My kids are growing...way too fast!

So this post is a collection of things that my kids have done lately that I've found to be cute and proof that they are growing and way too fast than I want them to sometimes. I'll start with Rex. He is now 10 1/2 months old. I can't believe we will be celebrating his 1 year birthday in about a month. This time last year I was in so much pain with his pregnancy and now he is such a delight to have in our home! He now has 5 teeth, 3 on top and 2 on bottom, which is weird because both girls have always gotten their teeth in groups so this third one on top is the odd man out. He sleeps great, still a consistent 8-9 hours a night, except when he's cutting teeth and even then his sleeping pattern isn't that difficult. He knows how to play peek-a-boo, woof like a doggie, pretend bonk his head (with his hand), and he has now mastered pulling up on furniture. He's not cruising on the furniture yet, but I have seen him take a few steps along the furniture. He is super fast at crawling now, especially when I enter the room (it's really cute to see him book it to get to me!) He is so sweet and such a happy baby. I thought we were lucky to have the girls being as happy as they were when they were babies, he is even happier! He's very content just playing and entertaining himself very easily (which is a big help to me!) Showing how happy he is playing by himself I usually have to go find where he has taken off to. This time I found him playing in our room by Daddy's stuff. It was cute. He now knows what to do for a camera and will willingly give me a smile, but it's short lived so I have to make sure I catch it quick.
Cora is such a loving little girl as seen by this picture below. We have a rule (I may have mentioned this earlier) but they can only sleep in the same bed on the weekends so they aren't up late talking on school nights. Cora is constantly asking if it's a school night so she knows if Kayley gets to sleep with her or not. When they do sleep together I find them like this. I asked Cora why she likes Kayley to sleep with her so much and she says "because I like to hug her." Then the other thing is the girls have to make their beds everyday for a week and if they do at the end of the week they get a dollar. Well, Kayley was really working hard to earn money for a Tangled book at Target. This last weekend she had finally gotten just enough money and wanted to go straight to Target to buy it. We weren't going until later that day and we went to some garage sales. Cora brings her money and likes to spend it at garage sales. We were at one garage sale and she found a baby that was a quarter. Kayley also found a 101 dalmation dog that was a quarter and kept begging me to buy it. I told her she would have to use her own money and she started to get upset. Cora then said without hesitation that she would buy it for her. It was only a quarter, but to a kid who only gets a dollar a week, that is a lot of her money. I was really impressed with her unselfishness towards her sister.

Also earlier in the week she had found some sunglasses at a garage sale and was showing Kayley them when she got home from school. Cora was pretty excited and told Kayley to put them on because you could see the whole world through the sunglasses. Kayley responded with a "no you can't, you can only see the inside of our house!" It was funny!

Kayley has also said some pretty funny and mature things lately. The other day her cousins were visiting and they were running around. Kayley tells Audrey, "be careful so you don't run into me, when you run into me, I loose teeth!" (this is because of her getting two teeth knocked out by running into people...both were already loose to start with.)

Kayley is also getting really good at learning how to read. It's been sort of a slow process as she would get frustrated and then close off completely in wanting to even try, so I wouldn't push it. Now she loves to do reading lessons when we get a chance (it's kind of crazy fitting it in with her school sometimes, so we are looking forward to going full-fledged in the summer in a week) and she will willingly come to me and tell me if she thinks she knows what a word says. She will also willingly try to sound words out as I help her a bit. She loves to rhyme words together and loves to point out words she remembers and recognizes. It's been amazing to watch her grow and finally get something that I know she will cherish immensely as she has always loved to be read to and loves books like crazy! She actually just graduated preschool today (pictures to come soon) and I have to admit, I actually got teary eyed!

Also about a week ago she really made me a proud momma. I was doing a family home evening lesson on faith. We went through a song out of the children's songbook and explained the words and it's meanings, etc and read the scriptures that went along with the song. As I was explaining ways that our faith grows I also starting talking about how the Holy Ghost can help us feel if something is right or not when we hear or read it (aka the scriptures or what the prophet says, etc). I told her that the Holy Ghost will feel kind of like a warm blanket so that we feel warm inside. Kayley then bolts out with, "Like right now, I feel warm inside!" She was so excited to make that realization and she repeated it over and over. I was so elated that she was beginning to acknowledge this feeling and recognize what it is. It really made me a proud Momma, I was beaming!

Here are some other pictures from when Audrey, Lauren, & Ruby visited. Cora wanted to hold Ruby as Rex won't hold still long enough for her to hold her anymore and he's almost too big for her now. Ruby is still young enough that she can hold her and she ate it up.

And Rex just loves his baths and I wanted to get a picture of it during his bath. Once again he cheesed for me and then went about his merry way to playing in the bath tub. I think he just might be a swimmer!!