Our Saturday was mostly spent in the front yard when Wade decided he could cut down a dead tree on his own. The kids were fascinated with the process and couldn’t wait it claim some of the wood for their spy club. They even built a table and chairs which necessitated a picnic lunch.
Barrington
I was going through Alex’s backpack and came across one of his stories. I always love to read what he writes, but I quickly realized he needed to read this one out loud to his brother.
(No Title)
by Alex
Teague is upstairs. The Easter bunny is downstairs. Teague is trying to catch him with a claw. Teague misses and catches himself.
Teague grabs the remote control. He presses the OFF button. It comes off.
He says sorry to the Easter bunny. The Easter bunny says it’s okay.
Teague goes to bed. He stays awake for a long time. He just can’t fall asleep thinking about his night.
Those darn words. It appears my kids are destined to be late talkers. (See here.) Alex said his first word at 16 months – ball. To keep things interesting, he went ahead and started with sentences and actually said, “I want ball.” I wasn’t too surprised when Kaitlyn wasn’t talking early, but she was always much more vocal than Alex so I didn’t worry. She said her first word “apple” at 16 months. I couldn’t wait for the words to start appearing like crazy after that. Instead that word seemed to disappear. A few weeks later she started saying “opes” for open. That word has consistently stayed and now at 21 months we have a total of 5 words – open, bye, hi, apple (which eventually reappeared), and hot. She will happily attempt to repeat a word when asked, but she uses very few words spontaneously. We have a speech evaluation scheduled for the end of next week so I’ll be curious what they have to say.
In other news, she loves her booster seat in the window. It’s perfect for a quick snack or reading a book.
Suddenly inside the drawers is the cool place to play. Obviously. All of the cool kids are doing it…
We now have a Spy Club in our neighborhood. Today was warm and sunny so the kids played outside all afternoon. Leah quickly joined the boys and I went outside to find that they had returned to their spot in the woods and created a new sign (with all their names), cleared three paths, and were loving every minute. (Note that they didn’t change out of their church shirts, but oh well….)
Teague had his camera out all afternoon. He took pictures of everything (and I mean everything). I got a kick out of it and just let him enjoy his camera and film. I even took pictures of him taking pictures!
And here’s a sampling of the pictures Teague took today.
Kaitlyn gathered all the items you seen on this blanket from all over the house. They kept her entertained for about 20 minutes. I’ll call it a win.
The kids woke up and couldn’t wait to check out their Easter baskets. Alex got his much wanted Lego dinosaurs. Teague got his much wanted wallet. Kaitlyn got pretend makeup, which she has spent all morning putting on herself and her baby.
Then it was time to get dressed for church.
Because we didn’t have enough excitement this morning, we decided to dye Easter eggs this afternoon.
The perfect part of all this is my kids love boiled eggs – sliced for breakfast and currently the boys love a sliced egg on bread with honey mustard for lunch. These won’t last two days…
Kaitlyn still refuses to sit in chairs the normal way, but at least she doesn’t spend the majority of her time standing…
I didn’t have a problem with Kaitlyn getting in the game cabinet. I even knew she was pulling everything out. It was only after she was done I realized she pulled out the puzzles and removed each piece from each puzzle before moving on to the next one. This might have been our most time consuming cleanup yet…
In an effort to appear in more pictures I have decided to start using my tripod and remote more often. Here goes. These pictures are put in order that they were taken over about an hour. (To be clear, Kaitlyn did not spend an hour on the couch listening to a book. She came and went, but she helped make the funniest pictures.) You can see how things went…
The boys have spring break this week and we are spending it at home. I started the day doing laundry and cleaning out closets. At some point I realized everyone was playing so nicely (and quietly) downstairs. When I finally went to check, I found the boys in the playroom and Kaitlyn enjoying all of the art supplies that had been left in her reach. After that Kaitlyn came upstairs with me and requested a change in pajamas and several different shoes while I worked in her room.
Wade started with her toes. She begged him to keep drawing. It was adorable.
Kaitlyn continues to keep us guessing – in so many ways. Right hand or left hand? (Taken literally 5 seconds apart.)
When I saw this picture, I just had to laugh. Something about Teague’s stance and the fit of his jeans, just screams “old man”. Just a few years to go….
The boys decided they wanted to make Daddy a pie tonight. Teague was quick to point out he knows how to make pie crust. I decided to let him go solo and see how it went. (not bad…)
Kaitlyn actually let Alex read an entire book to her. She didn’t even demand to have two books at the sitting. She was adamant that she hold the book.
I guess Kaitlyn was done with her milk?
They are actually super excited but we’ve been working on our poker faces.
Kaitlyn found an abandoned blanket fort and decided to call it her own. She was even more excited when she found some usually off limit toys inside.
We barely got any snow, but we got snow. My kids wanted to sled, so we went sledding.
We have an awesome front yard for sledding and ended up having a few races down the hill. It ended with an epic win for Kaitlyn and I in the bushes! (Alex was so impressed he went to the trouble to get my camera and take a picture.)
Tabit has been spending more and more time in Kaitlyn’s rocking chair. She still joins us for books before nap time, but I often find her sleeping in the chair during random hours of the day. Kaitlyn obviously found her there this afternoon and decided to join her. (The impressive part is Tabit stayed. Kaitlyn has a tendency to pull hair rather than pet gently.)
As I was trying to get a shot of the name tag on her back for her “picture of the day”, I was laying on my stomach and took a moment to focus on my camera settings. When I looked back through the viewfinder, this is what I saw.
My favorite moments are over a shared book – or in Kaitlyn’s case over two books. She will never let you read a book to her without having her own in her hand.
Kaitlyn seems to have claimed this odd hallway between the kitchen and the playroom as “her spot.” Today I looked over to see that she’d dragged out all of her favorite things and was quite content.
Kaitlyn went missing and we found her feeding Madison – again…
It used to be pretty easy to keep track of who ate what. I also used to think Kaitlyn ate pretty well. I put food on her plate and it disappeared. It’s only lately that I’ve come to realize she feeds at least half of it to Madison. She’ll slip a piece on the floor or eat alternating pieces of pineapple (as shown in the picture) while feeding Madison the other half. She has amazing timing in doing this while I am busy with other things.
There is nothing like cleaning your impossible-to-keep-clean black counter top and then dropping the canister of flour all over the counter, cabinet, and floor…
We’ve kind of missed our early morning playdates. The kids only get about 10 minutes between Alex’s bus and having to be driven to preschool, but they sure seem to love the time together.
Poor Teague got the short end of the stick today. Both Wade and I were sick and spent the day alternating sleeping. I did get up and get Teague’s requested breakfast of coffee cake and pineapple on the table. (I am going to love to remind Teague someday that his “happy” face was sticking his tongue out and panting like a dog…)
The boys were great about entertaining themselves and Teague is my most chill of children and only asked twice about opening presents or his cupcakes. By late afternoon, we were both feeling better and we were ready to start celebrating!
He was super excited that we had decided to surprise him with a sushi dinner (best idea ever once we ended up sick and cooking would have been a huge ordeal) and the waitress thought he was adorable when he brought his own chopsticks.
We decided to go with a combined birthday party this year. Both boys were excited about a gymnastics party and a dinosaur themed cake and invitations. That made life super easy and we were ready to celebrate!
The party was full of excited kids and plenty of sugar – all you need for a good time. The kids ran wild but stopped long enough for two quick group pictures.
Then we headed home to Kaitlyn (who stayed home with a sitter to nap) and an afternoon of playing with our Milwaukee friends. The older kids played outside until they were chilled to the bone. Crazy kids.
I definitely have a hint of sickness (or more than a hint) and tried to take a short nap. In the 15 minutes I dozed (lightly) in Kaitlyn’s rocking chair she managed to do this to her room. Thankfully she hasn’t figure out how to open the door to the hallway yet…
Kaitlyn and I arrived a little early to pick up Teague and found his entire class outside sledding. What an awesome way to have recess! His teachers were nice enough to let me take some additional pictures.
I’ll be the first to admit I love the snow and love snow activities. When my neighbor asked about getting everyone together to sled after school, I immediately said yes. It was another sledding afternoon!
Not only did she decide today was a good day to walk up our steep driveway on her own (normally I carry her), but she wanted to carry the mail too.
(She actually made it 3/4 of the way, with the mail, before it got too slippery.)
I managed to get everyone dressed in Valentine’s appropriate clothing but getting a picture was quite a feat!
Then Teague had a birthday party he didn’t want to miss. I braved the sudden snowstorm and we made it safely.
Wade and I figured the snow couldn’t be too bad on the interstate so we bundled everyone up in the MDX (the minivan would never make it up the driveway) and drove to Milwaukee for a night of games and fun.
Kaitlyn the monkey is sitting where she shouldn’t and amusing everyone in the process.
Somehow my firstborn turned 7 today! Where has the time gone? We started the day with powdered donuts – always his favorite birthday morning treat.
Then Alex spent the day at school and had to wait till Wade got home from work before we could start the celebrating again. He chose our dinner menu – breakfast for dinner. His main focus was bacon and chocolate chip pancakes. We had presents and then a dinosaur cake. Yay for birthdays!
The Lego play in this house never-ends (which I kind of love). Big legos. Little legos. This kid playing with them. That kid playing with them. And thankfully even Kaitlyn understands how to pick them up!
I got annoyed with the various library (both school and community) books always on my kitchen table and island. I requested some shelves be hung near the boys backpack hooks. Wade got all the tools and Kaitlyn quickly volunteered to help.
I went hunting for Kaitlyn to find her enthralled with Reggie’s bath.
Kaitlyn has a little problem leaving Madison’s food alone. She seems to think anytime the bowl is empty she needs to fill it. Madison greatly appreciates this, but I do not. Here she is filling it again – at 7 am. (Madison is usually fed once – in the evening.)
If only I could say they spent most of their mornings before school quietly reading and waiting for everyone else to get ready. Normally they are running around and screaming like banshees (or one of them is – and maybe not the one you think).
Kaitlyn is normally happy to play in the tub while I get ready. Today she wanted out. Thankfully the contents of my bathroom drawer kept her entertained while I got ready.
We had a typical crazy day at our house. Teague built a car out of Legos and carried it everywhere.
Kaitlyn wanted to be in charge of the umbrella (note that it is larger than she is).
Alex celebrated 100 days at school and wore his hat home from school (and then all evening). He also wanted popcorn for an afternoon snack – I need to buy in bulk as this is a daily request.
Wade was out of town so we had breakfast for dinner. (Everyone’s favorite!)
Alex had to go to bed early so Teague requested Electronic battleships. To my surprise he had no trouble figuring out the grid system on his own and made it easily through half a game.
Today Kaitlyn decided to try out Alex’s rain boots.
Kaitlyn loves books and I’ll often find her “reading” them to herself.