Eight Months Means Many Milestones

Courage turned eight months about a week and a half ago. She's really growing. Being a little sister means that she's got a lot of motivation to keep up with her big brother. She's been wanting to crawl for several months now, but she finally got all of her limbs working and can very effectively crawl to where she wants to go. I must admit that when Daddy puts a bowl of popcorn down, she moves faster than I've seen her move ever.

Food is a great motivator for our little darling as well. She can practically out eat her brother (and no, I'm not really kidding). She "demands" food by looking at something and making noises, and if that doesn't work, she begins to make a very loud growl--we liken it to a lion roaring. I'm trying to teach her that it's not very good manners, but how does one do that to an eight month old? She already eats a ton of stuff that I wouldn't have dreamed feeding Freedom at her age: whole pieces of bread, baked beans, eggs, "very small" pieces of lunch meat or bacon (not many as she likes to keep them in her cheek). She can easily devour a 4 oz helping of baby food and finish off another 2-3 oz of something different and follow that up with an entire slice of bread in one setting. It took me a while to realize that maybe my baby girl wasn't so content because she was sooo hungry--but I think we've got it down now. --She really likes food. :)

She also likes the great outdoors. Anytime we get ready to go out the back door, she gives whoever is there a very hopeful look and will swing her legs quite wildly. She loves to look around and see what's going on--especially if it is outside. Oh, and she has already begun the stages of trying to pull-up. She's moving much faster than I'm ready for. Yikes.

She will "kind-of" say three words, "Ma-ma" (usually when she is hungry), "Da-da-da-da" and will copy cat "Uh-oh." Yesterday she copied Freedom's sneeze, "A-chu." (Too cute!) Her first two bottom teeth are also in. The one on the left is all the way through, and I think the other is just a matter of days before it actually breaks through.

Freedom is growing up and wanting to do all kinds of things. Lately he's been a big helper and has been going out to the garden with me. He says he doesn't like hard work, but he always wants to go out to the garden with me. By his own admission, it's in hopes that it's a warm day and he'll get sprayed with the water hose mom is using. He's learning so much, and I am amazed at the different things that he can understand and relay back to me. He did a great job of explaining about Peter being told to go fish and find coins in the fishes mouth to pay the tax. I was very impressed with how he told the Bible story (and it made me wonder if I'd been talking too much about taxes back in March that it made a big impact on him with this story. :) )

I'll try to get a few pics up to go with our update.

Happy Easter!

In anticipation of Easter, we decided to have an Easter egg hunt at our house. The weather was suppose to be good, but that day ended up being pretty chilly in the morning. Nonetheless, we had a great time and enjoyed both preparing for the hunt and participating.
Freedom and I decorated a special cake for the occassion. We also filled eggs with stickers and candy. We ended up hiding the eggs in the garage, but everyone seemed to still have fun. Thanks to everybody who ended up making it such a special day! We had a lot of fun!

Freedom's clothes and other things

Freedom came out a couple of weeks ago in this great outfit. I thought he did a pretty good job color coordinating, so I thought I'd share. :) Next, we went to the zoo and got to see one of Freedom's favorite dinosaurs: the triceratops. (Thanks Nana for the little dinos at Christmas, he really likes the one that "is kind of like a rhino.") I got a great picture of the beautiful red buds that are blooming. They are soooo pretty. Wisteria is in bloom here as well. Courage is sitting up very well (and that picture was taken on her 7 month birthday), and she has been trying to push up and get her legs to moving to enable her to crawl. But, she mainly goes backwards and can go round and round in circles quite well too.

Hummm...What happened?

I am using our old computer to make these posts, and I must say that I'm pleased to even be able to do that. My "new" computer that I was loving decided to crash on me on April Fools' Day. Guess it thought that my knowledge of computers fit in well with that day. So...alas.... I had been going to update you all and provide pictures from the last of our spring break on a bit when the computer crashed, so I guess I'll just have to tell you and provide some other pictures.

The beginning of Spring Break here was beget with sickness. Freedom and Courage both were running fevers and not so good. They were feeling better a bit later. However, since they were sick at the beginning of the week my planned trip to Georgia became unplanned (can you blame me?), but my brother had invited us up to Omaha like 6 months ago (and we'd said we didn't know what we were doing then)--so it seemed like a good thing to do at the last minute. So, off we went for the weekend. I'd hoped to see Brady and Laura too, but they were back visiting our nomadic mother and father-in-law. :) So, anyway, we went to a great hockey game (and even got to sit on the front row right behind where the home team sits--so that was great) and they won! The next day we went to the largest car show that I've ever seen. I got some great pics of that, but they are on my phone and I don't know how to get them off of there. We had some of the best food there in Omaha too! Yumm Yumm! I'll give a shout out to the Farm House Cafe and to the Wheatfields Bakery (I think I got that right.) BBQ is always good too! So, thanks to all for making it a great weekend!

Get your kicks on Rt 66...

Freedom and Courage have both been sick, but we couldn't resist the invitation from the Ljs to go out to a park on such a BEAUTIFUL day. So, today we packed a lunch and headed to a new park (that's a bit tricky to get to). It was great, and I think the sunshine was good for my two kiddoes too. Here are a few pictures from today. Oh, and Freedom said that we had a good a time with Mitzi too (The Ljs' puppy). Thanks for including us, guys! (And unfortunately, I'm pretty sure I lost one of my favorite hats.)

More Sickies....

Well, I guess this is what happens in families. Sickness just seems to get passed around. We tried to keep it from happening, but Courage is now sick again with what was ailing Freedom; and Freedom still isn't quite himself but is better than when I took his picture last week. So,looks like we may be staying home for the break.... (Oh, and I should mention that Courage tries to smile at the camera, but soon felt it wasn't worth the effort.)