I am way behind on this thing!

Mallory is 17.5 months and still not walking so she had a developmental assessment with Sooner Start today. They are a state run agency that works with children under 3 that have developmental delays. She qualified for their services because she was found to be "significantly delayed" in the gross motor area. That means they will set us up with a physical therapist that will come to our house and work with her. There is still no speculation on why Mallory is having this delay. She tested wonderfully in every other area.

These are some cute pics of the kids when we went camping in Ocotober.

Kinley has been talking with her hands a lot lately. She hold them palm up with her fingers all close together and raises them up and down for emphasis. It is hilarious. Tonight she said excuse me and Josh has just told her not to get up from the table and she said "I mean excuse me because I burped, not excuse be because I need to leave". She is so smart! Her imagination is going wild too. Everyday we are different animals or movie characters. This month I have had to be Ginch (the grinch) a lot and she is either Max (his dog), Joyce (a cat from Milo and Otis), or a fire breathing iguana. I must address her properly and I must ALWAYS talk in the appropriate voice for my character. (Of course she doesn't always get her way) It makes for a very entertaining home.

We have adjusted to having a school age child. James is still loving school and thriving in his environment. He did however get in trouble last week for being too rowdy and not listening when the teacher was talking. That was sad but we dealt with it and he is showing much more restraint and respect. He can count to 100 and is reading entire books.

Josh and I went backpacking just the two of us in Arkansas the first weekend of November. Everyone thought we were crazy for taking a weekend away from the kids and doing something that involved so much work and dirt but we loved it. We hiked 4.7 miles in then about 4 (we took a shortcut) out. We camped two night right beside the Buffalo River. We ate Raman noodles, oatmeal, and peanut butter tortillas. Josh went fishing in the river, I read two novels, we laid in a field under the sun, we talked a TON (yea for Josh!). It was wonderful and we will probably make it a yearly tradition.

This was the blazing fire Josh made the second night. He is such a MAN he can make a fire Bear Gryles style (well almost).

The field we took a nap in.

Mallory can eat an entire ice cream cone faster than James or Kinley!

We did feet washing for Advent yesterday and I had each kid wash the other ones feet and say something they love about each other. James said he loves that Kinley sometimes shares. Kinley said the she loves that James is her friend. James said that he loves how funny Mallory is and Kinley said the she loves that Mallory is usually kind. It was such a sweet time.

This is her I want your ice cream face.

She loves jewlery!

We celebrated Josh's 30th birthday November 20th. I surprised him with tickets to the Dallas Cowboys/New York Giants game at Cowboys Stadium December 10. He loved it and was totally surprised and I couldn't believe he was surprised and didn't kill me for spending the money. We had a great time at the game other than when the Cowboys lost.

We went to Duncan for Thanksgiving and Josh fished in the pond out back a couple of times and wasn't very successful then the morning we were leaving to come home he went out and caught 4 fish in the first 7 cast and ended up with 10 all together. Below is the biggest. Can you tell he's proud! He can't wait to get back at Christmas.