Getting a little help

Chase has been a little on the slow side in regards to walking.  While his cousins were chomping at the bit and got started around 9 month, Chase has not been interested in any way shape or form.  He does not like to have you hold his hands and try to help him walk.  Apparently if he is going to do it, he'll do it himself, thank you very much.  However, he did like cruising along behind Carter on her trike.  They had a great time roaring around the kitchen, although we had to keep reminding Carter that he can't go as fast as she can!

He's getting closer all the time to walking!

Helping Dad

Chase decided that Dad needed his help changing the water filters.  He was great help too...taking the tools Robert needed, throwing a fit if you took his tool....

I love how they want to mimic everything you do at this age!

Here Dad!

Happy Birthday Baby Girl!

This year to celebrate Carter's 4th birthday, I decided I wanted to throw a big ole kid party for her and her cousin Cade, since his birthday is the day after Carters. She was so excited about the party. All day long you'd ask her " Who are you?" and she happily yell back "I'm the BIRTHDAY Girl!". I spent 6 weeks planning the party, nearly 2 weeks cooking, prepping all the activities since I could only do a little bit each day, not to mention all help from my sister. In the end, I think it was worth it as I think the party was a big success and fun was had by all. We invited a bunch of our friends with kids around Carter and Cade's age and I think there were around 23 kids ranging from babies to teenagers. Robert's mom had flown in from PA and also got to be at the party. It was quite a commotion! Gramma Pat made the great caterpillar cake above.

Avery promptly decided that what she really needed to do was go sit in a mud puddle! Luckily her and Chase are about the same size so I had plenty of clothes she could change into.  Corrine has a much better picture of a very muddy Avery on her blog.

Carter giving a new friend a push

The pony and four wheeler rides were very popular!  If you look real close, that's Cade holding his sister Avery with Carter leading the horse Titan.  (You can also see both sets of Gramma's frantically snapping lots of pictures!)

Blake and Mackinzie came in full costume! We were so glad they were able to come to the party. We'd been telling Carter about the party a couple weeks in advance to get her all excited about it and all she could talk about were all the things her and Blake were going to do together. She just loves Blake! (We do too!)

Aunty Nancy was a big hit with the face painting and Aunty Gwynnie came in full costume. It gave quite the carinival atomosphere to the whole proceedings!

I never would have guessed that one of the most popular attractions would be chasing the chickens. Hannah holding the long suffering Dora!

Lots and lots of little kids! Cousin Everett checking out the wagon...

Carter naturally spent most of the party either riding her horse or leading it for other kids to ride. She was a great sport about letting the other kids ride her horse. I wasn't sure if she would be or not, but she was wonderful. We also had the kids make pet rocks, decorate bug jars and then go on a bug scavenger hunt for plastic bugs scattered all over the lawn. It was a great party, other than all the dang flies!  It was a beautiful day, not too windy. Robert was wonderful about getting everything outside all clean-up, helping with the pony rides and then cooking burgers and hotdogs.  Another great bonus was my mom and Dee, my sister's mom in law, who stayed and helped get the kitchen all cleaned up afterwards.

Happy Birthday Carter! I hope you know just how much your mom and dad love you!

Fixing the Flower Bed

Robert thought that he would fix up the really nice flower bed that he had made earlier this summer right by the door.  Between the new puppy Gracie and the darn chickens, it was pretty much destroyed over the summer.  He wanted it to look nice for Carter's party so he had picked up some replacement flowers.  Chase and Carter were more than happy to "help".

Carter naturally wanted to get in the picture as soon as she saw Chase getting some attention!  I should have gotten a picture of how beautiful it looked before the dog decided to dig it up 10 minutes later.  Robert was not pleased to say the least!

Sigh...However, he IS the one who brought home all the dogs, chickens...  He fixed the flower bed and it stayed really nice for about another 2 weeks before the deer snuck in and ate all the plants, then the chickens came and tore it up and now the dog has it all dug up again.  I'm thinking maybe hot wire next year?

Chase's First Birthday

My little boy had his first birthday today. I know all mom's say this, but I just can't believe it's been a year already.  It's gone so fast!  He's learned to clap in the last week and says a few words like "hot", "Hadley", "Gracie" and "Moo".  Naturally it does sound like he's also working on "No".  He kinda got gyped in the party department since we were up to our ears in party planning for Carter's big celebration in less than 10 days. So we just made some pig cookies and had a couple family members over. I don't think Chase noticed or minded very much.

Cade and Carter were only too happy to help sing Happy Birthday and help Chase blow out his one candle.  Chase really liked his cookies too!  I don't feed him many sweets so he really thought this was a great treat...not that the expression in the picture is a good indication!  I think he was getting tired of cameras as I have about 100 pictures of him eating that cookie trying to catch a smile.

Carter and Grampa checking out the directions for Chase's new toy truck.  Nothing like "Some assembly required".

Chase watching Grampa closely as they assembled the toy. 

Trying out the new toy...he really liked the truck and KNEW it was HIS! 

Carter was pretty sure the new toy should be HERS although she mostly wants to play with it because Baby Brother was, of course. 

Cousin Everett checking out the new ride.  Thanks to everyone who came down to wish my little boy a happy birthday!

Decorating cookies with Gramma Howell

Carter, Gramma Howell and I made pig cookies for Chase's first birthday.  These are a great sour cream cookies that is very soft and I figured would be pretty easy for him to eat.  (We are still a bit short in the teeth department, so not too much chewing yet).  We were lucky enough to have Robert's mom Barb come for a couple weeks to visit and she was able to hit both kids birthdays. 

Carter loved decorating the cookies...although some of hers looked like they had chicken pox or strange mutations with several noses or multiple eyes.   Details!

Carter really enjoyed all the time she got to spend with her Gramma Howell and was really missing her when she had to leave. 

Truck Ride with Grampa

Grampa came down from the shop to take all the kiddos on a ride in his newest to him truck.  His purpose was to test out the brakes, but I figured he probably had a pretty good idea that they were working pretty good otherwise he wouldn't have wanted to pack in 4 of his grandkids along as experiments. 

Getting everyone in was a challenge...the first couple steps were tricky, unless you were small enough to just have Grampa toss you up on the seat.

Carter and Cade carefully checking out everything Grampa was doing.

Step on the brakes...which did work...and Avery nearly tumbled off the "dog house" as Dad called it.

Chase didn't quite know what to think about the trip, but he was along for the ride at any rate.  It was nice to get out of the house for a bit although I might have done a bit more war paint if I'd known pictures were in store for today!

Riding with my little girl

I sometimes feel like Robert gets to do all the fun stuff with Carter while I'm home with Chase. So it was a real treat when Robert got the horses all saddled up so I could go for a ride with my little girl while Chase was napping. We had a great time.


I basically drug Titan the whole trip with Carter alternately yelling "Faster, we need to trot!" and "Stop! I need a break!". We didn't get very far in any kind of a hurry but it was a great day, not too hot.

Notice the baby monitor still attached to my pants...good thing Robert noticed!

Carter is getting closer to riding with out a lead rope. She rides around in the corral all by herself, but isn't quite strong enough to be turned loose out in the open. Soon enough Baby Girl!

Checking Stuff Out

This video really cracks me up. Chase is really getting into the spirit of what exactly I'm not sure...maybe taking some baby angst out on the chair? I like the part where it looks like he's kicking the chair too. Take that! I need a good title for this video, but after kid wrangling all day I'm not exactly firing on all cylinders.


Now that Chase can pull himself up, he's big into explorer mode. I don't suppose it will be much longer before he actually crawls in the cupboard.
He was having fun with this bus toy of Carters (that she had quit playing with over a year ago until she say baby brother with it). He's getting pretty good at pushing it around, until it runs into something or bucks him off.
He's still super wobbly and we have lots of falls when he gets himself pulled up and then can't get down or he picked a bad idea like a tiny chair as leverage. No major crashes yet, fingers crossed.

Slip n Slide

Robert's mom sent Carter out a Slip'n Slide in one of her great boxes and we finally had a day hot enough to get it out. Sunday was perfectly gorgeous and plenty warm. Sterling was over visiting, so they both had lots of fun!

Sterling trying to show us just how to slide down without falling...just before the crash!

Carter inching down the slide sideways

Checking out the sprinkler part of the slide. This was good entertainment! We were hoping to get the slide out again while I was watching Cade and Avery this week but it's now much too cold to play in the water, although that didn't stop Carter and Cade from trying to give the chickens a bath then soaking themselves with the barn hydrant. (Then coming in the house crying because they were wet, cold and tracking mud all over the carpet...)