Mouthful of rice cereal

Since we gave Allyson her first spoonfuls of rice cereal over a month ago I figured we had better get these pictures posted! I think Landon and Katelyn were more excited about it than she was.

 "Interesting..."

 "I don't quite know what to think about this stuff."

Big Bro and Big Sis thought it was funny to watch Ally push it out with her tongue. 

Rockies Game

Now that Colorado is our new home we decided to introduce the kids to the Colorado Rockies. We went to the Rockies vs. Diamondbacks game and Landon was in love with it. He adores baseball but was kind of sad it wasn't his Atlanta Braves, but don't you worry, Ben has already promised Landon they will go to the Atlanta/Rockies games when they are in town. Katelyn said her favorite part was watching the "people (vendors) with the food go by." And little Ally did awesome except for freaking out when people cheered loudly for home runs. Oh, and fun fact, Missy Franklin threw out the first pitch.

 Ally even wore her (Landon's) baseball burp cloth.

Ally's Blessing

 Allyson Ann was blessed on Sept. 2, over Labor Day Weekend, in Ben's home ward in Taylorsville, Utah. The kids enjoyed the plane ride out there and we were so happy to spend this special day with all the people we love. Because of our move to Colorado we put off Allyson's blessing a little longer than Landon's and Katelyn's who were about a month old when they were blessed. Allyson was three months old and the great advantage to that is she was very photogenic!

 She was blessed in the same dress that Katelyn was and wore the same little bracelet Aunt Lindsie had made. Once again thank you Grandma Davis for making this beautiful dress for the girls. They both looked so adorable in it.

I'll do another post with some more pics from our trip but I will mention that I was so happy to have FINALLY met my new sister-in-law Hailey. What a lovely woman for my brother Keven to have by his side for eternity. And thank you to Ben's many cousins (and aunts and uncles) for making time to visit with us (especially Whitney for coming and showing off her brand new baby boy--what a cutie!) And THANK YOU Jamie and Ben for coming down--it has been FOREVER since I seen you both. I love you tons. And as always thanks to both of our parents and siblings for coming and celebrating this day with us. It was a crazy fast visit but oh so worth it.

(Great Grandma Kjar letting baby Ally chill after church)

(Cute Aunt Nancy holding her third niece)












(And proud mommy and daddy before the blessing. Notice the bib in place to protect the dress from her immature esophagus issue.)

Soccer Clips

Here's just a peek at Landon's soccer practice.


GOAL!! He got his first score in a game and he was very happy about it--as were we:)


And this is what Katelyn is "practicing" during her big brother's soccer practice.

Soccer

 I am officially a soccer mom. Landon started playing in a pre-k soccer league. He has had two practices thus far and he loves it. After his first practice he said, "Mom, I like soccer more than preschool! Can we have soccer more than preschool?" Haha. He plays every Thursday evening. His team only has four boys and the rest are girls, but he doesn't mind. His sports socks, shin guards and too-long jersey make him look adorable (at least his mommy thinks so!) Just the other day the kids came up with their team name, the Blue Panthers.

 His fan club. (Grandma was able to be there for his first practice!)

 Listening to Coach Chuck, who is amazing with the kids.

 Water break

 Luckily for us, 6-year-old Julia who is there watching her brother loves to entertain Katelyn.

 He's running back to the coach, but doesn't he look like a little football player here?

 And the infamous tongue. I guess Ben use to always stick his tongue out too when he was younger.

 Ball drills

 Game play

Sideline entertainment

Preschool!

Landon started preschool! He is enrolled at a local elementary school and goes four days a week in the afternoons. He comes home and conks out on the couch which is not so great for bedtime, but at least he is having fun! Because it is through the school district he also continues to have help with his speech therapy which is the main reason we have him enrolled in this program. Mom shares carpool duty with another mother in the ward so she only needs to drive two days a week.

 

 He really wanted a Spiderman backpack.

 Katelyn misses Landon when he is gone but it is nice to have a couple hours a day where she isn't being picked on. Mom will have to start "little kid preschool" with her since she is so eager to learn.

And this is a picture of Landon's classroom. Miss Jenny is his teacher and there are 15 students.

Grandma D visits

Grandma Davis was able to spend a week with us and she sure played with the kids. It was a nice week to have her here too because it was the week that Landon started preschool and had his first soccer practice.

Making cookies with grandma.

Mini Golf was fun.

 Daddy keeping an eye on the ball and the baby at the same time.

 Gotta love how his tongue always sticks out when concentrating.

A whole round of mini golf didn't quite keep Kate's interest so she started finding other means to entertain herself. (And this little gem who has not had a potty accident in almost a year decided she was having too much fun to find a bathroom and just squatted in the grass and "went like Landon." Yep, but she forgot to take her panties off. ).

 And Allyson and Mommy just hung out on the grass.

 She loved "investigating" the foreign object (grass) with her feet:)

 And since Ben had to work that week we found a few things to do on our own, like take the kids to the park and have a picnic lunch before taking Landon to preschool.

Thanks Grandma Davis for coming and spoiling the kids (and Ben and Kyra). We had a lot of fun and are glad you could spend time with us.

Idaho visitors

Grandma and Grandpa Anderson and Aunt Nancy made a short weekend visit to Colorado to see us. It was so nice because now that we live here it is just a 10 hour drive which is much better than the 30 plus hours it would have been to Tennessee. It was short and sweet so we didn't jam pack the two days with much.

We went for a walk along the Cherry Creek trail by our home and played at a park and then went to Ikea. They also went to church with us on Sunday. 

Grandma and Landon hanging out

Swinging (if you can't tell from her expression) is Katelyn's favorite thing to do and so she loved it when Aunt  Nancy or Grandpa pushed her.

The kids made them read TONS of books.  

 And little Ally got lots of loving.

Thanks for coming down! The kids loved all the extra attention and it was Grandpa and Nancy's first time seeing baby Ally. And Grandma was happy to see how big Allyson had gotten in the couple months since she had left us in Tennessee.

Allyson Ann is 2 months old.

We don't have any stats for height and weight since our insurance at Ben's new company doesn't kick in for another month (but she will be visiting the health department for her 2 month shots).

Allyson is beginning to smile which is oh so cute. Ben will spend a half hour on the ground with her getting her to coo and smile at him. She also is sleeping less during the day, especially the mornings. She does seem to designate the early afternoon as her time to be out cold though. We're still working on getting her to sleep through the night. Sometimes she can go with just one bottle feeding but often times it is two. She still does have a clogged eye duct that will hopefully fix itself before she turns one so surgery is not needed. Her hematoma is gone, but a hard bump has remained. But lopsided head and all she's still the cutest little baby girl around:)

We decided this Saturday would be a good day to start visiting some of the tourist destinations in our new area. We let the kids decide and they chose Tiny Town and Railroad which is a town made of miniature replicas and small trains to ride. It was just 45 minutes away at the base of the Rocky Mountains.

School is in session

"Knock, Knock. Anybody home?"

Landon was excited to see a windmill since he saw a lot of them on the move from Tennessee to Colorado.

She saw her dad and got a real excited look on her face

Look at that cute little grin.

And this Little Miss just vegged out in the stroller while Big Brother and Sister ran around miniature buildings and rode on mini trains.

* AND Mommy was very excited to get a chance to use her new SLR camera. Oh how she has missed it!