Halloween 2009

This year we once again spent Halloween with Melissa, Maddy and Karis Zollner. Cade fell asleep on the car trip over, so he is noticably absent from our beginning pictures. This is the group before we headed out to trick-or-treat.

Heading out in the wagon!

Here's our sleeping lion cub!

Home again, checkin' out the stash!

Cade did wake up enough to hit the last 5 or 6 houses. Here he is enjoying a sucker!

We finally got a pic at the end of the night with the whole crew!

Gavin Looses His 1st Tooth

He's been wiggling it for days!

Cade's First Haircut

Over the last couple of weeks, I've been getting a lot of "she's so cute" comments and I realized that Cade's hair *is* looking a bit straggly, so I decided to trim his bangs and then I just kept snipping in hopes of cleaning it up without losing those beautiful curls in the back. I've never claimed to be a good stylist, but I think this turned out pretty good. The wonderful thing about curly hair is that it is very forgiving! Cade was a good guinea pig too. He winced a little when the sissors touched his skin, but other than that he sat very still and actually made it possible to get it done.

Gavin's Favorite Sport

Golf has become Gavin's favorite sport. Chad and I sit back and laugh because this shows us (once again!) that Gavin is his own unique person. Chad always expected Gavin to love baseball and football like he did. I started seeing Gavin pulling away from the sports-thing and thought maybe he'll love music and the arts, like me! Then someone handed him a golf club and now that's all he talks about! He went to a golf day camp this past summer and *loved* it! Here he is at the driving range practicing his swing!

Alayna starts Preschool

I never thought I'd put Alayna in preschool at age 3, but over the last few months we started considering it. She is such a busy girl and its so hard to keep up with her. We thought that a few hours twice a week would be fun for her to have her "special school" and with Gavin at school it would give me some special time alone with Cade.

Camping with the Harris's.....the other ones!

So, here's a funny little story. I used to be Krista Kieft and Adrienne used to be Adrienne Jenkins. Then we both married guys with the last name "Harris"....now we're both Harris's.....weird huh? It gets even more ironic. Adrienne and her husband Seth have three children. Ethan is about a year younger than Gavin. Emi is a couple of months younger than Alayna and Evan is a few months younger than Cade. Everyone has a buddy! So, what could be more fun than a camping trip? We drove out to the Columbia Gorge (a nice halfway spot as Adrienne and family travel from Walla Walla) and found a park with a beautiful view of the river. It was gorgeous! It was also incredibly hot the weekend we happened to go (100 degrees.....yikes!). Here's a few pics to document out weekend. Gavin wearing my glasses.....what a goofball!

Alayna and Emi picking blackberries.....those two were TOO FUNNY!

Keeping Cade out of the dirt was pretty much impossible....this is what he looked like most of the time!

Birthdays!

Yay! I found my USB cord so that I can upload pictures from my camera to the blog again. Of course, it took me finally giving up after looking for over a month and going to Best Buy to get another one. And as it always happens, once you buy a new one, inevitably you'll find the old one.....which is exactly what happened. Thankfully, I haven't opened the new one yet so I'll have to make a trip back to Best Buy to return it now. Its definitely been a busy couple of months. Summer is birthday season for us.....everyone but Chad gets to celebrate theirs during the summer months. Cade went first in May, then Alayna in June, then Gavin in mid-July and I get my special day at the end of July. Funny how the order goes from youngest to oldest....that wasn't planned by the way. Gavin wanted to spend his birthday with friends from school and he really wanted to go bowling. Here he is with Maddox (left) and Logan (right).

This was such a nice picture of Mom and Cade that we took before she left and I wanted to share it with the birthday pics as well.

Cade *loves* his ball pit that Grandma bought him for his birthday!

And he had a great time making a huge mess with his cake!

Alayna on her first "big girl" bike!

Gavin is very proud of his new bike!

One Yr Checkup at 14 Months

Ok, so I'm a little bit behind the checkup schedule, but better late than never, I say! It was a very positive, rather uneventful appointment. Cade weighed in at 21 lb, 3.5 oz. We chatted a bit with Dr. Hartman. She deemed him a happy and healthy little boy; he got a little poke for his 2nd DTaP (which he made a face during, but didn't really get all that upset about) and we stopped by the pot of stickers for rewards before heading out the door. The only thing that gave me pause was as I was heading out with the sheet in-hand that they give you with the weight, height and random information about development and such. Under the hand-written weight it read "12%". I actually squinted and read it again, thinking the number might change. What? My Cade who has been at least in the 50th percentile at every appt. is now only in the 12th? I almost ran out of the room to question Dr. Hartman about it (is this normal? is he ok?) and then I stopped myself, smiled, and realized I have an amazing pediatrician! She saw those numbers. If she had been concerned with them she would have brought them up. She did ask how he was eating and I openly talked about how he is still primarily breastfed, but we experiment with table foods and she said it all sounded good....she brought up no concerns. I am so thankful that I have a pediatrician who is supportive of my parenting decisions, even if I am in the minority of the mainstream. She didn't even bat an eyelash as I checked "decline" on about 8 different vaccines. She's always been very supportive of my decision to nurse my children past the AAP's standard of one year. I know so many moms who battle these issues with their provider and it is so relaxing to know I don't have to prepare to fight at each appointment.

Funny part is we're headed back on Friday for Alayna's 3 yr. appt. When I tried to get two consecutive appts, I was told I'd have to wait until August and since I was already a bit late with Cade, I just decided to make two trips in one week.

Introducing a New Blog!

I have decided to write yet another blog titled Christ Centered Mama that will have more of a focus on mothering and childbirth. This is something I've wanted to do for awhile, yet knowing it is a LOT of work, I've put it off until I had it very clearly in my head what exactly I wanted it to be like. I've felt for awhile that I'd like to encourage women who are in the childbearing stage of life to have the best birth experience that they can possibly have and a great start to being a mother. Also, I've been very passionate about helping women who are trying to VBAC....most have to overcome many obstacles and I especially love encouraging those women and helping them with any advice I can offer. So, I have moved some links around on my blog list and all of my "earthy birthy links" have been moved over to that blog. Also, I've added my mom's blog called "Kieft Kapers" and am going to focus this blog as a "family" blog full of pictures of the kids and the events of our lives.