Slade is 18 months

Nursery here we come!!! I can't believe my baby has rached yet another milestone. I think this is one of my favorite stages. They can play happily by themselves, feed themselves (sometimes), they sleep through the night and yet still take naps, and they don't argue about what they want to wear. Of course we are still changing poopy diapers, but at least we aren't changing "accidents" in our pants!

Anyway, Slade is probably our best baby. He is happy to go run errands and get in and out of the car multiple times, he sits happily in the cart at the grocery store and Costco, he knows to ask for cookies when we go to Sam's Club, and is happy in the stroller (as long as it's moving or he has his blanket!) Slade even sleeps at least 12-13 hours each night and takes 3-4 hour naps. I wonder how he sleeps that long, but I think some of it must have to do with the permanent binky attached to his hand. Not that I think thumb sucking is great, but I am lucky that at least he only does it with his blanket (which most of the time remains in his bed). Slade also LOVES his older brothers and sister. Alexis LOVES to help take care of him. She can change a diaper and get him his milk and likes to help pick out his clothes and get him dressed. Slade has also become very good at wrestling thanks to his brothers and his dad. If anyone is laying on the floor he runs up and flops down on top of them. And then he proceeds to do it over and over again.

My biggest problem with Slade is in the food department. For breakfast he LOVES my smoothies!! They are filled with health: yogurt, 1/2 banana, 1c mixed fruit, spinach, kale, red cabbage and carrots, and chocolate protein powder. YUMMO! He still requires food that is mashed. No matter how many times I have offered different things he still will only eat broccoli and califlower whole. He will finally eat small bites of chicken nuggets and french fries which has been a life saver. I was one of the worlds pickiest eaters, but this is getting ridiculous. We even have to blend up his spaghetti - GROSS!

Well, lucky for me I think I have one of the cutest babies on the planet. All 24 pounds of him! He is also my skinniest baby which makes it fun trying to find pants that fit. Nothing that Collin or even Logan wore will stay on him.

Veteran's Day at the Park

This is when we are grateful we live in Arizona. We couldn't have asked for a more perfect day to spend at the park playing and feeding the ducks (and jogging). Alexis woke up that morning wondering why I wasn't at the gym (if everyone else was sleeping in I wanted too also). So she had been begging me to get up so we could go jogging together. I asked her where we should go and she said in the front yard or back yard, wherever I wanted. I tried to bribe her with waffles and it worked for a few minutes, but then we had Collin and Logan begging to go too. Anyway, I decided to take them to my moms and we could go to Kiwanis park and feed the ducks and have a picnic. Alexis was still begging so I put on my workout clothes (after showering and getting ready). We get to the park and took off to run around the lake while Grandma stayed with Slade. Alexis lasted all of 2 minutes before she was SOOOO TIRED! (and her side really hurt) All that build up and even I wasn't winded (being how much I enjoy running-NOT!) So we fed the ducks and headed to the play area where they all had a blast. Slade was happy in his own little world going up and down the slides, swinging and running around. All the kids had a great time and I must say I was a better mom playing with my kids since I was dressed for it (note to self to always wear shorts and tennis shoes to the park!)

Halloween 2008

Nothing like trick-or-treating when it's at least 80 degrees (at night). We had such a fun night with the kiddos though running around getting candy. I was a little disgusted though when I came home and we put all the candy together. I have a huge silver mixing bowl that I dumped all the candy into and let's just say it was overflowing (wish I had a picture). Even worse though was that the kids were so obsessed over it and must have divided it up at least 3 times. Thankfully though after a few days I was able to bag up most of it and hide it away and the three oldest put theirs in some jars. Hopefully they will forget about it! I was trying to not spend much on costumes this year so I had Alexis wear one of her old dance costumes from last year (which happened to be her favorite) so we turned her into a funky kitty. We did buy Collin's since for some reason he HAD to be a RED Power Ranger - thank you Target. Logan was fine being Buzz Lightyear. I had bought the costume for Collin when he was little off the clearance rack at the Disney store and it is Logan's absolute favorite. He was always wanting to wear it in the middle of the summer when it was 100+ degrees outside. So nice too since I think the costume is made out of plastic. I couldn't let him wear it for very long since he would always be sweating so bad, but what can you do? And Mr. Slade was a dog. Same thing that Collin and Logan were at 1. Yeah for hand-me-downs!

Friends

So even though I realy wanted another girl I know I should be glad I don't. Don't get me wrong I love everything girly, but when it comes to the mom having to clean up after the little tornado it gets kind of tiring...On Saturday Collin and Alexis were busy playing all day. Logan and Slade were taking a nap and I hadn't heard from them for quite awhile. Finally I go back in the boys room to see what's going on and Alexis had pulled out every blanket and stuffed animal (among lots of other goodies) and arranged quite the set up. You could tell Collin was a little tired of it, but Alexis was still going strong. That night they all wanted to have a "sleepover" together on the floor and we figured it would be fine since we didn't have church until 10 the next day. They were pretty good about going to sleep and when we went to check on them before we went to bed this is what we found...