Family Photos

This year, since my parents had all their children & grandchildren all in one house for Thanksgiving, we took a few nice family photos. If you are Facebook friends with my parents, and/or follow my dad's or sister's blog, you may be a little tired of seeing these photos over and over again. But they turned out so well, I thought I would also post the family pictures for viewing. Currently, there are 11 of us all together. I can only imagine what the picture will look like in 5-10 years!

The Keys Family: Scott, Caleb, Myself & Brendan

The Atkinson Family: Kevin, Bekah & Lily

(Whats left of) The Reed Family: JT (Bud), Dad, Mom & Jon

The Family Picture

Grammi & Pepa with the grandkidsBrendan was defiantly done with pictures at this point. We were using candy to get a semi-decent shot.

It is nice to have the documentation of the family all together. I will give a Thanksgiving post soon! Just need to gather all the pictures into one spot...

Grandparents: Grandpa Keys

Scott's Dad lives not too far away from us and loves seeing his grand-kids grow. Scott and his Dad get together once in a while to watch Football all day. Usually Scott goes to his house, but every so often, he picks up his dad and brings him to our house for the day. This gives the boys an opportunity to spend time with their Grandpa Keys and still go down for a nap in their own bed! (Nap-time is very important at the Keys' household).

Since Brendan hardly ever stops moving...I wasn't able to get a good picture with him. But I got an adorable picture with Caleb!

Maybe I'll have more luck with Brendan at Christmas...

Caleb at 6 months old

It is hard to believe that Caleb is actually half a year old! I tell my husband, that means it is time to plan his first Birthday Party! (Bekah and I are already putting together ideas). 6 months is a fun time, it is when I begin to see my baby have his own personality and start to really be Fun instead of just nice to hold & cuddle. So let's see where he is in his 6th month!

• Caleb can now (and has been able for a while) to roll over from front-to-back and then back-to-front. Caleb spends most of him time on his belly, it is easier to play and get around that way. And blankets on the floor have become useless as he never stays on them anymore. I defiantly have a mover on my hands! Caleb also prefers to to sleep on his tummy, it is rare that I walk in to see him sleeping on his back where I placed him.
• Unfortunately, we are still pretty dependant on the pacifier, we have them everywhere in the house. At this age Brendan had given up the pacifier on his own. Caleb seems to need/want it more. Even after he is done eating sometimes he wants to continue to suck, but doesn’t shows signs that he is defiantly not hungry. I give him the pacifier instead and he is happy. I’m not too worried about it, we will give it up when it is time.
• We are still breastfeeding! I find this a huge accomplishment, originally I didn’t think I would continue after returning to work, it is a struggle but I wanted to at least make it 6 months.
• Caleb has been able to sit independently for a couple weeks now. Many times he flings himself forward so he can get to where he wants to go, but is able to sit up for a while if the toys are within reach. Last night I noticed he was able to get into the sitting position on his own after laying on his tummy, this morning he was sitting up and laying down whenever he pleased. He is growing so fast I just cannot believe it!
• Caleb’s movements are now everywhere. I can guarantee that if I put him somewhere, he will not be in the same place 5 minutes later. I thought he would be crawling by Thanksgiving, but we are not technically crawling yet. Caleb get up on his knees and then flings himself forward until he gets to the toy he wants. He is still learning to move his arms and legs at the same time but he has no problem scooting around the house. (This means I need to mop more often if my baby is going to be moving around the floor.)

• Interesting enough, in the same way that Caleb flings himself forward to reach objects on the floor, if there is something on the table he wants while sitting on my lap, he will throw himself back (into my chest) and then fling forward as if to get a running start in order to reach the object (usually my dinner plate).
  

• Caleb has now been started on “solid” foods. We tried rice cereal for the first time last Thanksgiving week. He really gobbled it up! He would open his mouth anytime the spoon came near and was not too messy. He really mastered the skill of moving food to the back of his mouth quickly.

  

• Caleb's fingers are always in his mouth, everyone tells me, "oh he must be teething!" But since Brendan didn't break out his first tooth until 9 months, I'm not holding my breath!

• I honestly believe that Caleb is the happiest baby I have ever met. Much happier than his brother was. He smiles at everyone and is rarely fussy. When he is fussy or cries, you know there is something wrong or he isn't feeling well. Otherwise, he is pretty happy-go-lucky. Although lately he is happiest in the middle of the action. Yesterday I went to go feed him at daycare and I walked in to find the entire front room covered in toys (dinosaurs, cars, blocks, you name it, it was out since it was too cold to play outside) and there was Caleb, right smack in the middle of it all, playing with the big kids.

• We have his 6 month check-up tomorrow and his 6 month pictures appointment on Saturday. Updates from both of those will come later.
  

Brendan's 2-year-old Pictures

Although it was late, I finally took Brendan to go get his 2-year-old pictures. I think it was so late because I was procrastinating taking him in for pictures. My kid hardly ever sit still and so to take him to a new place and ask him to sit and smile, just didn't feel like a good idea. But we went anyway.

Almost 4 months after his 2nd birthday, I finally took him to JCPenny's Portrait Studio. The woman was nice, she had a kid of her own (and one on the way) but I think that her little girl was more used to taking photos than my hyper Brendan. She kept asking him to "sit on the light" which was not going over well. Then she tried to spell out "T-W-O" with Brendan, which I thought was a waste of time since I told her I was only purchasing one shot. It was pretty cute, but you can see she was only able to get the "O" and "W", never the "T". So much for that! She did make an adorable Thank You card, but I didn't need any of those...

Finally she got him to play with some boxes, she stacked them up and told him to stand next to them...umm...hello? He's two! You just stacked boxes, what do you think I 2-year-old is going to do with those? He tried to sit on the bottom box and they all fell over, this was a fun game for Brendan! She re-stacked them and he knocked them over about 6 times. I finally asked her for a stool or something that he could sit on so he had a defined spot. This is the shot I ultimately ended up with, as you can see I didn't really have many choices. It was this one (with the random Orange box on top) or the first one with his cheesy half-smile (although I really do love the picture of him in the "O" it just didn't seem to be the right pose to choose!)
My mother says, some years are better than others. Here's hoping 3 is easier than 2!

Great Grandparents: Mimi

My mom's mother has always been refereed to as "Mimi" by her grandkids. She was named by her first Grandchild, Bekah. Now she has 7 Grandchildren and 3 Great-Grandchildren. On Labor Day weekend, she was able to come down to Southern California to see her 3 Great Grandkids and spend some time with them. Especially her newest and first Great-Granddaughter Lily.

Since we were all around, we took the opportunity to take some pictures of the group. Caleb was less than thrilled and Brendan fought us a bit, but we were able to get a few pictures worth keeping.

Myself, My Boys and Mimi

Mimi with all Three Great-Grandchildren:

Brendan, Caleb & Brendan

The proud Grandparents with their first Granddaughter

More pictures of our family.

Scott with Caleb

Uncle Kevin & Caleb, Scott & Brendan

Great-Grandparents: G.G. Pat & Poppy

Scott's Grandma & Poppy live not too far away by the Salton Sea (near Palm Springs). A couple months ago we were able to take the boys down for a visit to see the Grandparents and spend some time catching up with Family. As always it was a nice visit. But my favorite part was watching G.G. Pat play with her great-grandchildren. Brendan ran right into their house and made himself at home. Although nap time was a struggle at their house as he can now crawl out of the pack-n-play, but overall it was a very nice visit! (Please excuse my pictures, my camera flash has not been working well so the pictures came out grainy).

G.G. Pat with her Great-Grandchildren

Poppy with Caleb

(Grandma said I was lucky to get this picture,

defiantly holding onto this one, too bad Caleb wasn't smiling!)

Halloween Adventure 2010

This year I found Caleb's Halloween outfit fairly early. I knew I wanted something soft and warm and preferably Carter's much like Brendan's first Halloween costume of the Monster. So on a trip to Macy's I found a cute lion Carter's costume at 50% off. Done!

A couple weeks before Halloween, Bekah asked me if I had a bear outfit that Lily could borrow. Lily would be an adorable teddy bear...and she was! (Although a little tired and not quite digging the picture taking.)

The next problem was Brendan's costume. I kept looking around, but nothing ever jumped out at me. I thought about a lion tamer, but there was no way I was going to give my 2-year-old a whip, and I just couldn't see spending money on a top hat for him.

We threw around some other ideas (or rather I threw them at Scott and his response was "I don't really care what he is" - helpful). With Lily being a Teddy Bear, I thought it would be cute to get Brendan a Tiger costume so we could have a Lion, a Tiger and a Bear! OH MY!

Finally, on the morning of the 30th, I realized I better hurry and get a costume for my toddler, there was no more time to procrastinate. I ran into Target, now, out of time, ideas, and short on money. I found a cute little Zoo Keeper (which looks a lot like a Safari hunter, but again, no weapon for the 2-year-old) on sale for 25% off. I'll take it! Unfortunately, I got the wrong size and the costume was too big. But with a pair of khaki pants from home and a safety-pin, we were dressed. At least he is only 2 and wont remember any of it!

Our church put on a Trunk-or-Treat that I wanted to take the kids to. We didn't make it last year and thought it would be fun for Brendan. My sister brought Lily over to take pictures of the Grand kids together for my mom. Taking pictures of three kids is quite a challenge. Luckily we started taking pictures of Caleb & Lily together and Brendan said "my turn" so once we got all 3 kids on the couch, Bekah & I started snapping away hoping one of us got at least one good picture. Looking back, some of the pictures are quite comical of the three of them! By the end you can tell all 3 were done with the picture taking.

Once we were done with the pictures, Bekah and I took the kiddos to the church parking lot for Trunk-or-Treat. Scott & Kevin were both already at the church dealing with the parking for the event, unfortunately for us that meant not much help with the babies. With two of us, we managed pretty well.

Brendan had a good time, but he never really grasped the concept that every car was going to give him candy. Every piece of candy (thankfully it was all wrapped) ended up in his mouth, I then had to take it out and explain to him (again and again) that the candy goes in the bag. He was very polite, said please and thank you over and over. By the time we were half-way through the line of cars, my sister and I decided he had enough candy and he wouldn't know any different. So we started just walking back through the line of cars back to our car. Every once in a while, Brendan would realize someone was handing out candy and would stop to get a piece, but the second half went a lot faster.

By the end of the night my back hurt from leaning over and carrying Caleb, I was exhausted and Brendan was quite content with his stash of Dum-Dums, Smarties & Tootsie Rolls. Luckily, by the time we were done, so was Scott, so one more stop by the fire engine for Brendan to drive and we were on our way home!

One last family shot of the Atkinson's and a picture of father and son, I was hoping for a nice picture of Scott and Brendan...this is as good as it gets...