Take me out to the ballgame....

Daddy surprised us with Rangers tickets a few weeks ago..... here we are heading into the game. Kella was soooo excited! They have tons of kids activities behind center field, so we took our little slugger to the batting cages to get a few hits in.

She was knockin' them out of the park!!!

Kella wanted a picture with the "big man".

More batting practice. This girl couldn't get enough!

Patiently waiting....

And waiting.....

Just give me the ball lady!

Finally made it back to our seats to watch a game that we paid for!

Great seats! Thanks Dad!!!!

This was Ryan's first game. This is about the age we started taking Kella to games, hopefully she will love it as much as her big sis!

We sat in front of a man that went to OSU, back when it was still Oklahoma A&M. I can't remember the year, maybe in the 40's. He saw K's t-shirt and asked who went there. You could tell he was so excited to talk about it (and I was too!), just to know I walked the same campus as this man 60 years later!!! He was a hoot!

Ryan got so excited when we walked into the stadium to find our seats. She was kicking her legs like crazy, doing her laugh (where you almost think she's choking) and whipping her head around to see all the people! Can you say over-stimulation! She was such a trooper. She kept grabbing the man's arm that I sat next to, I kept apologizing and he said, "honey, it's perfectly fine. I haven't been flirted with in YEARS!!!" We had a great crowd around us! What a fun night!

Doesn't look like much here, but there was a full moon over left field. Kella kept saying "Hello moon!" (In her most southern accent, of course!)

School time!

Kella started back to her Tues/Thurs "school" at the end of August. She was more than excited to get back and see her friends....when Kipp got her up she was trying to get out the door at 7am saying, "Come on Dad! I gotta get to school!"











She was given her first "homework" assignment... her teacher sent home this red construction paper for Kella to decorate any way she wanted! It will be laminated for her to use as a place mat the rest of the year during snack/lunch time (then, hopefully, brought home for us to use!)

We outlined her hands, she drew smiley faces, "K"''s and I added some pics of the fam for her to look at.

We decided to pick a second ''school'' for Kella to attend on M-W-F. We had some hesitation about doing 5 days a week, but last year towards the end of the year I noticed she was getting really bored here at home. Since Ryan naps in the mornings it hinders our outings, like library puppet shows, parks, etc. and they both nap in the afternoon so I found us not leaving the house hardly at all for playtime. Sure we can find lots to do here, but it's just not the same, so off we go to a new, highly recommended mom's day out at another church in Plano.

Kipp is A.W.E.S.O.M.E when it comes to our schedule. He helps momma in a BIG way. Here's our week at a glance:

Mon ~ Kipp's early morning for gym. I get both girls up, fed, dressed & take Kella to school. Pick her back up at noon.

Tues ~ Kipp gets Kella up, fed, dressed, teeth brushed, lunch made as Ryan & I get up just in time to fix her hair and see them out the door. =)

Wed ~ Kipp's gone again to gym. I do all the duties of Monday, along with packing her lunch. I take her to school & pick up at 2.

Thurs ~ Refer to Tues! Again... =) (that's me grinning!)
Friday ~ Refer to Monday.

We are busy little bee's, but Kella is loving it all (so far!) She has met a total of 26 new friends & we look forward to our sweet new friendships!

RYAN ~ 10 mo. old

Miss Ryan is now 10 months (technically end of Aug.) She's just the sweetest thing. I can't explain how much she loves her big sis! They are precious together. Kella knows all the right moves to make this girl crack up! Kipp has taught her to clap. Who knew this would be so cute, instead of clapping her 2 hands together she holds her left hand to the side and only claps her right hand, its the perfect golfer's clap baby-style or maybe she's practicing up on her beauty-queen-perfect-clap, either way it's a.d.o.r.a.b.l.e!!!!

A few weeks ago she had a slight fever, nothing big, just figured those 2 top teeth were coming in. She was pretty cranky and didn't have much of an appetite. Typical stuff. But then....

THIS happened! Called the doc. Told them the symptoms, suggested a tiny dose of Benedryl. Waited a bit, kept giving tons of liquids... still no change....I racked my brain on what she had to eat in the last 24 hours....hmmmm... nothing new.... or was there???.... was this the first time she'd had this?that?nope! Nothing new....only a mild fever at this point...

After a couple days of this, no other symptoms developed we figured out it was "Roseola", the rash went away within a few days and she was back to normal.

Other than clapping, she's big on giving kisses and blows them as well! She pulls up on everything and seems to be pretty tough. Doesn't cry unless she's really hungry or if she sees you've made a bottle and doesn't get it right away, needless to say, we've learned some good ways to disguise them! She's a great sleeper and even though we stick to a pretty close sleep/eat schedule she definitely rolls with the punches. Now that Kella is in school (next post to come), we have a harder time because of the drop off/pick up times. One thing we've noticed is that if she gets to bed late she will sleep in! Kella NEVER did this. She was always up (still is) bright and early and would typically 'catch-up' at the next day time nap. We are down to 3 bottles a day, which we are trying to associate with nap/bedtime, and eating tons of ''big people food", this girl LOVES her meat (and everything else), she literally eats whatever you put in front of her as if it's her favorite thing of all time, so it's hard for me to learn what she's really into. It's definitely a change from Kella, but a relief as we still struggle for Kella to eat, what we feel like is enough. How this girl gains weight is beyond me! So, Ryan will eat breakfast, have about an hour of playtime, bottle, nap from 10am-1pm typically. I say typically because this girl doesn't let me know when she wakes up! I try to start checking on her around noon but she will play in her crib until you get her. We have lunch and play, pick up Kella, run errands then back home for a bottle and nap around 3pm. Awake around 5:30-6, dinner play, bath, bottle then bed. That's a day in the life of a 10 month old!!!

Hellllllloooooo again!!!!

Hello, again, to my friends of the blogging world...i can't believe it's been over a month since our last post.... so here's the scoop that took us into a temporary hiatus. First, our new laptop completely crapped out on us, boooo! Thank goodness for that handy little thing called a "factory warranty" - 3 weeks later, we are now back.in.business!!!!

This is waaaaaay past due, but after our friend, Chad's, surprise birthday dinner on White Rock lake we took a stroll around the park & fountains. Here's one of Kella, she took one of us which turned out great and I was hoping to share, but for some reason when adding pics to this post they came out sideways.... after several tries.... forget it. sorry!

I admit it. I'm a Bachelor/Bachelorette/andnowBachelorPad Junkie!! I made it to Heather's annual Bachelorette finale and I had to bring some sweets! Do you accept this rose? Why, yes! Yes I Do!

I try to incorporate some creativity into meal time whenever I can. Can we just say Kella is the worst eater in the world! I've talked about this before, we try not to make breakfast/lunch/dinner a dreaded experience so here's a peak at some of our creations! Who wouldn't LOVE getting their initial made out of toast?!

Another project we've tackled this last month was switching the girls' rooms. I had a wild hair one day... it went something like this:

Me:What would you think about switching the girls rooms?

Kipp:Hmmmm.....weeeeeelllllll.....

Me: I mean, why is Kella in the smallest room in the house when she has the most stuff? Why did we do that when we moved in? Do you remember even considering putting her in the other room?

Kipp: No, i don't. I don't know what we were thinking. (As I can see his wheels turning, wondering....what is she going to ask me to do next?)

Me: That's what we should this weekend.....I guess I better run this by Kella first & see if she's up for it!

Me: Do you want to switch rooms with Ryan?

Kella: (Looking puzzled)

Me: Would you like to move your big bed into Ryan's BLUE room and put her crib in the pink room?

Kella:(Eyes lighting up) I can sleep in Ryan's bed?

Me: No silly, you can't sleep in the crib, you're too big!

Kella: (giggles)

Me: We'll move your big bed into the blue room and then.... the blue room will be all YOURS!!! Do you want that?

Kella: (running to find Kipp) Dad! I get Ryan's BLUE room!

So you can see how we spent the weekend...

We haven't gotten Kella's storage bed yet or taken Ryan's name down, but things are slowly getting put into place.

Here's Kella in some of the last pics of the pink room....I must admit, I was pretty emotional painting over these stripes. Since we didn't know if K was a boy/girl, this room didn't get painted until after she arrived. Since her room was basically the pack-n-play next to our bed for the first weeks of her life, I painted away during nap time. A couple gallons of paint and rolls and rolls of painters tape later, her room was finished!

When I started painting Kella came in and said, "MOM! What are you doing?" I said, "I'm painting the room." "Oh, you are?!" (This is her typical response these days) "Yep! Say, Bye-Bye pink walls! They aren't going to be pink any more." She looked almost sad and for a moment I felt a little flutter that she might talk me out of painting, but she then chimed in and sang "Bye-Bye pink walls! No more Pink!" So, I loaded my rolling brush, wiped a tear and painted the room a color I thought I would never have in my house.......WHITE!

Since Ryan's bedding matches the blue from her old room I had to incorporate it in some way. Kipp thought it would be too weird for both of their rooms to be the same color..."That's way too much blue..... Our room, Kella's room and now Ryan's room, too? That's too much!" My response? "Our room is 'smokey slate', NOT tiffany blue like theirs!!! (he's right though, i've never thought about, but they are pretty similar. So, creamy white is what I painted the walls, but since her ceiling is so stinkin tall, I painted the ceiling blue to get the color in somewhere. More pics to come...