Nathan's 18 month checkup

Today was Nathan's 18 month checkup.  He weighs 21 pounds, 10 ounces, and is 31 inches tall.  His head circumference is 49 cm.  This places him in the 10-25th percentile for height, the 5th percentile for weight, and the 75-90th percentile for head circumference.

The doctor is a little concerned with Nathan's weight because he has lost weight since his 15 month checkup.  He's actually a little under what he was at his 1 year appointment.  But she did acknowledge that he has a very high level of activity, which she noticed during the appointment.  He never stops moving, always climbing, running, dancing, moving anyway he can!  So for now we are going to just encourage him to eat more protein.  He has grown an inch taller so he is definitely growing.

Nathan is a very healthy little guy, and reaching all his milestones for this age.  He knows at least 20 words, and few of which I forgot in my last post.  He knows "book" and "bug" and just today he has learned "yes" and "please."  I'm so glad that he has learned yes and I'm hoping to give him many opportunities to say it instead of his almost constant "no."

Tomorrow I'm going to attempt to get some pictures of the kids in bluebonnets, so keep your fingers crossed they turn out!  And a little update on Emma: she recently counted to 100 all by herself!

Emma update!

Time for an update on our favorite 3 year old! Emma is now 3 1/2 years old and having a great summer! Her preschool ended in May and she had an excellent end of year report from her teacher. She really enjoyed our time in Galveston and she still asks when we are going back to our hotel, which she pronounces "ho-n-tel". She loves to sing and tell stories, and she is always making up crazy names for her stuffed animals and dolls. Her latest favorite show to watch is The Fresh Beat Band. They sing and dance through the show and she loves it!

She went to Cub Camp last week at our church. It was every day from 9-12, and by Wednesday she was ready to be back home with me. But she did enjoy playing with friends, story time, art and snack time! It's going to be hard when she goes to Kindergarten in two years to have her dressed and at school before 8am every day!

We have not played outside much this summer, it is just too hot. We do lots of painting, puzzles (Emma is a whiz at puzzles!) and other inside play. I know Emma will enjoy preschool when she starts back Aug. 30th. I am looking forward to the time to spend with just Nathan, and maybe even get a few other things done.

Emma really loves her brother. She calls him "little Buddy", "Buddy" or "Bud-Bud." She loves to make him laugh, and she will get down on the floor to crawl around with him. She always wants to help me when it's time to get him up from his nap, and she hugs and kisses him as much as she can. And I know he loves her too!

Super Girls!

Our awesome neighbor Rosie made the cutest capes for Emma and our other neighbors, Lauren and Emily. They are the cutest superheros around!

Emma's 3 year well check

Today we took Emma to the dr for her 3 yr well check. She weighs 33 pounds (75th percentile) and she is 37 inches tall (50th percentile)! The dr quizzed her on shapes and colors, and she did very well. She was also able to jump on one foot and bent over to touch her toes. She enjoyed getting the doctor's full attention too!

No More Milk - for me!

I took Nathan to the dr yesterday due to his continuing tummy issues. The dr wants me to try eliminating dairy from my diet, as she suspects he is sensitive to milk proteins. I tried this when he was about 6-8 weeks for a few weeks and he seemed to get better, and I slowly started enjoying diary again. But now he is having obvious stomach pains all day and night so we are trying again. Since I get about half of my daily calories from diary, I am hoping this will help me lose the rest of my baby weight.

He weighed in 16 pounds, 10 ounces! I knew he was getting big, I almost can't carry him in the car seat carrier anymore.

I can't leave out the latest on Emma. On Dec. 31st, I started putting her in panties during the day. The first 2 days we had a couple of accidents each day, but since then she is using the potty all day, at home, school, and when we are out! It's so nice to have her out of diapers, the washing machine was running all day and night with two kids in cloth diapers! She is still wearing one at night but I am not rushing that change. One of the ways I know she stays hydrated is to let her drink lots of water before bed, so I think it will be a while before we change that.

Emma is 3 years old!

Today Emma is 3 years old! We can hardly believe our little baby girl is 3, but she is! She has had a wonderful birthday this year. We did a little Toy Story party on Dec. 18 with some of her friends and she really enjoyed it. Today we are at Grandpa and Grandma Smith's house and they had a little party for her with cake and ice cream.

She is a very funny girl, she loves to make silly faces and tell silly jokes. I love to watch her play and listen to her talk to her toys. She is so sweet and loving but also very smart.

She absolutely loves her baby brother and asks me every day if he is big enough to play with her. She is so affectionate, she loves to hold him and kiss him. When Nathan is on the floor she will lay down with him and talk to him.

When we return from our Christmas trip I am going to stop using diapers on Emma. She is ready to use the potty, she can and has worn panties all day and not had any accidents, but she still continues to choose diapers. So when we get back home, I'm putting up the diapers (except for night time) and we'll see how fast we can get her completely potty trained.

Emma still pronounces a few words incorrectly. She says "gurl" for "girl" and "hurs" for "horse". It's very cute and I know soon enough she'll drop all of these cute little inaccurate pronouncements.

Emma is 35 months old!

Today Emma is 35 months old! I missed updating last month, sorry about that. Emma is very excited for her upcoming birthday and Christmas. Today we were able to visit Santa at the mall and she was very excited to tell him that she wants Toy Story 3 and a big Belle doll.

Emma has started a bad habit of picking at her cuticles and her poor fingers are looking very ragged. I believe this started about 2 months ago, when a certain little person arrived on the scene. I really don't know how to get her to stop picking at her fingers. I hope she will grow out of it soon.

We are still working with Emma on potty training. I'm hopeful that she will decide she is done with diapers soon, or I may just say "no more diapers" when she turns three.

We are also working on rules, and no one really likes rules! But we have a few, including no toys in the bathroom or on the stairs, picking up toys before getting out more and only kissing baby Nathan on the forehead.

Emma has some quirky saying that I find amusing. She no longer asks "why", but instead she will say "why not". She really means why but for some reason she says "why not". For example, I'll tell her we need to get our shoes on to play outside and she will say "why not?" instead of "why?" She also says "me either" or "me neither" when she means "me too".

Cutest Longhorn fans!

Hook 'em!!

Sleeping siblings.

Emma is 33 months old!

Emma is 33 months old, 2 years and 9 months!

She can definitively do the Hook 'Em horns sign now and she's learned the Texas - Fight yell too! She has become quite attached to a small stuffed Bevo that we've had since she was a baby. She even takes him to school with her!

She is really enjoying her preschool and hasn't been unhappy or upset once when I drop her off. It is hard to get information out of her about what she does, and sometimes it's hard to talk to her teacher with all the other parents around. But her teacher, Ms. Jennifer, has told me that Emma gets very concerned for the other kids if they are upset. She will try to console them and comfort them.

We took Emma to her first baseball game earlier in the month. She had a great time and ever since then has been talking about the trampoline. They had a huge trampoline there for much bigger kids to jump on, while tethered to giant rubber band type cords. She really wanted to have a turn on that and we've been trying to explain to her that she's not big enough for that yet. So then she reminds us that she is a big girl, and sleeps in her big girl bed. Every few days or so she asks to go to the trampoline. Sometimes she calls it a bounce-oline.

Emma is now a big sister and doing pretty well. She even told me today that Santa might bring her another baby brother for Christmas! I told her I was pretty sure that she only gets one baby brother this year.

Round Rock Express Game

Last night we went to our first Round Rock Express baseball game. A colleague of Tony's invited us to go so we decided why not? Sure I'm 9 months pregnant and Emma is not really into sitting in a seat, but let's try it!

We actually had a fabulous time! The weather was wonderfully cool and we had great seats behind the first base line. Emma was a bit unruly at first because she wanted to play on the playground. They had a great little play area and once she got that out of her system she was fairly happy to stand by her seat. Between plays they would play different songs and she enjoyed that. That's when I was able to record her doing the Chicken Dance. We tried to get her to watch the game a bit but we were mostly just talking and visiting anyway. We were out late, we didn't leave the game until 9:30. But we came home and all went to bed in our bed by 11pm. So let me tell you, keeping Emma up 3 hrs past her bed time will get you...30 extra minutes of sleep! Yes, she slept until about 7:15 this morning. But it was worth it and I think we'll be going back next season!

Ready for preschool!

Emma was ready to go to school this morning! This week is early dismissal so I'll pick her up at 11:30. She went right into her class room and started playing. She did tell me bye and gave me lots of kisses and hugs. I hung around in the doorway for about 10 minutes to see how she was doing. She never once looked for me or cried. I think she's going to have a great year!

Emma is 32 months old!

Today Emma is 32 months old!

At 2 years and 8 months, she is doing a lot of new things everyday.

She loves to wash her hands, especially since she can now get the soap out of the pump by herself and turn the water on and off.

She still says "bonstairs" for "downstairs".

She hasn't watched Sesame Street in about 3-4 months but she loves the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and My Friends Tigger and Pooh. She learned about something called a 'silly gilly gumbull' from Mickey Mouse. There is an episode where the gang has a pajama party and Goofy is scared of something called a silly gilly gumbull. Well Emma has been talking about this silly gilly gumbull for weeks and I didn't realize where she picked this up. She would say "there is a monster, a silly gilly gumbull" and she would physically shake and pretend to be scared. In the show Goofy realizes that there is nothing to be scared of and I don't think Emma is scared, but she likes to pretend.

She has a great imagination and often when we are driving in the car she will say "I see a pig! In the tree, it's green!" or some iteration of that. Sometimes the pig is on a roof, or a car, or it's pink or blue, etc. She will laugh and laugh and say it over and over again.

Sometimes she can be quite bossy and will tell us "shhh, we are in the library," if she thinks that Daddy and I are talking too loudly. Mostly I think she want us to pay attention to her, because this often happens right after Daddy has come home and we are trying to catch up and talk about our day. She will also tell us " You don't tell me things" if we are telling her something she doesn't like, such as it is time for nap, or no more TV, etc. I try to firmly but nicely tell her that she should not speak that way to Mommy or Daddy, and then I repeat whatever I am telling her. She is learning but she does like to test us and push her boundaries. But I think this is totally normal for a 2 year old! She will also tell us that we have hurt her feelings if we tell her something she doesn't like. That's a difficult issue to address too, but she has to learn right from wrong.

Emma loves to play catch and she is getting very good at throwing the ball. She used to call it "cag" but now she almost always says "want to play catch?" She still has trouble catching the ball but she still loves to play.

She also loves to play hide and seek, to the point that I am getting weary of this game! Everyday when Daddy comes home she will hide, and Daddy knows to come in and start looking for Emma. She loves to hide under a blanket, a pillow, the table, or behind the curtains. Most of the time she will jump out before Daddy can find her because she's a bit impatient! Sometimes she will even yell "Daddy I'm in here, under the table!"

Last week we visited her preschool for a few hours and she had a good time. She played with the doll house and dolls, the sensory table with rice and plastic animals, and lots of other toys. She didn't want to leave and that day asked several times to go back. Next Tuesday and Thursday she will go for 2 hrs each day, and I'll drop her off and pick her up. Then the following week she will go the full 4 hours, from 9-1 Tuesday and Thursday. I hope she will enjoy it and learn a lot.

We are still having issues with sleep. Emma does not want to go to sleep by herself, she wants one of us to lay down with her until she is asleep. We are trying to get her comfortable with falling asleep on her own but it is difficult when she cries and screams for us to come to her. She also wakes up 1-3 times per night and wants us to lay down with her.

The 'why?' questions continue and she has even asked me "Mommy, where do the why's come from?" I really didn't know how to answer that one!

Emma continues amaze us everyday with her humor, kindness and amazing intelligence! She is going to be the best big sister our little boy could want!

Baby Boy Week 32 Update

Today I went to the doctor for my week 32 appointment. Everything is fine, baby boy is measuring right on track. I gained 4 pounds in the last two weeks, so my total is 32. I was really afraid it would be closer to 10 pounds so I was happy with the 4 pounds.

We really need to finish the baby's room and a few other projects around the house. But I'm getting slower and able to do less so not sure we can get it all done.

Today Emma did not take a nap. We had quiet time in her room and I was able to sleep but she played and looked at books on the bed. So tonight she went to bed early and was asleep by 8pm! I will miss the free time when she naps but maybe this is better. She was a little tired this afternoon but not too crazy and she didn't fall asleep on the couch or floor, so maybe she is ready to drop her nap. I just hope she doesn't wake up earlier than normal!

Emma is 31 months old!

Today Emma is 31 months old, (2 years and 7 months)!

She is pretty much directly in the middle of the terrible two's. We are coping and hoping this stage passes quickly! She just had her first weekend and overnight visit with Grandmom and Granddad Mangrum. She had a great time and did very well. She was happy to be there and also happy to come home.

She has started asking 'why?' quite a bit! I guess it was inevitable, but I can't believe it's here already! She is so smart and picks up on so much we say. She can also turn on the water at the bathroom sinks, and she loves to wash her hands. I think she just asks to wash her hands as an excuse to play in the water, because she'd wash her hands for hours if I let her!

Dance Class #2

Today was Emma's second dance class. It went much better than last week. Emma stayed on her circle mat most of the time and even participated in about half of the stretching exercises.

There were only 4 students this week instead of 6, and I think the extra attention also helped Emma. She is still mostly just jumping around instead of doing the actual ballet and tap moves but at least she's not just running around with complete disregard to the instructors. Well, at least not all the time!

The studio is pretty large and most of the time they were on the far end of the studio, so it was hard to see through the one way mirror-window. I did get a few shots through the mirror when Emma happened to be directly in from of me. The quality is not that good, but here are a few I took today.

The Studio. You can see the door and mirror-window in the large mirror that runs the length of the opposite wall.















Hoop Jumping. They were supposed to do a ballet jump or leap of some kind from one hoop to the next.















The instructor helping Emma position her feet.















Emma jumping.















Most of the second part of class was tap dancing, but they were so far on the other side of the room I could only get this half shot of Emma.















One last picture of Emma, sorry it's blurry. Lest you think Emma is dancing to Swan Lake, she's not. This is the one time she was blissfully running/dancing around the room instead of following instructions!















One picture I didn't get was so cute. They made a conga line of the 4 girls and had them tap dance over to the water fountain in the studio. Emma was first! I'm not sure they were actually tap dancing, but it looked so cute! Unfortunately I could barely see it myself and the camera wouldn't pick it up through the mirror/window.

Emma is 30 months old!

Emma is now 30 months old, 2 1/2 years!

She continues to change so fast, even from just 2-3 months ago. Her vocabulary and understanding of words is growing every day. She loves to play and imagine things, and often says that she is pretending. Sometimes she'll do something and we ask her not too, for example, she'll throw something or make a mess, and then she says "I just pretending!" So we are working on the difference between pretending and really doing something!

She also loves to play doctor. Anything can be used as a doctor's instrument. Lately she likes to use ribbons and wrap them around my arm or place them on my head. We have a doctor's kit that we are going to give her next month when we take her to tour the hospital where baby brother will be born. She loves to listen to baby brother inside my belly and will often tell me that he's kicking, even if he's not. But she has been able to feel him moving the last week or so.

She's also learning to be polite. She says "please" and "thank you" pretty often. And she is so loving, she says "I love you Mommy" or "I love you Daddy" quite a lot. Every time it just makes me so happy!

We are still working on potty training. I'm really not in a hurry, I know she can do it and when she's ready she'll make the change over herself. She knows how to use the potty and she uses it about 2 or more times everyday. She just hasn't realized the advantages of using the potty over diapers. Once she realizes that I won't be chasing her all the time for diaper changes I think she'll make the change pretty fast. But she has to come to that conclusion on her own, no matter how many times I tell her this!

She's finally letting me put clips in her hair. Her bangs are pretty long but instead of having them cut or trying to cut them myself, I'm able to clip them over to the side. She's usually pretty tolerant of me messing with her hair, but so far she's got no interest in playing with mine! But I'm not giving up, I've wanted a little girl to brush my hair and play with it for a long time.

Emma is 29 months old!

Yesterday Emma turned 29 months old! This month is going by so fast! Emma finished her Mother's Day Out program on the 21st. They had a splash day and she wore her swimsuit to school. She had a great time but so far she has not asked to go back to school!

This was our first week of summer! We had a great week. We went to the pool twice, the bouncy house place once, and we took our new stroller for walk around Town Lake. I forgot to get a picture but I will next time. Emma loved the walk and when we were done she requested to go for another walk!

Emma still says some of the sweetest and cutest things. A few weeks ago the three of us were cuddling and snuggling on the couch before Emma's bedtime. She suddenly said to me "Mommy, you the meatballs" and then pointed to Daddy and said "you the spaghetti." Then I asked her what she was and she pointed to herself and said "I the sauce!" I can't even imagine what made her think of this but it was so sweet! So now we have some new nicknames for each other and we enjoy calling each other the meatballs, spaghetti and sauce!

She also told me a few days ago "Baby growin' up in Mommy's belly. Growin like a flower. With a leaf!" I have tried to get Emma to feel the baby move but she doesn't have the patience to hold her hand on my belly and wait. Maybe when his kicks become stronger and more obvious she'll be able to feel them. She has designated one of her baby dolls as "baby brudder" and she carries him around a lot.

Emma still doesn't have much, if any, interest in potty training. I tried to bribe her with a chocolate chip if she'd even just sit on the potty. Most of the time that doesn't work, but the chocolate chips do help a great deal in getting her cooperation for a diaper change.

Emma has a new big girl bed now and she really loves it. The first week we even thought it might help her to sleep in a bit, but mostly she still wakes up between 6 and 6:30. She has covered her bed with her favorite babies and stuffed animals. Once she becomes attached to something she just adds it to the collection of other loveys on her bed! She's still taking naps and it's pretty easy to get her to nap if I can wear her out in the mornings. Bedtime has been a bit rough since the move to the big bed. She doesn't want to rock yet she can't unwind and calm down just by laying in the bed. So we are still rocking but we need to find something else to relax her at bedtime. Especially for Mommy, because I won't be able to rock her much longer as my belly grows! She does love for me to tell her stories at nap time and bedtime. She will ask me so nicely, "Tell me story about going to park and zoo and beach!" This means she wants to hear every deal of the visit from Grandpa and Grandma Smith when they took her to the park and we went to the zoo. The beach is because we've been telling her for a while now that we are going to the beach this summer. Sometimes she will accept a random story or I can tell her story about our day, and I just recap everything we did that day.

She's getting to be such a big girl, and we love her so much. I know she will be a huge help when baby brother arrives, and she'll be a great big sister as well.

Emma's big girl bed!

Yesterday we moved the crib out of Emma's room and moved the guest bed in. It's now Emma's big girl bed! We've been telling her about it for a few weeks and she has been excited out it. Nap time went well. I read her some stories in bed and then I rocked her for about 10 minutes. She just wasn't settling down in the bed but once I rocked her she was fine. She had a great nap and didn't come close to the edge of the bed.

Bedtime went ok as well. Daddy read her stories and then rocked her until she was sleepy. She had a great night, slept straight through until I woke her up this morning at 7am! I really hope she can start sleeping this late regularly, it's amazing the difference a little more sleep from 6-7am can make for me and Daddy!