Kyle - 11 Months

Baby Kyle is almost a year already!
He is most definitely still a baby though (maybe I'll always think that?!).

His personality has really flourished this month.
         - jabbers back and forth at us.
         - likes to play peek-a-boo and initiates it himself.
         - claps his hands and dances when music is playing.
         - figured out how to roll balls down the "ball-ramp" and likes that a lot

He is much more vocal now....
         - this child is LOUD! and opinionated
         - if he is unhappy about something (being put down primarily or being touched by his
           siblings)  he lets us known by shrieking and yelling very, very loudly
         - no real words although he uses multiple consonants while babbling (mama, dada, baba, etc.)
     
He seems to be a sensory seeking kind of kid....
         - he likes to be held and touched constantly (by his parents - not siblings!)
          -  if I am not holding him, he literally will follow me from place to place all day long; when I stop walking he sits up and holds he arms up to me and yells
         - he loves the grass, dirt, mud, sand, messy foods, etc.  (the dirtier the better)
         -  he loves his "plug" more than he should (although it's limited during the day)
        
He is a busy little guy.....
          -  he crawls quickly, goes up the stairs without a problem
          - he loves to be played with (Lainey said the other day, "Mom, Kyle really likes people to pay attention to him.")
           - he particularly likes to play ball and mess up his brothers trains and legos
            - he does not like sitting on your lap or being read too
           - he loves to be held but yells if you aren't up walking around with him (little stinker)

He has a sense of humor....
            - while he can be a little demanding and grumpy he does have a sense of humor
            -  he giggles and giggles when you chase after him, play peek-a-boo, put toys on his head, blow raspberries at him

He is growing....
            -  I still think the majority of his calories are from nursing
            - He does eat solid 3 times a day but is still really only eating pureed foods.  He will gum soft foods like bananas and muffins but most of that seems to end up on the floor.  Anything harder to mash than that is a lost cause at this point.
            -  He's growing just fine so I haven't worried about this at all (although probably would if  he were my 1st baby). 

He sleeps quite well.....
             -  Depending on what time he goes to bed he either sleeps through the night or is nursed once     -if he goes down late I don't feed him again until 7:00 AM; if he is sleeping early (7:00 PM) I will dream feed him before I go to bed (10:30-11:00) and then not again until 7:00 AM


He only has two teeth!  He can stand on his own for 5 seconds or so but has no interest in walking yet.   He has very crazy hair (a head of cowlicks basically) which gets attention everywhere we go!

He is a very snuggly little guy!  We are so lucky to have him!

 Pick me up Mom!

 Why can't I eat playdough?!

 Peek-a-boo!

 Little love bug!

Carson and Lainey -5/3 year check ups

I finally took Carson and Lainey in for well child visits.  They are both doing well, no concerns, but needed a couple of shots before school starts.

Carson's stats at 3 years 4 months:

Weight: 35 pounds (68%)
Height: 39.25 inches (68%)

Lainey's stats at 5 years 1 month:

Weight: 41 pounds (60%)
Height: 44.5 inches (80%)

She grew 4 inches during the past year which seems like quite a bit.

I think Erik is around 50 inches (87%) and 57 pounds (78%). 

I'm not sure on Kyle's stats.  He will have check up in about a week.

I'm so thankful for 4 healthy kids and pray they will always have good health.

Swimming

One of my goals this summer is to make sure Erik and Lainey both know how to swim independently.  I passed all 8 levels of swimming as a kid and plan to have my kids do the same.  Erik and Lainey have been taking private lessons 1-2 days a week (together) and are doing very well.

Erik can float on his back, tread water, front crawl, do a somersault under water, jump off the diving board, and dive.  I feel fairly confident he won't drown in a pool although I make sure he is not participating in any horseplay which seems common amongst grade school boys.  (Why boys?!)

Lainey can swim (doggie paddle) 25 yards on her own, swims under water short distances, jumps off the diving board and swims to the edge of the pool independently.  I stay within arms length of her still but she is doing really, really well.

Carson has only had 3-4 lessons.  He jumps in (to us) and puts his face in the water, blows bubbles, etc.  No independent swimming yet although he is close.  He happily swims all over the pool in a puddle jumper (life jacket).

Kyle LOVES the water and tries to throw himself out of your arms into the pool.  Thankfully, on of our local pools has a "zero entrance"so he crawls all over until it gets too deep.

On a side note:  One day he crawled over and took a toy off the edge of the pool.  I didn't know the people so I took the toy from him and gave it back to them.  They didn't seem to mind him having it but I still gave it back.  A couple minutes later he crawled right back to them, sat at their feet, and just looked up with a pathetic look his face (Clearly asking for the toy back).  It was pretty cute!

Below are links to  videos of the kids swimming....

Erik flips

Erik and Lainey diving board

Carson

Can't Keep Up!

Somehow, time for blogging has slipped away from me!  I still feel like it's a fun and important way to document life for our family but man, it's hard to find 20 minutes of uninterrupted quiet time.  This morning I stayed home from church.  Poor Kyle has hand foot and mouth.  He's been fever free for 24 hours but is still infectious and not feeling super great due to the sores in his mouth.  He napped for an hour this morning while Victor and the big kids were at church.  So  I had one hour of quiet.   I played my music loud while baking pumpkin muffins, making black bean soup, and singing.

 Now baby Kyle is up and fussy so I am writing this with a sad baby on my lap.  But, since it's been two weeks since I've updated anything I'm going to try to at least upload a few photos before the noisy crew returns.

We are on month into summer.  Summer has been fun.  I think this is my favorite summer with the kids so far.  When your babies are all little (3 and under) summer is really no different than any other season.  But, now that Erik and Lainey are in school and big enough to do fun things with that changes.  

I have LOVED having my kids home.  We haven't done anything big but that's been nice. 


 Erik and Lainey have gone to a couple weeks of morning camp at the Catholic Church near our house.  They LOVE it.  Especially Erik.  He would spend every minute of every day at camp if I let him. He is taking all sports classes - La Crosse, Baseball, Soccer, and Golf.  Erik loves all sports and confidently tries news things.  It is so fun to watch.  I told him he reminds me of uncle Daron, since Daron loved all sports too, and he got a big grin on his face.    Erik is particularly interested in baseball at the moment.  He's read the first three chapter books in a mystery series about baseball.  I've ordered the next 3 books in the series since it's not available at our library.  (BallPark Mysteries)  He reads them over the course of a day or two.  So fun!

Lainey has done science camp, VBS, and next week will go to art/dance camp.  She also likes camp but doesn't complain about being picked up at noon. :)  She is very quiet, but very social.  She loves going to friends houses and having friends over.  She hates having her hair combed but loves it if I put curls in it or do my hair the same way I do hers.   I can hardly believe two of my kids will be in school all day every day just one month from now.  It makes me sad!  

Both Erik and Lainey can swim fairly well now.  Lainey can swim a long length of the pool and jumps in off the diving board by herself.  (While I watch very, very closely.)  

Carson learned how to ride his bike without training wheels (3 years, 3 months!).   He is my little buddy at home.  Always smiling and laughing about something.  He LOVES his toy planes from the movie Planes and carries them everywhere.  His mean big siblings like to hide them from him.  I am now making them pay him a dollar if they hide the toys from him so hopefully that behavior will be curbed soon.  

Kyle is a busy, busy baby.  He always wants to be by me and follows me everywhere I go.  It is very sweet, but also a bit inconvenient.  He has a great sense of humor and tries to make us laugh.  I love it.  He still nurses a lot and eats limited solid foods (especially with the hand, foot, and mouth).  He LOVES the pool more than any baby I've ever seen.  He desperately wants to be able to swim on his own which is funny.    He is still adored by Lainey but he does not like being picked up and grabbed by his siblings and yells at them when they try.  Poor kids.  They just love you Kyle! 

Some of the things we've done this summer include.... zoo, canoeing, American girl doll store outing, Blue Crabs baseball game,  nature park, War of 1812 reenactment, lots of swimming and bike riding.  It's been a nice summer so far.

Here are a few photos from the past month...

Busy, Fun Weekend - Happy 4th of July!

Well, this long weekend started out with the wacky cake adventure and continued to be a very busy and fun time!

I really had fun with all of my kids this weekend.  It's nice to see them get bigger and really be able to enjoy the people they are becoming.  They are such a big blessing.

On 4th of July we were home in the morning.  I made a blackberry cobbler using blackberries from our garden. (Yum!)  We spent the afternoon/evening at a friends parents house.  They live in the country overlooking the river.  It was beautiful!  There house is up on a cliff (kind of) so there isn't direct waterfront access to the river but they have a small spring fed pond for fishing and paddle boating.  They also own a pony and two goats.  Our friend Brian had a large supply of amazing fireworks as well.    The weather was perfect all weekend (80 and sunny, no humidity or mosquitos) so that made it even more fun. 

The kids were up until 10:30 that night.  (10:15 the night before)

Saturday we went to a Blue Crabs game (minor league baseball).  We'd never been there before but had a great time.  The crowd was VERY small so we were able to sit in front row seats, close enough to almost reach out and touch the players.  Our team lost in the 9th but it was a still a fun time.  Lainey, Kyle, and I left halfway through the game and headed off on another adventure.  Victor said that by the end of the game, the players were chatting with Carson and gave him a piece of gum.  So
funny! 

Lainey, Kyle and I left early because we were headed to Tyson's Corner in VA.  Why?  Well, to visit the American Doll store.  This was Lainey's first time ever stepping foot into a mall!  Man was she excited when she realized there was both an American Doll store and a Disney store.   She was actually skipping gleefully down the mall hallway.  

Since we live 90 minutes from a mall and have no plans to go back to one anytime soon I let her have quite a bit of fun in the American Doll store.  We ate lunch in the resturant, got her doll's hair fixed, and did some shopping.  The bitty baby's were  30% off so I let her pick one more out.   She LOVES her American girl collection, so even though they are hard to justify price-wise, it is a toy she uses daily and has for years.  (She mainly just loves the baby's.  She has one  actual "girl" - which I bought when she was born because the doll's name is Laney.  It was the 2009 doll of the year.)

Her new bitty baby has blond hair and blue eyes.  She's told me for quite sometime that she wanted a blond hair-blue eyed bitty baby.  This bugs me for some reason. I worry about her thinking the  blond hair, blue eye doll being "best" when she has brown hair and brown eyes herself.  She hasn't expressed that sentiment at all so I hope she isn't already quietly worrying about her looks at just barely 5.   I'm probably biased, but man, I think Lainey is so pretty.  Of course, no matter how pretty a girl is, they somehow always find someway to worry about their looks. 

Anyway, I am probably waaaay over-analyzing her doll choice! Ha!   She does LOVE her new doll and has slept with it in her arms the last two nights.

This afternoon I took Erik and Lainey canoeing.  It again was a beautiful day and we had a lot of fun!  We paddled our canoe right next to geese, ducks, swans, and a heron.   The song, "Kiss the Girl" kept running through my head. 



Then to top off a busy, active weekend I was able to convince Carson to try riding his two wheel bike and he was successful!  He is so, so proud of himself for being able to ride his bike without training wheels, just like Erik and Lainey.  (I'm pretty proud of him too.)

I'm so thankful we were able to spend a weekend together as a family. 

Wacky Kids make a Wacky Cake!

Inspired by my friend Kristal, I decided to let my kids make a cake independently.  I did put all the appropriate ingredients and measuring cups out for them but they did the rest.  They made a chocolate cake and frosting from scratch and it was good!

I did stop them once, before they put a tablespoon of salt in the cake, instead a teaspoon.  Otherwise they really did it on their own.  Erik read the instructions and they each took turns putting ingredients in and then mixing it up.

They made chocolate frosting also, but we ate the cake immediately and just dumped frosting onto our pieces.  Why?  Well, wacky cake baking was part of my late night surprise adventure.  The kids had gone to bed already but I woke them up around 8:45 as it was getting dark.  We shot off fireworks and ran around the yard with sprinklers.   Since they were already sufficiently riled up, I thought it'd be fun to make the cake right then and there.  Ha!  They went to bed at 10:15.  Probably the latest they've ever been up!

They've been told not to leave there rooms before 8 AM.  I'm pretty sure the older three will listen but Kyle however will still greet us nice and early.

It was a fun night!  I hope to have late night surprises off and on as they grow.  I think it will make for some fun memories.

Here are some photos from the cake event....