Cailin Quiz - 8 Months

Babies all develop so differently. You may be anxiously awaiting one milestone only to have your child skip it and move onto another you hadn't expected so soon! See if you can guess what Cailin learned to do this week:

A - Climb a step - enabling her to escape the confines of our sunken livingroom

B - Pull herself up to a standing position using the fireplace ledge

C - Crawl

Ding, Ding, Ding! We have a winner. If you guessed A, B or C you were right!

Cailin 8 Months

Vegas Vacation?

The BabyBonkin crew went to Vegas to check out a wholesale show. I took Aaron. Elizabeth took Daryl. And Loyce even met us there. On paper it seemed like the perfect group for having a ton of fun. But instead we just worked the entier time hashing out business plans. Thank goodness our hotel room had a great view of the Bellagio fountain show or we might not have seen anything "vegas-like" at all! (Many thanks to Loyce for getting us such a wonderful comped room!)

Even though we didn't get to hang out the way we like, it was wonderful to see Elizabeth and have a few laughs. Time and distance never seem to alter our friendship. Especially now that we have the internet and cell phones :)

Me, Elizabeth and Janet - Happy BIrthday, Janet!

My best photo in years - who knew a napkin could be such a charming accessory?!

Pockets

Have you ever wondered why boys pants have so many pockets? I did, until I had Braden that is ...

Also unknown to me was how easily PVC supplies can be made into weapons...

10 Years Later

You can tell you have been married 10 years AND have a new baby when...

1 - Your previously idealized anniversary trip to Hawaii turns into the first date you've had in a long time and lasts only 3 hours

2 - You eat cheap Chinese because eating anywhere that doesn't specialize in kids prizes is a HUGE treat!

3 - You spend almost as much time buying running shoes as you do on your real activity which is bowling

4 - You look at the presumably teenagers bowling strikes next to you and wonder if they are old enough to be out without their parents

5 - You finish all this with time to spare so you decide to get dessert in order to not look TOO lame to the babysitters (Grandma and Grandpa)

6 - As you drive home with the kids mostly asleep in the car you smile and think what an amazingly successful evening it was!

Spice Clips

After a lot of mental anguish, I finally decided on a way to organize my spices. Not quite as pretty as I had hoped but very inexpensive easy to install. Storing them on the inside of my pantry door has freed up 2 cabinet shelves and alphabetizing them makes it easy to know what I have. Do you need to borrow 1 tsp of corriander? No problem. I 've got you covered!

Tip - you can line the inside of the clips with foam sticker paper to give them added grip. I did this for all of my square bottles then can only be clipped on the lid.

Snapshot in Time - Cailin 7 Months

Some days I wish I could fast forward time to a point when I am accomplishing things again - but most of the time I look at my kids and wish I could hold onto the moment forever. Here is my attempt to capture the present for my future self who has gotten everything done and has time to look back longingly at the past:

Cailin - 7 months old:
Cailin has finally become somewhat mobile. She started sitting just in time for Christmas. She started rolloing over as a means of travel during her 6th month. And at just over 7 months she began doing an army crawl to get where she wants. She has been playing her own version of peek-a-boo since about 4 months and still loves that game. (She covers her face and waits for you to ask "Where's Cailin" so she can uncover herself and laugh and laugh). She also loves any game that involves her flying in the air or clapping. Just in time for Valentines she learned to make kissing sounds. She is very entertained by all of her toys but loves her talking stuffed animals, music box and Braden's light sabers the best. She cut her first two teeth on December 4 but hasn't gotten any more yet. And when I hold her in the rocking chair she LOVES to look at her daddy thru the passage to the kitchen. (All part of her real love with is being held by one person and entertained by another ...)


Braden - 4 1/4 years old:
Braden still loves Cailin. I wondered if that would change once she started taking his toys but as it turns out he doesn't really mind sharing. Braden loves Halloween. He can't wait until next year when he will be a Ninja (lets see if that sticks, shall we?) and even went thru a phase where he added ghosts to most pictures he colored (including one of the North Pole). His favorite restaurant is Chipotle (Aaron' couldn't be happier!) where he can build his own shredded pork taco. He loved being responsible for turning the Christmas Tree on and off this year and enjoys helping me cook occasionally. He loves playing with his Castle, Bat Cave, Pirate Ship, Dragon Fortress and Millenium Falcon all at once - making all of them join forces either against the bad guys or AS the bad guys. And don['t get him started about dinosaurs...

Aaron:
Aaron decided a few weeks ago that he wanted to go back to school to get an MBA. This is a complete 180 for him and came as a bit of a shock at first. He is planning to apply this summer and hopes to start this fall. He studies every night for the GMAT after we put the kids to bed. I am really excited for him - I think he is really going to enjoy it.

Natalie:
Aaron's MBA announcement has set me off running in too many directions (of my own choice). I would like to move to a house where the kids can have separate bedrooms. But in order to do that I need to dejunk this house and get it ready to sell. But I also want to attempt a home business at some point which would tie up the money we need in order to move. And with all of these thoughts I dont know which to really focus on so I just go in circles and at the end of each day feel as though I would have been a LOT more productive if I just cleaned out the fridge and sorted the receipts. :)

Sleep Drprived with Santa

Normally when you go to an event you want the best seat in the house. But since we only signed up for Breakfast with Santa at Hogle Zoo the night before it happened we weren’t surprised to be at a table in the back. In the end I was as blessing! A few minutes after sitting down I realized I hadn’t brushed Tyler’s hair on the way out the door – and of course we were about to take pictures. I rifled thru my purse but couldn’t find a comb so I had no choice - I had to use the only thing I could find. I would say that this was a low point except that while forking thru his hair, I looked down and noticed that a tag was sticking out of the side of my shirt. Yes – the kind of tag that hides inside when you don’t have your shirt on inside out. I tried to hold my head high as I walked past everyone on the way to the bathroom – but once there realized that there was no changing place for Cailin who also had a dirty diaper. (Big sigh…thank goodness we had brought our stroller which gave her a LITTLE privacy.) Just another day in the life of the sleep deprived…

Tyler, Cailin and Braden with Santa