Puppy dogs and chickens, oh my!

One Sunday morning, we were getting ready to leave the house for church. Kent was about 18 months old and enjoying a piggy back ride on daddy's shoulders. Pete and Kent went outside to put some bags in the cars, when low and behold, a chicken came clucking through our yard! We do not live anywhere near a farm, so this was a very unusual sight! While Pete and Kent were looking at the chicken, a dog came running into the yard and started jumping all over Pete with his muddy paws. From the house I see Pete yelling and trying to kick the frantic dog and a totally FREAKED out Kent screaming at the top of his lungs and grabbing onto Pete's face for dear life! It was a sight!

But we had seen this same dog a few weeks before...

I was loading the car when the dog came up behind me and jumped into the open car door. I got the dog out of the car and it chased me around the front yard. Kent, watching this whole scene from the front door, is screaming at the dog. I run up the stairs to get inside the house, but the dog pushes right past me and scrambles into the house. Kent goes completely stiff and his face turns bright red as he begins screaming at the top of his lungs. The dog has now run down the hallway to wherever Pete was. Pete chases the dog around the house for a few minutes while I hold the front door open. I'm standing next to Kent who is still screaming with his eyes shut and drool running down his chin.

To say these event were traumatizing would be an understatement.

We didn't hear anything about the chicken or dog from Kent for at least a year and a half. I guess he was focusing on learning how to talk and potty training. For the past six months, on almost a daily occurance, we hear about chickens being in Kent's closet, hiding in the hallway or just trying to bite him. You can ask Kent about what happened at school and he might tell you or he might say there was a chicken there chasing him. At night, Kent will hardly go anywhere in the house by himself for fear of the black chicken!

Two days ago Kent didn't want to get into his carseat because- as he told me, "the dog pooped all in my bed and in my carseat and I said, that is not a nice puppy dog- don't do that!" Now, we have never had a pet dog, nor will we because of my allergies, but Kent was convinced this had actually happened. He is not scared of dogs anymore, in fact he believes we have one. If you ask him where the dog is right now, he will tell you that it's in our backyard running around. Kent will tell you all kinds of fantastic stories of his adventures with the dog, but if you ask his dogs name, "puppy dog" is the most creative name you will get. :)

A Metaphor from Kent

On the way to Grandma's yesterday morning Kent pointed out the window and excitedly said, "look mommy, it's like bacon!" I'm looking around trying to find a billboard or sign with breakfast food, but I could not figure out what he was talking about. "Mommy, look at the sky! It's just like bacon!"

Next time you are outside in the early morning and see the light reflecting off the low straight clouds, you will see what he is talking about. Sure does look like bacon!

Friends from the start!

Our very good friends Josh and Meredith had their third little girl the same day we had Cohen. It is always fun to be pregnant at the same time with one of your friends-sharing stories, comparing symptoms, showing up to places wearing almost the same outfit... We always joked about being in the hospital together, but me being due two weeks earlier- I mean what were the odds. God must laugh when we talk about "odds". I was shocked when Meredith called four days before my due date saying she was going in the next day to be induced. Well, Cohen got the message! About an hour later I started having contractions. We were admitted into the hospital about an hour and a half before the Joiners, but sweet Annie was bound and determined to win the race. She arrived forty minutes before Cohen. Not that Cohen didn't give it a good try- both babies arrived within 3 1/2 hours of getting to the delivery room!

Four months later:

Four Years Old!

It's hard to believe that Kent is almost four, but he will be on Tuesday! He had a superhero party and all his guests wore costumes. We made capes and ate a Kent friendly Batman cake. Fun was had by all.

Making capes:


The decidedly unmasculine batman cake. Could've used your help on this one Aunt Peggy! It was good though- only two slices left. Who knew wheat, egg, and milk free coffee cake could be so yummy! Once again, Kent hardly had any...




Heroes among us:

A VERY happy birthday boy!

Cubbies Patches

Kent participates in Awanas at our church. He is always earning badges for his vest by memorizing bible verses. Some of his favorites- "God loves us and sent His Son" and "Love your neighbor as yourself". We are working on applying the second one- sharing counts as loving your neighbor! :)

Eating Cereal

Cohen is now eating rice cereal. We thought it would help him sleep through the night, but of course it doesn't. The pacifier that he started taking last week is helping some though! He seems to only make one face when eating cereal....

Shocked!

4 Months Old

Cohen is four months old now; I can hardly believe it. His doctor's appointment went well. Perfectly healthy except for a pretty bad case of ezcema. Kent got it at the same exact age, but I think Cohen's is worse- he doesn't seem to mind though, he's pretty happy and smiley most of the day. Here are the stats:

Weight- 14lbs 12 oz

Height- 26 1/4 in

Here's a handsome picture where he is looking an awful lot like his Grandpa Ken.

Kent's Trip to the Tool Store

Here is the photo documentary of Kent's trip to the orange tool store (not the red or blue tool stores!) with daddy or grandpa. It's funny to see him snapping away all the time and I do think some of his compositions are pretty advanced, if I do say so myself!

Rolling Over!

Cohen is really into rolling over. He first rolled from his stomach to his back when he was seven weeks old. It lasted two days and then he forgot about it for a while. When he was eleven weeks old he rolled from back to stomach, but he's really gotten good at it lately. We were all shocked by all of this movement since Kent waited to roll anywhere till he was six months old. Now we are lucky if we can get a still picture of him! Now if he would just stop rolling over in his sleep and waking himself up!

Winnie the Pooh

Kent just realized that both Cohen and he have Winnie the Pooh stuffed animals. He wanted a picture of all of them together.

Brotherly Words of Wisdom

Yesterday, Kent came into my room where Cohen and I were folding clothes and said,

"mommy, I have to tell something to Cohen."

He got down right in front of Cohen, who was sitting in his carseat and said the following, very seriously.

"Don't worry baby Cohen. When you get bigger you can cough in your elbow, play with my trains, and get teeth and eat food. That's all kinds of things you have to do. OK?"

Then Kent got up, looked at me with a big smile and ran back out to the living room.

Kent the Artist

Many of you know how much Kent loves to paint. He absolutely loves it! Well, one of the gifts he received for Christmas was a camera and he now has another artistic hobby. Kent has had his camera for a little over two weeks and he has already taken nearly 200 photos! He favors the photo journalistic approach, taking pictures of anything and everything. It feels a little like the paparazzi have set up camp at the LaQuaglia household. I'll have to be very selective with choosing which of Kent photos to post since he sees no subject unfit to photograph, no matter how much we scream and try to run from the camera.

Here are some of my favorites:

Gumby, alone in the hallway-



The ceiling fan at mom and dad's-

Underneath the tree-



The trees in the backyard-



I've just finished my cake!-

He misses nothing!

We were all riding in the car the other day when Kent let out a yell. Out of no where, just a loud Uaughhhh! It sounded a little frustrated, a little annoyed- definitely NOT nice and I recognized it immediately. Pete looked at me and said, "you know, he gets that from you." I turned to Kent and asked him why he was doing that.

He just looked back at me and said, "that's what mommy says when she is talking rude to daddy."

I haven't heard Pete laugh that hard in a long time.

Christmas Morning

We've had a wonderful Christmas here at the LaQuaglia's. When Kent woke up Daddy told him to run and see if Santa had brought any presents. Kent ran out to the living room, but never came back. By the time we all got out there, Kent had already opened up two presents!

Kent opened up each present hoping it was the Fearless Freddie train. The very last present he opened was Fearless Freddie. We were just glad we got that train for him; we had no idea till today how much he wanted it. Whew!


Cohen had a great time watching and rolling around in the paper.


Here is a message from the boys. They wanted to remind us Christmas is really about :)

Sneaky Kent

I was in the shower when Kent busted in telling me that he needed more fritos. First I was shocked because Kent usually just sits on the couch and watches Thomas when I get ready each day. Then I was confused about why he needed MORE fritos when we hadn't had any at all yet that day considering it was only 8:30 in the morning. As soon as he heard the bathroom door open, Kent came running back to me once again telling me urgently, "mommy, we need more fritos-hurry!" I ran after him to the living room wondering what he could have been up to. This is what I found:

Kent had dumped an entire, brand new bag of fritos all over his train track. He filled up all the cargo cars with fritos and had Emily crashing over and over into a mountain of fritos sending frito crumbs all over the living room.


We had a very,very long talk about playing with food...