Other updates

Grace is loving Clovergarten. She is such a little sponge and is very interested in reading. She has started reading tons of stuff that I bring home from school with short vowels. She is also doing awesome with sight words! She is loving dance class and looks forward to it every week. She learned to ride her bike without training wheels a couple of weeks ago and has been riding around like a speed demon every since.

She also loved going to her 2nd annual Father/Daughter Dance with Steve. :) Last week she informed Steve (while he was dropping her off at school), "Dad, you really don't have to walk me to my classroom anymore. You can just drop me off by the front door." 

 

Ha! I love this picture because Lydia is showing off her "bunny teeth." She still has 4 teeth but she doesn't let it slow her down. :)

Samuel is loving music class and asks about it numerous times every week. He is always pumped for Sunday School too which makes me so happy! He's been going through a phase where he doesn't want to wear a shirt to bed because "dad doesn't wear a shirt to bed." He looks forward to going to the sitter's every day to play cars and dinosaurs with Jake. :) When I pick him up he talks nonstop about what he did that day. He went through a rough 2 week phase where he had salmonella. Don't ask me where he got it from, I have no idea. Nobody else had it here and nobody else at the sitter's had it. We only went out to eat once and we all had the same thing. That poor little guy gets crapped on when it comes to getting weird illnesses. He also started getting migraines this summer...the same age that Grace was when she started getting hers. I pray daily that they will be healed from this.

Why a picture of laundry? This is the first load of laundry that my lovely 5 year old folded by herself. Therefore it's my favorite load of laundry ever. :) I love that she even had a bathroom pile, Steve/Sarah pile, Sam pile, Grace pile, and Lydia pile. She has been earning 50 cents to a dollar for folding loads of laundry, doing dishes, organizing, and dusting for Steve and I. What a girl!

I love her pigtails and little grin. :) She also absolutely loves music class and will clap and use the musical instruments along with everyone else. 

This picture just makes me laugh because he wanted to have his picture taken with the dog at Old Navy. Oh Samuel. :)

Lydia is 1!

This post is long overdue. I have been waiting until we had her 1 year pictures taken and it just kept getting pushed back because of sick kids and things like that. We finally had them taken and hopefully I'll have them back later this week to add to this post. 

Our sweet Liddy Lou is absolutely hilarious. She is such a good-natured little girl. She is cruising all over the place and loves walking around holding onto our fingers. She crawls everywhere so fast and is into things before you even know she's gone. She has figured out how to climb up things (i.e. stairs, step stools) and can do so with lightening speed. She will sign more, food, drink and all done. She also can say all done, more, thank you, uh-huh, mom, dad, papa (she calls Steve that at times), bear, and several others but I'm drawing a blank right now. She is actually doing quite a bit of repeating what we say. 

She loves to give kisses. She will give high-five and do "so big". She loves to bounce up and down on her little bum. She thinks it's so funny. :) She thoroughly enjoys meal time and bath time. She has so much fun playing with Sam and Grace and belly laughs at them daily but isn't afraid to stiff arm them if they won't get out of her face. She loves playing with the little kitchen and is into the stage of throwing stuff off and then putting it back on and repeating that process over and over. 

She loves all kinds of food. Favorites being bananas, peaches, pears, grapes, peas, cooked carrots, green beans, strawberries, blueberries, corn, graham crackers, mac & cheese, cheeseburgers (any kind of meat really), yogurt, cheese, milk, orange juice, and water. She is the easiest kid to feed ever. 

She goes to bed between 6:30-7:00 and is up between 6:00-6:15. She sleeps with this little duck that she loves. After I sing to her I lay her down and hand her her duck. She grabs it and rolls over and that's all it takes for her to fall asleep. She is in that in-between stage where she still needs a morning nap a few days a week. She always at least takes a nap right after lunch. She stopped nursing about 2 weeks ago and has been fine with it. She is such a wonderful, squeezable, smooshable (I just made that a word), kissable, sweet little girl. We love you Lou-pie! :)

Argggg

I LOVE my kids at school this year - they are so much fun! Today is only day 15 of school and they've already made the news. :) I hope you enjoy our International Talk Like a Pirate Day performance!

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Fun on wheels...one of their favorite pastimes.

Grace and Sam had another week of swim lessons. I cannot believe the difference from their first week to this one. Grace is able to float on her back and is attempting to swim to the side after jumping off the diving board. She is able to doggy paddle and get herself to the edge about 80% on her own. She loves to go under and get rings and is so set on learning how to swim which I love! Sam jumped off the high dive (eep!) with his instructor and did so well. His favorite thing to do was get rings off of the stairs. He was able to use the kick board completely by himself! 

Grace was going to go off of the high dive by herself but decided it was "pretty high mom" and went off of the lifeguard chair instead. :) I'm so proud of them and can't wait to start up lessons again!

Steve started a new job last week. He is now a special education supervisor at the ESC in Archbold. He oversees the preschools in Henry and Defiance county (13 classrooms). He is really enjoying it and is learning a tremendous amount each day. I love the fact that he came home one night this week and out of nowhere smiled and said "I really like my job." The perk of an iPad, laptop, and iPhone help I'm sure. :) 

I took the kids to the dentist this week for our check-up. Grace and Sam went at the same time so I stayed with Sam during his since it was his first and Grace has gone since she was 2 so I knew she'd be fine. Sam did awesome and had his first polish and complete cleaning! I was happy because typically they just count their teeth at their first check up. The dentist and hygienists were very complimentary about how good the kids' teeth were and how they can tell we brush their teeth well. Teeth are really important to me so that means a lot! I've still never had a cavity although I do have to go have a pit filled next week because the dentist doesn't want it to crack or become a cavity. Better safe than sorry I suppose. While I got my teeth cleaned Lydia sat in her booster seat while Grace gave her grapes and blueberries to keep her entertained and Samuel played with the iPad. They were so good...of course I had bribed them with a trip to the park if they behaved and sat still. :) Whatever works!

Life is good here!

Lydia is 10 months old!

Oh Liddy Lou. She is so sweet and so cuddly and such a good little girl. And 10 months old already! Here are some of her favorite things:

sitting up to play with toys

army crawling and rolling to get places

getting up on all 4s and rocking back and forth like she's going to start crawling

eating everything that we eat (as Steve puts it "she's not afraid of food")

putting her fingers in your eyes, mouth, nose, ears

says mom, mama, dad, dada, mah for more, bah for ball

signs all done

drinks water from a sippy cup

loves fruit - especially blueberries and peaches

is having no sensitivity to milk - yay!

takes 2 naps a day - a morning nap about 2 hours after she wakes up and an afternoon nap about 2 1/2-3 hours after she wakes up from her morning nap, usually soon after lunch; ready for bed by 7 and sleeps until 7-7:30 in the morning (until school starts back up in a couple of weeks...booooo) :)

has the best baby chub to munch on and she thinks it's hilarious

loves to be zerberted

thinks Grace and Sam are hysterical

loves to kick everything - toys, couches, walls, people (yikes!), cabinets etc.

is such a happy little girl

We love our Lou-Pie! :)

Grace is 5!

The day Grace has been waiting for for a year has finally come! :) For some reason she has been looking forward to turning 5 for a looooong time. Here are some of Grace's favorite things at 5:

helping with Lydia

blowing up balloons

playing catch with us or Sam

golfing with Steve

picking out her outfit and Lydia's outfit (and Sam's if he hasn't already done it)

always wants to "match" Lydia's outfit even if it just means both of them wearing long sleeves or the same color

organizing the snack drawer, utensil drawer, playroom and their bedroom

playing PBS kids and Nick Jr games on the computer

playing on the iPad

playing with Play-Doh

grocery shopping and clothes shopping

cooking and baking

writing and trying to sound out words and spell them by herself

doing flips on the swing set

creating menus and serving us at her restaurant

is beyond excited about starting Clovergarten in a couple of weeks

feeding and watering Maggie and our kitty that lives outside

eating suckers, popsicles and gum as treats

swimming; swim lessons; going under water to get rings 

loves music

is pumped about starting dance in a few weeks

We celebrated by getting donuts for breakfast...another of her favorites. :) Love our sweet G. Marie!

Jamaica

We just got back from Jamaica with my family today. We had so much fun! 

Our view from the balcony

Pics of our room

Sam absolutely loved flying, riding the shuttles and the buses. He didn't put this airplane down. On the flight from Miami to Montego Bay Steve and Sam sat by my dad and then mom, Lydia, Grace and I were across the aisle from them. All of a sudden I heard Steve burst out laughing and dad say something about a "swine grandson." Here was the conversation:

Steve: Sam, ask grandpa if he wants some water.

Sam (peeking around dad across the aisle): Grandma, do you want any water?

Steve: No, Sam. I said ask Grandpa.

Sam: Oh, ok. Grandpa does grandma want any water?

First morning on the beach - we would go to the beach everyday after breakfast until the pools opened.

Lydia loved the water!

The pools and slides were awesome. We would go to the pool everyday when they opened at 10, swim, eat lunch and play until naps.

Grace and Samuel loved the water slides and would go over and over and over and over...

They had Sesame Street shows each night after supper.

Sam's expression in this one just makes me giggle.

The shows were one of the highlights of the week...many more pictures to follow. :)

We also had fun looking for lizards and hermit crabs all week.

Give me 5!

Ernie came and sat by dad for quite a while. The kids thought it was hilarious. :)

Samuel is giving Bert a hug here...

Zoe!!

We went on a tour on a glass bottom boat. 

Loving the life jacket!

They played sooo hard and kept going and going until they would drop. It would take them no more than 5 minutes to fall asleep at nap time and at night.

Grace with her bear from her teacher. She slept with it every night. :)

Grandpa caught a lizard!

Popcorn was a favorite poolside snack everyday. My favorite: the strawberry smoothies. They ruled!

I'm tiiiiiiired.

We celebrated Jill's birthday while we were there. Eben surprised her with a cake and balloons. Her face was priceless!

Story time with Elmo...

My personal favorite...Super Grover!

Here you can catch a glimpse of the awesome strawberry smoothies...

The kids all loved getting up and dancing along with the Sesame Street characters. They were so fun to watch!

One of my favorite parts...Cookie Monster surfing.

Dance, dance, dance

So cute! :)

The trek back home began with a 2 hour bus ride. The kids did really well considering we were traveling for over 12 hours and didn't get back to the hotel in Chicago until 1:30 in the morning. 

Part of the reason we didn't get back until so late was because President Obama was in Miami at the same time and we had to wait for Air Force One to take off before we could. Here's a picture of it through the window of our plane.

Helping pull luggage to the shuttle at 1:15 a.m. 

I could write so much more but simply put...it was a blast!