James, Kinley and I went to the dentist this week. They were AMAZING! Kinley went first and she was so brave. James hadn't been too sure that he was going to let the dentist do her job on him until he saw how well Kinley did. His first experience at the dentist last year isn't his favorite memory. The hygienist showed them all the tools and let them use them all. She also had several drawers of toys hidden around her station for them to play in while I had my teeth cleaned. Other than having to leave my left leg for payment and making a second appointment in which they will require my right leg and one arm to help my jaw problem it was a great experience.

Kinley is slowly getting into girly things. She hasn't had a lot of experience with them because James has schooled her more in the art of a good sword fight, and the kind of bullets you need for a shotgun. Her natural bent for the finer things in life is finding its way out though. She got a new pretty pink dress and danced and twirled in it. She kept saying she was a princess, then out of the blue she asked "do princesses poop?" I guess she had to make sure she still qualified because she definitely poops. I should have told her princesses don't poop in their diapers!

January has held it's share of sickness. We got home from Christmas on the 28th and the 29th James and Kinley had fevers. James' got high quickly and we got an antibiotic before the long weekend but he still had a fever of 104 for eight days before he got better. Kinley has now had a 99-101 fever for 19 days. We went back to the doctor last week and her strep test was positive so they gave her an antibiotic too but she has been on it 7 days and still has the fever. I guess we will be back at the doctor on Monday for better antibiotics.

Mallory is quiet the drool machine. She looks like a sweaty man that just left the gym. There are still no teeth to show for all that drool. She is just beginning to sit up on her own for a few seconds at a time. She is very hard to make giggle especially for the camera but she'll flash a good smile anytime.

We went to her 6 month appointment and she weighed 18 lbs and was 27 in.

In the last month we have had to buy a new kitchen sink faucet and dishwasher. It has provided Josh and James with a lot of male bonding time. Josh installed it all himself and replaced some old piping while he was at it. It is so fun to watch James hang on to every word Josh says and move he makes. My mom asked if he wanted to go stay at her house this weekend without his sisters and he said "yeah!... but it's Saturday and that is Daddy stay home day" we encouraged him to go and that they could hang out next weekend. He ended up going but it was so cute how concerned he was about missing out on Daddy's home time.

Mallory is growing like crazy and I would give anything to push the pause button! Since she is the last baby I have started to get rid of things like swaddle blankets and 0-6 month clothes and it is breaking my heart. I never thought I would cry over making space in my home but getting rid of those sweet little blankets made me cry and I didn't care about the space they were taking. She will be six months on the 9th. She is sleeping and eating like a pro. She is content doing whatever we need her too. She smiles constantly and her eyes sparkle like diamonds. Below is her first meal in her high chair.

Her first ride in a swing. She giggled as she was swinging.

We took the kids to see Santa at Bass Pro Shop. We considered it successful because no one cried and the big two actually voiced their Christmas present wishes. James asked for a medium sized stuffed panda bear (medium meaning the same size as stuffed polar bear so they can play together) and Kinley asked for a pink puppy dog.

We did Advent boxes this year. It was interesting. The kids loved opening the boxes but acted totally uninterested in the spiritual component each evening. As the month went on I tried to get more creative on how to apply the Bible truths and stories to their life. Some of our favorites were building a ginger bread house (of course), hiding God's word in our hearts (we played hide and seek with our paper hearts), and serving each other as Jesus did when He washed the disciples feet. I had Kinley wash and lotion James' feet then he washed and lotioned her feet. When Kinley finished she said "James, I love you" and when James finished he said "Kinley, I love you". It was one of those rare and amazingly sweet moments. I think we might have to repeat this activity every few months!

She is lovin' the camera these days...she actually requests that pictures be taken of her when she feels she is particularly cute.

Wednesday before Christmas we went to OKC to see my family. We stayed until late Christmas Eve. We had a great time relaxing and playing. While we were there we managed to break two bowls, a large ornament, and a bottle of Patron tequila. I think they were ready to see us leave!

We made Jesus birthday whoopie pies, went to church, played with cousins, opened presents and ate pizza.

Christmas morning we woke up at Grandad and Nanna's. Santa had been there and he brought what they wanted.

We enjoyed Duncan and our Morris family. We played games, enjoyed the horses, dogs, fire pit, and pond. James put the hard sell on me AGAIN to have a dog. He told me I had two choices either live in a box or take Charlie (the farm dog) home. I chose live in a box until he told me I had to come out to help him with the things he couldn't do on his own. The kid is going to have to have a dog someday.

We got home from Duncan Tuesday night and Wednesday James and Kinley got fevers. James got to 104 and stayed there for five days. Kinley's fever was between 99 and 100 and still hasn't gone away. I have no idea what they got but I sure got a lot done around the house being stuck there for five days. We enjoyed a lot of cuddle time, movies, and naps. It has been really nice to just be slow and lazy after the holidays. I am kind of dreading getting back into a productive routine.

If you read our blog only in the update email you may want to visit www.jklmorris.blogspot.com because I added text to the pictures I posted last week.

We had our first professional pictures taken in November.

Here are a few random ones that we like.

James built a "magnificent" fort in the backyard. He even added a flag with his name on it so that all the bad guys would know who lives there.

Mallory sacked out after and intense session of rattle training.

Celebrated Christmas just the five of us this last Sunday. We woke up and decorated our gingerbread house. We caught up on our Advent boxes that we had missed from being too busy for anybody's good. Then we cooked our annual tamale dinner and took it to a family from our church. Once we got home we ate and opened presents. We had a wonderful day together learning about Jesus and celebrating Him and His love for us.

I will try to do a better job updating so that I can remember all the funny stories about the kids now that we have a working computer. We might even be able to do video again!

We went to Bass Pro to try to see Santa but he wasn't there. So we tinkered around his workshop instead. He had guns and cars and stuffed animals, they loved it. I think their stances holding the guns are so funny. I asked Kinley if she wanted to go see Santa and she said "I don't like Santa...and he doesn't like me." I don't know what went on between them but it must have been bad.

We celebrated Josh's birthday November 20th. I let the kids pick out the cake and they chose green cake (very appetizing by the way), white and blue icing and LOTS of sprinkles. We had a little scavenger hunt for Daddy to find his present which was a book he's been wanting. We also got him new Dallas Cowboys and OSU hats. Those weren't a surprise because he had to pick them out.

Out computer's hard drive went out so we just got a new computer and I am trying to update the posts that I did on my phone!

Look at our little girl! She is getting so big! She asked me to take a picture of her in her new clothes and she chose to pose by the wall like this. I think she likes attention!

Kinley woke up with a stomach bug a couple of weeks ago. She was so lethargic she just slept wherever she was, would sit up to throw up then lay back down and fall asleep. She did this for about 4 hours then she was good as new. It was so funny and sad.

James and Kinley were playing dress up one day and I left Mallory in the room with them. When I came back in this is what I found. They said they wanted her to be a princess too. She liked it too!

Mallory has grown so much! We are finished breastfeeding which is really sad but really nice. She is eating about 35 oz per day and eats solids three times. Broccoli is her favorite! She is sleeping a good 12 hours at night and taking three naps. She is still a perfect baby. She is smiling and giggling a lot.

October was exciting! Halloween was of course fun. We went trick or treating with the Henslee's. The kids were so funny. They took an awkwardly long time to get their candy and leave. Ezra decided to ask each person where their dog was, what their name was and what their dogs name was. They would all say trick or treat, get their candy and just stand there and stare at the people until we took their hands and led them away.

Kinley and Levi are good friends, she said "come ere and give me a hug Wevi", then smiled as if to say "I can get my way with all the boys".

Mallory wore Kinley's baby ballerina costume. She enjoyed sucking on the tulle just like Kinley did.

What a stinger!

Arrrrggggg!

Josh and the kids carved these pumpkins while I was cleaning. I was very impressed with the speed and skill involved in this project.

Kinley was working double time on her Halloween candy.

Sweet little cheese ball! She weighs 15 lbs and slept 12 hours for the first time last night! She rolled from her back to her tummy one time a couple of weeks ago and she has been giggling a little bit which is just a little slice of heaven.

We were in the car and my mom looked at Mallory and found her like this. The bow that was in the band was in her lap. I guess it was bothering her. The funny thing is she never fussed or cried.

This is the beloved Karsen. James' best school friend. His teacher told me that one day James came up to her and said "I don't know what else to do, I did everything Karsen wanted me to and she's still mad". Guess he has to get used to that, it's women for ya!

Sisters watching football together. Kinley is still doing really well with Mallory. She likes to help me tuck her in for naps. Both kids get a huge kick out of Mallory smiling at them.

Josh's parents so lovingly gave us 20lbs each of apples and pears from their trees. We got to work one weekend and made four apple pies and four pear tarts plus two gallons of apple and pear puree for Mallory's baby food. It was a fun project but we don't want to have anything to do with peeling, slicing or big time baking for a while. We did however get lots of brownie points from all the friends we shared our sweets with.

The neighbor kids have found James. Oscar lives next door and is 10. Kristen lives two doors down on the opposite side and just turned 9. They both go to Hoover which is the school James will go to next year. They have been knocking on the door in the afternoons to see if James can come out and play. It has been really interesting because these kids are not exactly good influences but we want to be a good influence to them and James is dying to play with them because they are older and cooler. So we have let them play together in our yard under our supervision. It has been okay so far but Oscar has started to send James in for Dr. Pepper or Capri Sun, whatever I'll let them get away with (water is all this witch will let them have!). Oscar started saying shut up to Kristen and his dog and James told him we don't say that word because it isn't nice and Oscar got mad and left and hasn't been back since?? I think we might have a legalism issue to deal with?? Kristen started playing a little rough one day and made James cry. He said through tears "rough play is just not my thing". It has been really interesting balancing his strong desire to explore these new relationships and our feelings of protection taking into account all the things we said we would and wouldn't do when we got into situations like this. We also faced a difficult issue at school last week. They offer something called Amazing Athletes, which sounds like a great program, the last hour of the day he goes to school. You have to pay $40/month for 35 min of instruction once a week. We decided that wasn't the best value and that he wouldn't be able to do it but we know that Karsen and his two favorite boys get to go and that he really really wants to do it. So we talked to him about it and explained how we will be faced with these decisions for the rest of his life and because of the value issue with this we think we should save our money for cub scouts or karate or a different amazing athletes class. He was really understanding and got excited when we mentioned cub scouts and said he was fine with not doing this if he could do that. He handled it with such self control and maturity. We are so proud of the boy he is becoming.

This face says it all! She has been in the "pankin" stage. She is totally testing us on first time obedience. She has been bargaining with us saying "no I only want two spankings, not one" and one day when she had racked up four she said "how 'bout timeout?". She is loving preschool. One day after nap time she said to her teacher "when my mom gets here we're going to eat bugs!" She is such a sweet, sassy, silly little thing. She'll flirt with a stick and win over stranger in an instant. I have decided boys aren't going to be much of a worry to us because they'll all chase her, she might give a couple a chance but just when they think they've won her over she'll drop them like a rock and leave them wondering what just happened.