Woody and Adison.
Mom and Stephanie catching up on their news.
Woody blows out his candles on his VERY yummy coconut birthday cake.
She will sit and watch what is going on for about a hour in her bumbo and if she is lying down and sees someone, she will call out to them.
She has no signs of teeth yet, but she drools more than any baby I've ever known. She can soak through a bib in about an hour. I'm about to invest in plastic backed bibs in an effort to stop her soaking her clothes.
She has the cutest chubby legs but the rest of her is quite slim. She's in the 86th percentile for length and 56th for weight when she had her 4 month shots.
I love her most when I first wake her up as she is so happy and smiley. She sleeps from 11pm to 6am most of the time and has adjusted very well so sleeping in Kirsten's room while Mom and Dad are here and in her room.
She isn't very good at taking her lunch time nap. She goes down with Nicolas but will wake up after a hour and then has to have her passy put in and usually will go down again for another hour, but she certainly sleeps less during the day than Nicolas did.
She is pretty good at holding her head up when she has 'tummy time' which is great considering she has probably had a total of an hour of tummy time in her life! We just never seem to find the time.
I've been doing Weightwatchers for the last month and so I've been trying to walk a bit more (and failing) but Adam has been walking with me at weekends, which I love. We've both lost weight which is great, but not enough to show yet. This is one of my favorite parks because there are lots of ducks for Nicolas and Adison to watch and Leo to chase!
I met my friend Caroline and her little girls Emerson (who is Nicolas' age) and Berkeley (who is Adison's age) and we went with one of her Mom's clubs to the Yellow River Game Ranch. 
It was great to catch up and see the girls and Nicolas loved the animals.
They had lots of fawns which were so cute.
I think Nicolas just thought the deer were dogs, and as lots of them were smaller than Leo, he wasn't scared of them and enjoyed feeding them crackers.
Adison didn't quite know what to make of it all, but she was quite happy.
Nicolas still loves squirrels, and this one was particularly friendly.
By the time we got to the end, Nicolas was more interested in eating the crackers rather than feeding them to the animals.
Mom and Dad decided last minute to come for Thanksgiving which was a wonderful suprise but ment that all the things I'd been putting off doing in the yard had to be done. I'd wanted to pave the area below and knew that if I didn't do it before they got here that they would try to do it for me, and I feel really bad when they spend their vacation time doing hard labor in the yard!
So over the course of a week with "help" from Nicolas and Leo, and with Adison watching, we got it done.
When Nicolas got bored helping he played with Leo in Leo's dog house, which is just the right size for Nicolas.
And sometimes Leo got a bit too annoying, even for Nicolas!
Finally I got it done and now Mom and Dad can help me plan where my plants go and dig in a bit of manure to make the soil a bit better. I see this area from my kitchen window, so I want it to look good as it's probably the bit of the garden I see most.
I've actually paved a bit further than on this picture, but I've not photographed it yet.
Leo was mad as I paved over his favorite area to pooh!
Then a couple of weeks ago we went to Lilli's fourth birthday. The kids weren't with us and Adam had to work, so it was just me, Nicolas and Adison. I love Sam and Russell's family but I only get to see them at birthdays, so it was good to catch up. 
Adison got to spend some time with Papa and Teffi and was so content she fell asleep.
He absolutely adores Adam, mainly because Adam spends so much time playing with him and loving him. I feel bad because I always have something else to do, or Adison to look after, so I love Nicolas or do what he needs and then move on to whatever else I need to do. Adam always makes the time to sit with him until he falls asleep or play with him when he's miserable or do whatever it takes to make him happy again. Adam really is the best father I could have imagined for my children!
It's also been good for Adam to just be able to enjoy being with Nicolas because when Jaden and Kirsten were this age Adam was working so hard and there was so much turmoil in his life. It's crazy for me to think that Kirsten was this age when I met Adam! 
Finally Nicolas is at a point where I feel he can feed himself. There is still a bit of mess, but he's got the concept of holding the bowl so it doesn't move when he's loading his spoon, and he leans over the bowl so whatever drops off the spoon goes back in the bowl. However, no matter how hard I try I can't get him to stop flipping over the spoon when he puts it in his mouth. It's no problem with food that sticks to the spoon, but anything liquid or soft falls off the spoon before it gets into his mouth. I just love being able to eat my food while it's hot while he feeds himself, rather than eating it cold when I've fed him.
I've been getting toys out for Adison and Nicolas loves playing with his old things, especially the baby walker. He also loves her jacket which my friend Lesley bought for her and he spends ages trying to put it on - not a good look!
Nicolas is my little cooking assistant. His job is to beat the eggs when we make omlettes or bake, and to work the mixer. He knows cookies taste good and will ask for cookies anytime he sees one of my storage tins out, because he knows that's where we put treats! He has also learned to pull the desk chair over to the pantries and get out the mini marshmallows or chocolate chips I keep for baking. He asks so sweetly for candy or cookies that it's hard to resist giving him some most of the time.
Nicolas learned the difference between 'hi' and 'bye' last week. The little girls next door waved hi to him while he was outside with Adam. He came in all proud of himself to show me his new wave. It's so funny because he can wave bye (hand flapping up and down wave) really easily, to wave hi (side to side) his hand is really stiff and hard to control. He loves doing the two different waves and getting you to say hi and bye, depending on the wave he's doing.
Nicolas and Leo are still best friends. Nicolas is getting really good at throwing the ball for Leo. His new thing is to get the dogs bowl and fill it with water in the bathroom (if I don't hear what he's doing and stop him because I don't want yukky dog bowls in my bathroom sink!), and then give it to Leo (who is usually very grateful). Inevitably there is water slopped all over the floor but it's quite cute. He will also fill the bowl with dog food for Leo too and Nicolas will always say 'thank you' as he gives things to Leo, I think because he's waiting for the dog to say thank you back.
My little baby is so grown up now. He has a proper neck and not a little baby crease and he knows what he wants and how to do it. I accept that he is a little person with things that he wants to do and accepting that has been one of the things that has made him more controlled. I don't expect him to do what I want the moment it suits me because I realise he may have his own plans. Obviously there are certain things he has to do, but I try not to make him do what I want unless it's vital and that has made him a lot less frustrated.
Also his speech is getting so good now. He will say any word you ask him to. 50% of the time it's right and the other times it's sounds nothing like the word, but I still praise him. You can see that sometimes he just doesn't have the confidence to say the word.
He has stopped saying words for animals because if you ask him to say the word he'll make the animal sound instead. He probably has a 30-40 word vocab which I'm happy with. I've been trying for the last month to get him to say Teffi (is name for Stephanie). He will say Papa with no problem but won't say Teffi. If I ask him to say Teffi, he just says Papa because he just knows that Papa and Teffi go together, which is so cute. I've been trying to get him to say Granny, ready for Mom coming to stay, but he just says "no" when I ask him to say it. He has started to say unintelligable things too, but Granny just seems too hard. I'll be interested to see what he is calling Mom by the time they leave.
Nicolas can spot candy a mile away and because he eats very well and has very little sugar because of the problems with his teeth, I don't mind him having candy once in a while.
However he forgets that sometimes there is more than one wrapper on treats!
and then Daddy has to remove the extra wrapper!
Nicolas has the sweetest nature and loves Adison so much. If she's not with me when I wake him up, the first thing he says to me will be 'baby?' and if he's in a different room from her at nursery at church he'll tell me "baby" and point to where ever she's been taken, just so I don't forget her!
He is just at such a fun age where he wants to learn and be helpful, and he's got a sense of humor and knows when he's being teased and how to tease you back. He still loves diggers and trains and can spot a plane in the sky when it's barely visable. He also loves helping me dig in the garden and just be outside. He says thank you everytime you give him something and he waves and smiles at most people we meet, which makes people think he's cute.
He's obsessed with zips, locks and anything he can do up or undo. When Adison is on the floor she's and easy target and gets unzipped. She just likes the attention.
I love Nicolas more and more each day, which makes me love Adam more and more for giving me such a wonderful little boy. I'm so excited that Mom and Dad are here to see how sweet he is.
