Christmas Cookies

I am not sure if it was all the gingerbread house and gingerbread men ornaments that I have or the gingerbread man game on starfall that got the boys interested in gingerbread cookies. But they begged me to make gingerbread cookies. Gingerbread cookies isn't a cookie that I grew up with. So I had to search for a gingerbread cookie recipe. I found a recipe in my Southern Living cookbook, added the ingredients I needed for the cookies to the grocery list and was geared up to make the cookies from scratch. With list in hand, strolling down the aisle at Wal-Mart I was pleasantly surprised to see the Betty Crocker had a special edition Gingerbread cookie mix! Thank you Ms. Crocker! Less mess and less stress for me! So the Monday before Christmas, the boys and I along with two of their friends, Greg and Haley, made and decorated gingerbread cookies for Santa.

The kitchen help!

The benefits of mixing the batter.

Haley creating a masterpiece.

Luke put more icing in his mouth than he did the cookies.

Run. Run. As fast as you can. You can't catch me, I am the Gingerbread man!

Luke didn't spare any red hots on the cookie he decorated for Santa. We had to leave Santa lots of chocolate milk to wash down this cookie. It also ended up with about four candy corns on it.

Jedi Eli excited about decorating cookies

Haley showing off all of her cookies.

Jedi Greg happily taking a break from fighting the Empire to decorate cookies.

Still eating the icing and candy.

Eli decorated these three cookies for Santa.

To: You From: Us

Kids say the darnedest things

I started this post on November 29. I am finally getting around to finishing it. The past few weeks the boys have been keeping us entertained with their thought processes and conversations. I thought I would share a few of the funnier and cuter ones with you all.

The Wish List and Angel Tree

You need a little background information for this story. Eli is obsessed with Star Wars this year. Each year since he was two, he has had an interest in some particular character. When he was two it was horses and cowboys. At three it was LarryBoy. When he was four his interest turned to more toward Spiderman and then into Transformers. This year as I mentioned is Star Wars and Bibleman.

The top items on Eli's Christmas list this year is a Star Wars vehicle called an AT-TE. When he first saw it and started talking about it, I decided to see how much it cost. I was SHOCKED. It is $99.99. A toy, that will eventually end up in pieces, costs $100. No thank you. Then I saw that Legos had a Star War line, I thought this would be the answer to the problem. I assumed that they Lego AT-TE would cost around $30. I was wrong - way wrong. With its 798 pieces, the Lego AT-TE cost $89.99. It is absolutely ridiculous the cost of Star Wars toys (and for toys in general). But that issue is for another post at another time. So now that you have the background, here is our conversation.

Eli has the Wal-Mart, Target, or Toys R US toy ad, which is tattered and worn from constant use, that each store mails us at least once a week starting in November. He is looking at the Star War two page spread.

Eli says "Momma, I want this AT-T for Christmas. It is 99 dollars." (He never says the E that is at the end)

I say "Eli, we have told you that Santa doesn't always bring you what you want. He has lots of boys and girls to buy for and that AT-TE is very expensive."

"Well Momma I really want it." says Eli

"Baby, I have a feeling that Santa want be able to bring that for you this year because it just costs too much money."

Eli says, "I think I will just get an angel." as he waves his hand over the 2 page Star War spread.

"What do you mean?" I am thinking he wants a Star War angel, of which I had never heard of.

Eli says, "You remember last year, when we bought toys for the boys and girls who were Angels?"

"Yes" I replied. Our Bible Fellowship department sponsored an Angel Tree and some of our church members just gave money and the boys and I went and bought the gifts.

"Well," says Eli,"I want to be an Angel so someone will buy me what I want."

I had to hide my face behind Seth, who was in my lap, to muffle a laugh. The boy was schemeing ways to get what he wanted. I knew then that we were going to have to work on giving and generosity.


Operation Christmas Child

To help with our generosity issues, we decided to participate in the Samaritan's Purse Operation Christmas Child. We packed a shoe box for a little boy that Eli decided needed to go to a 5 year old.

I found a video online on how to pack a shoe box. Before we left to go to fill our shoe box, I had the boys to watch the video. I wanted them to see what we couldn't give fighting toys. Luke lost interest and walked off, but Eli stayed around. I told him that this little boy either didn't have any toys or very little toys. I said he MAY not have a mom or dad either. Notice that I said MAY.

Well we are at Dollar General picking out items. Eli picks a Speed Racer car that he wants the little boy to have. Luke picks out a Tigger figure to put in the box. I found a set of Lighting McQueen playing cards that I asked the boys if they wanted to put in the box. We ended up with too many items to put in the box, so we find an aisle that isn't busy and pull out all our goods to pick through. Even after the "we are only buying for the little boy" talk before we went in, Luke wanted the Lighting McQueen cards for himself. I told him again that we were not buying for ourselves. We were buying for the little boy.

Eli in his big brother way, tried to console Luke by saying "Luke, when your parents die, maybe someone will buy the cards for you."

Once again I had to muffle a laugh.

That night when we were eating supper, they told their Daddy all about shopping for the little boy. The boys kept asking when we were going to the little boy's home to give it to him. Kevin and I tried to explain that he weren't going to his home. We didn't know where he lived. After we said that, Luke in all seriousness said "He is going to be SO mad."

I asked "Why is he going to be mad. We got him some cool things."

Luke said "We need to go get him because he doesn't have a mom or dad."

(sniff sniff) Finally, a little generosity.


Making a New List

Each month our Children's Department at church has a virtue of the month that they learn about. This month is the virtue is Generosity. (coincidence? I think not.) Each week in Bible Fellowship, Eli gets a weekly devotional guide, called God Time. We start our school time each day by doing the God Time devotionals. On Tuesday of this week, the devotional was on Acts 20:35, which is the passage where Jesus says "It is more blessed to give than to receive." The activity of the day was to make a new list of what he was going to give others this Christmas rather than a list of what he wanted.

I got a little notebook and wrote down his list of what he wanted to give the members of our family. Here is his list and some of our conversation.

Luke: Bibleman and Wall-E (I had to remind him that he needed to think of things for Luke that Luke would like, not things Eli would like. I had to do this because his first answer was Star Wars.)

Seth: a Little Einstein video

Daddy: a Crusoe gun, shells for gun (Kevin watches the new show Crusoe with Eli and Luke. Eli loves Crusoe's gun)

When the list came to me, Eli told me not to look. He took the pen from me because I had been writing down all the items up until this point. So with pen in hand, he sits and starts to write. He works on it for a little bit and then comes and asks for help.

He said "Momma, I need you to help me write this but close your eyes and don't look."

"Okay" I took the pad and pen and closed my eyes a bit. I needed to see a little bit so I could tell where to write.

Eli said "write light"

I wrote it with my eyes half way closed. I saw that he had tried to sound it out and had written "LIE" for light. When I opened my eyes and gave the pad back to him he had the biggest grin on his face. He told me "You need your own light to help Daddy when he shoots. All the lights we have are Daddy's." He was referring to the hog killing incident a few weeks back when I held the spot light for Kevin to kill the hog.


A Tall Tale by Luke

Last but not least, is a tall tale by Luke. Luke is quit the tale spinner. He is always telling us he has shot a deer, a bear, a snake and so forth. The other night we were at the supper table and he tells of his latest kill, a snake. He is talking about how the snake bit him and then he killed it. He were just giving him a little of our attention at this point, because it was a story that we had heard a thousand times. Well the story got interesting when he said that his son was eating the snake. Kevin and I started asking about his son. His son's name is Luke Sidney Dickey. And his name (that is Luke) was Daddy. After asking if he had any daughters, Luke (or should I call him Daddy) told us he had 5 daughters. He told us the 5 girls were at the house cooking chocolate. He told us that he lived in a tree house (I am guessing that came from Crusoe). When asked about the mommy, he told us she was at Wal-Mart buying food for the baby. Then he told us the baby was in her belly. So if I am adding correctly, in this tale, Luke has 6 kids and has one on the way.

And as Luke is telling the story about the mommy having a baby in her belly, Eli chimes in by saying "Congratulations." Luke says "Thanks".

Really there is never a dull moment around here. Sorry this post is so long but I wanted to write down these stories so that I wouldn't forget them.

Heaven is a little sweeter

Heaven became a little sweeter last Saturday night, November 22, when Nanny, my grandmother, went home to be with her Lord and Savior. She lived a long full life that she used to serve the Lord. She used her love children and cooking to further the Kingdom. She taught Sunday school for over 30 years and kept children in her home. She also served as the food committee chairman at her church, Brister Baptist Church, in which she made sure that everyone that had been in the hospital had food. She also made the bread for the Lord's Supper for the church. She made her house a home by making everyone that walked through the door feel welcomed and loved. I miss her so much already but I know she is much better off. Her heart doesn't have problems working now and she is walking tall on the streets of gold without her back being all humped over due to osteroporosis! What a legacy she has left for us!

2003 with Eli

2005 with Luke

May 2008 at the Rehab Hosptial in El Dorado, AR with Seth. She had just had hip replacment surgery.

You might be a Redneck if......

...you kill a wild hog in your backyard.

Last night as I was getting the two older boys ready for bed, Kevin calls me to come with him outside to hold the spotlight. There was a wild hog in the pasture at the back of our house. So with my steady spotlight holding hand, I aimed the red beam right at the target. Then with a pull of the trigger, Kevin brought the beast down. The boys were in the house, so after the shot, I went in to check on them. They were excited and wanted to see the hog. Kevin went down in his truck and got the hog. It ended up being a boar (male) that was pretty big and had a very fowl smell. The pig probably weighed somewhere around 150 lbs.

I am sure this will not be the last wild hog kill at the Dickey house since the hogs are about as plentiful as field mice.

Weekend Celebrations

This past weekend, we traveled to Hot Springs, Arkansas to have the annual Dickey grandchildren pictures made. Kevin's sister, Christi, was under the assumption that and her son, Will's baptism was the reason for the trip. Little did she know that we had planned a 40th birthday party for her. Saturday, the 8th, was actually my father-in-law's birthday. So his birthday was the cover up for her surprise party. We had her friends that were invited to meet at a restaurant in Hot Springs at 5:30. Christi thought that we were going out to eat for Bro. Joe's birthday. The Dickey's were already at the restaurant when Christi, Charlie, and the boys arrived, along with three sets of friends that could make the event. Her friends put their menus over their faces and when she walked in lowered them and said surprise! And Christi was surprised! Kevin and I were late getting to the party because instead of going to the picture session and going to the restaurant with the family as we had planned, we went to Little Rock to see Nanny. I am glad that we were able to go see Nanny and make it to the party.

This is a picture of the napkins that I used for inspiration for her cake. I thought the napkins were cute and fun. Not over the hill drab

Here is a picture of the cake. I thought the cake turned out looking like a gay pride flag rather than like the napkins. Everyone ate it none the less.

Christi and her 40th tiara

Reading glasses were the only "over the hill" gift she received.

To end the weekend, Sunday night, Will, our 5 year old nephew was baptized. He asked Jesus into his heart a couple of weeks ago. It was such a blessing to get to see the Lord at work in his little life. His cousin, Robert (from the Zumwalt side) was saved after the service. So it was a great service.

Oh and we did celebrate Bro. Joe's birthday as well. He didn't mind giving up "his day" for his baby girl!

Nanny

Please be in prayer for my Nanny. Last week, they had to readmit her to the hospital for congestive heart failure. After a day or two in the Magnolia hospital she was transported to the Arkansas Heart Hospital in Little Rock, to be close to her heart doctor. After a series events over the weekend, Dr. Beau, her cardiologist, is suggesting that she be placed in the Hospice House in El Dorado. She will be transported their either today or tomorrow. She will have 24 hour care at thie facitility and it will be closer for the family. I would also ask that you remember my Dad, Troy, and his two sisters, Joyce and Donita, as they make, sometimes not so easy, decisions regarding Nanny's care. Nanny's heart is very weak and it is just a matter of time before she goes home to be with her Lord and Savior. Thanks for your prayers.

8 months old

This past Saturday, November 1, Seth turned 8 months old. To make the day special, Seth cut his first tooth! He also ran his first fever over the weekend - just in time to ruin Mommy's plans of enjoying a day at First Monday Trade Days in Canton with her sisters and mom. I think he had a virus because after the fever broke, he broke out with a rash. He is fine now. He is already working on tooth #2.

Here are some notable things that Seth has done in the past month.

• Rolled over - he rolled from his back to his belly two or three times and that has been it. He tried it and I guess he doesn't like it!
• Said his first word - DA DA - of course he said Da Da first because Kevin wakes up with him two and three times a night every night. Oh wait a minute....that is ME - MA MA- who gets up with him every night.
  
• Ate his first solid food - he spit, spewed, and cried the whole time. Decided to quit and try again later. Couple of weeks later - he made faces and then refused to open his mouth. Now I would spit and spew at rice cereal too but I even gave him applesauce and bananas. So for now we have stopped and will try again in few days. I called the doctor and he to just keep trying and that if he was still having problems at 9 mo. we would worry about it more.
• Cut his first tooth - after what seemed like months and months of excessive drooling.

See what I mean by excessive drooling!

Ha Ha Ha Ha Hallelujah

I promise that I am not going to post a video of Eli and Luke every time they sing in church. But this one of Luke's preschool choir is so cute because they made guitars out of cereal boxes to play along with the country hoe down music of the song. They sang this past Sunday night, November 2.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Treats on the Square

There are three things that Eli pretty much lives for - Christmas, birthday parties, and Treats on the Square. He constantly talks about all three things. This past Saturday night the Gilmer Police Department hosted the annual Treats of the Square. Eli decided that he wanted to Luke Skywalker (he considered Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenoi, Han Solo, and Optimus Prime). Luke decided that he wanted to be a cowboy (after spending the week with Valerie's girls, I think he should have gone as Prince Charming!), and Seth told me he wanted to be a pirate. So pretty much the whole fall break I was making costumes. Thankfully, Luke's was extremely easy. TOTS started at 5:00 on Saturday. At 3:50 pm on Saturday I finished all the costumes! TOTS was very crowed but the boys had a good time.




If I had another week (or even a couple of days) I would have made Seth's stroller into a ship.

As we were leaving Eli told me that he loved his costume. He said "Momma, me, Luke, and Seth had the best costumes in the world." That one quote made all the late nights worth it! By the way, Eli started planning for Treat on the Square 2009 last Friday (before TOTS 2008). He says he is going to be Bibleman. We will see!

Fall Break

Last week Kevin took a week off of work and we took a week off of school and went to North Arkansas on Fall Break. Kevin and Eli were wilderness men. They floated the Buffalo River through the Lower Buffalo Wilderness area, which is a 31 mile float trip. They floated it in 2 1/2 days in Kevin's kayak and camped along the way. Luke, Seth, and I went to visit my friend, Valerie Gunter and her girls. Valerie and I were best friends in Baton Rouge. Her husband Matt was a year behind Kevin in vet school.

Kevin and Eli floated put in at the Buffalo Point at the National Park and floated to the mouth of the Buffalo where it feeds into the White River. They planned on floating down the White River 12 miles but a bad thunderstorm was coming Wednesday night and the White River was running extremely fast. I made a slideshow of some of the pictures that Kevin and Eli (guess which ones are his) took. They saw deer everyday they were out and got to see three bald eagles. I asked Eli what was his favorite part of the trip. His reply " Eating marshmellows, eating Transformer fruit snacks, and eating the trail mix snack." Sounds like my kind of camping trip, full of snacking!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

I am having trouble downloading the pictures from Valerie's. Once I get them downloaded, I will post them.

Nanny's 87th Birthday Bash

On Sunday, October 19 the Waller side of the family gathered together to celebrate our Nanny's 87th birthday. Nanny is the only grandparent that is left on the Dickey or Waller side. Last spring she fell and broke her hip which required surgery. She hasn't recovered very well from the surgery. We thought it would be fun to surprise her by us all getting together for her birthday. My dad had to tell her on Saturday that we were all coming. She seemed to enjoy the day with her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. We all enjoyed it as well.

Children's Choir performs

Last Sunday night, the Children's choir at church performed "Open the Eyes of My Heart Lord". The choir is made up of children in Kindergarten through 4th grade. This is the first time Eli has ever had to stand in front of church (or any group). I was a little worried on how he would respond to being in front of people. He can be a bit on the shy side at times. I am glad to report (and show) that he sang and signed his little heart out! We told him that he did a great job and he said with a scrunch nose and nodding his head "I did pretty good. I messed up my motions a little but I did pretty good."

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Cutting and Stacking Firewood

Every night the past couple of weeks, when Kevin gets home he starts cutting and stacking firewood. Of course, a job like this can not be done alone. One needs a 5 year old and 3 year old to help cut and stack firewood!

Cutting firewood with sticks.

Such a manly man!

Last week's news

Just pretend that this blog post was posted earlier this week or even the end of last week. Because it all happened last week, September 29 - October 5. I wanted to blog about it earlier in the week but I had to catch up on my housework before I started catching up on my blog work!

Nanny

Late last Monday night, September 29, my mom called me and told me that they had taken my grandmother, Nanny, to the hospital with congestive heart failure. Nanny was very very sick and they weren't sure if she was going to make it through the night. The doctors were able to get the fluid off her lungs and heart and she slowly started to get better. We haven't been home in a while so I had not seen Nanny since my cousin's wedding in June. So Tuesday the boys and I load up in the van and make a trip to Arkansas to see Nanny in the hospital and visit my folks for a couple of days. When we got there she was in the ICU and the boys were not allowed to go back to see her. Nanny was very disappointed that she could not see the boys. But on Wednesday, she was moved to a regular room so we headed back up to the hospital after we did our school work. She was tickled to get to see them. I forgot my camera so I didn't get to take any pictures.

Nanny is doing some better. She got out of the hospital Sunday the 5th. Back in March, around the time that Seth came home from the hospital, Nanny fell and broke her hip. She just has not been the same since. Next Sunday, October 19, she will turn 87. We are planning a big family to get together for her. It should be fun. Maybe I want forget my camera this time. But if I do, my blog queen sister will document the event!!


Enjoying Fall and the letter Pp

Fall and spring are always such welcome sites. They each have things that I love about the season. The last couple of weeks, you could tell that fall was in the air in east Texas. To me that means jeans and long sleeves, trees turning those beautiful fall colors, soups, and fall foods - soup, pumpkin, and sweet potatoes.

I had signed up to take breakfast to our Bible Fellowship group the first Sunday in October. I decided I was going to make some thing out of pumpkin and/or sweet potatoes for breakfast. I found a recipe for pumpkin apple dip on a blog of one of my sister's friends. So last Friday morning, I went to the Peterson's blog to find the pumpkin dip recipe and she had a new intriguing post on Romance in the Seasons. I read the post and thought that is a good idea. I thought to myself that after being gone all week long, I would have to wait another day to surprise Kevin with a picnic and really didn't give it another thought.

Later that morning, Eli and I were working on his school work. His letter last week was Pp. In one of the activities he had to look at the pictures and decided what letter each word begun with. Well if one of the pictures wasn't a picture of a picnic, I am not sitting here typing. I just couldn't get away from the idea of having a picnic. So I made a call to the clinic to see when they thought Kevin would be freed up for lunch. So I kicked it into high gear, made a picnic lunch for me and the boys and we headed to Hughes Springs Veterinary Clinic to surprise Kevin with a fall picnic and to celebrate the letter Pp.

We went to Daingerfield State Park and enjoyed a picnic at a park under the pine trees eating on paper plates!

Kevin pointing out ants and termites to the boys.

Priceline.com Rocks!

Kevin had to get a few hours of continuing education at a veterinary conference in Dallas on Saturday. Our original plans were to make it just a day trip. But at 8:30 pm on Friday night, the plans started to change. Kevin just suggested that I see what kind of price we could get a room for Saturday night. So I went to priceline.com and did the name your own price option. We wanted cheap so we put in $50 bid for a four star hotel in the downtown area of Dallas on our first bid. No big surprise, the bid was rejected. So I tried again at $56 for a 3 1/2 star hotel in the same area. Our bid was excepted. For $56 plus tax (which came out ot be $70) we had a night at the 4 star Hyatt Regency Hotel in Downtown Dallas! This was one of the three conference hotels. If we had of booked a room there through the convention, we would have paid $165 a night plus the 15% tax. We saved over a hundred dollars!! To bad we could not priceline parking and tips also!!

While in Dallas, the boys and I went to Grapevine Mills Outlet Mall. I found some pretty good bargins at Children's Place. I didn't get to go to all the stores that I want due to time but mainly due to children melt downs. Kevin went to his classes that morning and afternoon. Saturday evening we went to the LSU SVM reunion. Then a group from his vet school class went out to eat. We had a good time catching up with some of the gang.

So now you see why I had to catch up on my housework. Hope you all have a good weekend!

Like Father - Like Son

Seth is learning at an early age how to fall asleep in a recliner. He couldn't have pick a better person to teach him either. Kevin is a pro at falling asleep in the recliner.

First Taste of Solid Food

Well if you can call watered down rice cereal solid food, then Seth took his first taste of solid food tonight! Here are some videos of him gumming/spitting out his food.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

In the next couple of days, I plan to make a couple more posts from last week and the weekend. We finally have something a little worthy of telling!!

For the Grandparents - Preschool Choir Singing at Church

This post for Nana, Poppa, Big Daddy, and Granna so they can see their favorite three year old grandson singing (even if it is just for a few short seconds). They sang "I Can Do All Things" and "Lord I Lift Your Name on High".

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Puppet Show

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Benjamin Rabbit played by Eli Dickey

Luke Sidney Dickey Rabbit played by Luke Sidney Dickey

If You Give a Moose a Muffin

This week at the Dickey Primary School we are learning about the letter m. We went to the library yesterday to check out books that would enhance the letters that we will be studying over the next couple of weeks. Today we read If You Give a Moose a Muffin by Laura Numeroff. After the moose eats all the muffins, gets ready to go to the store to buy more muffin mix, and sews a button on a sweater, he wants to make sock puppets like he and his grandmother did when he was younger. When I read that line, I remembered that my mom had bought sock puppet kits for boys over a year ago (if not longer). I dug them out and after we finished all of the school work, we made the sock puppets. The boys enjoyed making them. The eyes and ears of the puppets are having technical difficulties staying on (the fabric glue isn't gluing to the fabric). I am sure that once fix the problems we will have a puppet show just like the moose did in the book!

By the way, there are several books in Numeroff's If You Give series. If you have preschoolers I highly recommend these books. They will be a big hit because they are cute and silly.

Kevin's Birthday

Happy Birthday Kevin!

Yesterday was Kevin's birthday. We didn't get to do anything big because it was Sunday and he was on call. Bless his heart, his day was FULL of different ministry commitments and he was called out to the clinic for an emergency. But he wouldn't have had his Sunday any other way. He enjoyed getting to minister to so many different groups. We tried to celebrate it as well as we could. I made a cake for him and took it to our Bible Fellowship group and the boys also decorated a cake for their daddy.The character on this cake is from 321 Penguins, from the creators of Veggie Tales. There are four penguins on the show - Fidgel, Midgel, Zidgel, and Kevin. Guess which penguin this is!

The more sprinkles the better!

The boys and I went shopping Wednesday night after church to try and find Kevin something for his birthday. Eli and Luke really wanted to get him a Transformer or Star Wars toy. Eli just couldn't understand why I would let him get his daddy a toy that he (meaning Eli) really wanted. Then they wanted to get their daddy either the Transformer or Star Wars movie on DVD. I also vetoed that idea. I suggested a new shirt or something of that nature. Well the selection was slim so that idea fizzled. I just decided we would look another day but Eli was upset that we didn't buy his daddy anything. As I was checking out at Wal-Mart Eli was looking at the end cap that was near the checkout. He brought me a Colgate 360 Sonic Power toothbrush.

Eli said "Momma can we get this?"
"For what, sweetie? You don't need that." I said
"I want to get it for Daddy's birthday." replied Eli

I gave in so the boys gave their daddy a very nice toothbrush for his birthday! They were so excited about giving it to him. You should have seen the look on Kevin's face. He didn't expect to a toothbrush but he loved it as if it was what he always wanted!

Our family is so blessed to have such a godly man as the head of our home. We love you Kevin!

Happy 1/2 Birthday!

On Labor Day, little Mr. Seth turned 6 months old. A half a year old. That is hard to believe. It doesn't seem like it has been 6 months since that Saturday morning I got the call from Dr. Martin saying that we needed to take the baby because he was in danger.

Seth went for his 6 month well visit on Wednesday. He weighed a whooping 16 lbs 9.5 ozs and was 26.25 inches long! He was moved even further up the growth charts. He is in the 50 percentile in length and somewhere around 35-40% in weight for 6 mo. old boys. He does have some developmental delays mainly in gross motor skills (like rolling over) but the doctor isn't worried about it. But he is on target in social development. Seth has learned that his hands can grab things. He loves grabbing his piggy on his exersaucer and loving on it. The down side of this newly found development is he has started grabbing my hair! He has also turned into a drooling monster. The boy has more drool than any one baby should. He keeps his clothes and bibs drenched all the time. I guess this is the early stages of teething.

Since Seth was early and we had just moved to our house, we didn't have his room ready. I had planned on setting it up during Spring Break when our family could come down and help me. We spent Spring Break at the hospital with Seth. I tried several times to get the room ready by myself over the past 6 months but I would get a good start and then get pulled away to tend to the boys or to the rest of the house. So for the past five months (he was in the hospital for nearly a month) Seth has slept in our room either in the cradle, bouncy seat, or with us. He is the first one that has slept with us. He is growing bigger and becoming more active so he was taking up what little space we had left in our double bed (yes, Kevin and I sleep in a double bed). Kevin and I (especially me) were ready for him to get his own bed. So last Saturday when our family was down for Luke's party, my sister in law, brother in law, mother in law, my mom, and I put Seth's room together.

Seth's first experience in his exersaucer earlier in August.

Seth finally has a room that is set up and ready to use!
We are getting good use out of the denim and gingham red bedding and Raggedy Ann and Andy decorations.

Thank you Aunt Christi, Uncle Charlie, Nanna, and Granna for helping Mommy set up my room. I love my bed!