Look out world...

Our sweet girl is 7 months old -- hard to believe, but so fun! She changes so much every day, and it is so fun to see her learn and take in the world around her. Of course much to Will's disappointment the world around her she is trying to take in includes his legos, animals, shoes...anything she can roll/scoot/wiggle herself to get to that is his.:)

So, I had this great picture in my head using this little wand from Nana. She loves to play with it and I just knew I could get a great picture with a caption about how she has us under her spell or something...but of course I haven't been able to get her to hold it up AND smile when I have a camera around. Instead in this one she is sidetracked once again by Will -- who she adores. I guess the caption isn't about her casting the spell, but rather that he has one on her. She LOVES him. And he loves her. And I love it. :)



Of course with the second half of the first year comes all the fun food photos! So far Bellamy loves anything and everything that we will let her eat. She is very curious right now and food is no exception. And -- I'm sure this will come as no shock to those who know her mother -- she is determined that she can do it herself! Miss Wanda says she won't let anyone touch her bottle and as soon as we introduced her to the world of finger foods she has been so adamant that she can feed herself. Georgia is of course loving it since many more attempts end up on the floor and not in Bellamy's mouth right now. :)



Beets! So delicious, such a ridiculous mess when they eat them. Of course it didn't help that she's sitting next to Will and cracking up at him in the process, which sends beet juice flying...whose idea was this again???



Look out world, here she comes!

Christmas?!?

Whoops! I guess since every time I saw the last blog post I saw a picture of Santa, I was thinking I had spent some time here talking about Christmas. Then I looked at the date of the last post and thought, Christmas?!? I didn't write about Christmas?!?

Apparently that couple of weeks was kind of a blur...we had the Christmas crud around here, which everyone except Todd caught some version of that sidelined all of us a few days at a time. Luckily it all seemed to hit either before or after the big Christmas weekend, but did fill what should have been our break with lots of visits to the doctor and extra time on the couch. Other than that, we had a fantastic holiday break filled with time with our family and friends that we love so much. It was great to have Jess and Mom in town for Christmas morning and then see all of the Tones crew in the afternoon on Christmas day!

So here's a couple of highlights...

First of all, the adorable stockings that now hang on Will and Bellamy's doors...courtesy of Miss Wanda. It's always the first Christmas gift she gives the kids at her house -- Will got one for his first Christmas and now she has made one for Bellamy. I love the stockings, but even more than that, I love that we have Miss Wanda in our life to see us through these early years with both our children. She is such a blessing!



Mr. Will in his Christmas eve finest...not the finest pic, but I waited way too long to try and get one and he was ready for some dinner and bed by the time I got a chance at him.




Along with all the Christmas excitement, our little lady turned 6 months old! I love this stage of the first year -- they start learning and growing so fast that every day is a new exciting adventure for them. She is our little joy, always quick to smile with those bright eyes. For now, she is completely infatuated with her big brother -- she lets out a squeal every time he comes into a room. Gotta remember to get that on tape for ammunition later...;)



Will was introduced to Legos this Christmas -- and is infatuated with them. See how serious he is just looking at the box? I think Todd is loving it almost as much as he is...it's giving him a nice trip down memory lane. Now if we could just get him to be a little more self sufficient in his building...right now Todd and I are getting really good at Legos right along with him!



Here he is enjoying his tent from Santa -- mommy and daddy are sure glad Santa managed to get it assembled and into the living room successfully Christmas Eve night...and that Toys R Us is open late in case of toy emergencies. Apparently one of the reindeer stepped on the original tent, but Santa managed to put a call into some special elves to hook him up and get things back on track in record time. ;)



Will checking out his new scooter from Nana and Grandpa. Again, Todd is spending a little time on memory lane on this one - we happen to have another scooter at the house, so they have been going out "scooting" together the last few weeks, which is so fun to watch. Of course on one of the scooting trips Todd actually fell on that same memory lane...but it was a great chance to teach Will that when you fall, you get up, brush yourself off, and scoot on home to ask Mom for a band-aid.



Well, that's Christmas in a nutshell. 2011 closed out exactly as it should, with our friends and family and reminders of all our blessings. Can't wait to see what 2012 has in store!

Visiting Santa

Over the weekend we went for our annual trip to see Santa at the Enchanted Gardens. It's a nursery that we love all throughout the year -- Will because they have goats and other farm animals on site, Todd and I because they have awesome plants and even more important for us, excellent planting advice. But for this trip we took advantage of Santa being on site and their cute gift shop for a little Christmas shopping. :)

Will did great with Santa -- he doesn't ever like to sit on his lap, but he likes to sit right next to him and have a little chat. He wouldn't tell us what he was going to tell him that he wanted...but hopefully with a little help from some elves that were listening we will have a successful Christmas morning. :)

Hey, stop listening Mom! This is between us...



Um, let's see, did I remember to tell you everything??



Poor Bellamy -- we interrupted her very much loved nap time and she was crashed out hard in the car when we got there to see Santa. Add that to the fact that she's fighting a cold this weekend...she was not so sure what all the excitement was about and her normal smiley self was a little absent for the photo op. But she grabbed on tight to Santa's beard and hung out with him while her big brother gave him a few suggestions to bring her too. :)



Snacking on a cookie from Daddy!



Merry Christmas everyone!

Just follow the blue dot...

Um, so Christmas is next week. And I am just now talking about Thanksgiving...oh well.

The week of Thanksgiving we took our first road trip as a family of four. I was very nervous about traveling with two -- 1000 miles is a long way for anyone, much less the littlest ones! But luckily we have been blessed with great traveling children -- I guess if we're going to live so far away at least everyone travels well. :)

Along the way Will noticed that Todd and I kept checking the GPS maps on our phones and wanted to know what it was. We showed him how there is a green dot where you start, a red one where you finish, and the blue dot is where you are currently. He became fascinated with the dots the rest of the trip. When he was hanging out with his friend Brody in Kansas City he asked him if he wanted to come over to his house. Then he preceded to tell Brody -- "you can come over, just tell your dad to follow the blue dot." :) We did a LOT of car traveling that week -- stopping in Kansas City, Omaha, Farnam, back to Omaha, Dallas, and then home. But the kids were troopers and all we heard from Will was, "where is the red dot today???"

It was a great trip -- we were able to see so many people and Will always has such a good time. Here he is checking out the tractors...



Thanksgiving day we were in Farnam at the annual Bellamy family luncheon. It was great to get to see so many people in one place and give Will an opportunity to have some quality time with the rough and tumble Bellamy boys. At one point he came in with grass in his hair and dirt in his teeth SO proud of himself! A little tackle football among the under 10 group never hurt anyone, right??

In the meantime, the little lady was busy trying out peas for the first time...Thanksgiving seemed like an appropriate day to give solid foods a chance. :)



And it wouldn't be Thanksgiving in Nebraska without a little football watching...go Huskers!



Every year the Friday after Thanksgiving the shopping area by Jess's house has a great Christmas parade. We decided to go and check it out this year and enjoy a little time with Uncle Bob and the crew. It was a little rainy and a little cold, but not too shabby for this time of year. It was Will's first experience with fireworks and his expressions were priceless!





During some of our many hours in the car I got the brilliant idea to play a thankful abc game. We would each come up with things we were thankful for that started with different letters and I kept track of them on my phone. It's funny to think back to what we said and how it was definitely a testament to how the trip was going. There were times that Will was thankful for airplanes...probably definitely ready to get out of the car (around the same time Todd said he was thankful for alcohol...) Most of the time he was thankful for whatever animal he could think of or the names of his friends we had just seen or he missed from school. But he was also thankful for Daddy -- as we all were as he drove us across the country. :) It was wonderful to get to spend time with so many people that we love and we look forward to next time -- but ready for people to come to us!

Goodbye October

Geez! The second half of October certainly came and went quickly! It really didn't feel like we had been doing anything all that interesting, but then I downloaded pictures off my camera and...over 100 later I realized it was definitely time for a blog post. So here is a little update on the last few weeks of our world.

First of all, the big kids. This picture sums things up pretty well -- Elyse and Will are such good friends and we always joke that they don't realize that they aren't actually related because most of the time they are either loving each other or fighting like siblings. I love this picture because I feel like it's a glimpse at what they will look like as big kids. Not that I'm rushing it.:)



And the little lady. She is now 4 months old -- and 5 months is creeping up on us! She's a great baby, with a beautiful smile and pretty easygoing personality. She still loves to talk -- so that will be fun later, right? :) Here is our sweet girl, showing off for the camera.



With her big 4 month birthday came the introduction to a little cereal for the little one too. As you can see, she is loving joining the table!



Will has been anxiously awaiting Bellamy being able to eat things -- he keeps asking if he can make her some vegetables. So needless to say, he wasn't missing out on the first cereal eating -- and he wanted to feed her too. Looks like they make a pretty good team...



One of Will's favorite parts of the month of October is the pumpkin patch at church. We have to go out and explore them every Sunday after church - he loves it! Must be that farmer gene in him...

We always have to try and take pictures while we are in the pumpkins, but it is definitely harder to pin him down than it used to be! I would have loved to get pictures with both kids, or us as a family, or anything close to any of that, but it totally didn't happen. Here's a glimpse of what we do have...

The little people hanging out in the pumpkins...



And the bigger little people!



Will also decided that we had to make a jack-o-lantern this year, so he and Todd picked out a pumpkin to bring home and carve. I'm not sure who enjoyed it more, but either way they both had a great time. It is the one part of Halloween that Will does seem to like and it was so fun to watch them work on their "face" together.





Every year our church has a big Trunk Treat celebration that we have been a part of since Will was born. It's a great chance for the kids to hang out in their costumes, get some candy, and better yet -- have the whole thing over in an hour. :) Will actually has not developed much of a love of the holiday (I swear I try not to influence him on that one!) so we really have to talk him into dressing up, but he does love to go and see his friends. He told us this year that he wasn't wearing a costume, but that he would wear his cowboy clothes. Not sure the difference, but it made him happy and got us out the door. :)

Todd took Will a few weeks ago to get "real" cowboy boots so he has been wearing them non-stop lately. Pair them with his jeans that "have the leather on the back" (wranglers) and you have a cowboy costume. He actually has a hat and lasso, and at some point in the night starting chewing on a sucker stick to complete the outfit. So here's our little Marlboro man as Todd called him. :)



And, thanks to AJ, Bellamy had a few dress up worthy items herself. I added some football legwarmers and she was all set! WIll called her a football fairy princess. :)



This past weekend we took advantage of the good weather and checked out Dewberry Farms. It's a great attraction for little kids that is only open for a short time each year. And since our guy is such a fan of all things farm related, we had to check it out.

Doesn't he look like a natural?



Enjoying the tractor train with Daddy!



Checking out the pig races...



It's been a great fall! I can't believe that the holiday season is right around the corner -- but it does mean we are that much closer to spending time with many of you!

Happy Fall!

Blessed

It goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway -- we are so blessed. We have such wonderful people in our lives, near and far, and we are always reminded of that at times like this weekend. We celebrated Bellamy's baptism with some of the most important people in our lives and it was so fun to have all of them together! Thanks to Aunt B (as always) we have a few pictures to document this important day.

Here we are -- this may be the first picture of us as a family of four?!?



And my guys hanging out before the ceremony...:)



Will settling in with Grandma before the service -- we weren't sure how he would do sitting in traditional church, on the front row, for the whole service. He did great! We asked him if he wanted to leave after the baptism so he could go play, and he said he wanted to stay. He started to get kind of antsy towards the end, but I was SO impressed. What a guy. :)



Our little lady in her big moment. Of course she had to make her presence known a few times, but overall, she was great. She was so interested in what Chuck was saying -- she doesn't miss a thing!



It is a double blessing to be able to have Bellamy baptized by Chuck Simmons. As well as being a fantastic pastor, we are also lucky enough to consider him a good friend. It takes an already significant moment and magnifies it. Thank you Chuck.



And then there's these two. They could not wait to take pictures together at the altar. Cheese!!



Afterwards we had everyone over to our house for lunch and a little time to celebrate with those we love. We were so lucky to have my sister and mom in town along with Todd's family and many of our close friends with us for this special occasion. Our normally sleepy, nap loving little one stayed up all afternoon to party with her admirers. It was a truly wonderful day!

Hey there!

Another month has come and gone and well...it's still hot. Like crazy hot for September. And I like warm weather, but this is getting ridiculous! Looking forward to, oh I don't know, fall???

Anyway...we haven't been up to much yet stayed incredibly busy all at the same time this past month. We have gotten into a good groove with school and Bellamy has transitioned to Miss Wanda's like a champ. Of course it's hard not to when she loves on you like she does. Miss Wanda is such a blessing in our lives! Mainly because our kids always come home from her house looking like this...



There are a whole lot of babies in our lives right now! It will be so fun to see all of these kids growing up together -- and little Miss Bellamy is the only girl in a land of a lot of boys these days! Here she is with one of her many boyfriends, Jackson. This picture cracked me up -- they are totally checking each other out. :)



Will is still so in love with Bellamy -- and she is finally reciprocating by laughing and smiling at him, which he's been trying to get out of her since birth. He loves to talk to her and get her to laugh -- which is precious to watch because she pretty much cracks up as soon as he talks to her.



A little basketball game for everyone...



And of course it's football season so we have to deck out in our Husker gear, courtesy of AJ. :)



And we can't forget our middle child. She's been feeling pretty neglected because her position as running partner has been temporarily sidelined -- I can't exactly maneuver the jogging stroller AND the leash...so this is the look I get when I put on my running shoes these days.



So that's the story around here these days...we are entering the season of football game duty, preschool birthday parties, and before long, the holidays! See you soon everyone!