4 months!

Sometimes being a photographer totally pays off, I get some awesome pictures of my kiddos, and free, cute models to try my ideas.  Lee is pretty much the greatest.

She has a regal serenity, and "bestows smiles upon us" as my visiting teacher so aptly said.  

I wanted to show off my ridiculously cute fox hat I made last winter.

Then I decided to do some autumn shots.  I just made the sunflower bow while watching conference.

She loved being in this basket. 

would you like a flower?

Hello, my subjects.

And for the record, her stats at 4 months are:

15.10 lbs. (80%)

25" (80%)

head size 40%

which is how she's been since birth, so she's growing right on track.

And for a comparison, since I'm as curious as you, I did a back check on the other two kids.  I don't have their 4 month stats on my blog like a good blogger would, but I did find The Captain's 3 month stats = 17.12 lbs. (97%) and 27.5" (97%), and Joy's 6 month = 13.9 (8%) and 26" (64%).  So there you go, Lee is big, but not as big as The Captain was.  And Joy was just long and skinny.  Which is still kind of true, but her weight is now around the same percentage as her height.

Some of Lee's quirks are that she loves being vertical.  She often falls asleep while vertical, and when placed on her back, would rather keep her head up and do some form of sustained crunch than lay down flat.  I think she already has stronger abs than me.  Also she likes laughing at sounds, specifically kissing noises and most recently zippers.

State Fair

It's been 5 years and we were pretty determined to get to the State Fair this year.  Last year we missed it by a few days, so we put it on the calendar early, and determined that the last Saturday in September was our most free day.  

Taking the train.

We had to get our fried food.  We went with huge corn dogs for the kids, you know, something they were familiar with. 

I don't know if you've heard, but things are slightly larger in Texas.

They had a little farm experience for kids that seemed like fun, so I took the older ones inside.

We started with silly pictures

Then we donned aprons and baskets and watered some peach trees.

Then we fed some chickens and gathered eggs.

And fed some sheep.

Planted seeds

and harvested vegetables

Drove a tractor

To feed the cows.

Then the kids milked the cows, sorted the stuff in their basket, got a large, fake dollar, and used it to buy a real snack.  All in all, it was really fun.  The kids wanted to go through again, but we had limited time, so we headed over to see some animals instead.

Longhorn steer, of course

Inside the livestock area, there was a separate area about farming and livestock that had informational displays and booth, but it also had live animals.

Piglets!

chicks!

If you look very closely you can see the new-hatched chicks.

And after everything, a coloring table.  This contented the children
for quite awhile.  

After that, we checked out the goats and horses.  I wanted to see the food, but we had lost our map at that point, so we wandered around to a building that had food booths, but not the fried kind or judged kind.  They did have free strawberry milkshake samples, so we did get something.  Then we made the choice to all go home, or to have me and Lee leave so I could go to the Women's Broadcast.  We chose the later, so Lee and I hit the train alone with a stroller, which was an adventure in itself, while the kids stayed and had real fun riding rides, getting dessert, and seeing performances and parades.  I'd say it was memorable for them.

Oktoberfest

So we went to Oktoberfest again.  Johnny's boss, who knows we don't drink, asked why we would go to Oktoberfest.  Answer: culture.

Joy thought it stunk in the food tent.

Trying sauerkraut. 

Joy's turn.

Despite the smell, she gives it her full endorsement.  In fact,
she ate at least half of my sauerkraut.  

We passed this booth on our way to food.  Considering how
expensive plan water was, this was a pretty sweet deal.

We bought a cup and got unlimited refills all day.  We probably
refilled it about 8 times, since these kiddos get mighty thirsty.
(They get that from me.) As you can see from the picture above
it was homemade soda and they had great flavors.  Our mixture
of Sarsaparilla and Vanilla Cream was my favorite.  We called it
Vanilla Sarsaparilla. 

We decided since we were here for the experience, we would let the kids pick one thing that cost money to do.  This is what The Captain picked. 

Can you tell why?

Joy on the other hand, was obsessed with these huge balls that you could walk around on water inside.  (You'll see in the pictures.) They were WAY too expensive, but we let her do it anyway. 

Getting blown up.

Walking up the ramp into the pool.  She didn't want to fall when
the ball hit the water, so I told her to jump.  It worked and she
was very excited about it. 

Then, of course, she mostly just sat in the corner.  She perked
up a little at the end, but hey, at least she got to walk on water.

Dallas Temple

A few weeks ago we had a ward temple night.  The original plan was to get a sitter and go together for the first time in about 5 years, but alas, we discovered too late that Johnny's recommend had expired in August.  So sad.  

So we came up with Plan B.

I took the kids to see the temple.

They were very excited.  They thought they would be able to go inside, since we did that at the Gilbert, AZ temple open house, but had to settle for flowers and fountains instead.

The Captain had this picture planned out.
He wanted a silly picture.

This was The Captain's handy work.  He's becoming quite a
good photographer.

smelling the flowers, of course.

This was such a sweet moment of them playing together.
Then, of course, thirty seconds later they are shoving each other
hard enough to fall down on the grass.

Where was Little Lee?  Sleeping, of course.

The Captain said, "let's get some nature shots"

Running down the stairs

I love their different modes of climbing up.

I got to run around the fountain cause
Mommy couldn't climb up and stop me!

Look who woke up.

Johnny joined us after our photo shoot.  He took the kids to dinner using one of their free kids' meals they earned this summer at the library, while I did a session.  Then we met up to "see the lights".  Johnny forgot that since we drove separately he didn't have to wait for me, but the kids wanted to see the temple lit up at night, so it worked out.  It was a long day, but a fun one.  I'm glad the kids are so happy and excited to spend time at the Lord's house.  The Captain's looking forward to turning twelve so he can go inside.