Taos' First Word

Taos has been very busy crawling, pulling up, and figuring everything out. Lately, I have been listening to all his "babble" and wondering what word would come out of his mouth first. Avery's first word was "up" around 9 months. This was fitting, because she didn't crawl until 11 months and often needed to say "up." Little man can pretty much get wherever he wants to go so he doesn't need to say "up." I have been trying to get him to say "more" when he is eating - but he just smiles at me and grunts to indicate that he wants more. That works for him so why would he say the word. BUT... he loves and I mean LOVES our dog Kate. He absolutely lights up when he sees her and could just look at her all day long. So when I heard him saying "gog" a couple days ago when we were outside I thought he may be saying dog. Then, he started imitating it after me when I would say dog and make the barking noise. Although, it will probably just sound like babbling to everyone else (and no one else will probably be interested in this short video except the grandparents) we are writing down Taos' first word as "dog" (gog). And please ignore my embarrassing "mommy talk" and yes, barking sounds in the video!

Sun Dogs

Last night we got several inches of snow and it was still pretty cold this morning. This is what I saw from my backyard. It looks like there are 3 suns rising. Gorgeous. God can paint amazing pictures on earth. I saw on the news that the meteorologist called it "Sun Dogs" and said that it occurs when ice crystals form in the lower atmosphere. It lasted until the sun rose all the way above the horizon. This was a great start to the day.

LOVE

WE LOVE THESE LITTLE KIDDOS SOOOO MUCH! TOO PRECIOUS NOT TO SHARE.

PRINCESS AVERY 3 YEARS OLD

WILD MAN TAOS 9 MONTHS

Outside

We LOVE to be outside at our house... I mean who wouldn't, we live on a ranch! There are no cars, noises, or busy streets to even think about. I can not tell you how ready I am for it to warm up around here. I am tired of having to bundle everyone up, wipe runny noses, and freeze just to play outside. If the weather is even remotely nice we try to make it outside for a little while to play. Avery usually rides horses with Casey at least once a week weather permitting, but of course I have no recent pictures of that. Here are some of the kids just playing outside the house.

I love this picture because Avery has on her boots tucked into her sweats! And she has the back of her tricycle loaded with cake (feed for the cows).
Kate is always ready to play with us.

And you will notice that she has on her boots and sweats again in this picture. Like any woman, she thinks that sweats are way more comfy than jeans and prefers to wear them as much as possible. As a 3-year-old she can get away with this!

Taos wasn't too sure about sliding with his sister! I'm sure he will grow to love it!

Random

Since Christmas, we haven't done anything too exciting around our house... but our kids keep things interesting and we've managed to take a few pics of life at the Armstrong house lately. Here is what we've been doing.

Avery has an inflatable horse named Rody. The kids LOVE to sit on it while Casey makes it buck! Looks like fun to me too!

Avery can get some major air!

The dress up queen in her bride costume... thanks Callie and Evan!

We were fortunate enough to have a few pretty days to play outside amongst the freezing cold Texas panhandle weather.

The cozy coupe

Already love the rope (even if it is purple)
This little man has turned into the biggest mess ever since he started crawling. Now he also pulls up on everything. The dishwasher is one of his personal favorites.

But the all time favorite is the toilet paper. And yes, he can and does reach it and drag it out everywhere. I haven't gotten a good picture of the actual crime. This one was a caught in the act pic! Most of the time he pulls it down and eats a few bites, then as he crawls off, he drags it along behind him to the other end of the bathroom :) stinker!

Watching sister take her bath

Big sister it the best help. Tonight, she wanted to feed him baby food. She did an awesome job until the end when he started hitting the spoon out of her hand. By the end, he was a mess... but that's pretty common after supper!

Loving on their daddy