Monday, November 21, 2011

Smith is 6 weeks

Smith is 6 weeks old today. When we took him to the doctor at 5 weeks, he weighed 12 lbs 8 oz so I'm sure he's even bigger now - probably close to 13 pounds. He's huge! He is the sweetest, coolest little dude. He goes along with whatever we're doing. He has started getting a little more fussy during that dreaded evening time. All of our babies did that and it's tough, but once he falls asleep for the night it's better. His night sleeping is still inconsistent, sometimes waking up every 3 hours still, but some nights he'll sleep 5 hours in between feedings.
He's starting to try to grab things and put them into his mouth and is liking toys more and more.

Here he is "talking" to us...


Emerson wanted to be sure he had some "friends" to play with and this is how I found him. I was glad she didn't bury his face.
He was sleeping with this arm straight up in the air.
When I give the kids I bath, I usually just lay him on his towel and he loves it for some reason. He usually just dozes off or lays there happily.








Sunday, November 20, 2011

Time Together

Zane and Emerson have really loved spending time together lately. They're friends most of the time, even though they do have their bad moments. They also LOVE being around Smith. (Sometimes too much :) He's pretty patient with them and is starting to smile a lot at his brother and sister. They've really been gentle and sweet overall and have helped me out a lot.

I love this video! Emmy likes to sing to Smith - she's singing Twinkle Twinke.


Emmy's really good at giving Smith his pacifier.

Snuggling time while reading before bed
Friends doing puzzles by each other - they worked this day for a really long time and helped each other

Z and E got to feed Smith a bottle by themselves

Laughing at each other



Family walk around the lake - I love how Emmy's looking at Zane in this picture


Friday, November 18, 2011

Costumes

Have I mentioned that Zane and Emmy love to dress up? After Halloween we found a bunch of costumes for 50-70% off. They have entertained for hours.

Some examples:


Frankenstein

Army guyVampire

Dash, a fast superhero from The Incredibles


Wow, Dash is fast.

Super Girl

And...this guy (just random props from our costume box with a "tough guy" shirt from Aunt Becca) :) :)We also got a zombie costume that has scared a lot of people. For Emmy, we got Elmo, Minnie Mouse, and Sleeping Beauty. I need to get pics of those too.

Monday, November 14, 2011

A Few Kid Updates...

Emerson Updates...

Here's how I know Emerson has a 4-year-old brother and also how I know she's a 2-year-old...
She says things like, "Never!" "This is not my day!" "It's not fair!" "You're not my friend anymore!" "I'm never playing with you again!"
I know this is our red flag to really get control of Zane's language, because she is copying everything!! Even though she has all these crazy responses that she uses, she's also doing a million cute things and saying a million cute things a day.
* She says, "Mommy, I have bad news for you - I don't like _____," and then she pauses and yells, "I love it!" Yes, another Zane copy but so cute coming from her!
* She is starting to recognize letters and numbers and is starting to ask about them a lot. She uses her finger to point to words and acts like she's sounding out words and reading them - just makes something up that makes sense.
* She does puzzles all day everyday. She can do 48-piece pieces and less all alone. For bigger ones, she needs some help but is amazing at them.
* She has never gotten out of her bed since we switched her to a big girl bed a few months ago - what a good girl! Well, Zane talked her into sneaking out once (we could hear him whispering) but usually if he gets out she tells him no. She also waits till the clock turns green (7:00) in the morning to get up, unless Zane talks her into it.
* She randomly tells all of us she loves us all day. Either just "I love you" or "I love you more than the whole world" or "You're the best Mommy" or others.
* When she wants to leave the table for something and come back to finish her meal, she very seriously says, "Don't eat my food. Leave it right there. I'll be right back!"
* When we can't understand something she says she tells us, "You're not listening to me!" and repeats it louder.
* She leaves the 's' off the beginning of words so "spin" is "pin" etc.
* Her imagination is awesome, I'm sure a big part because of Zane's influence. She pretend plays most of the day and is really coming up with creative ideas of what to play.
* She is pretty much fearless with anything and everything.
* She loves "girls days" with Mommy and is also loving Dad a bunch lately. She especially loves dancing with him.
* When Zane asks for a turn with a toy, she answers with "In a second" or "someday" or "no thanks."


Zane Updates:
* Zane is reading now. He can read Bob books, which mostly have 3 letters words and sight words. He can also write any 3 letter words and a lot of other words by sounding them out. He can decipher between beginning, ending, and middle sounds.
* He can do all sorts of math - for sure easy adding and subtracting, what comes before or after a number, counting by 10s, reading 2 and some 3 digit numbers, counting base-10 blocks (100's, 10's, and 1's together to make numbers), etc.
* He's really into making books where he write a story and illustrates each page.
* He is so funny - such a good sense of humor. I wish I could think of all the examples. He exchanges words in songs a lot, jokes around, etc.
* He told us the other day when he used a "figure of speech" and explained what that meant to Emmy
* He also still makes up stories a ton - he's into super heroes right now so is always in character as some made up super hero. He tells about what he's doing like it's totally true. Like, this morning he said, "I watched the news this morning and they said that Doc Oc is coming to town and wants to fight Super Zane, me. So I better get ready. But don't worry, I always win because I'm super strong and super fast..."
* He always has some game or story going on while he's playing. On the playground or play area, there's always some imaginary person who is chasing him or he's trying to find, or some mystery going on, or villains to fight. He always drags Emerson along for the ride too, which is fun.
* We're working on teaching him not to complain so much. He's going through a phase of finding the negative in things. ex. When he gets to have icecream for dessert, he'll complain that it's not the kind he wanted. So we're starting to take fun things away if he complains about the way they happen or what they are.
• He's also working on being patient and understanding that saying yes but later is different than saying no. We want him to be thankful for what he has instead of complaining about what he doesn't. Don't we all need that lesson?
* He loves school and loves his friends.

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Halloween

For Halloween this year, we dressed the crew in Winnie the Pooh characters - Zane's idea. When they were in their costumes, they pretty much stayed in character and called each other by the right names. We thought Smith's Pooh costume might be too big, but nope - it fit just right because he's such a big guy.

The Friday night before Halloween, our church has a big "Fall Fest" party that we went to. Pooh slept in my sling the whole time and Tigger and Piglet had a blast.

Here's the gang...
I love the bellies added on the costumes.






On Halloween, we had a bunch of family over and ate dinner together and then a huge group went out trick-or-treating.



Little guy fell asleep in the middle of our chaotic time of taking pictures and getting ready for trick or treating.

Jord and Nell dressed up like M&Ms - here they holding Smith.



Everyone ready to trick-or-treat



Emmy practicing their lines for trick-or-treating. Yes, they said the whole big thing for the first couple of houses and then just said the basics after that. They also said thank you and Happy Halloween after they got candy.

Zane and Emmy held hands most the night.


Chowing down some candy

Our Little Actor

We signed Zane up for another acting class since he loved his last session. This boy still spends almost all of his time dressing up, pretending, acting, and making up stories, so this class is a perfect outlet for him.

Here he is introducing himself.


Then, they acted out the book "Are You My Mother?" and he decided to dress up as a zebra. They could pick any costume, even if it wasn't in the book.



Zack and Emerson got to help him with part of the acting too...