Swim Lessons

For the past 3 weeks the kids have been having swim lessons. The first 2 weeks were group lessons where Grace was with about 10 kids roughly her age and several teachers. Samuel was in the toddler class where he got to do a lot of 1 on 1 stuff with Steve. They both had a lot of fun with that. This week they have private lessons. Grace has come a long way. I'm so impressed to see how she's changed from last summer and even from a month ago to now. She's going under to get rings, going down the massive twisty slide, floating on her back and learning how to use her arms and legs properly. She's even jumping off the diving board all by herself (into the arms of her teacher below). I took a picture of her jumping in today but a little boy walked right in front of me at the exact wrong moment. I'll get one tomorrow and add it on here. Samuel is doing awesome too. He usually is nervous and cries for the first couple of minutes but then does fine. Today he cried for about the first 30 seconds and then was laughing and giggling the rest of the time. He has been going under, jumping off the side, reaching under to get rings, blowing bubbles, using a kick board, going down the twisty slide and jumping off the diving board! When his teacher asked me if it was okay if he jumped off I said sure and then immediately thought holy crap...what did I just do?! I'm sending my 20 month old off a cliff into 8 feet of water. :) He loved it and today he walked out on the diving board holding a teacher's hand and jumped off all by himself to his teacher below.

Samuel at 18 months

Samuel is still a pretty easy little boy. Of course he has to be reminded often of what he is allowed to do and what he is not allowed to do but is learning very fast. A threat of a timeout is usually all it takes to get him to straighten out. :) He continues to eat like a grown man. Some favorites include: meat of any kind, grapes, bananas, oranges, peaches, broccoli, peas, green beans, cereal, popcorn, chips, crackers...pretty much anything! He continues to love balls and throwing. He also loves being outside and would spend the whole day outside playing on the swing set, in the sand or with the water table if he could.

He enjoys being read to and is very interested in farm animals. He also likes listening to music and still loves to sing "E-I-E-I-O." He still takes a nap after lunch for 2-3 hours. He goes to bed around 7:15 and wakes up around 6:15. He likes to watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Super Why with Grace. He is always into coloring, especially with markers. He also likes pushing cars and trucks around saying "vroooooom." He loves Maggie and plays with her often. She can't get enough and it helps tire them both out. :)

He has all of his teeth except for his 2 year molars although I think he's been working on those for the past couple of weeks. He loves his flip-flops and gets ticked off because he can't quite get them on by himself yet. He had his first "big boy" haircut a couple of weeks ago. My cousin used the clippers and he screamed bloody murder the whole time. As soon as the clippers went off he stopped and was fine. What a little stinker. He's still ornery as ever and we love every minute of it. Love you Sambam!

Last weekend we decided to take the kids to the zoo because it was beautiful out. We hadn't been there since last fall (except for the lights at Christmastime) so it was fun to see all of the animals again. There was hardly anyone there which made it even better. :) Samuel was hilarious to watch because he was way more aware of all of the animals than when we went last time. He was not very happy when an ape ran up to the glass and smacked it really hard right in front of him. At least he didn't fling poop at him. :) Grace's favorite animals were the lions and the penguins. She had millions of questions about all of the animals.

Quick Update

Here's some updates from the past month:

Steve is in the midst of baseball season. He is the assistant coach at Pettisville again and is enjoying the season very much so far. He also just finished up his second semester towards his masters degree. I have been hearing a lot about "good golfing weather" so that has been adding to his good mood. :)

Grace is enjoying preschool at St. Pat's and is looking forward to starting a preschool program that the high school parenting class does 3 days/week for the next 6 weeks. 3 of her friends from the babysitters are going as well. She is excited every day when I pick her up and tells me what she did and what she made. Today she was all excited because they painted with red and blue paint to make purple. They also played a rhyming game that was a big hit. She is thrilled for this warmer weather to be here for good so she can play outside more. She is always wanting to go for a walk down to the bridge which makes me smile because I remember loving to do that when I was a little girl.

Samuel has 6 new teeth which all decided to come in the same week. This makes the grand total 14 and my guess is 15 and 16 aren't far behind. He thinks he can run now which is pretty entertaining. He is still in love with balls. I went grocery shopping after school one day last week. I happened to grab a cart that had a broken seat belt (how annoying) so I had to keep a hand on him every time I went to grab anything off the shelf so he wouldn't fling himself over the side. He did a really good job until we got to the produce aisle when he took a massive dive screaming "baaalllll"!! He was trying to grab every orange, apple, tangerine, mango etc. in sight. Luckily I caught a hold of him before he could totally leap out of the cart. Note to self...check the buckle BEFORE I take the cart next time.

We are all excited that we will be adding another member to the family in October! I am 13 weeks and feeling better and better. Some mornings are still a bit rough thanks to my insanely sensitive nose but all in all I can't complain.

New Words

We were sitting in church yesterday and all of a sudden Samuel started bouncing up and down and pointing excitedly. I looked to see what he was pointing at and saw my parents sitting a few rows in front of us. Then he looked right at me and said "gampa, gamma". He kept pointing wildly and saying gampa, gamma over and over. It was pretty entertaining.

Rain Rain Go Away

Grace has been requesting to make "colorful cupcakes" for almost a week now. She's asked me at least once each day this week but we had a busy week full of check ups and meetings so we never had time. We decided that a rainy Saturday would be a great time to bake.

The kids loved being the taste testers for me. The frosting tasted kind of like marshmallows and was a big hit. Besides tasting they both loved decorating them.
I thought they turned out pretty cute. They were fun to make. Grace has already made the comment - "Mom, can you please make this for my birthday on August 2?" Too funny.

Samuel at 15 months

Sorry about the blurry picture...our digital camera broke so I'm using Grace's Vtech camera. It's not quite quick enough for Samuel's action. :)

Samuel is such a funny little boy. He loves to laugh, tease and bug. He says Gace (Grace), ah dah (all done), mom, dad, dog, woo woo (woof woof), ball, hi, bye-bye, no, uh oh, dink (drink), ow, poo (poop), yeah and e-i-e-i-o (he loves Old MacDonald). He mimics everything we do. He will brush his hair, talk on the phone, brush his teeth, put wipes in diapers and try to wrap them up, dance like we do and many other things. He loves throwing balls, looking at books, taking baths, his toothbrush, coloring, dancing, music, food and helping us fold laundry. He takes 1 thing at a time out of the laundry basket and hands it to us until the entire thing is empty. He thinks it's hilarious to point to his belly button and loves it when people point theirs out to him. He is beginning to test us to see if we mean what we say and has therefore started having timeouts...which he loathes. :) He is quite the climber and has no fear. I've caught him on the back of the couch, climbing from a chair to the kitchen table, trying to get on top of his play kitchen and many other interesting places. Amazingly he has only had a couple bad spills and they hardly even phased him. He attempts to dress himself which is always entertaining. He flew for his first time at 12 months and did great. He cried on the way home for about 10 minutes before we even took off and then fell asleep for the remainder of the trip. He had a bout of fifths disease right after he turned 1 as well. He has 8 teeth and his molars are almost through. He takes 1 1/2 - 2 1/2 hour naps every day right after lunch and still is completely pooped by 7. There are some nights where I have to force him to stay awake until 6:45 because I feel bad putting him to bed earlier than that! I suppose since he has to wake up at 6:15 it makes sense. I'm hoping that this summer I can move it back so he sleeps more like 7:45 to 7:15. :) He is walking all over the place. I should have posted earlier about that...for the past 6 weeks or so he has been walking the vast majority of the time. He loves riding his toy train around the house and does so with gusto. I've never seen a kid go so fast on one of those things. He is so ornery...and we wouldn't change him for anything.