Rilian is 8 months old!

As you can tell, I am really behind on my blogging. But I thought I had better get Rilian's 8 month photo shoot posted before he actually turns 9 months in two days!

Here is Rilian on the dragon blanket. He is getting bigger! It was harder to keep him on his back this month and I imagine it will continue to get harder as he becomes more mobile.

He loves his crab toy! When I gave it to him, it helped him to stay on his dragon blanket.

Had to show off the beautiful baby blues again!

Such a sweet smile! He has six teeth. If you look at his smile and his teeth, they are a little off center. Alot of times when Rilian smiles, he makes a crooked smile. Kinda funny.

Handsome baby boy! You can kinda see the crooked smile in this picture, too.

Rilian loves to play with tags. He found the tag on his dragon blanket and decided to chew on it, like he does with all the other tags he finds.

My three sons...haha! I couldn't resist when I started typing about this picture. Seven wanted his picture taken with Rilian (again) and I asked Finn if he wanted to get in the picture, too.

Finn and Rilian. I think Finn's eyelids have bad timing with the camera. We have several shots of Finn with that look on his face. He must blink at just the right time, or rather the wrong time.

Piper and Rilian. Piper is such a good big sister. She really likes to hold Rilian, too.

All four of my precious children. I took three pictures like this, and I think this is the best of the three. Seven looks like he is scheming. But actually he is trying to figure out Daddy's phone so he can take a picture, too.

Lunch with Piper

One day Jeremy went to eat lunch with Piper at school. These are some of her classmates. The girl with pizz in her mouth is Draven, the one that looks like she is picking her nose is Alexis, and the next girl is Zoe. I guess the camera brings out the best in Kindergarteners.

Piper had a boyfriend for a little while. This is Jonathan Soliz. He has a lemon in his mouth. What do you think of his hair? Jeremy wonders how that long hair is not a distraction, but yet a mohawk is. I think Piper liked Jonathan for his hair.

Piper and Jonathan. She looks so happy! I think she was excited that Jeremy was there and got to eat lunch with her. Piper and her best friend, Addilyn. Piper and Addilyn are reading better than the rest of their classmates. So, on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, they get pulled out of class and get to read with a retired ACU professor, Dr. Gray. Piper's teacher, Ms. Clonch, says usually they pull out the kids that are not reading at the same level as the class, but Piper and Addilyn were way ahead. I am so proud of Piper for this! Ms. Clonch approached me one morning when I was dropping Piper off at school. She started to tell me that Piper was going to be pulled out of class and immediately in my mind I thought, "Oh great! She is going to be tested for ADD." Then I focused back on what Ms. Clonch was saying and she told me about the reading. I was really relieved!
Look how excited these two are! For anyone who has spent some time with Piper, you know how "fun" she is. Well, take that and multiply it by two...that is Piper and Addilyn together! Sleep over anyone? We had our parent/teacher conference with Ms. Clonch a few weeks ago. It was for the first six weeks. Ms. Clonch said the only word she has to describe Piper is magnificent. Yes, you read that right. She said, "well, other than marvelous, wonderful..." She said Piper is a very good student. She gets along with everyone. She listens and does what she is told. She focuses in class and gets her work done. What? I think Ms. Clonch has Piper mixed up with one of her other students ;) Ms. Clonch said, "You probably already know all this." We actually told her it was nice to hear that but we were kind of surprised. Ms. Clonch was surprised that we were surprised.

West Texas Fair

I feel like I am a broken record, but this blog post took place last month. I am so behind in posting.

We went to the West Texas Fair. It came to Abilene and we got to eat yummy fair food. After we ate, we stood in an extremely long line to get tickets for our children to ride rides. Seven saw this tiger and wanted to jump in it. He had a blast! It is not a very good picture, but if you look real hard you can see him jumping.

Next, Piper and Finn got to ride down the big slide. Every year they talk about it and can't wait to go down the big slide. This year, they were big enough to go by themselves. Jeremy and I watched them climb all the way to the top of the stairs, waiting down below with the cameras ready to roll and capture pictures once they were finally at the top and ready to come down. It is a very dark picture. I guess a cold front came in that day because the later in the day it became, the colder it seemed to get. And it was misting. We had sent the kids to school in shorts and had wished we had brought jackets with us to the fair that night. Here is Piper coming down the big slide. Finn is in the lane beside her. He is still at the top fighting with his burlap bag, trying to get it to wait on him to get on it and slide down the slide. Jeremy captured it all on video. Quite humorous.

Here comes Finn. He finally won the fight with his burlap sack.

Seven saw the ladybugs and really wanted to ride them. He was so cute, just sitting there all by himself like such a big boy, riding the ladybugs.

Not sure why, but he is hanging on to the antenna. The ride wasn't going fast. I guess he just saw them and thought it was a good place for his hands. Who knows, this is Seven.

Piper had been talking about riding the ferris wheel since before we got to the fair. Finn thought it would be fun, too. Neither one of them have ever rode a ferris wheel before. I am not sure where they got the idea. Here they are standing in line with Jeremy, waiting to ride the ferris wheel.
My smiley boy, Rilian, while we were waiting on Piper, Finn, and Jeremy to get off the ferris wheel. There they are in one of the cars on the ferris wheel. Jeremy and Finn were waving. I don't think Piper saw me down below. When they got higher, I got a little scared because Piper was looking over the side trying to look down below to see me. It also made Jeremy nervous, so he told her to sit down. There weren't any seat belts in it.

Now they are at the top on their way down. If the ferris wheel were a clock, they are in the car that is where the 1 would be. And they are actually in car 1. If you look closely, you can see Piper and Finn's heads. But they are sitting down, so it is really hard to see.

Seven saw the petting zoo while we were standing in line to buy tickets for the rides. He kept talking about going to "the farm". He was calling the petting zoo "the farm." It's funny, anytime he sees farm animals, he thinks it is a farm. He loves to go to "the farm" and asks almost every week if he can go to "the farm." He was looking at the donkey, contemplating getting closer.

Watching Daddy feed the donkeys and showing them how to hold their hands flat.
I had to change the batteries in the camera. While I was doing this, I told them to sit down. Their were alot of people in the petting zoo and the kids were not being the best about staying with us. Once I got the new batteries in, I took a picture of them and told them to get up. They didn't want to get up. They were having too much fun playing with the wood chips on the ground.
Getting ready to feed the llama. Piper looks eager to get some food for the llama.
Jeremy was trying to give Finn some food to feed the llama. It looks like Finn didn't want to take the food.

The boy was holding a hedgehog. Seven looked really interested in it. It's not every day you get to see a hedgehog.

All three of them got to pet a baby goat.

Piper had remembered us going to the rodeo last year at the fair. As we were leaving she asked about going to the rodeo. When we walked in, the children were trying to ride a sheep. It was fun to watch. They were to try to stay on it for a certain distance. Not very many made it. If the child fell off, the sheep kept running. The clowns were standing across from each other and would throw a frisbee to each other. It was really funny to see the sheep jump over the frisbee! Piper really wanted to watch the bull riding, but it was time to go. There were baths to give and school to go to the next day. And it was almost their bedtime. We discovered this year that we need to get to the fair earlier next year so we will have enough time to do everything we want to. Jeremy was a little disappointed that we didn't get to walk through the exhibits. And I felt rushed almost the whole time because I knew we only had so much time until it would be time to leave and put the kids to bed.