Leah is 11 Months Old!!!

Leah is 11 Months old.  At 11 Months, she is pulling up to standing.  She is also crawling all over the place.  My "lazy baby" is no longer lazy.  She is actually very eager to move.  It's hard to contain her and get much cuddle time in these days.  She wants to be on her own.  I have a feeling we have another independent kid (like Logan) on our hands.  She also likes to play with big boy toys or just crawl around searching for even the smallest piece of dirt to put in her mouth.  Everything goes in the mouth these days.

Leah is waving bye bye and also waves for "all done" when she is done eating.  She can say "Dada" and what kind of sounds like "yes", but neither are really used at the appropriate time.  She is pretty chatty and still rarely cries.  She will fuss occasionally if she is starting to get tired, but that's about it.

Leah has 5 teeth now (3 on top, 2 on bottom).  She is eating all table food now (as long as it is small and soft), mostly just feeding herself.  She can use a sippy cup for her water and nurses 4x/day.

She still mostly takes 2 naps, one around 9 and one around 1:30.  But that is flexible depending on what we are doing.  Sometimes she fights one of the naps and only ends up taking one nap.  She surprisingly does just fine with just one nap.  Bedtime is between 7:30 and 8 and she wakes up around 7 or 7:30 most days.

Leah is wearing 6-9 and 9 month clothes these days.  She is really laughing and smiling a lot now.  She adores her Daddy and her big brothers.  She is just so fun right now.

Apple Picking and Pumpkin Patch 2013

We had a great fall weekend around here.

Saturday, we went to a local farm for apple picking and to pick up pumpkins.  We have gone there the last 3 years and it is always so fun.  This year, they had a new area with barrel rides, go carts, a slide, mini corn maze, a corn kernels to play in.  The boys had a blast.

Colin then had his first soccer game of the single elimination tournament.  Unfortunately, they lost the game.  He had a great season though and is looking forward to a couple months off from sports until January when he might do indoor soccer.

Saturday evening, there was a chili party in our common area behind our house.  We were able to meet a bunch of neighbors we hadn't met yet.  My chili one 3rd prize!!!  I didn't know there was going to be a contest and I don't know how fair the contest was considering most people only tried 1 or 2 out of the maybe 13 or so Chili's, but it was cool to win anyway.  The boys had fun playing with kids the whole time and running around.  Colin was especially happy to play Frisbee with the "teenagers", he couldn't believe that at the end of the night they told Dennis "Colin is good at throwing".  He was so impressed that they said his name!

Sunday, we slept in a little so we skipped church and just went to church class and then Colin and Evan both had birthday parties to go to in the afternoon.

Today Dennis left for Columbus for work.  He will be back Wednesday night.  Now that soccer and football are done we only have TKD going on, so it should be a pretty quiet week.

Oh, and Leah has been pulling up to standing!  On October 3rd, I went into her room and she was standing up in her crib, then, while I was in NYC she started pulling up at the coffee table!  Here she is this past week...

Ladies Trip to NYC!!!

For my 35th Birthday, Dennis surprised me with a girls trip to NYC.  I was so excited and shocked that he was able to keep it a secret too!

So, this weekend was the weekend.  I flew to NYC and my Mom and 2 of my sisters, Holly and Julie, drove and met me there.  We spent Friday having lunch at a cute diner where the waiters and waitresses sing broadway songs (most of them are trying to get jobs on broadway).  Then we walked around to a bunch of shops and then that night we had dinner in Little Italy and De Nico's.  It was so yummy!

Saturday we had a spa day (Dennis had found a place and booked it for us).  We spent most of the day at the spa, the package included lunch too.  Then we got dressed for a fancy dinner (Aureole) and went to a broadway show (Rock of Ages).  Dinner was delicious and the show was so fun!

Sunday we had a good breakfast and then I got picked up to head back to the airport.  Dennis had arranged a car service to and from the airport for me!  Anyway, we all agreed that we needed to do this trip again sometime!

While I was away, Dennis did great watching all the kids.  He even had to go to a soccer game with all of them.  Most impressive though, was that he took all four out to dinner to BW3's!!!  I wouldn't have even bothered with that!  I think he enjoyed the time bonding with all of them and the kids seemed to be at their best as far as behavior went, so that made it pretty easy for him!  I didn't take a single picture in NYC, so here are some of Dennis and the kids...

Eating Donuts while the big boys are at Sunday School.

Today, Dennis coincidently left for NYC for work!  He will be back Wednesday night.

Leah Rides in a Cart...

We had another great weekend around here.  Saturday, Evan had his last flag football game of the season.  What a great season he had.  He really surprised us with how focused he was and he was really good and understood the game well too.  He got to play running back a bunch, so that was fun to watch too.

Colin had a soccer game and then we went to a neighbors house for dinner with a bunch of other families.  The kids all entertained themselves and it was great to catch up with everyone since it has been a while since we have all gotten together.

Monday, I had the stent removed and I am a million times better.  It initially still hurt, but after about 12-24 hours it really felt much better.

Yesterday, I took the little ones with me to Costco.  Leah sat in the cart for the first time (usually she is in her carseat).  She was smiling the whole time, she loved it!

Kidney Surgery.

These are pics from Colin's game last weekend.  Pictures were taken by Logan...

So, this week Evan enjoyed his first play date at someone's house by himself.  He went home with a buddy after school and played for a few hours (they even did their homework).

Wednesday, we got our neighbor to watch Leah for my surgery.  I was actually kind of nervous for this surgery and don't love the idea of being put under, but it went well.  $5000 later (yeah our insurance stinks), the stone is gone, but I now have a stent I have to have in till next Monday.  I had no idea how much pain I would be in after surgery.  Apparently, my body doesn't like the stent because the pain is worse than after a c-section and after appendix surgery!!  A friend brought over dinner for us Thursday night and that was a huge help.

Friday, Colin had a field trip to a local museum and Wednesday Evan had his at Conner Prairie, so they have both had a great week.  Friday night was the annual Fall Family Night at the kids school.  They had subway dinner, crafts, book fair and a comedy show.  The show was over the kids head and a big flop, but otherwise it was a fun night.

Leah is all over the places crawling these days and getting into things too!