6 months at lightning speed!

Whoa! Where did the last 6 months go? I know that time definitely seems to go faster when you have kids, but now that I have two 4-year-olds, two babies, and a start-up company to keep up with, time has never moved so quickly. Yes, Franklin and Carlton are six months old today! I keep remembering a phrase that someone told me when I was overwhelmed by taking care of Cora & Greta. It goes something like this: "for mothers the days are long, but the years are short." How true that is. The four years of Greta & Cora's lives seem to have also flown by, but I know that there were days that I thought would never end.

As I did with Cora & Greta, I took Carlton & Franklin to have six month portraits made. They are not able to sit up on their own yet, so it made things quite interesting. Carlton was asleep when we (Mom went with us) got there, so he wasn't as happy as Franklin, who was Mr. Smiley the whole time, but neither boy cried at all the entire time, so that was nice. I've been working on giving them tummy time and encouraging them to roll over and try sitting up, all the time wondering what I'm doing to myself! In fact, today Carlton rolled over more times than he has total to date so far. He kept rolling from his back onto his tummy and then getting frustrated. Franklin is quite content to lie on his back wiggling and kicking. I try to remind myself to ENJOY these days before they become mobile since they won't stop moving once they're able to. That's Franklin in the light blue and Carlton in the red.

Oh, and I finally started feeding them some baby cereal a couple of weeks ago. Our whole family has been sick off and on for the past three to four weeks, the holidays were busy, and our internet service has been sporadic lately, so my online time has been rather limited. Anyway, I have to say (while trying hard not to toot my own horn too much) that I am SOOOOO happy that someone (not naming any names) invented the Baby Dipper bowl and got it to market before I had to spoon-feed another baby. I haven't gotten the high chairs set up yet since they're only eating a tiny amount of cereal once a day, so I use the Bumbo seats and a little stool as a table, placing a Baby Dipper bowl on the stool and using my hand that's not holding the spoon to wipe their faces or hands or to hold their arms down while I try to get the spoon of food to their mouths. I'll post a couple of pictures from one of our first experiences with the Baby Dipper bowl. By the way, Carlton is much more interested in eating than Franklin is, but Franklin seems to slowly be getting more interested in actually eating than just pushing the food out of his mouth. I know it's early yet, but I'm ready for them to be eager to eat. That's Carlton on the left and Franklin on the right.

Jumping in the Leaves on Thanksgiving

So, I tend to post things out of order, but at least they get posted eventually. Though we had cold, rainy weather the day after Thanksgiving, we were treated to a beautiful, sunny afternoon on Thanksgiving day. We were at my parents' house in Glencoe, Alabama, where my dad had already raked up a big pile of leaves for Greta and Cora to jump in after lunch. We had beautiful leaf-jumping weather two years ago, but last year the bad weather came ON Thanksgiving and the leaves weren't as plentiful either. This year we had 13 adults and 4 kids there, so it was lots of fun just hanging out, but by far the highlight of the day was watching Cora and Greta run and jump in the leaves. Here are some of the best photos:



And our shadows started to get really long, so that was about the end of it:

Here's hoping that Thanksgiving 2009 brings another warm, sunny afternoon with lots of colorful leaves for all four kids to jump in! Carlton and Franklin will be 17 months old then!

A monumental day in a little girl's life

This was Cora's first real haircut ever. She turned 4 in October, so it was quite a decision for us and for her to make to finally cut it. She wanted to have 10 inches cut off so she could donate it to a little girl (Locks of Love) instead of 8 inches to donate to a woman (Beautiful Lengths). When the lady first started cutting she had a very solemn look on her face, but when all was said and done she was/is delighted with her short, free-moving hair. While Greta got a little trim (since she wants to donate hers next time), Cora flitted and twisted around the salon enjoying her new hairdo.So, here are some pictures from today.