The kids

All about Halle:

She is almost 11 months!  How is this already possible??

As you can see in this picture, she has7 teeth now.  One more is just trying to poke it's way though.  They pretty much all came at once, which was sad for her.  I was sad for her to get teeth, because that's when babies start to look like big kids to me, but look how adorable she is with them!  She likes to nibble on cheerios with her front teeth, which is cute.

This picture shows how big she is getting.  She's standing and has even taken a few steps.  She's grown so fast - faster than I remember Hayden growing. (Notice the buckets - a gate won't work on our stairs so we put the buckets in front so she can't crawl up them.)

She was playing peek-a-boo with me behind the couch!

She is VERY cuddly.  As much as Hayden is a Daddy's boy, she is a Mommy's girl.  I love it, but it does get hard to get anything done! She does love her Daddy though, and gets really excited when he comes home.  She crawls after him and follows him around crying until he picks her up to say hi.

She still adores her big brother, and loves to follow him around and play with the same toys he is playing with.  Her favorite game is for us to crawl around after her while she tries to run away, but looks back every few seconds to make sure we are still coming.  When she finds that we are she gets excited and screams.  She doesn't really like to eat much, but still loves nursing.  Her favorite foods are anything with spaghetti sauce and cheerios.  She is especially fond of anything that she finds while crawling on the kitchen floor. (Why is it that I can't get her to eat anything in her high chair, but she thinks it's great to eat the junk off the floor?)  I would tell you how she's been sleeping the last week, but I don't want to jinx it.

All about Hayden:

Hayden is a true boy.  He loves footballs, basketballs, airplanes, tools, trucks, and dinosaurs. He loves to carry stuff around, and he loves it to sleep with.  Derrick laughed one night when he went to check on him because he was making noise after we put him to bed.  He had to get the camera when he saw how much stuff was on his bed.  He just likes to be surrounded by his toys, I guess.

He was laying under the high chair and told me, "Oh! I'm stuck! Yep, stuck."

 He is surprisingly good at puzzles.  He is starting to be able to identify letters and the sounds they make.  He knows most of his colors. (I taught him by giving him M&M's, but only if he could tell me their color!)  He is really good at shapes and only sometimes gets rectangles and squares confused.  He is protective of his little sister and will come get me if he sees her doing something like climbing the stairs.  He is starting to speak in full sentences and is for sure our dinner time entertainment.  His favorite foods are pancakes and rice.  He's pretty much totally potty trained (except for at night - he's never once woken up dry so I haven't tried it yet.)  He hasn't had an accident in a couple weeks!  He sings songs and knows all the words to "Twinkle, twinkle, little star," and most of the words to "I love to see the temple."  My favorite is when he makes up his own songs.  They are usually about his daddy, which I think is really sweet.  He's very independent and does so many things himself now.  He can get dressed himself (everything except the shirt), and if you aren't following him close enough he will start the water and get himself in the tub himself too.