Birthdays, Birthdays, Birthdays!

In the past 2 months we have celebrated our fair share of birthdays. A week before Christmas we celebrated Brendan's - to flatter him we'll say that he still has a few years where his age will be closer to 30 than 40 - ha!. Then a week after Christmas "Wawa" , as Tegan calls her now, turned the big O-N-E! (Don't ask me where he came up with that nickname, but it's stuck and we all use it now. The a's are pronounced the say way you pronounce the a in wall) Then, 3 weeks later we celebrated Ty's heavenly birth with a family meal out at a restaurant (it may have just been at Chili's but we were out as a family). There's another 2 years that have flown by. Finally, on Feb. 5 we celebrated T's 4th birthday, complete with a houseful of 9 boys and the most amazing Transformers cake you have ever seen.

Now to each one:

Brendan: Ok, so not really Brendan, but we did hold our annual holiday potluck party on B's birthday so I had to mention what a great time we had spending time with so many of our great friends. To those of you who didn't come, your loss ;) Seriously, though, the hardest part is getting time to chat with everyone who comes. We are truly blessed to have such a large group of friends who, although we have met them through the various avenues of our lives, seem to really get along well when they are all together. Does that make sense? It's neat to see friends that we have through one activity that meet friends that we have through another part of our life and they develop friendships beyond just seeing each other at our parties. How fun to be a part of the development of new friendships!

Casey: Now I know I already said this in a past post but seriously, where has the last year (well, almost 14 months now) gone?! My little itty bitty is no longer that at all - she's tipping the scales at over 22 pounds and is nearly 30 inches tall (if I'm remembering correctly. Don't have the stats right by me). As Brendan says, she's in the "short and fat" category (sorry C, Daddy said it, not me). Her weight is around the 75th %ile while her height is only in the 55th. Oh, and then there's her head circumference that's above the 80th %ile. I can definitely attest to the fact that there are a few shirts hanging in Casey's closet that are quite difficult to get over her head and we've virtually given up on wearing them anymore. You'd think it'd be a great excuse to go shopping but if you were to see this girl's closet you would understand when I say that's not necessary. Instead, I'm spending those dollars on pillows, paint and curtains/draperies to help updated and finish off the "simple" updates to the house that we still haven't taken care of. As far as when the painting will be getting done... that's a good question. With C being outrageously mobile and into EVERYTHING I don't anticipate getting much done when she (or Tegan for that matter) are home.

I'm sure you're wondering what that "everything" is that Casey is getting into. Well, aside from that fact that Casey's favorite place to be when upstairs is sitting in the left-hand drawer under the TV while at the same time digging through the right-hand drawer, emptying its contents onto the floor and her I'll give you a taste from just one day: eating dirt from a potted plant in the kitchen, pulling the coffee filter with used grounds out of the trash, playing in the toilet and emptying the contents of both drawers under the TV in the family room. Oh, and that was in a time period of about an hour. Yes, she's one wild woman! After saying this you probably think we just let her roam and don't stop her - let me tell you, the girl is fast! She's one that I can foresee needing one of those toddler leashes for (though I'm not sure if I can let myself do that...) We (at least I) are hoping this whole walking thing will start soon because usually those mobility transitions slow them down for a period (albeit a short period, but still).

As mentioned in my last post, C is definitely doing the "pre-walking" thing where she cruises around everywhere using everything she can get her hands on: furniture, walls, chairs, toys, laundry baskets, boxes, legs, curtains... you get the idea. It's comical to see her trying to figure out what she needs to do so that she can do the cruise instead of crawl. I can definitely see that she is excited about this skill and would much rather walk than crawl if she could, though when we walk with her (her holding onto our fingers) she will sit down almost immediately after we let go of her fingers. Only once has she continued to try to walk after we did just that.

12 Months

13 Months

Tegan: Mr. 4 year-old is, thankfully, starting to show signs of exiting the part of life that made the past 2 years VERY emotionally stressful when it comes to emotions and behavior. It's no secret that Mr. T wears his emotions on his sleeve, or should I say sleeves? Because there are a lot of emotions there! He's still extremely strong-willed and has a really difficult time when he doesn't get his way and by no means am I hinting at the fact that he's no longer throwing tantrums because that is NOT the case at all - but they are definitely fewer and farther between. Maybe it's just that we have finally found things (privileges, if you will) that we can take away that he does not want taken away and will, and does, seriously consider altering his behavior to avoid the loss. Specifically, anything he has related to Transformers. This week, B and T even built a large "fortress" or "base" or whatever you want to call it (T changes it's title each day). The thing is big - I mean several feet wide. Not massive, they used a bike box to build it, so nothing refrigerator box size or anything, but still, it's big enough to very comfortably house all 24 of his Transformers. So, as soon as T starts to show signs of misbehaving, almost as soon as we remind him that he will lose the option of playing with his Transformers and/or "base" he generally shapes up pretty quickly. It may only work for a few months or weeks, at best, but still. It definitely feels good to find something that he responds to.

I'm sure I've mentioned that Tegan was adamant that he was NOT going to "pretty school" (most of us call it preschool, just to clarify... not beauty school) and was NOT going to be 4 - he was going to be "free (3) forever!" Well, I don't know what the Devin Grandma said, but there was something that flipped a switch in his little mind and shortly before Tegan's birthday the big man decided that he was SO excited to be 4 and go to pretty school. It's amazing how much he's already changed developmentally since he turned 4. The kid is SO excited and interested in learning about letters and letter sounds as well as how things are spelled. He walks around saying words and then telling us what they begin with, though he phrases it as, for example, "Daddy. /D/, /d/, D begins with Daddy". Last weekend he started really caring about the letters following the "T" in his name. He wants to know "what's the next letter that I start with after T?" HA! It's just so darn cute to hear him.

Enough for tonight. Thanks for reading & love to all!
~j