Happy Birthday to Kellen!!

Well today was a fabulous day - Kellen's 1st birthday! I can't believe how time has just flown by - I think back to...
*my not so fabulous labor
*my anxiety of 'how am I going to spread my time between 3 kids'?!
*having Tyler want to hold him all the time after we got home from the hospital
*my 4 months off with Corey also taking 6 weeks...while spending tons of time as a new family of 5 both here in Casselton, in Bismarck or the lake and in the motorhome - even Kellen's 1st trip to the new Twins stadium!
*Crawling between 4-5 months
*Him laughing and thinking the funniest word in the world was 'ouch' ;)
*Kellen just lighting up whenever his big brothers would play with him
*Lots of teeth and super cute smiles and laughing (sorry Ty and Colt - Kellen has been the best baby of the 3...hardly ever cries
*finally for the 1st time - knowing I am outnumbering most people in how many kids they have, so their opinion really doesn't matter unless I'm wanting it - and finally admitting, I love sleeping with all my kids and for anyone who has a problem with that -they can take a long walk off a short dock!;)
*First steps and taking off walking between 10-10.5 months
*Being a great eater of any food we give him
*Loving to play basketball and shoot like his big brothers
*And finally having his first cupcake ever this morning for his birthday breakfast!

Time certainly does fly by. It's sad to think that he isn't a baby anymore, but it's so fun watching him grow and thinking we may have more of a handful than even Colt on our hands! He walks around and shakes his hand and yells at Brutus (in-laws dog), he shoved Colt with 2 hands this morning just because he felt like it and his favorite thing is to do a belly flop on anyone who may be laying around the ground. He also enjoys throwing laundry into the bathtub full of water and threw some toothbrushes in the toilet last week. Ty is still pretty shy, but Kellen and Colton will be sure to ruffle some feathers if anyone messes with their big BRO!;)

2 quick updates on Ty and Colt - Tyler had his Kindergarten screen this morning and it went just awesome. We could have NEVER made a better decision than to give him an extra year to play and learn and explore and mature. He got 7.5 points higher this year (85 last year and 92.5 this year) and Mrs. Holland was extremely impressed with his motor skills (said most kids flail their arms around and things when walking backwards or standing on 1 leg and hopping - but NOT Ty, he did it all with his hands in his pockets!!)...he also did great with his simple addition and could just look at a picture and know how many of something was on the page. He did really great drawing a pic of himself - last year it was a stick man, this year a full fledge star wars looking kid and even drew teeth on himself! He knows his address and can get his phone number right about 60-75% of the time! These are just huge changes from last year!! Ty also just completed another Fargo Basketball Academy session with 6-8 year olds and was solidly in the middle of the pack - and now it's time for 10 weeks of swimming for both Ty and Colt...holy crap. Can you stay 'driving from work to Casselton, back into Fargo and back out to Cass every Mon, Tues and Weds for 10 weeks?!'

Colton is just as hilarious as ever! He and Ty have majorly gotten back into baseball and Corey plays with them almost every night. Colt's favorite movie is The Sandlot, and he calls himself the Great Hambino and Tyler is the Great Bambino. He is actually sleeping right now with his ball and glove;) This kid is a firecracker, but hilarious and great natured. he is always making the girls at PlayCorner laugh like crazy. He told me he wanted to get his teacher Nicole a special valentine...'Celery';) He also wanted to bring a sucker for Alyssa when she started working there again. He likes to knock Tyler's block off if Ty messes with him and loves to help cook. He just loves making his own pizza! He talks and sings constantly and he could care less if he knows the words - he just goes with it;) His latest 'Colton Classic'...he wanted to take a bath Sunday night and I said no, you already took one earlier...he screams 'FINNNNNNE!' and stomps away and started stomping up the stairs. I ask him where he's going and he screams at me 'I'M GOING TO PEE IN MY BED SO I CAN TAKE A BATH!' OMG. Seriously. THAT is Colt;)

Other than that - Corey and I went to Mexico for a week and had a blast with some friends from DC and are looking forward to the weather around here getting nice some day so we can start playing outside more!!

Ok that's all for now - lots of ramblings and randomness!

Have a good one,

Kelly