We love Dallin, he has such a fun personality. he is always ready with a cheeiser smile and an excited "Dlet's gdo" as he does this excited hoping skiping ganter towards the door, excited to go and do anything we may suggest.
he repeats everything we say. He uses this cute robot like voice when he askes for things like chicken nuggets, he generally says thank you when he hands you something.
he greets us with a huge hug, a real squeeze around the neck type hug, and if you are Katelyn size it gnerally results in both of them falling on the floor and starting a wrestling match, well as close to wrestling as you can get with a princess...

checking on Grant

Katelyn and Dallin love to run back into my room to "check" on Grant. They are so excited to see if he is waking up. checking isn't generally a quiet processafter they check up on him, what do you know, he's wide awake... who would have guessed?

my sad story

so here is my sad story, I like scrapbooking/blogging / most anything that involves telling my story and pictures. the sad part about this is I am the one who takes all the pictures. it seems the only time Cameron spontaneously takes a picture, is first thing in the morning or right before bed which doesn't make for flattering photos. most other times I have to shove a camera into Cameron's hands and beg for him to take a picture of me with the kids, obviously I do this a lot, which would account for these shots. thankfully he is willing to comply... most of the time.

Thanksgiving Happenings

A time for reflection and gratitude Thanksgiving has always been a fantastic time to notice all the wonderful things surrounding me.

we came to Naples for Thanksgiving this year. Cameron's brother Abe came over from Miami with his family and we all had a great time together.

Katelyn spent some quality time rolling in the foliage and consequently spent quantity time with Grandpa removing the "hitch hikers"

Katelyn had a blast playing with her cousins especially Lauren who is exactly a month older then she is. they ran around inside and outside and had a great time convincing their parents and grandparents that they needed to give time ice cream, cookies, cake and anything else they could get their hands on.
Katelyn Dallin and Lauren playing in the baby water play thing. they loved it. next year they may decide that it really is for babies but for now they are having the time of their lives.

Katelyn showing off her starfish hat. cute huh?

chocolate cream pie

Dallin has always been willing to try new things, unlike Katelyn who won't even touch anything that's not cake, chicken nuggets or some kind of fresh fruit or vegetable. so when we made Louise's amazing chocolate cream pie for dessert one night, Katelyn didn't want anything to do with it and Dallin was all over it... or maybe I should say it was all over him. watching him eat it reminded me of when Cameron was in a pie eating contest one year, he explained that the trick to winning a pie eating contest is to get so much on your face that you don't actually have to eat much. this seems to be Dallin's strategy as well.

He is even using a fork... very impressive!Dallin's not too thrilled that Daddy has decided to share.
Grant will have to wait until next year to be in on the pie eating action.

Check out my Slide Show!

Chick-fil-A

Now that Cameron is doing his rotations it's a rare occasion when we get to have lunch with him. During his first two years of medical school we would meet on campus once a week to eat together. so on Friday when Cameron called because he had a few hours before his next lecture and I happened to be driving in the area, we decided to take advantage of the opportunity and meet for a late lunch. we took the kids to Chick-fil-A and even got ice cream cones. We all had a great time. It may be hard to tell but Cameron has a small cone and Dallin has a "kiddie" cone... yeah they were both surprisingly huge.

Say cheese....

Gotta love ice cream...

Katelyn showing off her messy chin... I think Dallin wins in messiness...

A True Floridian

When I woke up last Friday there was an unusual chill, I pulled the covers up to my chin and tried to go back to sleep, not too difficult when you only get one or two hours of sleep between feedings. As I snuggled deeper into the covers, I thought of my children, probably out of their covers and freezing. Of course by this time I realize I can hear them running around in the kitchen, Cameron was up getting breakfast. So I quickly got out of bed and grabbed socks and a jacket. Once in the kitchen I notice the thermostat reads 68 degree… since when did 68 degrees feel this cold? Of course it’s colder outside then inside so I find myself layering the kids up with sweaters and jackets, Cameron is constantly reminding me that they aren’t going to lose a limb to frost bit in 6o degree weather… a good point. I think this qualifies me as an official Floridian

Grant likes his bedding and clothes to be clean, I know this because he makes a conscious effort to remind me to wash it often by being sure to spit up all over his own and mine any chance he gets. it would be awful to over look the bedding while doing laundry...

He is also concerned that his parents don't get to spend much alone time together so he takes it upon himself to be awake at 3am, knowing that it's the only time everyone else is asleep so that Cameron and I can bond as we drowsily try to get him back to sleep.

I can cry if I want to

Grant has decided to adopt Katelyn's philosophy of nursing, this usually involves a lot of crying and screaming until the baby decided to swallow and then more screaming and crying ensues until mommy decides that this is fun and all, and I love having a screaming baby so close to me but I doubt that this child is actually eating much so maybe I should pump and give him a bottle.... when that happens there is usually less screaming and crying but still enough to make me wonder, "what on earth did I eat that would result in so much crying?"

Dallin was such a good little eater, he didn't care what I ate, he was just happy to have food... that still seems to be the case, and Katelyn still throws a fit around meal times which is probably why she is considered "high risk" because of the discrepancy between her height and weight.

Thankfully I am an experienced mother who know that this phase only lasts a few weeks, or was it months?

It's a Saturday afternoon/evening and Cameron is at the hospital today doing doctorly things. so I'm at home with my wonderful children doing childrenly things. so far we have watched a movie twice, gone to the library, went to Target and played, played played, in the midst of our day we all took naps, mine of course being the shortest but hey at least I got to take one right?

Katelyn and Dallin have become professional binkie-nappers. it doesn't seem to matter where I hid them, they find them and put them in their mouths for a few minutes only to lose interest and then ditch them in some unexpected place where eventually I find them again and try to hid them again. its a vicious cycle.

we all love Grant and are thrilled to have him in our family. as Katelyn would say "he's tute" in fact we all think he's cute.




I'm sure there is more I could write but I'm taking a great rick right now because Dallin is sitting on my lap and he has a talent of turning off the computer in ways I never even knew existed... so I better go before all is lost.







Dallin was hiding a chocolate candy in his costume, we discovered it at the end of the night. so sneaky.

We didn't knock on a single door this Halloween season but we still managed to get oodles of candy. So how did we manage to get more candy then a whole army of people could possibly be expected to eat? Two evenings of trunk or treating and trick or teating at the library during story time. Of course my two little trick or treaters are determined to eat every last piece. Thankfully they are too young and naive to insist that they should have control of their own loot. So it’s currently stashed away safely above the fridge brought down occasionally as a reward for going potty or having an older sister go potty… and for now their candy is safe from being devoured by hungry mommies because Grant doesn’t like his milk to be contaminated by chocolate, I’ve already eaten their Hot Tamales and I don’t really care too much for lolly pops… although they still have their daddy to be concerned about…

Dallin was a darling Lion this year. Everyone commented on how cute he was. He was a bit concerned about the adults who were dressed up... I think he figured it was ok for kids to dress in funny costumes because kids do that sort of thing, but adults, now that's weird...

Katelyn was a princess of course. she was a princess last year and will probably be a princess next year, I'm not sure when or if she will grown out of the princess phase, but for now it is in full force.

Grant made his grand appearance as a cute pumpkin. and no we were not torturing our baby, it really was still warm enough for him to be completely comfortable in that outfit.

Cameron was almost a clown, or perhaps a medical student with some crazy hair...