in a matter of minutes..

as i was ready to take a shower i brought reid into the bathroom with me because he can cause lots of trouble when he is not being supervised. what trouble could reid possibly get into while i'm taking a shower? after an approximate six minute shower i pull back the curtain and find reid has unrolled the fresh roll of toilet paper almost to the end spreading it across the entire length of the bathroom (which in his defense is n't that long) he was up on the toilet with the tube of toothpaste in his mouth sucking on it, the sink water was turned on and water almost filled to the top of the sink.
he keeps me on my toes, that's for sure.
reiders vocabulary has improved instrumentally in the last few weeks. he is saying short sentences. the best part is since i am home with him more now we are able to work on his vocabulary and do more "school" type activities, reading, letters, numbers, songs, etc. unfortunately the influences around him also are seeping in with words like "spongebob" "pop" "remote" "poop" hmm.. i wonder who he spends time with.. :)
sade continues to grow and change and learn. her sassiness is coming out more, the head roll when she says "i know" or "whaat?" when i tell her she needs to make her bed. we recently discovered that when sadie wakes up in the morning she sometimes will stay in her bed and look at books until reid wakes up. (they are sleeping right next to each other now that reid can climb out of his crib. reid was climbing out and getting into bed with sadie and waking her up in the middle of the night so we put their mattresses on the floor for the meantime)
a few weeks ago we were walking into her class at daycare and we walked by a bulletin board of the things that make her class happy, mad and sad. sadie's answers were" I feel happy "when I give mommy dandelions" I feel mad "when mom pours water on my head when I take a bath" and I feel sad "when mommy goes to work" (which isn't true anymore since i'm not working :) it was so cute anyways. sadie is still in her twirling dress and skirt phase but we have been able to convince her to wear pants in the last few days.
we are so grateful for the opportunities to be able to spend more time together as a family now. it's been such a blessing.

as much as it pains me to say it my reider is growing up.
thinking about where i was a year ago, it makes me rejoice thinking this is our reality. but he's EVERYWHERE. climbing on the counters, climbing on the toilet. climbing on our bed. climbing out of his crib. it seems likle in the last week we noticed more and more words and mannerisms coming through. yeling "surprise" "peek a boo" sitting at the counter for meals now instead of his high chair. he even started calling grandma by grandma. i'm always reminded of how quickly life changes, how each day is a very special gift. i have the joy to be home with my kids during the day. work for josh has dramatically increased. i never quite feel like i am doing the best job i can be as a mother and it's not an easy job.
thank you jesus for the time we all get to spend together. :)

it seems almost overnight reider is using more and more words. perhaps it's the fact that we are spending lots of time together right now or that he really is breaking through but it's been so cool to listen and see him change even over the last few months. in the morning when i get him from the crib he demands two things, waffles which sounds like "wah-wah" and a diego which i really can't even try to pronounce because it sounds nothing like diego other than the d sound at the beginning. sometimes he will ask for something, we won't know what it is, i will say a word i think it might be and he will say no. mind you, he says no for everything even if it's right. you can see how this can be confusing. he's begun shaking his head.
he's such a stink but so cuddly and silly. at any time he could be seen walking with up to two blankets at the same time.
i am finding out just how adventerous our reider is. today he was standing on the coffee table and he looked at me, shuffled his feet and fell straight forward assuming that i would catch him, which i did but holy crap it scared me. he has no fear. he also tried to climb down the 8 ft climbing wall. what a stinker.
did i mention that as we were outside on monday afternoon reid took my phone off a ledge and ran straight for the pool, jumped in waterlogging my phone.

sadie is making her television debut on sunday evening. both sadie and reider had swimming lessons this summer and sadie's teacher was hard core. i wasn't sure what to expect when we signed up but she's been so great, she's totally upfront and strict. we love her. the rules for class are: 1. no running 2. nothing in your mouth 3. no crying 4. no saying no.
everynight lately we've been saying the hail mary. the other night as we were over at my parents house i said sadie what do we say "holy (and the next word is supposed to be mary) and sadie said "buckets!!" ha ha ha it was so funny. our sweet girl has so much personality. it's all about skirts, diego, and has started really liking and carrying around a baby. the baby's name varies from bridget or stella to others.
we've been baking a lot, sadie's really been helping. more pics to come!

wow, two posts in a week. we are going for some sort of record here i think! josh's brother got married this last weekend and the kids had a blast. sadie loves swimming so much and she is constantly asking when we can put the pool up in our backyard. her cousin sammy and her went swimming for about three hours on saturday with no nap and stayed up way too late the night before. we have a tuckered out girl on our hands. here are some pics from the wedding.

peanut butter sandwiches and throw up buckets

sadie and her dad went to sadie's first movie theater movie yesterday. gulp. is she really that old already?!? it was just a few months ago we were fretting about whether or not to let sadie watch a cartoon in the morning before we all left for the day.
life at the wilson's house is so good right now. i'm loving the kids at their ages. i remember those days about a year ago when it was so hard to keep an eye on sadie before reider was laying on the floor in the living room. now both kids are active, cllimbers, and best friends. those three traits can be quite the combo. it's not uncommon for me to be cleaning downstairs, hear a thud only to discover sadie has removed the mattress from her bed and reid is stuck in between the rungs. or reid on top of the toilet tank trying to reach his tooth brush. or reid in the changing table cabinet and the door shut. usually i just hear screeching and laughing followed by loud running upstairs.
we are so blessed. our kids are healthy, happy and active. last year at this time we were getting worried that reider wasn't sitting up. praise god, he's certainly surpassed that. he's a stinker alright. he grunts and screams when he doesn't go his way. i had a muffin yesterday when reid came into the kitchen and reached his hand up so i broke off some. he started screaming and backing away because he wanted the entire thing not just a piece of it. what a stinker!!! i keep reminding him that this isn't burger king and he can't have it his way! we already have to choose our battles with him. those blue eyes get me every time. he's such a snuggle bug, he knows my weaknesses that's for sure. the kid is smart and is very head strong. we are trying not to compare him to sade at this age but she would come right away when we called her, she would lay down when her diaper was dirty, she would start to head upstairs when she was tired. reid ignores us, he runs the other way, turns around and laughs. i was calling him to come over to change his diaper and started counting only to hear "two, three, four, five, six, seven" what?!?!?! of course he refuses to do it again.
sadie is as smart as a whip. she loves her brother so much. they wrestle and giggle and laugh. sometimes she has a hard time having the spotlight off her. she often takes toys away from reid or wiggles her way on our laps if reid is getting any sort of attention. and vice versa. i can't imagine how parents with more than two children are able to give intentional attention to their children. what a job!
pictures will come soon. but here's a small antidote that explains my children a little more
yesterday as josh and sadie left for the movie josh put reid in his chair and give him a peanut butter sandwich and a banana. i came downstairs about two minutes later. after 40 minutes of reid sucking on his sandwich and not touching his banana i took him out of the chair (he is still holding onto part of his sandwich despite my attempts to remove it from his hand. he tighens his grip and the sandwich will be come mush). we go into the living, sit on the couch. about 10 minutes later i see that he's got dog food in his other hand. "oh reid," i say, "get that out of your.." i don't even finish my words when the sandwich blob from his mouth is released from his mouth and lands on the floor. in the same second before i can even say "NOOO" the dog food goes in his mouth and he runs into the kitchen. STINKER!!!
i was awoken by our dog about an hour ago (it's close to 4am now) so i decided to write on the blog when i hear little feet come downnstairs. it's sadie "mommy i need to throw up." i scramble to get up and grab a plastic bag. "No mommy, i need to throwed up in a bucket" the child came all the way down the stairs, held her throw up until i got a bucket. after she was done "can i watch a show?" i think maybe the movie theater popcorn was a litlte rich for her small tummy.
life is good. we are so blessed.

punkin head

praise the lord! so much has happened since the last time i wrote. i can imagine the frame of mind i was writing from seemed a little tense. reider wasn't sitting up at the time. as a mom it freaks me out to think anything is wrong with my baby and there's nothing i can do to help him.
since august reider goes to therapy every 3-5 weeks. in the last week or so he's made some huge progress and now is almost completely walking by himself.
we are starting to really see his personality come out, something we really hadn't seen yet. reid's the type of kid that takes everything in and rarely has a reaction, much less a word in response. when he was a "baby" baby it took me practically standing on my head to get him to smile, laugh, or even look at me. we are finding that in fact he's really pretty silly. he's LOVES being tickled, zurberted, being held and he LOVES LOVES LOVES dance parties. when daddy's not home we turn on the glee cast pandora station and rock out. sadie will throw the cushions off the couch and jump and reider comes over to me and wants up to dance. when i stop moving he starts bucking and whining for me to get moving again.
today reider actually brought josh a book for him to read. that's pretty uncharacteristic of him to do. we think he's probably a lot like my brother kevin in the sense that he takes in EVERYTHING. we just aren't sure what he knows or doesn't know. what a stinker! as of now he knows: Hi, Willie, cracker, baby, icky (usually it's him that smells icky) mommy, and daddy. he points to josh in pictures and we THINK he might be saying sadie but it's hard to tell. he also loves to drink out of my nalgene waterbottle.
tonight was kind of funny. reider, sade and i were on the couch. i said "okay let's go brush our teeth" reider turned himself around, practically lept off the couch and was up the stairs before sadie and i's feet even hit the floor. he LOVES brushing his teeth. <3
i know i need to post about sadie, more on that this week. :) i'm hoping to be blogging more.

embarassinly long since i last posted :)

all i have to say is wow.

i'm so embarassed that it's been SO long since the last time i have written on this. i've really been neglecting writing in the kids' journals and on here.

back to the old grind i guess.
what an amazing, hectic, crazy, eye opening, blessed (almost) year it's been. we are so lucky and happy to have our sweet baby reid(er) to make us laugh, keep us on our toes and complete our family.

reid. where do i even begin. reider is the SPITTING image of my father. everyone who knows the flaherty side calls him "little dan".

when you first meet him he doesn't seem like he has much personality. we know now that he's taking everything in. he watches and stares really intently trying to figure out what's going on. he loves to have his belly zer-berted (when you blow on someone's belly and it makes a loud noise? yup that one).

you really have to work for those laughs, he's alike his mother in the sense that if something isn't funny he ain't laughing. it had better be really funny. he loves little games of peek-a-boo. reider loves to eat, get into things he's not supposed to and chase the dog. he remembers a lot of things, espeically where cords are that he isn't supposed to touch. he is starting to imitate noises and looks surprised when you make a noise that he has just made. when he starts moving around i just know that we are all in for it. those beautiful blue eyes get me every time <3>

for now reid is having trouble sitting up and crawling regularly. we start therapy on tuesday. we are hopeful that it will make a difference and that maybe i won't worry so much :) it's almost as if his mind says let's giddy up and his body can figure out how to do it. he isn't much of a napper, in fact he usually only takes about a (45 minutes during the day, (as in uno, one. single.)UGH. But come 7:55pm and he's ready for bed. he isn't a paci lover like sis but loves him some bottle. it's been a challenge to ween him and begin using the sippy cup. he is happy as a clam laying on the floor next to the dog, with his hand on the fur, watching deadliest catch or cash cab with grandpa, and a bottle in his mouth. oh the life.

one of the best part of the addition to having reider in the family is watching how sadie and reid interact with each other. it's so fun and so sweet seeing her give him kisses, having sadie help with diapers, getting a oneise, or a favorite book to read to him. just in the last month or so they have really began to interact more and more. sadie's not as jealous as she was but i can certainly tell if she thinks reid has been getting more attention. that's no more evident than when we go to church. she can be SO naughty sometimes. i'm so thankful that the other members don't give me glares when she's screaming down the aisle or asking where jesus is at the top of her lungs. tee hee hee. oops!

sadie and reider are two peas in a pod.

in fact when i put her in the car and not him she demands to know where he is and why he's not with us. last weekend sadie stayed at grandma and grandpa's house without reid, who came with me home. it was weird only having one child to get ready in the morning. i had forgotten what it was like to only have to get myself and one child ready. wow. i had so much extra time :) anywho- grandma called me about an hour after we had left saying that sadie wanted to come home to be with mommmy and reider. :) i wish she would do that forever.


i promise to write more later. there's so much to tell

i haven't even gotten to sadie really, although i probably only need to say a few things

-her boyfriend

-wizard of oz

-the black one (her favorite skirt)

-the fact that she calls me katie and my mom diane

-play doh.

-the trains/garbage trucks/john deere

-pinkalicious

yup that pretty much sums up life right now.