the past few weeks he has been working on drawing pictures to decorate his room:

Yesterday afternoon though he decided to take them all down and make a book out of them. We used a three ring binder and made a cover for it and everything. Matthew added captions to each picture and is going to share them with the class today. I'm anxious to know how it goes. He is my little explorer; he loves to go outside and hunt for caterpillars, and while Caitlin usually stomps them ("they are eating all your pretty plants!!") Matthew wants to save them all-he carries them to the woods and to a new home. Actually he decided to keep one of them the other day...he made it a nice home; assured me that he had gotten ALL the different leaves it might like, and put a wet paper towel in to give it water and named it "Kay Tay" (that may be the Jefferson equivalent of Katie...my children have developed a bit of South in the Mouth). I warned him that sometimes animals in captivity don't live, but he really wanted to keep her. He checked in on her throughout the day and she was fine...but unfortunately overnight..she died. He was devastated and promised that he was never going to do that again! I felt so badly for him; he really took good care of her, but I do think it was a good lesson.

Hannah bo seems to slowly be coming out of the terrible two's...she is very sweet and is showing signs of wanting to do the right thing (instead of doing the opposite of what I tell her to do). She has also developed an interest in letters; she can identify the letter S and sometimes the letter P. This summer I think it will be a good time to start Hannah on some "school"...I'll probably get Caitlin to teach her actually-they would both love that I think! Right now she is bringing me some of Ben's baby food-Peas-which is her FAVORITE food. Ben never gets peas because Hannah eats them all! She won't eat them whole...she only likes them baby food style.

Ben is crawling around everywhere! He got into the dog food for the first time yesterday; no kid can resist it! Poor Chassie always sheds about 15 pounds when the kids first learn to crawl because we have to put her food up all of the time! He is also starting to eat more "people" food (especially since Hannah steals all of his food)-he loves graham crackers and yogurt...but generally makes an enormous mess. He is still wearing a bib all the time. He continues to get us up around 530 to eat, which is getting a little old; I'm not sure if he actually needs to eat...but having a baby cry it out for the last hour before it's time to get ready for the day just doesn't feel like a good option right now!

Random Reporting

This past weekend we (finally) celebrated BenBen's Baptism-he did so well! Not one cry and only a few squeals...


Father was VERY generous with the water...Ben's hair was soaked and stuck straight up-

Fortunately Father decided that the Chrism could double as hair gel. Problem solved!

The girls....notice that C is wearing "dangly earrings" (she wore me down....)

The Fam-

Grandpa and Ben...I see similarities

Grandpa and Matthew

Ben, Grandma and Mommy

Daddy and Ben

I also got some pictures of the kids playing in the front yard-our Azaleas are in bloom and the yard is so pretty! Ben didn't make it into this photo shoot..he'd had enough pictures at the Baptism...

Caitlin posing, Matthew grinning and Hannah holding on for dear life!

Hahaha! I just love how she hugs!

Caitlin putting a flower in Pea's hair.

Cheerin'

Ben Crawling Video

...I hope. Sometimes the video thing doesn't work here, so let me know if you can't see it!

News

BEN IS CRAWLING!!!  I'm going to post video soon, but it is so cute!  He hesitatingly puts one little arm up and moves it forward and then just goes.  For some reason I can't remember the others learning to crawl so it feels like I'm experiencing this for the first time...I love it!

Hannah bo got into the blue stamp pad.  I think I am officially a moron.  Seriously, any normal sane person would probably learn not to leave Pea unattended for any length of time with anything that spreads/is sticky/is brightly colored.  But not me.  I left her downstairs with the art basket, and she got the blue stamp pad and proceeded to lick it and spread the contents all over herself and her chair.  At least we have many many Hannah fingerprints for the police database. 

Matthew had his first baseball game this past weekend which Matt went to (I was at Caitlin's soccer game).  Matt said that Matthew was "the whole package" as a baseball player...he can hit (once to the fence and never off the tee!) and field (shortstop) and run.  I was sad I missed it!  After the game we went to a birthday party and Matthew had so much fun with his friends...it was a good weekend!

Caitlin's game was good and bad....bad because they lost 3-1, but good because guess who scored the only goal??? Lil' C!  I was so proud!  It was, of course, a team effort, but it was Caitlin's "boot" that put it in the goal.  Hopefully there will be many more this season!  In other Cailtin news...I just took her this morning to get a blood screen to make sure that the purpura (reddish rash) on her legs that appears to be spreading is not a sign of anything worse.  We should know by Friday and really are not all that worried, since in all other ways she is completely healthy...but I'll letcha know how it goes. 

Pictures to come...but I better get the Ben before he crawls somewhere he shouldn't be!