Another one bites the dust

Well, it's official, I've totaled my first car. It's not as bad as it sounds. I got in a little "incident" the other day while driving home. No one was hurt and I didn't have the kids with me. The claims adjuster caim today and deemed the car totaled since it would cost more to fix it than what it is worth. You can tell from the pic. that I ripped the bumper and fender off. I also pushed the frame back and twisted the axle. I was passing a water truck that was burning ditches and didn't see the truck and trailer that was doing the burning because it was completely covered in smoke and I hit the back tire of the trailer going around 30mph. Needless to say Zane and I will be doing a little car shopping tonight.

First Teeth and Daddy daughter dates

Today, I discovered Dalin's first tooth. Well, actually the shrill screaming and crying coming from my six month old clued me in. I checked his mouth and low and behold there it was. Needless to say, I dug out the orajel and we've been using that repeatedly today. I actually can't wait till he has a few more teeth so I can start giving him a broader variety of solids. For a long time he ate baby food really well but lately he won't take it and he doesn't want solids, like breads and pasta either. All he wants is milk. At his 4 month appointment the doctor said I need to be feeding him something other than milk because after so many feedings a day it doesn't give him any additional nutrition. I'm not quite sure what to feed him. With just milk it seems like I feed him every hour and a half. Ciara never ate baby food, she hated the stuff. For the life of me I can't remember what we fed her! Well, live and learn, and in this case relearn!

Ciara had quite a fun day today as opposed to Dalin's discomfort. Zane took her on a lunch date and then after work we were all going to go to the swimming pool but I just wasn't up for it so Dalin and I stayed home and Zane and Ciara went. After the pool Zane took her to the library and they picked out a few fun books to read. We read a book every night before bed so it's nice to have a change once and a while. We have quite a few books but it seems like we read the same three books over and over. She always loves it when she gets a new book so being able to go to the library is fun and exciting for her and saves me quite a bit of money at the bookstore!

Fun in the Sun

Today was a new adventure for us. It was the first day at the pool for Dalin. Ciara was really excited to go. We left the house at 12:30 in pursuit of bathing suits for Ciara and myself... 6 stores, and one grumpy mom later we were on our way to the pool at 5:30. The pool we went to has a kiddie pool that has a slope into the water so I sat on the edge of the water and stood Dalin up in it. He wasn't to thrilled at first. He turned and looked at me as if to say, "this is the biggest, coldest bath tub I've ever been in." He started getting used to it. He mostly drooled and grunted a lot. He didn't like it when kids would run by and he'd get splashed, he'd cry and grab onto me and pull himself as close as he could. Ciara on the other hand had the time of her life. She was all over the place. She kept jumping into the 3 inch deep water yelling, "CANNON BALL." Zane was volunteering for something with the motorcycle club that we belong to, in addition to the yearly fee the members are also required to volunteer 20 hours a year so he wasn't with us when we went to the pool. Let me tell you trying to hold onto an 18 lb. baby and change out of your clothes and into a bathing suit is not an easy task. Especially a baby that likes to grab EVERYTHING in site!! Of course, I forgot to take the camera with me. I don't think I would have been able to get any pictures of the kids anyway. Maybe next time when Zane can go with us we'll be able to. I really need to invest in a cell phone that has a camera in it!

Family Pictures

We had new family pictures taken yesterday. We went out to Riverfronte Park with a photographer. It was a little miserable until my mom went and got some bug spray. The mosquitos were everywhere. I think about half of our pictures are going to have one of us swatting at bugs. I asked my mom to come with us to help entertain the kids and get them to smile. Ciara and Dalin did pretty good. We made the mistake of letting Ciara bring her stuffed Horton elephant with us and she wanted him to be in all of the pictures with us. Then she decided he was hungry so the first half of our pics we're swatting bugs and the second half Ciara either has grass in her hands or she's pulling at the grass. O well, maybe we got one or two good shots in there. The photographer said she'd have the CD to us in a week or two so as soon as I get it I'll post a slide of the pictures. Both the kids got a little grumpy towards the end. It was hard to get Dalin to smile so hopefully we got one or two of that. I want to get a print of each of the kids close up, just thier faces, in black and white and frame them in 12x12 frames and put them in Zane and my room. It will be so nice to update all of the pictures around the house with current shots. The last time with had family pictures done was February of 2007.

Our Growing Boy!!

Dalin had his 6 month checkup today. He is 18 lb. 4 oz. and 27 3/4 in. long. Those measurements put him in the 95th percentile for hieght and 75th for wieght. The doctor told me that if he keeps growing at the rate of growth that he is now Dalin will be at least 6'2". Like Ronda always says, "we grow them big in the Kotter Family."

The light at the end of the tunnel

Well, today is the last day that I am watching the two kids for the guy in my ward. I'll still have them for one week in July but for now I'm almost done. Let me tell you, it's been a looong week. I'm not sure how you mothers do it that have this many kids. I've been on my hands and knees cleaning up messes more than on my feet in the last two weeks. All of the kids have had a really fun time playing with eachother. We have had a few time outs and a few tears over toys but we're all still in one piece. Okay, okay maybe I lost a little bit of my mind over the last two weeks but it's slowly been slipping away anyway so I guess no harm done. Right now we're in the process of making cooking for Father's day and earlier we made cards together. The kids' parents are divorced so I wanted to do something for them for thier dad for Father's day. All of the kids helped to pour ingredients and mix them together. I had three little helpers so the process was three times as long but they all had fun and it killed a good chunk of time. It's about 2:45 now and at this point I'm just about counting down the minutes till thier dad gets here and the house isn't in so much chaos! I don't think Dalin is quite sure what to think of all of it. He doesn't seem to mind to much. Well, I better go check on the cookies...can you smell the baked goodness?!

brushing our teeth

Ciara did the cutest thing the other night so I thougth I'd add it to the blog. She was brushing her teeth and I told her to make sure she got the teeth in the back too. She looked at her tooth brush and then at me with a funny look and then she put he toothbrush behind her head and looked at me again as if to say, "like this" It was so funny I just started laughing and then Ciara realized it was funny too and she laughed. I love those little moments of joy!

Ciara's Slide

Ciara

Ciara is blosseming into quite a beautiful little girl. Just the other day I had to buy some new shirts for her and I actually shopped in the girls section instead of the infant/toddle section. When did that happen? When did she get so big? Her entire world revolves around elephants. I think we've actually moved out of the dinosaur phase. For those of you that really know Ciara that's saying a lot. I think I'm going to try and enroll her in a dance class. Her cousin Jasmine is in one and we went to one of the recitals and Ciara has wanted to do it too ever since. She loves going to primary and being a sunbeam. Every testimony meeting she asks to bear her testimony and fearlessly gets up in front of everyone to do so. It's so much fun to see her growing but sad at the same time. I love to watch her when she doesn't think that I'm watching! She still loves all things green. Most of her wordrobe consists of green items. I've posted a slide of some of the recent events that have taken place.

We recently celebrated Ciara's 4th birthday. It was a lot of chaos but also a lot of fun. We had about 12 kids and thier parents crammed into our house. We played pin the tail on the elephant, we broke a pinata, we played with balloons, and had a treasure hunt for the party favors. We finished of with cake, ice cream, and presents. Ciara requested an elephant cake, I posted a pic. of that in the slide. It started of grey but the sunlight and air on it changed the coloring in the icing to a greenish color which Ciara was okay with. Trust me, it took the better part of the morning to ice that cake!!!

This last weekend we went out the the riding grounds at the motorcycle club we belong to with a couple of friends. Ciara had SOO much fun riding on the four wheeler with me and in the go cart with daddy. She squealed and laughed the whole time. It was all we could do to get her off of the machines!! She just wanted to keep going and going. She may look cute and dainty but she loves to get dirty. One day it rained and rained so much that we had mud lakes in the lot next to us. Daddy and her went for a "bike ride" but she just ended up playing in the mud puddles. She was worried that I would be mad when she got home but instead I just changed into some old clothes and we slothed through the lakes together. It was really fun. I can't believe how big she is. Where does the time go?

Dalin Toa Kotter

New Blog

Okay, I'm making one last attempt at this. Darci is so dilligent at writing and adding to her blog that I thought maybe I could too. I'm not very good at writing in my journal so maybe this can pass as a journal of sorts. So what do I write now?! I guess the biggest thing that's happened lately is the addition to our family. Dalin Toa Kotter was born December 10th 2007. He was 8lb. 7oz. and 21" long. He was born at 5:05p.m. He has been a joyous addition to our family. Ciara has enjoyed being a big sister even if she wanted a sister instead of a brother. Dalin has grown by leaps and bounds. He started rolling over around 4 1/2 months and started scooting in any direction he can around 5 months. It's kind of funny to watch him. He kind of just drags himself across the floor with his arms. He doesn't have any teeth yet and his toothless grin is soooo cute. He has a 6 month appointment next week so I will post his measurements then.