The Varner Family

Meg turned 8 months old today and all sorts of sweet things come to my mind about how much I love her and how fast the time has gone by...but really the only thing I want to say to her is SLOW DOWN! I love how motivated you are and all, but it is getting a little ridiculous. Within the last week she has started pulling up, cruising, and today I caught her trying to climb. I already have experience with an active child, but Brody was never like this. She just learns how to do one physical thing and rather than just enjoy that new skill she is immediately on to the next thing. Seriously...there is NO rush sweetie! I never babyproofed anything with Brody (except outlets), but Meg may be a different story. She crawls under the coffee table and tried to climb up the inside of the armoire today. Crazy is all I can say!

A few funny things that Brody has been saying recently

1. He only calls me Ilena. Seriously? This was funny when he called his daddy Bryson Barner (and no that isn't a typo), but I prefer to be called mommy.
2. He says sure to everything. I guess this is good b/c he rarely tells me no, but sure sounds too teenagerish for me.
3. He adds "That is a good idea" to things I say or he says that he really likes and "No! That is not going to be a good idea" to things that he doesn't approve of.
4. The child has become VERY skilled in his sense of direction. We have always noticed how aware he is of how to get to places and he notices if you go a different route to a place he is familiar with, but he now knows North/South/East/West. My dad got him started on this and gave him a compass for his birthday. For some reason I love this nerdy quality in him.
5. He asks to have friends come over and play all the time and if I say that they can't then he just pretends they are here and talks to them and chases them.
6. A couple of weeks ago he declared that he only loved me and no one else. Bryson thankfully doesn't take this to heart and has given Brody a hard time about it. Recently he has said that he only loves girl just not boys (hey...I'm not going to argue you with him over that...ha!). He asked a question recently and my answer was, "Because God loves you" and he said, "But I don't love God I only love girls". I gave some explanation and he decided that he would love girls and God and then last week a guy at church gave him a monster truck and he decided that he love that guy, God, and all girls!
7. His favorite friend to have come over is Kennedy. A few weeks ago we had Kennedy over one Saturday morning before we went tailgating. They were having such a good time that we took Kennedy along with us to the tailgate. They played together then and after a good long time together I decided it was time for us to go home and get ready for bed and figured that Kennedy's mom and dad were missing her. Brody did not like the idea of her leaving us. He begged her to come to our house and for her to stay the night. This is the conversation they had with each other about this idea...

B: "Come stay the night with me"

K: "But where would I sleep"

B: "You can sleep in my bed"

K: "But where will you sleep"

B: "I will sleep in my bed too"

K: "But I don't have my pull-up"

B: "You can borrow one of mine"

K: "Ok. That will be good"

Needless to say....Kennedy did not get to stay the night with us!

Wow! We had a busy weekend. After having Bunco at my house Thursday night we then had Brody's birthday party on Saturday night and tailgating on Saturday afternoon. We are still trying to recover, but it was a blast!

I am very happy to have my camera back after my dad needed it for a couple of weeks. Miss Meg has decided to be a big girl lately and do what seems like a million new things. She has been crawling for the last couple of weeks and just yesterday went from a laying down position to a sitting position and when I went to get her out of bed this morning she was standing up. I think all of these exciting achievements have made her exhausted. She was so tired today!!!

I have started to realize lately that being the second child certainly has some perks. For starters we are more laid back and what kid wouldn't enjoy that? Below are some pictures that display the perks of being the baby of the family (plus some other random pictures).......