Karsen's 7th Birthday

Karsen turned 7 years old on Friday, January 14th, 2011. She didn't feel the greatest this weekend, but of course her party must go on! She requested a pool party at the YMCA and they were a great place to have a party. After the kids swam for an hour, we went down to the multipurpose room to play, eat cake and ice cream, and open gifts.

Karsen with her cake.

Pillow pet from her swimming bff Emily and her brother Dawson.
Dawson looking super excited about the contents of this bag.

Lots of good cake and ice cream. Very well behaved kids!

Luke, cute as always.

Emily and Karsen took many breaks from swimming to socialize by pool side. Good thing Coach Kelsik is not here to witness the laziness. :) I think Papa did make them do a few laps, though.

Water basketball and swimming noodles.

Karsen and Garrett.

The whole group. I think they had more fun with the CPR dummies than anything else. Also this picture is missing Taylor, Andrew and the twins who had to leave a little early, but who also got to enjoy the party and the mannequins.

Farmer Bryce

We are on our second snow day in a row and it's been nice, but today something came that shook things up a bit...


auntie Amy had ordered an exersaucer for Miles and had it sent here first so that Bryce could play with it for awhile before Miles arrives. He LOVES it. He is all about the cow and pig toys that are attached to it. And let me mention, it has been so nice having Amy to pass along/share baby items with, because the cute things will be used by both babies and we each only have to buy 1/2 of them. Miles will be getting Bryce's fun safari jumperoo, the froggie walker, and neither will ever want for adorable clothes! It is even more fun to share the baby stage with my sister.

DQ - and NOT the Dairy Queen Kind

We had a good weekend at the Morgan's. Bryce started eating carrots...he is not thrilled. He actually began turning his head away from the spoon, which is definitely not usual for him. He usually looks like a little bird when he is eating, always with mouth wide open, ready for more.

The Colts did lose their playoff game on Saturday, which means we have a few unplanned weeks of no football on Sundays. Now we will have more time to cheer for Butler basketball!

Karsen had a swim meet on Sunday afternoon. She was excited about her little fan club: Grandma Beneker, Erin, and Katie. She was less excited about being disqualified in the breaststroke, but I explained that we are proud of her for trying. The officials were not whatsoever lenient and I do believe that every girl in her heat was disqualified. She did earn two ribbons on the day, though, one for 50 free (6th/56.57 seconds-beat her personal best by 15 seconds!), and a 4th place ribbon in 50 back (1:00.93). She is one of the youngest ones since she swims in the 8 and under category, but she does so well.

Austin had fun at Cooper's birthday party on Friday night and was so tired that he was in bed by 8:30 Saturday night, sleeping through most of the Colts game.

Our Little Dinosaur....

Today I picked up Bryce from Chelsea's house to find Chelsea and her husband, Joe, sitting on an ottoman with Bryce on the floor between them looking up at them laughing. I said, "Hi sweetie...what cha doing?" when he saw me. He laughed, and Joe said, "He is roaring."

And then Bryce made this little throaty sound that did indeed sound like a roar...if roars came from a dinosaur that looks as cute as he does!

He is growing so fast lately. He has learned to spin himself around in his jumperoo so that he can face whoever he wants to look at (which makes it soooo much easier to put him down), uses his little strong legs to try to support himself when on people's laps, and is eating like a little champ (2 tablespoons of rice cereal twice a day, along with his usual every 3 hour bottles). Amy and I were talking today about how sad it is that they are growing so fast...but each stage with my older two have been so different and fun that I can't help but look forward to the new developments, all while thinking "Where did my baby go?"

So for today, I will enjoy my little sweet roaring dinosaur.

Cupcakes for CCKC

Last night we made a few dozen cupcakes for the after school program at First United Methodist that the kids attend called CCKC. They were originally supposed to be Colts cupcakes, with the horseshoe in blue frosting, but I did not have a small enough cake decorating tip to make it look good with the icing, so only a few of them turned out with the blue and the rest have sprinkles or sugar stars on them. And I may or may not have just snacked on some of the leftover frosting, straight off the spoon. Yummmmmy.

Here is a picture of the new haircut, our little fire inspector, and Karsen the toothless wonder.
Austin did not spend as much time on his hair this morning, partly due to the fact that he realized once he puts his hat on, his hair is going to be messed up, so why bother? Also no girls noticed the hair cut as he had hoped worried. But his friend Cooper did tell him it looked good, so he was happy about that. Karsen has a rather large space in her top front from the rather large front tooth she lost last Thursday. It's very cute.

Happy New Year!

I am going to try to be better about recording life here at the Morgan's this year...it's been sooo long since I have blogged that I could not possibly remember all the fantastic details of Christmas 2010, but it was a great one.

December 23: Christmas with Grandma and Papa Hall, Katie, Andy and Kalli, Bob and Vern and Grandma Purvis



Christmas Eve: at Amy and Keith's house with Grandma and Papa Beneker, Amy, Keith, Luke, Miles -to-be, Erin, Ken, aunt Beth, uncle Mo (who delighted Bryce with his commentary on the planets and Pluto), and the best gift ever...Katie is home!!

Christmas morning: at our house, Bryce slept through this, and Christmas afternoon at uncle Gary and aunt Betty's house...and then Christmas night at good old Major Hospital :(

During Christmas break, Austin and Karsen spent time at Grandma and Papa Hall's house, then came home in time for a quiet New Year's Eve at our house playing Singstar, Bowling, and Beach Volleyball on the Playstation. Also just in time for the New Year, Bryce learned to roll over.

Emily and Bryce having a playdate.

The kids went back to school today, so it's back to "normal" around here. Drew came over after school and wondered aloud whether Bryce missed him during the Christmas vacation, and when I told him I'm sure he did, he replied, "He must have cried an awful lot, right?" So funny.

Austin also got a haircut. It is very handsome, and he took a long time admiring himself in the mirror this morning. I asked him what he was so worried about, and he said that the girls in his class "will probably go crazy over his hair. Mom, you know how they are."

Sooo busy

It feels like we have been very busy lately starting with Thanksgiving and continuing on...

we had a very nice Thanksgiving down at Debby and Jay's house in Chrisney, Indiana, and then came back through Connersville to see Grandma and Papa Beneker and Luke on our way home.

It is very hard to get four children to look at the camera! Austin, Karsen, Kalli and Bryce at Thanksgiving.

When we got home we spent one evening decorating for Christmas and putting up the tree. Of course, the kids really enjoyed this and also loved helping to put the presents under the tree. Karsen was a little annoyed when she found out that Bryce was awake while I wrapped all the presents. She thinks I ruined his surprises. I think the surprise would be if he actually remembered that he has seen these toys before.

On December 1st we got to attend the Westwood Christmas program. How cute the kids were! The 1st through 3rd grades sang together a few Christmas songs, including "Jolly Old St Nicholas" and "Up on the Housetop," among others. Then we heard the older grades and the kindergarten, and all the students did a number with flameless candles at the end. Austin was thrilled to play the part of Joseph in the Nativity scene. His friend Natalie was Mary, Drew and Dakota were shepherds, Sarah was an angel, and the three kings were Skylor, Jackson, and another of his best friends, Nathan. A lot of his friends' parents (and us) have never seen all of above mentioned kids be so quiet and serious together in their whole lives. It was so sweet. Karsen was very into the motions on all the songs.

Bryce is now 4 months old! At his four month checkup he was 16 lbs, 6 oz (75th percentile) and 26.5 inches (90th percentile). He looks so healthy and is very verbal and happy. The doctor gave us the go ahead to start him on rice cereal which we will do soon. He continues to go see his babysitter Chelsea when I go in to Westwood with the two older kids and he loves all the little girls there. The oldest girl, Reese, LOVES Bryce (and all babies, I think) and screams with excitement when she spots me coming through the door with him. Cousin Emily also goes there, which we love. It is soo fun to see them playing/staring at each other.


Karsen had a swim meet this morning in Muncie. She did three events : the 50 Free, 25 Back, and 25 Fly. She was thrilled not to be disqualified in the fly, which she swam for the first time in a meet. She cut 10 seconds off her best 50 free time for a time of 59.63 seconds (21st place), cut 5 seconds off her best 25 back time for a time of 25.83 seconds (12th place), and 37.12 seconds in the 25 Fly (20th place). It was a very big meet, so we were very excited about her finishes, especially when we found out that the meet was so big that they would likely give out ribbons/awards separately for the age 6 and under participants, which put Karsen in 2nd place in all her events (and 2nd place high point in the 6 and unders, too!). We'll see at practice Monday if she got some ribbons. She also won her heat in the backstroke (1st time she has done this) and was so excited to get a bendy rubber Santa.

Everyone is getting excited for Christmas around here...hope you all are, too!