Kellan is 10 months old!

Our little guy is now 10 months old. I'm ashamed to say I missed his 9 month post, but he's been a busy boy the past 2 months! Right after Thanksgiving he began crawling, and he quickly learned how to pull himself up on furniture. He loves to cruise around the coffee table knocking off anything on it. We kept our Fisher Price manger scene here over christmas, and after I would set it up each evening after the kids were in bed, he would knock it all off again first chance he got the next morning! Just this week he started to be able to push his walker around on his own. He loves the independence and concentrates very hard. He needs help turning but I can imagine it will only be a matter of time before he can do that without any assistance! He's definitely getting into everything, being much more of a trouble maker than his big sister was! He loves to pull open kitchen cabinets, knock all of the alphabet magnets off the refrigerator, stick his hands in the dog's water bowl, pull the power cord out of the laptop...One thing that really makes him laugh is playing with Sophie (the dog)--he loves to pick up her stuffed and squeaky toys and play tug of war with her. I don't think Sophie is overjoyed by this but she's really good with him and goes along with it. Kellan starts laughing when she tries to pull her toys away. It's pretty funny to watch. Also, right after christmas Kellan started getting his top 2 teeth in. They are just breaking through, but that brings his total up to 4!

Kellan has been learning how to say "more" and "all done" in sign language. He uses both signs but I think we still need to refine his skill at determining when to use them! He has finally made a few sounds other than just "dada"--that phrase is still his favorite but he also says "mama" and "yaya". He likes to stand up in his crib and throw his favorite sleeping buddy (that we call his "lovie over the side, then scream his head off until you come give it back to him.

Kellan also enjoys pushing his little cars around the living room. The friction ones that Nana got him for christmas are ones he's enjoying right now!

He's still been a good eater--much better than his sister ever was! He eats a combination of some finger foods (bananas, cheerios, puffs, bread, peas) along with some chunky blended foods.

He loves being free of the baby bath tub and enjoys crawling around the big bath, often with his big sister. He is a happy, snuggly boy and we are enjoying the little time he has left as a baby. It's going by too quickly, but I'm definitely glad I am at home to experience it with him!

Last week I started babysitting for a 10 week old little boy, so it's been fun to be around a tiny baby again. Kellan is fascinated by him and wants to check him out. He has yet to show signs of jealousy, which I am grateful for. So far it has worked out well as I rarely have both kids awake at the same time, so it is not yet overwhelming.

Funny story about Alex, since most of this post has been about her little bro. Last week her friend Jarrett was over and I was making them dinner. I asked Alex if they wanted grilled cheese, and she said yes. She looked at Jarrett and said, "Do you want grilled cheese or boy cheese?" She then told me she would have grilled cheese, and Jarrette needed boy cheese, since he was a boy. It was only then that I realized that all this time she thought we referred to it as girl cheese instead of grilled cheese. Marlon was there for the moment as we laughed. Odd that this hadn't come up before because Jarrett has had "girl" cheese at our house a number of times. She's recently made a lot of comments regarding girl vs. boy--that the girls do things together, not with boys; that she wants to play with only girls, not boys at school, etc. Marlon definitely reinforces the "stay away from boys" mentality!

Photography 101

I've been remiss in posting about the fact that my husband has recently become obsessed with taking pictures, thanks to all of my family members who have these great digital SLR cameras. Everyone was discussing them over the holidays and taking great photos and Marlon, the electronics guru that he is, couldn't believe he somehow missed the boat on upgrading our camera. Needless to say, one week and much research later, we were the proud owners of a Nikon D40X camera (Refurbished)--big thanks to my SIL Renee who really got Marlon going with this one! I haven't had the opportunity to use it much as it's typically in Marlon's hands, but it does have the ability to take some really nice pictures (such as the ones in the new header above). Gotta love the photoshop programs available these days to help enhance photos--I truly believe that those programs can make any ole' picture look amazing! I admit I'm glad we'll be able to capture some amazing memories of the kids with the new camera--I just need to learn how to use it first!
I know Marlon has been dying to see some of his works of art on here, so I thought I'd post this for him while he's out of town in St. Louis. Here are a few of my favorites:

Alex standing next to her first completed game of Wii Bowling (she scored a 90--she's improved significantly since then!)

M-I-C-K-E-Y MOUSE!

In case you haven't heard, we went to Disney!! Every year Marlon has to go recruiting in Orlando right after Christmas, and this year we decided that Alex and I would fly down and join him when the tournament ended and visit some of the infamous Disney attractions. Kellan stayed behind with both sets of grandparents since we figured he probably wouldn't enjoy it very much--he had a great time and did well being on his own, despite getting over a yucky cold.
We had 3 full days to spend at the parks, and we were fortunate enough to get free park hopper tickets from one of Marlon's contacts down there--that made the trip MUCH more affordable! We decided to visit Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios (formerly MGM), and Animal Kingdom. I think Alex was just barely old enough to enjoy some of the sites and be able to stand and wait in line--I don't think I would have wanted to take her at much earlier of an age. Since we saved mucho dinero on park tickets, we decided to splurge and do dinner at Chef Mickeys in the Contemporary resort. Mickey and friends come to your table one at a time so you can take pictures with them. Alex enjoyed meeting Minnie Mouse the most--she wasn't shy with her but was a little shy with the others--she only wanted to have her picture taken if one of us held her. We also splurged on breakfast at Cinderella's Royal Table in the castle one day. This is definitely a costly activity ($130 for the 3 of us and no variety in terms of options for eating), but you pay for the experience of meeting each of the princesses and eating inside the castle. The set up was the same as Chef Mickeys--the princesses each came to the table one at a time so we could meet them and have pictures taken with them. I'll admit I wasn't overly impressed with the entire experience here but Alex enjoyed meeting the princesses, so it was nice...definitely not something I would have done if I was already paying for park tickets.
We didn't have much of an agenda and tried to go by what Alex wanted to do, but I did try to highlight a few attractions that I thought she would like and hit those...at Magic Kingdom, we made sure to do Dumbo, It's a Small World, Peter Pan's adventure. At Hollywood Studios they opened a Playhouse Disney section sometime in the past few years since I was last there, and that was PERFECT for Alex. She got to meet the Little Einsteins, and we saw but didn't meet Handy Manny and JoJo (for all of you moms, you probably know who I'm referring to!)

We stayed at the Gaylord Palms, a huge hotel that is connected to the Orlando Convention Center. They had tropical trees, flowers, and koi ponds inside the center--Alex loved to visit the fish each morning when we went down to get breakfast. They also had a boat inside that was also a restaurant.

Here are a few other pictures from our trip...

The christmas parade at Magic Kingdom--what a beautiful day it was!

Alex and Marlon outside Magic Kingdom--day one!

The Safari ride at Animal Kingdom

The Petting Zoo at Animal Kingdom-Marlon was a little grossed out but Alex enjoyed brushing a few goats!

All in all, it was a good trip and it was nice to spend some quality time with just Alex. We look forward to going back when the kids are older so we can take Alex on the "Big rides"! I think she's going to be a roller coaster lover like her mom!

Goodbye 08, Hello 09!...part 1

At long last I'm sitting down to post about our holidays. I've been putting this post off because there was just too much to talk about, but I guess the longer I wait, the worse it's going to get! We had a great time visiting with friends and family but it is definitely good to be back home again after 2 weeks away! We've done so much that it's hard to remember it all--my sister in law did a great job giving some highlights of our family events in her blog. (thanks Renee!!) She as usual included some great photos--I will also try to post some of my favorites.

We headed out to the Philly/NJ area to visit both of our families--we are very fortunate that they live close to each other so we are able to see everyone over the holidays. It was great to see our nieces and nephews and give Alex the chance to play with her cousins. Below are some pics:

My family

Lauren and our nephew Carter

I will post our pics of our Disney trip in a separate post. Stay tuned!

no good title comes to mind...

Here's a couple pics from our mini family photo shoot before Marlon's department christmas party the other night. Here's our little crawler who's getting around pretty well these days! He has started pulling up to a standing position on Alex's Dora house--he's pretty daring! His mood has definitely improved as he can now happily sit in the living room playing while I'm making dinner or doing something else. He is loving crawling around and exploring things. He enjoys pushing Alex's puzzle boxes around the floor, and he likes going for the christmas tree and the few presents underneath!

Me and the kids

I had to take this photo of what I believe is the first time the kids played TOGETHER. They played with the cars and the garage, and Alex was nice enough to share some cars with her little brother. Cute! (Renee--notice Nolan's old Diego PJs on Alex?!)

On a totally unrelated note, can someone tell me how to improve on my incredibly boring header on my blog? I tried to follow instructions I found somewhere but couldn't get it to work. I see many of you have better headers with bigger font, pictures, decoration, etc. Please help me spruce mine up!

Has a future star been born?

Tuesday night was a big night for Alex (and for us!)--it was her first official, organized soccer lesson!! It came up kind of last minute, but the women's soccer team here does a youth clinic that lasts for 3 weeks. They start with kids age 3 through teenagers, so I thought this would be the perfect time to get Alex introduced to soccer as a player, not just a spectator! She is comfortable with the women's players because she knows a number of them so we thought it would be as good a time as any to start! Due to the short notice, Marlon had to stop at Dick's to buy her first pair of cleats and shin guards--I'm sure that was a great moment for him. (this is also why she isn't matching quite so well--we realized that there aren't too many shorts available this time of year, and there aren't many soccer socks available for kids her size! We may need to dig through Nolan's hand me downs for Kellan to see if there are any athletic shorts in there, since we realize these are the only ones Alex has!). Either way she looked cute and we still had to snap a few photos (Marlon was trying to get her to do the official soccer picture pose).

Alex waiting for her name to be called for her "team"!

Practicing her dribbling skills

She seemed to have a good time so we'll be going back next week. The women's head coach has 2 little girls, and her daughter Gracie who is 2 1/2 was in Alex's group, so she had a little friend on her team. We also found out that her BFF at school, Sophia, will also be attending the clinic, so she'll probably be there next week--that should be fun to watch! Alex even commented on the way home that she was actually tired from playing soccer. Maybe we've finally found something that can tire out our little energizer bunny!

long overdue kiddie pics

I've been meaning to post some pictures of the kids over the past month--enjoy!

Alex goofing around with daddy--**I have a picture of Marlon doing a similar thing from college--I have to dig it out and scan it in to post. Like father, like daughter!

Alex helping to trim the tree!

The finished product, cut down by daddy! (I am hoping to get some pics from our tree cutting trip but they are still on my mom's camera)

Kellan playing in the clothes basket (can you see his 2 teeth?)

Like mother, like daughter (like Granddad!), the girl loves cookie dough--Alex licking the bowl after making chocolate chip cookies with mommy and Ehren

Kellan in his hooded towel made by Grammy