Grammy & Grandad

I love, love, love this picture of Mallory and her Grandad! It really captures the fascination they both have with each other.


Grandad doing one of his most favorite things in the world - holding his grandchild.

Grammy & Mallory











For those of you who know my dad, you'll notice he is sans mustache. This is only the second time in my life I've seen him without it. He kept it off for one week about eleven years ago. He's decided to go without it for a while. He keeps getting comments that he looks younger. He says if he'd known that he would have done it years ago.

Morning time fun (Isn't that an oxymoron?!)

Last Sunday, I enjoyed sleeping in later (don't I always?) because we got to watch the General Conference Broadcast from Salt Lake City, and it didn't start until 11:00 a.m. Yay! No rushing around getting dressed in our Sunday best, brushing bed-heads, finding lost church shoes, etc. We got to take our time doing those things instead.

Our little early bird, Elizabeth, was up quietly playing in her room at about 7:30 a.m. when she heard Mallory wake. She got her out of bed and brought her back into her room to play for a while before going in to wake up her brothers. Now, normally we would have been awakened by howls and yells of protest from Drew at being awakened so early, but Mallory has this magic little aura about her that makes her siblings wake up pleasantly. The fantastic four then went to get the camera to capture their early morning bonding. This is a self-portrait taken by Elizabeth of the four of them. Not bad!

Muddin'

This is the result of me telling the kids to go find something to do while I did yard work. Actually Elizabeth asked me if she could get her swimsuit on and play with the hose. Because it is 85 degrees here I told her, "Sure! Go have fun!" And they did!

Another fun Felker family get-together

We travelled to northwest Missouri this weekend for baby Cora's blessing. She is the newest baby born this year. She is the daughter of Edward's sister, Colton, and her husband Nick. It was fun, as always, to see everyone. We were able to see four of Edward's siblings and their families, but we certainly wish the other two could have been there too. It's hard when everyone is so spread out.

Yummy!

Mallory got her first taste of peas. She wasn't so impressed.

Felker Family Work Day

Yes, we're STILL working on the upper deck! It's getting close to being finished, thank goodness. We've only been working on it since March. Saturday we spent the day getting most of the railing up. It makes a big difference.

Elizabeth's perm

Elizabeth has been asking for a perm for a long time. So, I attempted to give it a shot. Here she is before...

The pain! The horror! Our little drama queen hated the smell of the chemicals. Of course she was quite exaggerated in showing her displeasure.

... and after. The stinkin' thing didn't work! All that trouble for nothing! Someone told me that it can sometimes take a couple of times for the perm to take. I guess we'll try it again in December.

Family Reunion

This is my Aunt Susie & Uncle Butch (actually, it's Darrell, but he's Butch to me and the rest of the family). Butch is my mom's twin brother. He is retired from the Navy, and he and Susie travel the country full-time in their fifth-wheel trailer. It's their home. They make their rounds to this part of the country every September, so it's always a fun visit.

Darrell (he'll always be "Bud" to me!) and cutie-patootie Nolan. Bud is Uncle Butch & Aunt Susie's son. He and his wife, Jen and kids Nolan and Olivia live at Fort Leonard Wood. He is in the army and has served a tour of duty in Iraq.

Here we go again!

I bought this cape for part of Ross' totally rad Halloween costume. Just wait for pictures! I'm pretty lucky that I can still pretty much talk my kids into something I want them to be for Halloween. It was fun dressing our little toy up for our entertainment again.

Yes, that's me under the cape. And yes, I'm a dork. Drew and I turned off the lights, put it on, and waited quietly to try to scare the big kids tonight when they got home from soccer. Ross stopped for a minute, and then came over and pulled the hood down. Elizabeth stopped for a minute and said, "MOOOOOM! What are you doing?" She asked me where I got it and I told her I got it because I wanted a cape of my own so I could play superheros with them. She thought I was quite a weirdo before I told her it was for Ross' costume.

Watch out for Mallory - the Grim Reaper.

Our fun grandparents!

Jani, Papa Otto, & only about 1/4 of their grandkids. Aren't big families great?!

Papa Otto & Jani

Elizabeth is pretending she is Jani's baby. Jani was a pretty good sport to play along.

Grandad, Grammy, and half of their rowdies

I'm noticing a pattern. Could the grandparents be signing "PEACE" in hopes of getting a little?

Baby food

Mallory has started eating baby cereal. The kids are infatuated with the fact that she knows how to eat something other than milk. From her first bite she has loved it. She gets her love of food from her mom!

I think it's impossible to feed a baby while you keep your mouth closed. I always open and close my mouth when I feed my babies.

She started lurching forward for each bite when I wasn't going fast enough.

By the end of the meal she began "washing down" each bite with her fingers. She's still a paci girl, but she also sucks her thumb on her left hand and sucks any combination of fingers on her right hand. It's usually her middle two or her first two, but occasionally she'll get three or even four fingers in at a time. I often find her sucking her thumb when I check on her in the night. She's a multi-talented girl!

Our little rock star!

Mallory is our little toy. She's so patient with us as we humor ourselves with her cuteness.

We're a perfect match!

Slide.com has this really fun feature where you can add stickers to your photos. The kids and I have been getting some good laughs out of it. Edward just shakes his head at our silliness!

Our visit to Chi-town

We just got back from a 5 day vacation to Chicago. We were able to visit with Edward's sister Katie and her family. We had a great time. We were able to see the Chicago Children's Museum, Shedd Aquarium, and The Field Museum. We were able to cooridinate our vacation with baby Ellie's blessing.

Chicago Museums

On the first night we were there we went to the Children's Musuem. I coordinated our visit with free admission night. The kids had a great time, although the big kids said it was a bit "babyish." They could have fooled me.

Fun with the Reall family

We had a WONDERFUL time visiting with the Realls! They are so much fun! Matt really looked up to Ross. I think he especially appreciated Ross sharing his gameboy with him. He and Ross would both tease each other about the Cubs & Cards. That rivalary starts early.

Sam cracked us up! He has such a great little personality. He is ALWAYS some sort of superhero, and he makes up a lot of rules to go with his alter egos. He couldn't remember any of our names during our visit. He kept asking, "What's the big ones name?" or "What's the boy's name that I've been playing with?" My favorite would be when Katie and I were holding the babies, and he would ask Katie, "Is this my baby sister?" I guess we were throwing him off.

Baby Ellie is such a little sweetie. She is so tiny compared to her three-month-older cousin Mallory. We were glad we could be there for her blessing.

Baby Talk

Baby Talk from stephanie felker and Vimeo.


Mallory's little baby talk is so sweet. Turn up the volume and enjoy. Also, note how my little genius waves when I say "bye-bye."

Mr. Popular

When I picked the kids up from school yesterday, Ross and I had the following conversation:

Ross: You know mom, I'm becoming pretty popular in the third grade.

Me: Oh yeah? Why do you say that?

Ross: Because I go tell Brandon to stop picking on kids (Brandon is a HUGE bully. He's twice the size of the other third graders. The poor kid doesn't have many advantages in his life. The one advantage he does have is his size, and he's ALWAYS using it to intimidate the other kids).

Me: How do you do that?

Ross: At recess I see him picking on kids so I go up to him and say, "Brandon, you need to walk

away and leave him/her alone."

Me: How does Brandon respond to that?

Ross: He says, "I'm big and scary! You better run away."

Me: Then what do you do?

Ross: I just say, "Brandon, I'm not leaving until you walk away." I'm not scared of him, Mom.

We'll see if he still feels that way when he comes home with a black eye. Watch for more on this subject.

Tasty tidbits

Drew is my little chef. He loves to help me in the kitchen. He pretty much asks me anytime I cook or bake if he can help. For anyone who's ever cooked with a 3 year-old, you know it can get messy, but I usually bite my tongue and let him "help" me. Last night he wanted to help me make meatloaf. We usually take turns putting in the ingredients. When I was taking my turn I added dried minced onions. He watched me with a concerned look on his face and asked, "Are those fingernails?"

WARNING...

...take caution when watching this! Actually, if you are easily grossed out, DON'T WATCH! My Dad and brother, Aaron, had to turn away. Ben couldn't even look. For everyone else, this is hysterical. The first time I saw this clip of babies spitting-up, I laughed until tears were rolling down my cheeks. My favorite is the grandma holding the baby. I guess these clips are so funny to me because all of our babies have been major pukers. To quote the great Pee-wee Herman, "I lived it, Dottie." Poor Drew got it from Mallory right in the mouth last week. He started gagging until he nearly threw up. Good times. Good times.

And the winner is...

A few days ago, Mallory rolled over three times in a row. Drew seriously told me, "We need to put her in a baby contest so she can win." If anyone hears of a baby rolling contest, let me know and we'll sign her up!