J celebrated her 12th Birthday on the 21st. One more year and we will have a TEENAGER on our hands!!! She got to miss school (a yearly tradition), then had her birthday party later that evening. The girls had fun jumping in the bounce house, playing games, watching the movie "Hair Spray" and eating Nachos and cake. J got lots of great gifts from her friends, a good variety of clothes, gift cards and jewelry. J also got a NEW cell phone, she is very excited for it because now she can send and receive text messages. HAPPY BIRTHDAY J, WE LOVE YOU!!!
8 MONTHS!! Where has the time gone? Baby A is growing up way too fast! She is now weighing about 15 lbs. She is becoming more and more active everyday. She has learned to pull herself to a stand, which is great except in her crib or on the couch, she about gives us a heart attack everyday. Baby A is also getting close to crawling, right now she scoots all over the place on her belly backwards, and she'll get up on all fours and rock, but hasn't yet figured out to go forward. Getting her dressed and changing her diaper is getting harder everyday, she tries to roll off her changing table, if she's laying she wants to sit and hen you have her sitting she wants to lay down, anything to rebel. =) D wants to call the specialist back to help us get her to stop rolling. =) As you see in the picture below, she is now sleeping on her belly, we put her to bed on her back in the middle of her bad, and she usually wakes up on her belly somewhere else. Last week she came down with the stomach virus hat has been going around, oh, that was terrible, she was so sick, and how do you tell an 8 month old to drink slowly and only a sip at a time. She is doing much better now. We will keep you posted as Baby A starts to move along. 
Cousin A competed at her last Level 6 State Gymnastics Competition on Sunday. She is a ROCK STAR, and will start competing Level 7 this coming spring. A, finished off this season with a BANG and came home with four medals, 2nd place on bars with a 9.6, 5th place on beam with a 9.25, 6th place on floor with a 9.25 and with an All Around score of 37.2 she brought home a 3rd place medal. Although she did not medal in vault she did score a 9.1 which was very good. Keep your eyes out for her in the 2012 Olympics!! GO BOO GO, we love you and are so proud of you!!!
Sorry, I am a little behind in getting this one up. Last Tuesday S, F, & A came up for a visit. It was a really nice day. We kicked it off with a great work out at Mommy & Me, then did a little shopping, had lunch, then got to go and watch one of the promotion ceremonies that D is in charge of putting on for the fire department, that was really neat to watch, it was a packed house. We then headed back to the house for a Little bit of play time on the trampoline and some dinner. The time always flys whenever they come for a visit. We can't wait for them to come back soon, and hopefully R & J will join them. 
Aunt E and Uncle D found out today that baby number three will be a ......GIRL!!! They are both so happy and excited. The have two names picked out, Keira Briann or Victoria (Tori) Rose (after both their moms), my vote is for Victoria Rose. We are all looking forward to meeting their new baby girl. Congratulations to the Holmes Family!
D is now an A shifter, which means if you have a copy of his schedule, he now works green days. We were bummed to hear he was leaving C shift because we get a long with everyone so well, but D is looking forward to the change. Not only will he will be leaving the downtown station and moving to the one by Costco, he will be leaving his old crew and working with Captain Bostwick and Firefighter Bill Hickey. D's call volume and the kind of calls will also change at this new station. He is looking forward to being able to use some of his paramedic skills that he hasn't got to use in while. Unfortunately that station runs a lot of serious car accident calls since they are on a high speed highway. Good luck at you new station with your new crew D.
Well, I have anxiously been waiting all week to post this entry, and say 2 WEEKS until J's FIRST COMPETITION!!! And now I have to take it back. We just found out that her team will not be competing on November 18 like originally planned. (Not sure why) So her first competition will be on Saturday, December 8th. We will keep you posted on the time and location as it gets closer. Just to add a side note, J is doing great and very excited for her upcoming competitions. As you see they finally got their new uniforms, and they sure look sharp. They also recently got their music back, and have been working really hard and putting the routine to the music. We are hoping for a first place finish. GO ASPIRE!
As most of you know Baby A HATES the car, every time we get in the car she cries the whole time. She has started to get a little bit better. I got this picture of her the other day after falling asleep with her ducky in the car.
J left Halloween morning for her sixth grade Science Camp trip and returned home on Friday afternoon. They went to Camp Sky y located in Prescott. She came home and was sad that her trip wasn't long enough, but yet she was starving, tired (thanks to Madison) and stinky. =) She says the food was terrible, and she got no sleep. J learned how to do lots of new and fun stuff, she learned how to make homemade ice cream, make (decorated) shirts and learned how to read and use a compass, they also went on a long hike (2 hrs), and climbed a huge rock wall. All the cabins had to make up skits, and her cabin won! J had a great time at science camp.
Happy Halloween! We hope all of you had a great day. We did, ours was jam packed. It started off with a nice 4 1/2 mile walk with my friend Shelley and her son Heath (Baby A's friend). For dinner we had a few people from church over. We have been getting together with these same couples since July, each month we take Tums hosting dinner, Halloween was our turn. We made chili, and mmmm it was good, Stephen and Mary brought some wonderful homemade cornbread, and Lew and Nannette finished it of with a chocolate Halloween cake that let all our moths black and green. =) After dinner, we went to the local haunted house, it was SCARY, but lot's of fun. I have included a picture of our deck out Halloween house, and pictures of Heath and Baby A, a picture of our dinner group, and of course pictures of Baby A in all her cute Halloween outfits. 
We hope all of you had a great Thanksgiving. We had two great Thanksgivings. D had to work on Thanksgiving so we celebrated Thanksgiving at the fire station on Thursday. We had a deep fried Turkey (yummy) and all the fixins, it was nice to just lay low. On Friday, Baby A and I got up early and headed out to hit all the black Friday sales, it was fun and we got some good deals. After shopping we headed home to get our turkey in the oven. All D's family headed up so we can celebrate The Bates Family Thanksgiving. We also celebrated Uncle D's & J's birthday's. It was a nice relaxing day. We would have liked to get out and play some games but it was pretty chilly out. On Saturday we hung up some more Christmas lights, were not done yet, but the house is starting to look good. We will get pictures up once we finish decorating. Then it was back to work for D on Sunday, so Baby A and I hung out and picked up the house a little bit. We had a great Thanksgiving weekend and hope all of you did too. 
