Always Something New

Having 3 young kids at various ages, it feels like there is always something new happening with someone, or many new things happening with many people. It's fun this way. It keeps this interesting and new. It's always fun when someone develops a new trick. And even if there is nothing new happening, our days stay exciting and crazy doing the same old things. How can stay at home mothers ever get bored?

First off is dear Kellen boy. I feel like sometimes these days Kellen will sort of falls into that middle child trap. Yes, I know he Is our middle child right now. Some day he will be one of a few (or at least a couple) middle kids. But I guess it feels like sometimes Kellen doesn't "stand out" as much. And of course, having been a middle child myself, I feel for this. Makenna is the oldest, doing all the big, new things first. She is also much more pushy and demanding of time and attention and the spotlight....not in a bad way...she just likes to be noticed and makes sure she is. Conner of course is the ooey gooey squishy cute little baby that you just want to cuddle and kiss and who needs a lot of care as he is the most dependent. And so that leaves Kellen sometimes out of the spotlight. He is 2, which brings with it a lot of not so enjoyable attributes. He is sort of content to just hang out with you all day, being your little sidekick, entertaining himself or playing with whoever has time to play with him. I feel like sometimes he can fall in the cracks, and I Don't want this to happen and Never want him to feel this way. So Kellen boy, this is a shout out for you! I love you, my middle boy!

Kellen is acting Very 2 these days. Not quite as much of a typical 2 year old as his older sister was, but he is certainly much more feisty and mischievous than is normal for our sweet hearted bud bud. He is into everything. The other day he was caught under the dining room table, emptying a can of formula scoop by scoop onto a dish towel (thankfully for him he hadn't done too much yet...that stuff is expensive and could have unleashed a lot of mama furry if he hadn't been caught so early in the act! :) ) Then 5 minutes later he was caught with a tube of toothpaste, once again under the dining room table, squeezing the toothpaste into a bucket from his room and taking little tastes here and there. Luckily toothpaste is spicy for him so he didn't eat too much. We are also going to need to put a high lock on our garage door because he has now decided he likes to sneak into the garage, which of course if full of all sorts of things any child should not be playing with. Boys. I tell ya, they are nuts! But I love him in all his nutty ways. He is also getting more coordinated and more brave. He is a tough cookie at times, but is such a softy at the same time. He can now sing the whole ABC's and does it quite cutely!

I love this picture.....total monkey face.

This is one of Kellen's loves these days....Rhinos! He loves his Rhinos. His love for Rhinos makes it very fun to take him to the Zoo. This day the Rhinos were in the water, which was a first for me to see and brought with it much Kellen excitement, laughter and smiles!

Conner is not officially 'hands and knees' crawling yet (though he easily could be any day now). Despite not crawling, he is everywhere! He rolls, scoots and sits himself up to get to just about anything he wants. He is Sooo close to pulling himself up on things consistently (he has stood up by himself at the coffee table once). He spends a lot of time on his hands and knees. He knows his hands can move, he just needs to figure out how to get those knees going forward.

I love this picture of Kenna. It was taken while tickling her. She is a tickle monster. She wants to know where every one's "tickle spot" is and will try to sneak and attack it and tickle you any time you do not suspect it. I have had to teach her that there are times it is inappropriate to tickle people (when Mommy is trying to cut up apples, carry Conner, take a drink, brush her hair, etc). She just has a lot of tickling enthusiasm and it is really quite cute and a lot of fun. It brings much laughter into the McKamey household!

I love these two little boys, and they love each other. I see them bonding more and more these days. And Kellen has really impressed me lately. Now that Conner is on the move he gets into everything...including Kellen's stuff. Kellen does not like his things being messed with too much, so this brings about some Kellen frustration. But on a number of occasions recently the following scene has played out: Conner gets something of Kellen's. Kellen goes over and takes it from him and in an annoyed tone says "No No Conner. That's mine!" Conner starts to cry. Then quickly Kellen goes to his side and comforts him saying "It's okay baby. It's okay Con" and gets him a toy or his blanky to make him feel better. I know a lot of 2 year olds that get annoyed with their younger siblings. I don't know many that take the time or care to comfort them when they have upset them. Kellen has one of the biggest hearts I know!

Conner is a clapper now and loves to cheer on himself and give anyone and everyone a round of applause. It sort of gives you good self esteem having him clap for you all day.

My cute brown boy.

Grammy and her little Con. Conner is enjoying being the youngest Grand baby before his little cousin Kip arrives on the scene this summer.

We always have fun when Brookie is here. She was having a good time sporting Kenna's helmet. Cute or special? Maybe both?

Kenna's newest trick....cartwheels. It is not a Full cartwheel, but it is darn close! Especially for being self taught and only 4 1/2. She is good. She has also learned to whistle (sometimes cute, sometimes not) and can whistle darn good. Once again, something that surprises me to see from a 4 1/2 year old. And once again self taught.

Yes, we love the Zoo. And yes, I will probably keep taking pictures when we go, even though we will have been there a hundred times. It's still always cute.