Happy Birthday Reese!

Today is Reese's first birthday.  I can't believe it's here already, this year has passed faster than any year in my life so far!

Reese is taking lots of steps but isn't walking confidently yet.  We're okay with that though, she's getting in to everything as it is.  This week she's being staying asleep better and going back to sleep faster after I feed her during the night, some nights anyways!  Hopefully that continues to improve as one of the very few things I'm actually looking forward to about no more babies at our house is more sleep.  She still doesn't like to eat very much.  We did discover last night that she really likes spaghetti.  At least she did last night.



Kennedy, Parker, and Emerson still love her just as much as when she was born.  I thought the novelty of a new baby might wear off but it hasn't.  They are all so good with her.  Kennedy even changed a poopy diaper this week.  I was just joking when I asked her but she said ok and went and did it.  A few weeks ago Parker was playing with Reese on the floor and I hear him saying to her "Baby Reese I love to be with you".  Just yesterday Kennedy was telling me for the hundredth time how much she loves Reese and that she was just the perfect baby that she had been wanting.  Emerson loves to try to carry her around like the older two.  Unfortunately for Reese she usually ends up with her arms just around her neck nearly choking her or dropping her.  She wants to be such a big helper but she is just too little at the moment.

Reese's First Steps!

Today Reese started walking a bit.  She has been going from sitting to standing without pulling herself up on anything for several weeks but any time we tried to get her to take a step she would fall down.  Today though Chad set her on the side of the pool to get her to jump in and she turned herself around and just started walking.  She did it again several more times today.  Not long ways but several steps.  And she just woke up after sleeping all of 20 minutes so I'll have to finish this another time :)

This weekend we had Kennedy and Emerson’s ballet recitals.  Unfortunately they were on two different days.  As always, thank you so much to everyone that took time out of their busy weekends to come to not one, but two performances!!  We appreciate it so much and it means so much to the kids as well to have their family come and watch.   Chad taped their performances so I'm going to try to upload the videos somewhere so everyone can see.

This picture makes Reese's hair look red.  Not sure if it really is or if it's just the lighting.  Her craze hairstyle is thanks to her daddy.

 Someday soon I'll get around to making a slideshow of our trip to Disney.  Here are just a few of the thousands (yes, thousands) of pictures from our trip.

On Saturday we went to Winston Salem to see Chad's Grandpa and his mom.

We didn't get a great Easter picture. Trying to get 4 kids to look and smile at the same time is rather tough. Parker looks so cute in this one though.

Reese started waving bye this week. She turns her hand towards herself though instead of at the person she's waving too.

We went to the beach this past weekend with my mom and Bob before they left to go back home. We've so enjoyed having them in NC since December and are sad to see them go. Emerson especially doesn't understand that they are going back to Canada. After they left the beach she kept asking for my mom and I was trying to explain that she was gone. She broke down in one of her crying fits and was insisting that I could just drive her down to their RV to see her. We're looking forward to seeing them at their cottage this summer!

My days are no longer just flying by, they are now passing at warp speed and finding the time to update our blog has not happened.

Reese has grown so much since my last post. She's nine months already! She crawls really quickly, climbs up the stairs, can reach the table and tries to grab everything off, cruises around the furniture, likes to take wobbly steps when I hold her hands, and this weeks new trick - opening the toilet lid and putting her hand in! And then she slams her fingers with the lid. She still doesn't like sleep so much but she is getting much better. Last night she went to sleep around 8, woke up at midnight and I got her back to sleep around 1:30 and then slept til 7:15am. I don't go to bed before midnight so I was still up when she woke up and I'm still tired this morning but 1:30-7:15 seems like a lot of sleep these days!