December Festivities

Ok...just prepare for a lot of pictures as I haven't blogged in a while and we've had a lot going on with the holidays!


To start the month of December, we got to go to Baby Ruby's blessing. It was a great time visiting with my side of the family as well as Brother and Sister Neuffer. Ruby is so cute and SO much smaller than Rex!! It always amazes me how quickly they grow and how quickly you forget how small they are to begin with! The girls love to play "camping" with Rex and he is usually a good sport about it.

Our 1st snow...well I don't know if I'd call it a snow. It only snowed about 1 inch at the most, but the girls couldn't wait to go out and play in it and make snow angels and throw snow balls together. And Cora even lasted a long time playing out there as opposed to in the past only playing for at most a couple of minutes. Rex and I enjoyed the warm temperatures inside together!

Rex looked so cute in his Santa hat...and of course Cora wanted to play along. I would have gotten Kayley in the pic too, but she was at school.

I got to go to Kayley's school Christmas party. The teachers always talk about her being so quiet and good and listening very well. They were absolutely correct! I was so impressed with how she behaved, although I knew she wouldn't misbehave. I enjoyed being able to watch her interact with her friends at school.

Then the Bell family Christmas get together was the weekend before Christmas. Here are some pics of the girls at the Bass Pro Santa's Workshop. They loved the slide and it reminded me of "A Christmas Story" without a mean elf shoving them down the slide.

Then all the boys got out their guns and had some fun shooting up stuff and shooting skeet. John had a little too much fun sporting Cassie's pink ear muff protectors.

The best part of the weekend was watching all the cousins playing together. Kayley absolutely loved playing with Addison. She kept saying how cute she was...she really did take to her and would help Addison with every little thing she could, it was cute.

Rex loved his toy from the cousin gift swap...I don't know if he liked the box or the toy more, either way it was cute watching him enjoy his Christmas gifts! He was also a good sport in wearing his Santa suit as it was a bit snug on him as he's quite a bit bigger than the girls were when they wore this even though they were all about the same age. And his cheeks are always red and rosy, so they fit right in with his Santa suit!

Kayley & Cora also loved their gifts from the cousin swap. Kayley got her Rapunzel dress and Cora got her Woody doll with a Woody blanket. Probably their favorite part was getting their gift from Grandma. Grandma's original gifts fell through so last minute she took them to the store and let them pick out a gift. They had a blast doing that. Cora even said "this is the best day ever!" She loves going to stores and she loves her Grandma.

Then I had to take our family pictures when we were all dressed up in our Sunday best...aren't we cute?!

Then on the way home we stopped at Kenny & Sharon's house. Kenny let the kids ride his tractor and they were all ecstatic. Kayley, Ashlyn, & Preston got to ride the tractor, but Cora got to ride the Rhino all terrain vehicle with Daddy. Now if you notice, there is not much protection in this vehicle and Nick said it was even scary for him at times riding around in it. Cora came back and said "I saw all the cows and I did not even freak out!" Nick said the Longhorns that were on his land at the time got pretty close and she would grab onto him for dear life and just laugh it off to show she wasn't scared. I wish I could have seen it.

Then MayMay came to visit. The girls had a blast playing with her and making lots of Christmas goodies with her. Here's a picture of Cora making pancakes one morning with her...they were yummy too by the way!

We also took Mary to the Kansas City Temple Site. I hadn't been there in a while and it's coming along quite quickly. They each got a jar of dirt. When the St. Louis Temple was being built, my Dad brought back a jar of dirt for Mary and she told him she was going to get married in that dirt...she did get married in that dirt almost 3 years ago now. So the girls now have their jars of dirt on their dresser for them to look forward to getting married in the dirt too someday! So here's a picture of them in front of the temple with their jars of dirt.

Here are some pictures from Christmas morning. The girls got everything they wanted on their list and are now compiling their list for next year...silly girls!

Kayley got a little bit more than she wanted for Christmas thanks to Daddy. They were having a dance party and Nick was holding Kayley and went to toss her on the couch and her knee hit her mouth and her tooth got knocked out. It was pretty traumatic for her, but she survived. Here's a picture of her a few minutes afterward.

Here's just a cute picture of the kids with Nick.

Then we got to have a playdate with Kaelyn and Anderson. They had so much fun playing with each other. We met at Chick-fil-a hoping to do their storytime only to find out it wasn't going on because of Christmas break. So we played for a while in the play place and then it was so nice outside that we got to go to the park. It was great fun to have them catch up with each other.

Then on New Year's Eve Rex got to try Rice Cereal for the first time. He did pretty well and the girls had a blast trying to feed him. It's Cora's dream...a real life baby to feed!! She's been having a blast

2010 was a great year with lots of new excitement for our family, especially with the addition of our sweet Rex. We hope that 2011 will be just as fun and exciting!!

Cora-isms

Here are a few sayings of Cora...she has been saying some of the funniest things lately and I wanted to record them before I forget.

1. A couple of nights ago we were watching Home Alone 2 and the part where the parents are filing the police report with the policeman about Kevin missing Cora asks, "Mommy are they being 'copped'?" (Being arrested)

2. The other day I was getting her cereal in the morning and she says to me, "Mommy if I eat all this cereal I will have a humongous diet!" I guess meaning if she eats all of it she would be really full.

3. Earlier today at one of my friends house today she notices their icicle lights on their house and says, "Mommy they have the same glass lights like us!" glass = icicle

4. Earlier tonight Nick was teasing with her before bed and giving her kisses and she says, "Stop Daddy you're making me eat your 'statue'" Statue = Mustache

5. Then a sweet one that happened tonight....Kayley and Cora were icing some leftover cookies from Young Women and Cora asked Kayley to pass her the icing. Kayley gave it to her and Cora said, "Kayley you're so sweet to me." Kayley responds, "Cora you are so cute!" Just made my day!!

6. Another funny one she said a long time ago that I just want recorded. She was playing with her toys and starting saying "stupid" during her play. I told her, "Cora we don't say stupid in this house." She responded with "Can I say it outside of the house?"

It just seems that she keeps saying all these funny things all the time now!! But no matter what this girl says and does, she is so stinkin' cute! I just love her so much!

More Santa Claus Pictures

Well here are the pictures of Santa Claus that the elves of Santa actually took. After all was said and done I felt really sorry for Santa and Mrs. Claus as it was a really nice day outside and I'm sure he was quite hot in his suit. Makes it nice for the kids going to see him, but not for him.

Here's one of Rex...who didn't stop looking at me. I also didn't get a picture of him freaking out when getting his toy from Santa...it was cute though. Luckily now that he's seen it for a few days, he is actually liking it now.

And here's the girls remembering to give Santa a hug goodbye and telling him what they want. As a parent I love these moments...seeing the belief of Santa Claus come to life!

Let the Holidays Begin....

We have started to have lots of fun already with the holidays. I always get so sad when summer gets over, but then I remember how fun we have with the holidays, especially with my kids. I just love how excited they get to enjoy the holidays. Kayley remembered seeing a picture of her and Cora when Cora was Rex's age with their heads together and in opposite direction. She immediately wanted to take a picture of her and Cora and Rex altogether like that. Rex had fun, for a while and then got a little impatient as he kept thinking I was picking him up when in reality I was standing over him trying to get him to smile. We have also already been to Bass Pro to see Santa Claus. Bass Pro always has such a great Christmas display with crafts and Santa and games....and our favorite part is that it's always free! So a couple of weeks ago, I stood in line with the girls for at least 30-45 min while Nick shopped a bit and then took turns standing in line. There was a really nice lady who was behind me and kept my place in line while the girls and I stepped out to do the craft instead of us loosing our place in line. It is always refreshing to be around someone nice like that! The girls loved seeing Santa...no one cried, except Rex, but he has reason to. They got really excited telling him what they wanted for Christmas. It's always cute to see them believe.
Then Thanksgiving was last week. Kayley was so cute because a couple of weeks ago we talked about how Thanksgiving was coming up. Kayley said, "Thanksgiving is when we get to eat Turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy...it's the best meal ever!" And that is exactly what she ate...Turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy and nothing else! Cora on the other hand just ate the turkey...she loves meat! We went to Michelle and Kendall's house for dinner on Thursday with Kendall's parents and Patsy made the Turkey and kept the Turkey legs for the kids to play/eat with. My girls absolutely loved them!! Cora couldn't get enough of it! We had to take some pictures of them devouring it!

And of course, it was Rex's first Thankgiving...although he wasn't able to eat anything he enjoyed watching us! I tried to get him to smile for his "first Thanksgiving" picture, but he kept giving me this funky grin...still cute none the less. He's getting so big and almost 5 months old now. And the bottom right is of Kayley, Ashlyn, Cora, & Preston cuddling up on the bean bag for Diary of a Wimpy Kid or "Diarrhea Wimpy Kid" as it sounds when Cora says it. We watched this with the Walkers after dinner...it was our second time watching it...it's hilarious!! The girls love it except for a scary story the older brother tells his younger brother on Halloween night. Part of the story is of these kids who get killed because an oven gets left on in a house and catches the house on fire. It is a pretty scary story when you think about it. But earlier that day I was baking stuff for our dinner and I guess I had left the oven light on. So when we came home the girls sad there was a monster in our house (because the oven light was on, they associated that with the oven being on that killed the people in the scary story)...We had to reassure them many times there were no such thing as monsters. They are smart!

And every year Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus come to our house. Rex got to join in on the fun this year. However, the toy Santa gave Rex actually scares him. We are noticing more and more how sensitive this little boy is. One of Kayley's Jesse dolls scares him like crazy and now this dog toy from Santa Claus does too. Oh well. The girls absolutely loved seeing Santa at their house. They watched him come and go visit the other neighbors too. It's always a fun day when Santa comes!

And this past weekend we also got our Christmas decorations up. The girls were SO excited to decorate this year. They always are, but Kayley couldn't get enough of it and has asked everyday for the past month when we get to put up our tree. We sadly had to do some switching around with our tree lights as half of our lights from last year stopped working, but we finally made it work tonight and have all our ornaments and decorations up except the outside lights which Nick has to still put up. Kayley was cute because she insisted on everyone having Santa hats on, even Rex, and she kept telling Nick when to take pictures. I'll have to post a picture later of the finished product...although it's not anything amazing...however it's amazing to see how elated the girls are with the finished product! So let the holiday season begin in the Bell household!!

Portraits, New Cousin, and Cute Pics...

So, I've hit a milestone already this month as this is my second post for this month! I forgot to add the kids portraits they had done in October in my last post, so I'm putting them in and decided to post other stuff too. Here is Rex's 3 month picture. He is now 4 months and getting SO BIG! We went to his 4 month appointment last week and he already weighs 15 lbs. 15 oz!! Here's a comparison to my girls at 4 months with Rex:

Kayley: Cora: Rex:
12 lbs 8 oz (50%) 10lb 10 oz (15%) 15 lbs 15 oz (61%)
24 in (50%) 23 1/2 (50-55%) 25 3/4 (72%)

So, he is my biggest baby yet, but I guess I'm glad it's him and not the girls since he is a boy! As mentioned on an earlier post he can roll over and he is getting so close now to rolling over back to tummy. He smiles at anyone who smiles back at him and is such a happy baby! He has a great interest in watching us eat now, so I'm not sure if he'll make it another two months before we start solids with him! And as his weight shows, he still eats like a horse!!
Here's Cora's 3 year portrait. She is my little trickster, inquisitive girl! She asks me about things all the time. The other day, she asked me what police do. I told her they help take care of people...that wasn't a good enough answer cause she then asked me what it means to take care of people. Another thing she does is pay attention to detail in what you say. A while back she was saying 'stupid' when she was playing. I told her we don't say that word in this house. She then asked me if she could say it outside of the house. Then a couple of months ago we went to St. Louis to go to the Temple, see extended family, and do some other fun family stuff with just our little family. We stayed in the hotel for two nights and the girls loved it and begged to go constantly after that to stay in another hotel. Cora would ask why we couldn't go to a hotel and I would tell her that hotels cost too many moneys for us to go all the time. Well, a couple of weeks ago, we went to St. Louis again to attend the Temple and we went and stayed in a hotel. When I told Cora we were staying in a hotel, she asked me if hotels were free now? She sure is cute!

Here's Kayley's 5 year portrait. Too often than not it is very difficult to think that Kayley is already 5 and going to preschool!! Kayley loves school! She has already had two boys give her things to take home. One day she came home with a handful of flowers that were picked from weeds from a boy. Then later that week she came home with a pine cone that she said one of the other boys in her class gave her. She also loves to play dress up and pretend a lot. She probably changes 5 times a day because as soon as she wakes up, she puts on dress up, then she has to get dressed for school. Then as soon as she gets home from school she is getting other dress up clothes on up until we're ready to get PJ's on for the night. She is trying to learn how to read, and I think she is slowly getting it. We are doing some reading lessons and she is constantly asking me what letters spell what. I know she is just SO close and the breakthrough will come anytime now!

As mentioned earlier, a couple of weeks ago we went to St. Louis. On the way we stopped to see our new niece Ruby Ellen in Columbia. She is SOOO cute!! I just couldn't get over how tiny and sweet she was! They just grow so fast it's hard to believe that Rex was close to that size (he was bigger), but it was weird to see how big he is now and how tiny Ruby was. The girls just loved getting to hold her and Kayley said that Lauren would be really glad her name was Ruby because it was like Dorothy's Ruby Red Slippers. (Lauren and Kayley are BIG fans of Dorothy and she just loves that they share that in common with each other!) Cora continued to ask me after seeing Ruby and even before, "Mommy when are you going to have a baby girl in your tummy?" Not for a while Cora!! :)

More pics of cute Ruby...

Here are the pictures from the hotel. The girls just love that they get to share a bed with one another. THey also loved being able to swim in the hotel (but what kid doesn't love that!?) I personally LOVED the hot tub...it was huge!! We didn't get to swim that long though since we had stopped to see baby Ruby. But the girls had a blast swimming and then coming back to the room and taking a bath and then playing restaurant with the ice bucket and cups. The next day we got up and took our time getting ready then headed to the temple. I was able to do a session and then I came out only to find out that Nick had a fever. He was going to try to do a session since we had traveled 4 hours and it had been a while since we had gone...but he went in and was barely able to do initiatories...so we just did that and headed home. A couple of days later Nick went to the doctor and found out that not only did he have strep throat, but he had scarlet fever as well. Pretty crazy, but luckily no one else got it!

Here are some pics of Rex just being cute. It is getting easier to get him to smile in pics, but it's still a struggle because he gets caught off guard with the flash of the camera. But there are a few smiles in here. My fav pic though is the one on the bottom left..."what are you doing to me Mom!?!"

The same day I was trying to clean up stuff while Kayley was in school and Cora was already down for a nap. He wasn't quite ready for a nap until later, but ended up falling asleep on the floor while I was cleaning. Silly boy.

Nick was playing with Rex the other night with his hat. He looks awful cute. Rex has his own hats, but I think he looks the cutest in Daddy's!!

October 2010 Events

Well, I think I've just decided that I will only post once a month since that has been the trend lately. Anyway, so October has come and gone and it was full of fun events! Here is a small taste of what the Bells did for the month...

Kayley and Cora continued to play with Rex and Rex is such a good sport with them (for the most part). They both like to play doctor with him. For the most part he had a blast playing with them and was laughing and cooing at them. There's proof of him smiling in the pics below.
Then both of the girls got a coupon for a ride on the carousel at the mall for their birthdays. The first one we used with their cousins earlier in the summer. The last one (Kayley's), she wanted to have her Daddy come with her as he had yet to come with them on the carousel. So we had to wait for a day that coordinated with his day off and her being finished with school. They were both so excited to ride with him. Rex even got to ride with them, but Mommy always has to sit and really concentrate on not getting sick on the carousel...I can ride roller coasters just fine, but for some reason this carousel gets me really dizzy!

We also found out that Parents as Teachers activities were still going on, even admist all the cut backs that have happened this year with the economy. The girls favorite activity is going to the gymnastics place Rebound where they get to play on all the gymnastic equipment. Here are my two monkeys swinging around. Rex also rolled over for the first time this month from tummy to back. This isn't a pic of him rolling over, I think he actually did it the week after this pic was taken, but he has done it a handful of times since then. He's been getting so big so fast!

I always have to get pics of Rex cuddling with Daddy. Sometimes it is rare that he actually wants to sit with him for a long period of time. He just likes his Mommy too much sometimes, but it is actually getting better.

We also went to Camdenton to visit Kyle, Cassie, and Alexa for Alexa's 2nd birthday party. Everyone from Nick's family was there except Shannon and John, who was sadly missed. It was great to see everyone and just visit. We had to make our trip short as Nick was on call on Sunday plus Kayley had her Primary Program, but it was a great visit. Here are some pics of the cousins playing together.

Then Saturday morning Kyle took all of us out on boat rides. The weather was really nice, just a bit windy...but what do you expect on a boat. Cora got up and drove the boat and loved it! Kayley was going to, but as she was getting in the seat Nick accidentally poked her eye so she got upset and then didn't want to drive the boat. But they both did enjoy the boat ride. It was fun to get all of us on the boat together as we are all just used to the jet ski that only fits two-three at a time.

Then that afternoon Alexa's party was at Miner Mike's. We have passed this building a million times when we lived in Columbia going to and from Willard, but we had never been there. It's a really fun place and I can see why it is Alexa's favorite place to go. It has an indoor roller coaster (which the girls were too scared to ride it because it was loud), bumper cars, ferris wheel, and tons of fun games, and then a huge tunnel fun for the kids. It took the girls a while to actually go into the tunnel because of the noise from the pretend guns that you shoot balls out of...if you haven't noticed our girls are scared of the slightest noise for some reason! But once we got both of them in there, they both had a blast. Cora kept going down the slide constantly, she even said, "It's so much fun, I can't stop!" Kayley had fun, but still wouldn't go near the pretend loud guns, so she didn't go down the slide. They both got lots of tickets to pick out prizes and were so excited to pick out their toys at the end. I wish I had had a camera to catch Cora's reaction when she figured out how much candy she could get. They had tootsie rolls for 1 ticket each and I asked her how many she wanted. She asked (hesitantly as if it was too many) if she could get 5, I told her she could and you would think the girl won the lottery! I'm not sure how many she ended up getting, but I know a ton of her tickets went towards candy!! Rex was a great trooper and was all smiles towards the end!! Or trying to be all smiles!

The girls still play with Rex as if he is a baby doll. This is what I found them doing the other day while I was in the kitchen, putting a diaper on him outside his clothes. Again he was just laughing, for the first part of it anyway...the picture says otherwise, but at this point he had seen me and wanted me to save him!

We also went to the pumpkin patch with Ashlyn and Preston. Kayley's school actually had a field trip to a pumpkin patch, but had missed it. (story with this...) I was so nervous to let her go on the field trip because I wasn't able to go and was worried about stranger danger, etc and didn't know how many adults to kid ratio there would be...all these worries. I really wanted her to have fun and go, but couldn't bear her to go. Ironically (but fortunately for my worries) she ended up getting a fever on Saturday and had it up until Sunday evening. Well, school has a rule where you can't attend school until you have been fever free for 24 hours without medicine and that wasn't going to be until the day after the pumpkin patch. So she did actually miss her school field trip, but she was a trooper and told me she was completely fine with it because she knew she was going to get to go to the pumpkin patch with Ashlyn and Preston later in the week. So here are pics from when we went with them. Preston was Kayley's little shadow. As you can see in the pic on the upper right, he continues to block the sun out of Kayley's eyes while we were on the hayride. It was cute. Kayley is the only one that will allow Preston to wrestle and play rough with him. They all four had tons of fun playing with each other as always! Then afterward we went trick or treating with them at the Liberty Junior High School and they all got TONS of candy! I didn't get any pictures though sadly.

Here are pictures of them before our trunk or treat for our ward. Kayley and Cora are both really into Toy Story right now. Ironically they both will watch the new Toy Story, but both say it is scary. But they love the 1st and 2nd ones. So, Kayley was Jesse this year, Cora was Woody, and Rex was "T-Rex". We also got to go trick or treating with Grandma in Willard on Saturday over Halloween weekend. We didn't have any fighting over them not being able to go trick or treating on Halloween itself either. We even ran into a bunch of trick or treaters on our way home from Willard on Sunday and they asked why we weren't trick or treating and we explained that was something we didn't do on Sunday and they were just fine with that. I was so proud of them...and that is why I tried to find many other activities that we could do before Halloween itself to take the place of trick or treating this year.

September Festivities

Ok...so I've determined that I'm only going to be able to update our blog maybe once a month so that I can keep up for journaling purposes...either that or I just feel like we didn't do much to blog about in the month of September! Either way, here is what we've been up to this last month...

We had the Grain Valley Fair Daze towards the beginning of the month. We went on Friday night so we could hit Kids Street...we've missed it the last two years in a row. The first year cause we didn't know about it and the second year because we just went whenever it was closed. So I made it a point that we would do it this year for sure. The girls loved it. They got to make their own shirts, play some fun little carnival games, and then sit in a real firetruck. We loved it cause it was all FREE!! Rex got to be the holder or the girls prizes...good thing he's still a baby and doesn't know the difference.
Then the next morning we convinced Michelle to come up for the parade. We found a semi shady spot, but it was still towards the end of the parade, but I'd still say the kids got a good amount of candy! We got to compare Rex to Garrett and I have to say that it is a close tie as to who is bigger and they are two months apart! Cora got to get her Garrett fix as well!

Then we went to the Kids Street again so Ashlyn and Preston could do their shirts like Kayley & Cora's. Cora and Ashlyn got their face painted. Kayley and Preston didn't want to do it. And Rex got to be the holder of prizes once again. He was such a good sport!

Here are Cora and Ashlyn sportin' their face painting! And more of them making their shirts and playing games. They really had a fun time. Then they also got to go to McDonald's and we all shared that 9.99 50 piece nugget deal! What a great deal and we all love McD's chicken nuggets!!

Then that night we went to the Oak Grove Rodeo. This was the kids first rodeo to go to ever. I have to say they didn't like it that much, but we didn't have the best seats because well, frankly the competitors weren't doing that great that night. So by the time they would get to where we were they were already off the bucking bull or the calf had already ran lose from being roped. It was no Jaycee Bootheel Rodeo, but it was fun to go to anyway.

Here's more pictures of the kids at the rodeo. Kayley had just gotten her Jesse costume for Halloween that day so she was really excited to wear her Jesse hat. Cora has since patiently waited for her Woody costume as we had to wait for them to get the right size in. Have I mentioned that my kids love Toy Story right now!? More pics of Halloween costumes will be sure to come for the next month's post....so look out!!

And here is our cute Rex just growing like a weed! He is now 3 months old, but these pictures are of him when he was 2 1/2 months old. His big accomplishment for this month is sleeping through the night! About 3 weeks ago he started sleeping 8-9 hours on average every night! We've had a few nights where he will revert back to waking after 5-6 hours, but he is slowly getting better. The other accomplishment is that he is no longer sleeping in our room and is in his own crib. I probably would have kept him in our room longer, but our bassinet pack n play in our room only has a weight limit of 15 lbs and since at 2 months he was 13.6 lbs...I'm sure he is not far from the 15 lb weight limit and I'd hate for him to fall to the bottom of the pack n play!! It was a little bit emotional for me to send him to his room, but I think with each kid it gets easier to let them go to that stage of life. He is still sweet as can be and loves to be held, especially by his Momma. We have ventured into using the Bumbo now and he likes that which is nice. He also loves looking at himself in the mirror and loves talking to you or other babies and even his sisters as long as they aren't right in his face.

Kayley is still loving school and Cora is still begging to go! Nick and I talked about actually possibly starting her a year early next year, but we'll see how things go between now and then. Cora's favorite thing to do is jump right now and she makes the cutest grunt when she jumps. Kayley is no longer in a class with all boys!! She came home yesterday and said there was a new friend in her class and it was a girl! I think she is really excited as last week she drew a picture to give to one of her friends at school. She told me it was for Heather...I asked her who Heather was and she said it was the girl she sees in the bathroom when they take bathroom breaks at school. So apparently Heather is in the other classroom that shares a bathroom with Kayley's classroom. I'm very proud of Kayley doing so well in school with all the boys, but I'm glad that she now has a girl that is in there with her. We have our first parent teacher conference this month...I can't believe she is already this old! Both girls went for their yearly well checks this month and both did great! Kayley's eye-sight was perfect (which we are grateful for!) and their weights were within range (the very low range...i.e. 10% for Kayley and 3% for Cora) but they were progressing from last year, which is all we ask for!! We go next month for Rex's 4 month appointment and we'll see how big he has gotten!!