Georgia's shortest state trooper

There are some helicopter pilots with the Georgia State Patrol staying at the same hotel as Granny Cardin. She talked with them this morning and mentioned that she had a grandson who would love to see their helicopters, and they told her to bring him back in the afternoon and they'd let him have a look. He was a little timid at first, but warmed up and really enjoyed the experience. He also got to sit in one of the police cars, and they even turned on the lights and siren for him!

Kenton gets more interested in Emery each day. In this picture he's trying to figure out how to operate the music box that goes in her bouncy seat. He had already insisted that we put the bar on with the toys, because Emery needed toys! He was also using the bouncy seat as a big tunnel for his trains. Emery continues to be a very laid-back baby, and things are going smoothly!

Our first night and day home from the hospital with Emery have been wonderful. We could not ask for a sweeter, more laid-back baby. Kenton has warmed up to her some and was so good today, too. He loved helping get bottles and diapers for her and wanted to "pet baby sister's hair" several different times today. We had to remind him to be gentle a few times, but overall he was great. We gave Emery a bath tonight, and she hated it. She's all red and blotchy in the picture from fussing while we bathed her, but I still thought she looked pretty cute bundled up in her towel.

Papaw headed back to Kentucky this morning. After having him around for two weeks, we weren't sure how Kenton would deal with this, but he took it pretty well. We tried to explain that Papaw had to go back to his house but I guess that's pretty hard to understand when you're not quite two. We sure appreciated having Papaw around to help out with things! Hopefully we'll be able to take a trip to Kentucky to visit everyone before my maternity leave is up.

Emery, all dressed up to come home from the hospital. We got home around 7:00 this evening and everyone is doing well. We hope to get some sleep tonight!

Kenton would like to announce that he is now a big brother! Emery Elizabeth was born on Thursday, August 2 at 6:06pm. She weighs 7 pounds 9 ounces and is 19 1/2 inches long. Mom and baby are both doing very well. Kenton is not real sure what to think of "baby sister". He went over to visit at the hospital this morning and kept saying, "baby sister little, Kenton BIG". He did gently touch her hand this morning and then just looked at us with big eyes. Oh how I would love to know what is going through his head!

WE'RE GOING TO THE HOSPITAL! Labor & Delivery called and they finally have a bed for me. Hopefully we'll have a baby girl by the end of the day!

Kenton's eager to be Papaw's little helper, whatever Papaw might be working on. Here they're doing a little work on a squeaky floorboard between the kitchen and dining room.

Still no baby girl. The person I spoke with in Labor & Delivery this morning seemed hopeful that they would be able to work me in later in the day as some beds emptied out. So, I'm sitting around impatiently waiting for the phone to ring.

Edward and I went to Sonic this afternoon, where I indulged my cravings for a jumbo-sized diet cherry limeade. Kenton had just gotten up from his nap about the time we came in the house and asked for a drink from my cup. I handed it to him, thinking he'd take a sip and I'd get it back. That's not how it worked. He latched onto the straw and would not let go! The cup was nearly as big as him and I think he drank close to 1/3 of it. As it got empty, he sucked so hard his cheeks were pulling in and then very sadly told us it was all gone.

Kenton's birthday isn't until the 19th, but we wanted to have a celebration while Papaw is here, so we had a little party this afternoon. I figure if I'm going into the hospital tomorrow, this was as good a time as any. Papaw got Kenton a Thomas train set last night and we got another engine and some more track for it today. We set up the track around the cake and Kenton thought this was very cool. He was so excited about the trains he barely paid attention to the cake. Kenton does love his sweets, so that's really saying something.

Kenton loves the cats. On a good day, the cats tolerate him. Surprisingly Izzy, who has always been "the grumpy one" puts up with him a lot better than Ferd does.

Still no baby girl. My induction has been pushed back to Thursday. I figure by then every other pregnant woman in town should have given birth and cleared out of the hospital, so I should have all of labor & delivery to myself. Or at the very least, there should be an empty bed for me. Edward and I are planning to go to the movies tonight, for the first time in about three years. He told Kenton we were going to go out and leave him here with Papaw tonight. Kenton said, "Go to hospital and get baby sister." We're all ready for her arrival!

Things did not go as planned today. Someone called from Labor & Delivery about 5:30am to let me know they were all full, so I could not come in to be induced. No baby girl yet, but we do have a lovely rail on our front porch now, thanks to Papaw. He's done a lot in the week he's been here, and we may have to see if we can keep him around for a while longer!

If all goes according to plan, Kenton will become a big brother tomorrow! I'm supposed to go to hospital to have labor induced in the morning, as long as all the beds in labor & delivery are not full. Edward is frantically cleaning house and organizing things in preparation, Papaw's working hard to finish up the front porch rail, and Kenton and I are just hanging out. I'm tired--just trying to rest while I can!

Reading bedtime stories with Papaw

Say cheese!

Papaw gave Kenton an early birthday present today--a toy firetruck! The truck loaded gravel in the driveway, went out to eat and for a walk with us, and everywhere else we went all evening. We're pretty sure he likes it.

Kenton is still VERY excited that Papaw's here and wants to be with him every single minute. The two of them spent a rainy afternoon playing blocks and train. Kenton likes knocking the blocks down just as much, if not more, than he likes stacking them.

We think baby girl might be close to arriving. I'm pretty miserable and hoping it's very, very soon. Tonight would be good.

Papaw is visiting this week and Kenton couldn't be more excited. When we'd all been up about 10 minutes this morning, Kenton had already said "Hi Papaw. Whatcha doin?" roughly 1,500 times. Papaw did not get to drink his coffee in peace like he usually does back in Kentucky.

We are hoping that baby girl will make her grand entrance any day now. Papaw is already an expert Kenton sitter and he hopes to get to meet baby girl very soon. And Keesha is very tired of being pregnant.

Ride 'em cowboy! This rocking horse was one of the first things we bought for Kenton. I'd just had an ultrasound and we were pretty sure it was going to be a boy, then we went to a craft fair where we spotted these and decided we had to get one. Now, over two years later, he's finally playing with it. It's been cute as a decoration, but I'm glad he's finally big enough to use it.

Kenton has recently started putting on my sandals or Edward's flip-flops and clomping around the house in them. Usually he manages to get a matched pair, but not tonight.

I came home from work about an hour early today, because I was achy all over and just too exhausted to think. Which, I guess, is how everyone feels when they're 8 1/2 months pregnant. Edward and Kenton were out running errands when I got here, and I laid down to take a nap. Ferd (the cat) was already in the bed, up under the covers, and I laid on top of the covers beside him. When I woke up and Kenton came in the room, Ferd was still snoozing undercover. Edward asked Kenton who he thought was under there, and he thought for a moment and then said, "Baby sister!" We got a big laugh out of that.

Today's special at the EHOP (that's Edward's House of Pancakes, in case you didn't know) was multi-grain pancakes with blueberries and walnuts. YUMMY! Kenton loved the blueberries, like he's loved every fruit he's ever tried, and munched on about 1/3 of a cup of them while the pancakes were cooking. Then he had two big blueberry-filled pancakes, and as he ate them he took great care to smear blueberries all over his face, and even up his nose.

My favorite "cow boys"

Today is Cow Appreciation Day at Chick-Fil-A restaurants. Anyone who comes in dressed head to toe as a cow gets a free combo meal, and anyone who wears something cow gets a free sandwich or nuggets. Edward and Kenton decided to give it a try today and their outfits got them free sandwiches. I think Edward was a little disappointed that they didn't get the whole combo, but I guess they would have needed a mask or face paint for that. He and Kenton had matching outfits.

Our friend Trish joined us for lunch, too, and she and I wore black shirts and tried to claim that we were Angus, rather than Holstein, cows but we didn't get any credit for that. Trish is going to help watch Kenton when I'm in the hospital having the baby, and I think they'll get along fine. He's always liked her, but she fed him french fries and ice cream today at lunch, so I'm sure that moved her up a little higher on his favorite people list!

Kenton's room is nearly finished. We got him a desk yesterday, and Edward got it (mostly) put together and moved into the room today. You can't see in this picture, but it has shelves across the top where we can put some books and some decorative items, and it will work for a computer if we want to do that down the road. The only thing we have to finish in the room now is the toybox, which you can see in the edge of the picture. It was mine growing up, and it's seen better days, but I think with a few repairs and a good coat of paint it will work just fine.

While cleaning out the nursery and getting it ready for baby girl's arrival, we've come across quite a few of Kenton's old toys. Tonight he found a new use for the linking rings he played with so much as baby. Makes a pretty cool nose ring, don't you think? He put it there all by himself. He's very interested in stuffing things in his ears and nose lately, but for once we found it funny, too. He was yelling "looking good" as he ran around the room like this. How could we not laugh?

Kenton loves Lucy. He especially loves to feed Lucy--his food, her food, our food, treats, and sometimes things that aren't even food. He doesn't care what it is, and she happily eats most of it. Tonight he wanted to give her a "cookie" (treat) and we let him. Here they are enjoying a little quality time together as she eats her cookie.

When we bought decorations for Keton's room, we thought it would be important to have things that he wouldn't hurt if he decided to play with them. Good thing we took that approach since his cowboy hat lantern is seeing a lot of use as a tool carrier. Note the yellow plastic screwdriver in it. He's been carrying his tools around in it for a couple of days now. He found the baby sunglasses this morning when Edward was cleaning out the nursery and decided he needed to wear those, as well as the green bracelet. I thought the whole look was a winner, especially with the race jar pajamas and the big summer reading club sticker on his belly.

After watching his daddy use the hammer to hang some decorations in his room today, Kenton wanted to hammer, too. So we found his toy tools and let him hammer away.

He slept in his new big boy room last night and for his nap today. So far he really seems to like it and things are going well. He did wake up at 6:00 this morning and refuse to go back to sleep. Usually he sleeps until about 7:30. I think being in the new room was a little more exciting so he didn't want to lay down and go back to sleep. That's been the only problem we've had so far, though. Hopefully this will be a pretty easy transition for all of us.

We had chocolate pie for dessert tonight. We're pretty sure Kenton enjoyed it.

Kenton and Edward worked hard today to finish up Kenton's "big boy" room, so he can move out of the nursery before his baby sister arrives. Edward finished painting the walls, put down the area rug, arranged the furniture, and put the curtains up. Kenton helped install the safety rails on the bed, as you can see in the picture. When I got home Kenton was very excited to show me his "new room", but had no interest in sleeping there tonight. We'll try again tomorrow!

As big and grown-up as he seems sometimes, he still looks like my little baby when he's sleeping.

We bought a potty tonight. We weren't planning on this. We'd decided that potty training could wait until after the new baby arrives, but today Kenton looked at his daddy and said, "Kenton want use potty." So after a little discussion we decided that if he's that interested, we might as well give it a try. We headed out to Wal-Mart and bought the only model they had in stock. It plays music, which we're not real excited about, but you do have the option to disable that feature. We brought it home and Kenton was quite enthusiastic about getting it set up in the bathroom and giving it a try. He sat on it for several minutes, talking about the things one does on the potty, but didn't accomplish any of those things. We had to force him to get off it and take his bath, then he wanted to try again after the bath. Again, no results, but he was very excited about trying. We don't have a real plan for this potty training--I guess we're just going to follow his lead and let him try as long as he's so interested.

We bought some bubbles this afternoon and Kenton definitely had fun with them. At first he was content to just watch as we blew bubbles, then he was chasing them and trying to grab them. Edward caught one on the wand and let him hold it and look at it up close and that was very cool, and he wanted to "hold da bubbies" every time we would blow some. That entertained him for a while longer, but he started putting the wand in his mouth after the bubble would pop so we had to stop the bubble fun. Although the label says they're non-toxic, I'm guessing that licking the bubble wand is still not a good idea.

Isn't he the cutest little pirate you've ever seen? We did a pirate program at the library this morning, and although Kenton didn't attend, he and Edward were in the building when it ended. So my coworkers dressed him up in the pirate hat and snapped a picture. He got a pirate tattoo, too!

We haven't used Lucy's crate much in recent months, so Kenton was very curious when we set it up today. We know she'll have to be crated some when baby girl is born and there are strange people coming and going in the house, so we're trying to get Lucy and Kenton used to the idea. Lucy wasn't excited to see it, but Kenton had a great time playing it. He even took his toy car inside and sat on it in the crate for a while. He thinks it's a great new playhouse.

Kenton has outgrown his little car, but it is still one of his favorite toys. He refuses to give it up. He doesn't really ride it much, but loves to push it around and begs to take it with him every time we take a walk. Here he's using it as an easy chair to sit in while he watches his Thomas DVD. He really does more than watch tv these days, I promise. It's just that it's really easy to snap pictures of him while he's sitting still in front of it!

Last Sunday we checked out a Thomas the Tank Engine DVD from the library, and that is all Kenton has wanted to watch since. We also got two Elmo videos, but Thomas wins every time. Considering his fondness for Elmo, this is a really big deal. The picture shows his preferred viewing position--sitting in his bean bag with a few of his favorite stuffed buddies. He usually watches for a few minutes at a time, then gets up and runs around, does some other things, and comes back to the tv for a few more minutes. This evening he was really watching intently, though, and didn't even pay attention when Edward snapped a picture of him. We bought a Thomas DVD earlier today, our first DVD purchase for him. When we were at the mall he spent almost an hour at the Books-a-Million playing with their Thomas train set. He wasn't ready to leave after an hour, either. We had to do some coaxing, but at least he didn't throw a fit. You can't tell since he has on a bib in the picture, but he is wearing his Thomas t-shirt, too. We've had a very Thomas day!

Kenton loves fruit, but has never been much on eating his vegetables. However, today Edward found him eating frozen green beans that he'd dumped all over the kitchen floor. If only we'd know that was the secret to get him to eat veggies, we would have let him try it months ago!

Sunday mornings at our house usually means pancakes or waffles for breakfast. Today it was pancakes, which Kenton loves. He has recently discovered the joy of dipping food, so pancakes were even more exciting since we gave him a little syrup to dip them in. He used to be content to eat them plain, but no more. He also got chocolate milk to drink, which is his very favorite drink ever. But you could probably guess that from the way he's turning his cup up and chug-a-lugging in the picture.

We had lunch at Firehouse Subs today, where every kid gets a plastic fireman's hat. Kenton is very into the hat an has been wearing it around the house all day. He also liked to put it on our heads, but it doesn't fit too well and he gets irritated by that. At lunch today, I think Kenton out-ate both of his parents. Edward and I split a large sandwich and a bag of chips. Kenton had a full-sized peanut butter & jelly sandwich, a bag of cheese nips, a cookie, and probably 1/3 of our chips. I didn't think little boys were supposed to start eating you out of house and home until they were about 12 years old!

Kenton and me, one year ago. He wasn't even walking yet--now he's running, jumping and climbing! I can't even imagine what a year from now will bring, but I'm sure it will be lots of fun.

Isn't he a mess? He looks like this most of the time now. He's always scratched and bruised from some fall or bump. I don't think he's clumsy as much as he just doesn't pay attention to where he's going when he's running around. There are too many other interesting things to look at! We think the scratch on his cheek is actually something he did to himself. He went to bed Monday night looking fine and woke up Tuesday with that on his cheek. When Edward went to get him out of his crib that morning the first thing he said was, "Daddy, cheek hurt." We were going to take him to have his picture taken yesterday, but thanks to the big scratch had to reschedule that. His drooling has finally gotten better and he doesn't have to wear a bib constantly anymore, but he some days are worse than others. This was obviously a "more drooly" kinda day. Even all scratched, bruised, soggy, and splattered with food, he's still pretty cute. :~)

Kenton is starting to understand what tools can do. This picture was taken several weeks ago when Nana and Papaw were down visiting, and he was content to play with his toy tools while daddy and papaw used the real things. Today he saw his daddy use a screwdriver to change out the batteries in his toy train. He threw a fit until daddy let him hold the screwdriver, then tried to use it to "open the train", as he put it. We're going to have to make sure he can't reach the screwdriver because I have a feeling he'll be taking things apart before long!

Kenton is certainly developing an "I can do it by myself" attitude. Here he is trying to dry himself off after his bath tonight. No matter how much he protests, he still needs a little help, though!

Could he be any cooler? :-)

Over the Memorial Day weekend we drove down to Panama City Beach to visit with our friend David, who was vacationing there. Kenton didn't care much for the ocean this time, but he was a big fan of playing in the sand. He shoveled and poured sand in and out of the bucket happily for about an hour, and probably would have played longer if we'd let him. We enjoyed our time there, but the 3 1/2 hour car ridewas not too fun for this very pregnant woman. Kenton was a much better traveler than I was on this trip!

Kenton loves to brush his teeth...and wash his hands, or do anything else that involves running water in the bathroom. Here's a picture of him getting ready to brush this morning. You can't tell too much in the picture, but he has a big bump on his forehead where he took a tumble out of the shopping cart at Lowe's last night and hit the concrete floor. He cried for about ten minutes, but mom and dad were upset and worried for the rest of the night. We hadn't been making him stay strapped in the seat when he was in the cart, but looks like we're going to have to from now on. He's getting a little too good at climbing in and out of things.

Last week I had to go to Atlanta for a meeting, and Kenton and Edward came along to keep me company. We talked about taking Kenton to to the zoo while we were there, but he was so fascinated by the koi pond in our hotel lobby that we decided to save ourselves the $25 and just let him hang out in the lobby. He was equally fascinated with pushing buttons in the elevator, but we didn't let him do that quite as much!

On Sunday, which was Mother's Day, we went to Albany and visited the Riverquarium. We'd been a couple of times before with Kenton, but he really enjoyed it this time. Of course, being a toddler, he moved through the place pretty quickly. I had a hard time getting him to stand still to get pictures. He was too busy running from tank to tank yelling "I see fish!" I see water!" Here's a picture of him and daddy enjoying the view from the top level of the building. From the lower level you can actually see the fish, alligators, turtles, etc. who are living in the water behind them. We all really enjoyed the trip, and I think it was a great way to spend Mother's Day.