He Just Keeps Growing!

In just 3 months, Jack will be 3 years old.  I am amazed each day how much of a little boy he is becoming...no longer a toddler really, but a boy you can have little conversations with. It is so much fun to see all the fun things he learns each day.  Often times my jaw just drops with amazement and wonder on how he is big enough to know, do, and remember certain things. Here is a random assortment of pictures of my growing boy.

 This fall I decided to do some "school" at home with Jack.  My goal originally was to focus on one letter a week and do activities revolving around that letter.  So far we have only made it to letter B.  I have had to remind myself that he is still only 2 and that he doesn't need to know everything right now!  We need to just have fun at this stage, enjoy each day, and throw in a few learning activities here and there.  So far, we are having fun with it!  This activity is sorting fruit loops by color.  Really he ate way more of the fruit loops than he sorted!

 Putting beans on number cards

 I found him one afternoon sitting on the stairs with his nail grooming kit...trying to file his toe nails.  

 Jack LOVES to brush his teeth.  Morning, noon, and night he goes into his bathroom to brush.

 Not long ago I was downstairs and asked Jack to go upstairs to pick out some clothes for himself to wear (not thinking he actually would.)  But to my surprise he came down with a shirt and shorts. This is the outfit he came down with.  Not surprised that it was one of his helicopter shirts but super surprised that he actually found shorts that matched!

 Letter A project - painting with apples

 Another outfit he picked out on his own.

 Griffin came over for school on "A is for Airplane" day.  This was by far the favorite activity - playing with beans and pasta and mini airplanes.  Who would have known this would have kept them occupied for so long!  Really, like hours long!

 Jack LOVES, LOVES, LOVES helping me bake!!!  We made a batch of pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.

 But Jack does NOT love not being able to eat all the cookies in one sitting.  That is the not so fun part about making all those cookies.

 Jack was given this castle and knights toy by our neighbors.  I was amazed to see once again how long (hours!) he spent playing with it.  His attention span is definitely on the rise!

 My growing boy is still sleeping in his crib (I snapped this pic a few days ago as he was waking up from his nap just because I know these days of him being in his crib are numbered.) A couple weeks ago he did climb out of his crib for the first time at nap time.  So far though it has only happened once.  But it is a reminder to me that my baby boy is growing.

Fishing with Daddy. 

 I am to the point where I am not having to be 2 inches away from him while we are out fishing with Daddy.  He has begun to realize the dangers of water and that you need to stay on the grass.  I thought this day might never come and I am so thankful that it is finally here.

Eating a hot dog and icee that we got during out walk to the corner store with Griffin and Ollie earlier today.

We LOVE this boy and he makes us smile and laugh each and every day!

More often now we have started being called "Dad" and "Mom" by Jack.  Not sure how it got shortened to that from Daddy and Mommy.  It just sounds like we are so old. Still cute to hear him say though.

So thankful that the Lord blessed us with such a special and sweet little guy!

Some days I can't even believe that he is real and that I have my very own little blue eyed, curly haired, smiling boy named Jack.

 "Thanks be to God for this indescribable gift!" 2 Corinthians 9:15

Our Family

Jack - 2 1/2 years old (or 2 months old as he likes to say)

Amelia - 9 months old

40 Weeks 5 Days

Amelia was born at 40 weeks and 5 days.

 This was taken this past Saturday when she was 40 weeks and 5 days old.

She has now been outside the tummy for longer than she had been inside.  Amazing!

Love this sweet girl!

Hard to Capture

These 2 love each other!  Jack is so sweet and always wants to give Amelia hugs and kisses.  Amelia is sweet right back to Jack and gives him hugs too.  Don't get me wrong, they are brother and sister and have already begun some of the wars over toys.  But for the most part they are very sweet to each other.  Whenever I do Amelia's weekly and monthly pictures Jack is often asking to be in the pictures too.  Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a good picture of these two together? Nearly impossible!  Here is a selection of what I got over the weeks...and these are the better ones.  None that you may consider good enough for a frame(although I think I may.)  But that's ok!  They are what they are.  This is real life..my babies!

 (Of course, the one picture where they are both actually looking at the camera and it is blurry!)

Amelia is 9 Months Old

Sweet little Amelia turned 9 months old on August 26th!

Weight: 18.5 lbs (58th percentile)

Height: 27.2 inches (35th percentile)

Eyes: Blue

Hair: It is still slowly growing in.  It is a light brown on the top but blonde in the back.

Teeth: she has her 2 bottom teeth and just got her 2 top teeth in last week (on 9/30)

She wasn't too happy for the first try on the 38 week picture so we tried again another day. But I couldn't resist posting the crying picture.  Such a cute sad face!

                                                

Amelia is all smiles!

 This month she has become a pro at being mobile! She crawls, pulls up, and cruises along the furniture.  She is actually quite graceful with it too. She seems to be cautious and not too daring yet.  On occasion she will let go of whatever she is holding on to and go hands free.  Her balance is actually quite good.  We don't think it will be long at all before she takes off and starts walking.

 When Amelia talks she has a precious little girl voice.  She likes to hear herself babble.  So far she says, "dada", "mama" and the pediatrician really thinks she heard her say "hi."  Not sure I heard it but if the doctor thinks she can, we will go ahead and say she can! Ha!

 This has happened a few times recently. She is taking after her big brother...falling asleep while eating.  She still fights going to sleep when you want her to go to sleep, but as you can tell here, if she is tired enough, she will go to sleep anywhere.  She continues to improve with her night time sleeping.  She will go 10-12 hours at night and will wake up maybe once during the night searching for a pacifier. Nap time is still unpredictable.  It seems to be that she may be going to one nap a day.  On a perfect day she will go down after lunch and sleep for a couple hours (which I love because then she and Jack both sleep at the same time.) But if we are out and about she will nap here and there in the car then not sleep once we are back home then want a nap right around dinner time which then messes with bed time.  Someday we will get this all figured out but for now we take it a day at a time.

Amelia has started eating 3 meals a day.  It is a mix of finger foods and pureed food. Basically whatever we are eating, I cut up into tiny pieces and she eats it on her own, otherwise I just give her jars of baby food.  She also has four bottles of pumped milk throughout the day, about 6 ounces each. Now that Amelia is eating more 'big people' food she likes to do her part and help out with the dishes. Fun times this is for mommy....doing the dishes and keeping the fast crawling and pulling up baby girl from pulling out all the dishes.

 Long story short...due to a fall and GramPam breaking her pelvis while visiting our house several weeks ago we have had some extra bonus visiting time with GramPam and Pa-Pa at our house while she recovers.  During this time Amelia found a new favorite toy...GramPam's walker!

So hard to believe how quickly one year is approaching for this baby girl!  Time, please slow down!!!