Coincidence?

Last night, Shiloh took his first steps. Finally. We were all very excited to see it happen. Cymbre picked Shi up with glee. He was pretty thrilled with himself too. It seems like walking should be no big trick after all these months of Knee-Walking he's done. He is also free-range on the stairs now, which is a huge comfort since we do a lot of up and down all day and our stairs are wood.

So here is the weird thing: We have 4 children. 3 of them have started walking at EXACTLY 15 months and 1 week. Cymbre did take a few steps at 13 months but sat down and did not take up walking as a means of conveyance until 15 months, 1 week. Eli preferred to crawl and would not walk and hold hands or stand on his own until 15 months, 1 week. And now Shiloh, who has been knee-walking for quite a while, not willing to stand on his feet or do the hand-holding walk thing either, just started cruising for real a few weeks ago and has now taken steps at 15 months, 1 week. Seems like a really strong genetic predisposition, doesn't it?? Nothing else about all the children has lined up like this - not gestational age at birth, not rolling, crawling or standing, not age of wanting first solid foods, not weaning age, not age of first using the potty, not ANYTHING that I can think of - just the walking.

Allegra walked before she was a year. Every family has to have a wild card and she is definitely ours.

Don't you love it when they give you something to think about??

We've got PERSONALITY!

Just some cute pictures of the kids at a recent trip to the Children's Museum.

Shiloh with a spoon he is evidently thrilled about, Allegra dressed as a bee and feeling very cranky because one of the friendly volunteers tried to talk with her, Eli and Allegra dressed as firefighters and ready to save the world, and Cymbre learning to play the piano - with a helper in the background.

Fall at the zoo with friends!

Shiloh is still my sweet buddy in the sling.
We headed to the zoo to meet up with a long time friend and his kids. We had a great time in the lovely fall weather.

Mini Chad and Mini Matt become friends!!
Okay, so Eli doesn't look THAT much like a mini-Matt but this guy is the spittin' image of his daddy and I just couldn't get over it. Eli has requested to play with his new friend again soon. =)

Our wild bunch was curiously resistant to the group picture.

Halloween!

Here's Allegra - as a tree,
Eli - as a knight in shining (duct tape) armor,
And Cymbre - as a princess.
This year Matt and I went to a costume party fundraiser for the Holland Area Arts Council. For that reason, the kids got to have fun with their babysitter while we went out dressed as The Incredibles.
We took Shiloh along since we did not know if he would be happy that long with the babysitter. He normally nurses twice during the time we planned to be away. And it ended up being really fun since we designed all of our costume ideas around having him along.

Here is our baby super hero. He loved having the mask on and for the most part he didn't even grab at it. When we showed him in the mirror, he just giggled and grinned. He's such a fun little friend!!

As it turned out, we won a prize for our costumes: they said it was for sweetest but the trophy says funniest. Matt was incensed that they did not take our crime fighting seriously. Actually, we spent much of the evening laughing at his silly foam muscles.

Shiloh was THRILLED with the costume trophy and claimed it for his own, clutching it in his car seat all the way home.