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.

where go the guy?

Sadie saying "cheese!"

well our little tootsie pop is in sight of being 2 years old. she's 22 months now and it's so hard to believe how much time passes in between each posting. just reading what she was doing in august made me realize how much she has changed from almost 2 months ago. it's hard to even capture how different she is.
sadie still loves books, we have begun to cycle books and toys because she has so many of each. it's funny to see which ones she chooses. right now it's goodnight moon, a book about ducks that if you push a button it makes quacking noises, 10 little ducks by eric carle, and the runaway bunny. these are all books she has had since she was a newborn but is just now starting to rediscover them.
sadie LOVES the moon. she wakes up asking about it and goes to sleep wanting to see it. we have told her time and time again that the moon is night night but she insists on going to see where it is.
on our way home everyday there's an 8 ft. blow up "guy" that moves from a fan underneath it, that probalby doens't make any sense at all. one of these days i will go take a picture of it. she calls it "guy" and i always have to explain that the guy is either outside where he's supposed to be or he's inside or night night. she doens't understand that when it's raining or really windy the guy won't be outside.
sadie always wants to know where everyone is. everyday we go through the list of grandma, grandpa, daddy, josh, matthew, and kevin. all of them are at work. this is a typical conversation we have a breakfast
sadie: daddy?
mom: where's daddy?
sadie: at work
mom: what does daddy do for work?
sadie: 'puters.

her answers are teacher (grandma) tractor (grandpa) 'puters (daddy) football (josh) lawn mowers (matthew) bones (kevin)
we recently went to a birthday party for one of our friends' daughter named payton, who turned 4. ever since then sadie always wants to konw where payton is. when i ask well where is she, sadie responds "at work" and for work "she's a mama" where she got that i have no idea. what a character!
sadie has started to act out a little. she's frustrated when we don't understand what she wants or when she doesn't get what she wants. she's been hitting lately, especially when she is tired. we have a naughty chair and for the most part it's working right now. when she hits we tell her to go to the naughty chair and she goes right now and sits until we tell her to get up. i am hoping this won't last long (yeah right huh!)
sadie gives kisses to my belly and tries to hug it but i still don't think she has any idea what she's in for. she always points out babies she sees but never really wants to get close to them. i know that it will be ab adjustment for all of us, i do worry about her. i just hope it's not too hard.

the marker job sadie did on her car

she also got her pajamas

sadie and grandpa

she loves being like grandpa

sadie and my cousin michael in michael's dads car

sadie and grandpa at niabi zoo, one of my favorite places growing up

mommy and sadie on the train

sadie learned elephant that day and says it constantly now. it's one of her favorite animals

she loves the elehpants

no she's not a bob the builder fan, she just loves sitting in the rides at malls

every morning sadie gets her hair done, this day was special because she insisted on me putting in every hair tie on her brush, her hair is sticking straight up in a ponytail

she loves her pumpkins

sadie sitting on the naughty seat; sadie showing grandma a picture she colored at daycare

yee-haw! sadie's horsie

she loves to sit by her pumpkins

yoga?

trying to run away from mommy

our sadie the little painter

sadie has been growing and changing so much lately. it seems that's an obvious statement given her age.

changes every single day and seems to know new words and sometimes even phrases. we seem also to be reading the same books over and over again. i wondered when this stage would start. the other day as we were reading polar bear polar bear sadie flipped through the pages and started naming off animals like flamingo, leopard, hippotamus, etc. obviously the words didn't sound exactly like that but it was close enough for me to be able to understand it. i was very impressed. it really did show me that she pays attention to everything that we do and say. we were reading another book called gossie and sometimes when i read the book i make sound effects. yesterday as i was reading it to her sadie made the same sound effects that i sometimes make. it was so cute.

one area that we are trying to improve on is when sadie gets ahold of markers. the last two days have been disasterous. i came home yesterday from work to discover sadie's dora car and her pajama's decorated with red sharpie marker. it turns out daddy hadn't been paying too close attention to her and she had also had red marker all over herself as well. at least that got cleaned up. today little miss who decided to color herself, the window, and the couch with a blue marker. i think we need to be more vigilant about our little picasso.

summer time with grandma is the best!

she somehow got in and couldn't get out

yelling for more milk

dancing at irish fest

with her favorite mah-moo

with mommy at irish fest

great grandma flaherty

blowing bubbles with stuart

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earning to drive a little early

can't quite reach the peddles

"are my lights on?"

she LOVES corn on the cob
she loved the bouncy house but couldn't stand up

so she just sat there and watched the other kids

her favorite mah-moo

grandma and sadie at the benefit

begging for ice cream at uncle sam's birthday