Sweet Little Rayleigh

I just thought I would add a couple of pictures of little miss and a video of her walking for all to enjoy! She is a very happy, curious and determined little girl. Her brothers better watch out because before long she will be right by their side getting into everything and being that pesky little sister who won't leave them alone. She loves her brothers and always wants to be right there by their side.

I turned my back for a brief minute and this is what I found when I turned around. She was trying to climb out at this point, she was further back. She is always right there when I do dishes, usually pulling everything out as I am trying to put it in.

This was last night, she is a climber and wants to get onto everything. She is very determined and usually does get to what she is aiming for.

Rayleigh walking! She has taken just a few steps with our help and prodding, but she is more and more getting up on her own and trying it herself. It wont be long before she is running with her brothers!

Lots of pictures to update

Well we finally got dsl so I can update the blog more often. Here are a few pictures just so you can see how the kids have grown. I am too tired to write much but hope you enjoy the pictures!

Rayleigh taking a nap on mommy

Birthday boy Kaleb

My humble attempt at a dinosaur cake

Dalton, my big helper

Surprised Logan with this picture

Look at all her teeth! She has 8 now.

Say cheese Kaleb!

Logan's first day of 2nd grade

Dalton's first day of Kindergarten!

At least one of them look excited for school

What a pretty girl

Playing with her brothers

Rayleigh Marie, such a happy baby

Kaleb "The strong boy"

Kaleb the strong boy after the ER Got hurt square in the middle of his head

Had to add a picture of Rayleigh for those who haven't seen her. Shes almost 6 months now.

That is Kaleb's name for himself, the strong boy, and he was, unfortunately, able to show us how strong he was this past Wednesday night. He was taking a bath and got out to go potty and then when getting back in the tub slipped and hit his head on the back of the tub. Of course, a lot of screaming and crying ensued. When I ran into the room he told me he hurt his head and when I looked all I saw was blood running down his back. It was definitely a scary sight. Once I was there though and looking at his owie he stopped crying completely. Now his head is continuing to bleed, Dusty and I are trying to gage the size of the wound, messing around with his head and he is just standing there like nothing has happened. We couldn't tell anything of course so we put some gauze on the wound and wrapped up his head and headed for the ER. He is still acting just fine, like nothing happened, but enjoying having his head wrapped up. When we saw the doctor he said he needed 2 staples. I wanted to prepare him for what was going to happen and was telling him the doctor was going to close the whole in his head (couldn't think of another way to say it at the time) and he started to tear up and said "I don't want a whole in my head." I explained it was too late for that and that the doctor is going to fix it. He was then fine. When the DR. came in Kaleb had to lay face down on the bed and asked to be still. He did just that, didn't move an inch, even when they stapled his head! He didn't even start to cry until it was all over and then it didn't last long. He truly is a strong, brave little boy. His is doing fine now and only needed pain reliever once since that night. Now I am spending my days trying to keep him from hurting his head again or ripping out the staples, he just does not know how to be calm. He has to go and get the staples removed on Weds. and I think I am going to have Dusty take him for that, I have a feeling that may be painful.

Logan's new glasses & the zoo

Here is our big guy with his glasses. He failrd his eye screening at school and so we took him to an optometrist and found he is farsighted and will now need glasses. He was excited at first and then got nervous about them, he was afraid he would be teased, and to be honest, so was I. Yesterday was his first day wearing them at school. He said only one little girl teased him and when she did some of his classmates told the teacher before he had the chance. This made him much more comfortable and he is again happy with his glasses.

These next pictures are going to be at the Tyler zoo. I took the kids the Friday of Logan's spring break. They love going to the zoo and this one did not disappoint. All of their favorite animals were there and of course Dalton had to take a liking to one off the odd ones. He became fascinated with the anteater of all things. Those things are huge and not very pretty. The zoo also has a bird walk about (a building where the birds fly free and you get to feed them from a seed stick) and a petting zoo that they really enjoyed. They liked it so much they wouldn't stop talking about it to Dusty so we took another trip to the zoo on Saturday. The boys were in heaven, two days in a row at the zoo, what could be better! Good thing we bought a membership!

Happy kiddos taking a break and looking at the map to see what is up next.

At the bird walk about. At first the boys were apprehensive with all the birds flying around but then worked hard at getting one on their stick.

Logan in front of his favorite animal, the zebra.

Dalton the anteater, his favorite. The anteater did constand laps around his habitat and would not be still long enough for us to get a picture of him and Dalton, other than this one of Dalton chasing him around.

Rayleigh's favorite past time lately is chewing on her fingers. Guess that was more entertaining for her than the zoo at this age.

The zoo had a petting zoo area, the only animal they had though was goats. The boys really enjoyed it none the less. They were able to brush the goats as well and they thought that was the coolest thing. They spent quite a while in there with the goats.

Lastly, I am sorry about the big lapse in posts, but we have dial up right now and it literally takes me a couple of hours to do this. I will still try and do better. Hope you enjoy!

Our new home

We have made the move back to Texas and we couldn't be happier. We are still trying to get things in order, we have a lot of stuff and I really don't know where it all came from! The boys are loving it out here. We have 2 1/2 acres and they love to go out and explore and just play. On the nice days they can stay outside all day long if we let them. One of their favorite things to do lately is practice with their bow and arrows. Dusty thought that since we had the space it was the right time to get them started so they will be pros when it comes time for them to go hunting with him. They love doing it. Don't worry, they are not allowed to practice unless one of us are out there to supervise. So far Dalton is the best. He really practices hard and pays attention, which is no surprise since he has an amazing work ethic, the boy is a work horse! Logan, well he gets bored after a bit and especially if he doesnt do so great. He is still trying to get the strength to pull back the bow. Kaleb, well you can imagine how that goes ;) So, basically, Dusty is in heaven because he has so much space to do his outdoor things. Fishing will take up a lot of his time pretty soon as we are just a couple miles from the lake. At least he will take the boys so it will just be me and Ms. Rayleigh to do what we want.

Had to add a picture of our princess, she is 3 months now.

Kaleb's big boy haircut & Rayleigh's 1st "photoshoot"

Kaleb had his first big boy haircut this weekend. By big boy I mean daddy's clippers. I had been cutting his hair myself with the scissors until this point. I wasn't ready for him to look like a big boy yet, he is my baby. He always asked for daddy to cut his hair whenever Logan and Dalton had theirs cut, so I would have Dusty just pretend to cut his hair. I finally got the courage and let him have daddy cut his hair. He was excited about it at first, but then wasn't so sure about it. He looks so much older now, and I am a little sad about it I must say. I guess I can't keep him a baby forever though.

This is Kaleb the morning before his haircut. His face is clean, it is just chapped :(

Getting a bit nervous at this point

Now does he look happy or what ;)

After his bath he is a much happier boy.

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Dusty got me an awesome camera for our anniversary so he decided to whip out his old photograpphy studio employee and take some shots of Rayleigh. I have to admit they are beautiful pictures, but with a subject like her how could they not. She is such a blessing and a great baby. She is sleeping a bit better now, about 4 hours a night and smiles and coos all the time. At her 2 month check up she weighed in at a whopping 11 pounds and 22.25 ounces. The funny thing is when I look at her I am awed by how big Dalton was at birth. She is now, at 2 months just over a pound bigger and only .25 inches longer than he was at birth!!

Random pictures

Hey everyone! Not a lot going on in our lives right now, at least nothing to blog about. I just wanted to add some pictures of the kids and especially Rayleigh since she is growing so fast, she is 8 wks now. Time really does fly by.

Happy New Year!!!

Wow, another year has come and gone. Time really does fly. We want to wish each of you a very happy and healthy New Year and may God's blessings rain down on you and your families.

Okay, so new year's eve holds new meaning when you have kids. There is no more going out to parties and enjoying a kid free evening, at least not in our case. That is fine though, as we make our own party and have fun. Last night we just ordered in pizza, had some sweet treats, watched a movie, played some Wii and watched the ball drop on TV (at 10pm but the boys didn't know the difference). Earlier in the day, while at the store, the boys saw some party hats and wanted some, so I decided we would go home and make our own party hats. I pulled out the craft box and let them decorate at will. Now, these are very simple hats as I am not too great at putting them together. The boys had a ball doing it though and wore there hats all night long.

This morning we got up and watched to Rose Bowl Parade. I love to see all the floats. Anyways, the boys favorite part was the marching bands. They would grab pillows and pretend they were drums or in Kaleb's case just marching around the living room making plenty of his own "music" with his vocal cords. Later, I went ahead and let them pull out some things from the kitchen and they made their own marching band. Let me tell you, it was loud and at times even sounded half way decent for kitchen items and little boys :)

This is what Rayleigh thought about the "music." I guess her ears are a little more discriminating than a proud mom's.