A new additon...

Baby Kayden...all 5 lbs 8 oz of him!!

T & A LOVE their new cousin!! And so do I!

This is baby Kayden. He is the newest member of our extended family. He was born 8 weeks early weighing 3 lbs 10 oz, but he is showing he's a tough little guy and doing very well. He was born into a difficult situation. Please keep Kayden, his mom (my cousin K), and her parents in your prayers. They all need a lot of prayer! We love this little guy already, and we want everything to work out for the best for everyone!!

Future Rescue Hero!!

See how happy little R is? Of course, PaPa is pretty happy, too!

R LOVES firetrucks and police cars, and since my dad works for the city, he has access to both. We spent one afternoon letting R sit in the big ladder truck and in a police car that Dad was working on. Little R LOVED it!!!! He threw a fit every time I asked him if he was ready to go...he was having so much fun! If there was a heaven on earth for little R, this was it...the only thing that could have made it any better was to throw in a tractor and a motorcycle!

The Birthday Boy!!

Lighting the candle on baby R's #1 cake...

The first taste...

OOOHHH....YUK!!!

The tractor cake...just like PaPa's real one!!

A made a very special birthday present for R to hang in his room...he wasn't too impressed now, but I assured her that it will mean a lot to him someday!

Well, it's true!!! Baby R turned a year old on Sept. 8th. We had a party for him on the 6th here at our house. We had quite a houseful of family and friends here to celebrate with us, so that made it very special. We had a cookout, a hayride (thanks PaPa!), and then we had cake and ice cream. R had his very own #1 cake...chocolate with chocolate frosting! I was very much looking forward to him digging in and enjoying it because I usually won't let him have anything that unhealthy for him. As you can see from the pictures, he was not impressed with his cake!! He didn't like the way it felt on his hands or the way it tasted, and he couldn't figure out why everyone was staring at him and laughing!!! It was a great evening...thank you to everyone who came to share the fun of celebrating our first year with baby R...and what a fun year it has been!

Fair Pageant

R in his cowboy gear!!

A along with the other winners of her pageant.

Again, I must point out how much taller A is than all the other girls her age!

I thought she looked very grown up and beautiful!!!

Our local county fair was this last week, and they always have a fair pageant as part of the festivities...so of course A and R were entered in it!! I was in the pageant when I was about T's age, and I tried to get her to do it, but she very quickly told me "No Way!". So we entered A and R. R's was a "western wear" theme...he wore Wranglers and Ropers and all that good stuff! He had a "Tough Enough To Wear Pink" Wrangler shirt...part of the proceeds go to breast cancer research, which I thought was great! A's theme was just "Sunday dress". The pageant was supposed to be on Wednesday, but because of bad weather it was postponed until Saturday. That meant we had two pageants and R's birthday party on the same day!!!! It was total chaos!!! But, it was fun even though R didn't place in this one. A didn't place, but she won "audience favorite", so she was thrilled! Her exact words were "There were like 10,000 people in the audience and only like 11 judges, so it's more important what the audience thinks anyway!" (In reality there might have been 150 people in the audience and there were 3 judges, but it's neat to hear how it looked to her!)

Labor Day Hike

This is at the top, where it all began!
The girls are "ready to go"!

Taking a little break...halfway there!

T and A braving the falls!

We made it back to the top!! YEAH!!!

For Labor Day we decided to go to Petit Jean State Park and take a hike! We have this great backpack for R that he loves to ride in, but we just haven't used it much. So, we decided now was the time to break it in right! I had been on one of the trails before, and I remembered it ending at a waterfall, so I thought that would be a great one for the girls to see! So we packed up a picnic lunch and loaded the van with all 3 kids, myself, and my parents, and we were off!! We found the trailhead and it said it was 2 miles long. No problem, we think!! The trail is mostly made up of natural steps made out of stone...you go down hill pretty much the whole way in to the waterfall. At the end you are in this deep canyon with the waterfall pouring down over the rocks into a pool of water. It is beautiful, and the girls enjoyed it, but man was it hard with little R on my back!!! I carried him the whole way down (and survived)! After a short break for the girls to play in the water, we headed back UP the trail with little R on PaPa's back. PaPa made it almost the whole way...he had to give little R up near the end. We kept saying the whole way down and back up "who's idea was this"? But, after about 15 minutes to recover at the end, we all agreed that it was fun...T is ready to go again!! (By the way, I know I am going to hear it from R when he sees this, and others will probably think it...but YES little R has his binky in his mouth in EVERY picture...I know! He is getting several teeth at the moment, including his two top teeth, so he has been quite the "binky baby" lately! I figure if it helps ease his pain, then that's okay! Once the teeth are in, we will make sure he has it less! So no nasty e-mails!! Remember, I am single parenting right now, and whatever makes things easier on me usually goes around here right now!)

Just a Swingin'

Our current house has a porch swing, which little R LOVES!! He has to have his daily swinging time, or things just aren't right! He thinks he is such a big boy because now he will sit by himself (not in our laps) and swing, and he loves it!

Sittin' Pretty

R is getting so big, and becoming such a fun little person! We have an old wooden rocking chair that we have had through all 3 kids now. The girls would sit and rock, but until now little R just wanted to push it around his room or stand up in it backwards!! Just in the last week or so he has started sitting in it and rocking. He almost always sits with his little feet crossed, and it's no different in the rocking chair! As you can see, he is quite proud of the big boy he is becoming!

First Day of School...

T & A ready for their first day of school!

A took Daddy with her...she made sure her "Daddy button" was on her backpack!

T with her new haircut and no braces for the first day of school!

The girls started school again on Monday. They were both a little nervous because they were starting at a new school (AGAIN!), but they have both made friends already and have had a pretty good week. They will get to go the full school year at this school, so that is always an added bonus!! They are even riding the bus to and from school if you can believe that!! We live "in the country" as the girls call it, and traffic was CRAZY at the schools, so after 2 days of baby R and I being in the vehicle for an hour in the morning and afternoon, we decided that was enough! Hopefully this will be a memorable year full of fond memories for them!

Deja Vu

This is A at 9 months old...

And this is R at 10 months old...

Funny how our lives seem to go in circles! This is A just a little younger than little R is right now. We lived in Maryland, and our house had a stairway that you couldn't put a gate on, and she practically lived on that stairway, trying to sneak up them while I wasn't watching. Fast forward 6 years, and here we are living in a house with a stairway that won't accomodate a gate until after the 2nd step...and look what little R spends his time doing!! Great minds think alike!

Teeth, teeth, and more teeth!

This is T before braces...

And this is T after braces!

A with her "snaggle" teeth...she hates the look!

This is what I usually get when I try to catch a picture of R's teeth...

But this time I got them!! Isn't he adorable? You can't help but smile when you see his face light up like this!!

There has been a lot going on in the Willis household involving teeth lately! T got her braces off after 12 months of having them! She was so glad to get them off, but now she is wearing retainers 24/7 for a few months. Her teeth look SO much better though, even if only for a short time until more grown-up teeth make their big 'ol way into her mouth! A has lost two teeth recently, so she is officially a "snaggle", which she hates! Her two top teeth are loose, but she is not anxious for them to come out so she is babying them as much as possible. And finally, just before he was 10 months old baby R's first tooth made a long awaited appearance! Tooth number 2 came very quickly after, and that is where it has stopped! He is almost a year old and has only 2 teeth. They are quite cute though and we are pretty certain that several more are on their way in the near future.